idea for facebook

 ok everyone i have an idea for facebook which is what if there was an announcement feature where people could post to most of their friends without depending on likes for more people to see some posts. This would help I think maintain some true friend factors instead of making the mix with media and ads turn all social communication into market driven systems that reward certain content instead of any or all actual things people want to share. It wouldn't have to be all of it, like old facebook, but it could be a feature rolled out as a schedule of days or a random lottery stock or a set amount based on friends or followers, or a ratio according to posts. That is an idea that I think could help restore some of facebook's old appeal that has been lost. It is definitely a challenge, especially with some facebookers using it for very competitive purposes, but there probably is a way to help most everyone benefit from it somehow and preserve the relationships that have actually lost a lot of the "organic" nature even when the posts aren't ads that can go to people's friends more easily than their own posts. I say this as someone who has run ads and I think obviously facebook is good for commerce. But there is a way that people are helping themselves to people's social lives not just without any compensation offered but at the expense of people not even having full access to their own friends when they want to communicate in the way that was set up when most people started using facebook and then depending on it almost as a utility. I think it could still work on the basis of consideration and not necessarily profit contracts.

One more thought is that if the sharing based on likes can be based on formulas and algorithms then it would not be that different to distribute "coupons" or "announcement quotas" enabling "all access friend shares" based on some other combination of factors that reasonable people would be likely to accept if it really corresponded to their facebook habits.

Shark Attack

 Well everyone, I got a notice today from Barnes and Noble saying that their customers’ info had been compromised, and everyone’s purchase and transaction records have been leaked. I always had thought that was just a risk with the membership program but apparently Barnes and Noble thinks it is their business to keep track of everything that people buy but not be responsible if it is made public. My purchase history with them is pretty innocent, but I think that this is a reminder of how they leverage power with their cashiers and to try to stay in charge of community decency standards wherever their stores are.  I think they are able to achieve a blackmail effect on their employees if anyone ever decides to stand up against them for any reason. They might think they can dirty all of our personal records, but their brand is the dirt, and even being an employee or a customer has an effect of instant confession at worst, and possibly an automatic exposure of their community assault strategy at even more worst. So I could say I am worried about people coming after me because of my name on receipts, but all that will come to light is how nice some of their employees and customers were, and how patient, to then be treated with nothing less than absolute sexual abuse meant to ruin our lives.

Trending

 Well everyone, I am not going to make the most of this post, but I should go ahead and at least mention the topic.  At volunteer work a couple of years ago, I was sorting coats at a coat drive and made a comment about how I always thought it was messed up how some people would just announce what colors would be cool for that season, like when people say, red and gold is what is going to be popular this year, or “it is time for everyone to eat avocado toast.” I have just always thought, who do those people think they are?  But marketing is good sometimes, too, and when I said it this lady meanly said, “that is their job.”  And it was like she knew I was on disability at the time, and she was implying that at least those people are not lazy bums riding the system like me.  Well I must say that is a pretty nasty insult, and the idea behind it is that maybe because I have an illness or injury that keeps me from being able to work for a while, then I am automatically a worse person than anyone making any money at all, whether they are a contact tracer or a TSA person, or maybe even a prostitute, which to me isn't necessarily as bad as just an ordinary bad boss of some kind. But anyway, it is like I am automatically a tax collector by being on ssdi...okay… I see.. it is from taxes.  I am a tax collector.  Okay I get it everyone, thanks a lot for the great Sunday school lesson.  To me that elevates you all to the highest of clergy even if you are one of the marketing people choosing what colors for people to like or deciding that it is time for society to have tax funded abortions and video ads in the subway depicting pre-teens in their underwear.

The Wages of Unfair Wages

Well everyone, in one of my other writings I said something that I think made it sound like I don’t understand something that I actually do have a concept of, and it has to do with what is the opposite of slavery.  And I just want to say in this quick blog post that a lot of education about slavery always compares it to freedom, like freedom is the main thing to be gained instead.  But I want to say that I think wages might be the main thing, or an additional thing, and that some kinds of freedom come from having correct wages.  We have problems like this now in our country, and people think it is okay, because they see freedom as the main thing in question, which ends up focusing more on the freedom to make people work without paying them enough.  But wages might be the main thing, and the work itself is also a thing.  Abolitionists who made slavery go away a long time ago didn’t always offer other work opportunities, so a lot of poverty and suffering continued from American slavery while many people congratulated themselves and have felt innocent of certain atrocities. But work, wages, and freedom are all part of the justice picture, and people should consider this when they try to solve problems or assess how dependent they have become on other people’s mistreatment. It’s a lot to manage, and it is part of the reason why people should give all their effort to be a good person and do what is right.  And not to make everything theological, but a related topic would have to do with something like tithing ten percent and thinking that excuses you from offering your whole life to the service of God and others. A lot of people will find that to give an honest ten percent, you kind of do have to give your whole life. And so many people have thought all of that is not worth their time. But probably almost everyone would be surprised at how much the other problems of percentages can be traced back to it.

Fighting the System When You Are The System

This topic is very belated, but everyone knows what I am talking about. I thought of a name for it, which I would say is “policy-mongering.” It is when the lawmakers fight each other through the legislation process.  And I think that it has been so much a problem that people should do what they always should have done and make it be against the rules.  Not necessarily a crime, but just against the rules so you lose your job as a senator if you can’t work in a straightforward process instead of using every aspect of the congressional system to fight “the other side” as a representative.  The fact is, in that context, there is not supposed to be another side to that extreme, even with all the history of things like filibustering.  Well filibustering also was a waste of time, and disrespectful, and people should not keep their jobs if they can’t see their work as a job instead of a battle. There is something cowardly about blocking the other politicians at every step of government if what they really want is a war, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that duels are the answer. Both sides have done it consistently, which almost makes it a treaty or agreement of some sort, and that is actually part of the problem.  That is how it becomes a charade and sham while a whole country waits for justice. The right solutions would benefit everyone, and though the divided country and people who are not at peace with each other makes government a difficult challenge that is all too easy for someone like me to sit back and criticize, it is too much of a lie for people to say they are there to govern when what they are really doing is a much lower level role as a soldier taking orders from voters they are try to please in order to keep salaries and insurance that so suspiciously don’t match the wages of the people who can no longer afford places to live.

When to Sort Things Out

People seem pretty mad about riots and looting that have happened in recent months, but that is where I see some of the people who are actually honestly fighting problems instead of doing weird power-play psychological lashes like what a lot of politicians, media, and other bad people do. It kind of matches how people always get in trouble for assault but other life-ruining strategies that happen all the time in this country are often tolerated and sometimes even legal.  But I want to say that as people report on the Breonna Taylor murder, it seems that not everyone thinks it is important that there actually was a drug bust, and that probably her good life and herself as a good person had been turned into kind of a human shield by drug traffickers.  I think there is a range of how bad drug dealers can be, but this sounded like pretty serious drug trade to me, and it continues to confuse me that people so much want to build a case against all cops but ignore the very bad abuse of millions of people, especially young people, from trafficking and drug attacks. A lot of it creates bad situations like what happened to Breonna Taylor, and I don’t know for how much longer cops and soldiers need to be sifting through the complications of innocent people being mixed in before it just becomes a war. And if it does, then people who decided to flood the jails as part of that effort will have to face the consequences of their decision.  For a lot of communities, it still seems worth the effort to try to intervene in trafficking, especially because of the international threats and the child abuse involved. And I can’t say that I am not someone who thinks it does damage people’s credibility when they want to talk about mass incarceration without acknowledging mass crime. I pretty consistently side with the black people and see a lot of racism, and I side with the poor and see abuse and lack of justice, but when I read the news, I see lies. You don’t know how bad you have to be to lose my support, and many people have.  I am not scared to become Amish, to go off the grid, and just wait until judgement day when God tosses millions into the yawning chasm of fire that is probably already glowing a little brighter from recent days.

Yet another all-encompassing rant because of one slight

   Well everyone, I just ate some meatloaf that was in a cool aluminum container and I decided to put it on a plate first and saw that it seemed to not be cooked yet after all.  But I think really it was half cooked and had a note to heat it for 20 minutes in the oven.  Well that is weird because it was in the prepared food section at the grocery store. So I put it in the oven and it was still pink so I sautéed it.  Hopefully it is cooked enough now.  It makes me have thoughts of a ruined society, though, because I feel like there was in fact a time where you would not have to be so careful at a grocery store. There wouldn’t be a risk of accidentally eating raw meat. It happened to me with some crab cakes once, and I have also noticed refrigerated drink displays having alcoholic bottled drinks mixed in with other cryptically labeled teas and sodas.  And what is Kombucha?  I don’t really know.  But what seems clear is that a lot of people in our culture don’t care about anything but money, and they especially don’t care about kids and young people. They just don’t.  And this is how systems form that become harder to intervene in as people start to get cheated or abused by the hundreds of millions. 
     Maybe I should try to stay positive, because great things have happened in our country, and I can see how God blessed my generation from the 80s and made our wildest cartoon dreams come true with laptops, cellphones, and the most entertaining internet phenomenon imaginable. I am also a fan of Obama’s great 8 years, the candy aisle at Target, stars like Ellen and Oprah and Zuckerberg, and even delivery options like Amazon.  But you can see people trying to establish their right to run everyone over and not care about things like clean water standards, FDA rules that can mean life and death, and the most basic justice of getting fair wages.  Why do people continue to tear up everything instead of striving for a functioning congress, a police force that saves people instead of killing them, and schools that provide any service needed in a world where there may not have ever been a greater opportunity to share the truest faith and justice possible? To me it does come down to being able to buy food safely and fairly, and to not have to watch an ongoing economic and moral erosion hurting the younger part of America while the still unsatisfied sharks at the top try to take everything from everyone. If you don’t care about keeping your customers from getting worms, then you don’t care about anything that matters.

Recounting

    Well everyone, I am one of the bad whiteys who was a little slow to see how much the police brutality against African Americans was not isolated incidents. I think some legitimate distrust of the media was part of it, but it took me a while to see that of course people should fight back.  When I think of my own experiences with law enforcement, it is so believable that part of the population has it worse than me, and that I did not have it so good myself for a while.  In New York, I feel that cops have helped me stay safe through some years where bad people from my old job followed me and made themselves known.  But in South Carolina where I lived most of my life, even as someone who tried to stay out of trouble, I did have my share of traffic stops that were overwhelmingly a form of guerilla taxation at best, with some levels of violation that help me believe very much that some cops just go straight for the murder.  
     My experiences almost all involved being stopped for speeding in a school zone, and it was always about ten miles over the speed limit because of the changed speed for an hour, and it would happen after all the children had cleared out so no one could notice that it was a speed trap.  It’s not a big deal, and there is a black dentist from Pennsylvania, I think, who has been pulled over by cops more than 500 times in his gold BMW.  But I think in some ways, it is a big deal, because of the dishonesty of it, because of the motivation that is apparent, and because of the use of power to just maintain more power and rob people. One speeding ticket I got was just because I was accelerating and not speeding at all. It was literally just car trouble. The cop was so mean, and the courts make it not worth your while to plead not guilty.  They reduce the ticket as a bribe for you to put up with their false accusations, and if you lose your case after pleading not guilty, then you have to pay the full amount. So people just go along with the lies because of their lives that are too busy to deal with that kind of garbage. Another cop once pulled me over for an expired tag and when I showed him the actual legal notice vouching for me for one more month, he ignored it and gave me the ticket anyway.  I missed the court appearance to be hospitalized for a manic episode, and my parents tried to get it taken care of for me.  It was total garbage. 
      There is also a little town between the two towns of Greenville and Spartanburg, and this huge 6 lane highway that cuts through, with some businesses along the way, so it is a nice way to travel safely. But in the middle of it where that small town is, the speed limit suddenly cuts down to 40 miles an hour.  It is a speed trap to pay for people’s worthless existence.  What a bunch of losers. Build a factory or something. Don’t involve people in the justice system for no reason just because you need a source of income. 
     Obviously these stories don’t compare to people being shot after stealing cigars, but that is my point.  I think one in ten of my ticket experiences was legitimate.  They took everything they could, which wasn’t that much because of my innocence, yes, but also because of my middle class white background, though I definitely dropped down from that because of my own experiences with suffering and discrimination. I think there are other society solutions that will help everyone more than “defunding the police,” such as more businesses and jobs that hire fairly and pay fairly, but I also think the arrogant, blatant disregard of human rights represented so consistently by bad cops who are not only not held accountable for any of it, but deliberately enabled by worthless whiteys collecting the cash several levels away, warrants quite an overhaul, or an overthrow, or just a reminder of Judgement Day and Jesus Christ finally setting things right with a machine gun.

The Catholic Reformation

    I went to a presentation once where someone said that the secret to wealth had to do with credit power and buying and selling debt.  I don’t understand all of it, and that kind of stuff has definitely been part of our economy for quite a while, but not to good ends and legitimate prosperity.  There is a tough reality that everyone has to face, which is that people reap what they sow, and it is work that results in results. If people build buildings, there will be buildings, and if they don’t, there won’t be buildings, though God is good and gives people extra blessings all the time. And while people talk about interest rates, and lending practices, and all these factors that do matter, there is another thing in the background of America’s economic struggles to contend with. In addition to slavery legacies still needing reparitions, we have also seen about 40 years of Made in China tags on many if not most of the products consumed here. 
     I do not agree with all the bad people who have lamented that other countries have opportunities and production, even when things like patents got copied. I try to be happy when anyone gets what they deserve. But if people want to be safe from dangerous economic domination, then they need to get to work. Our 16 trillion dollar debt is thankfully pretty diversified, but if people think they are just going to coast on the storage of generational money while a third of the country does not have adequate employment other than possibly some drug trade out of a lazy and inconsiderate resignation to traffickers, then they are going to be very disappointed, and their children are going to be more than disappointed as everyone's enemies overtake and overwhelm them. You can already see enough of it to hopefully just serve as a warning to quickly find productive, honest work that builds power and strength to reject abuse and the worst kinds of slavery.

    Also, while I am at it, thanks for the SSDI, everyone.  I already got chewed up and spit out by the corporations, but eventually will return and try to pay it back, even if it means doing time in purgatory.

Monumental Landmark Decisions

I just want to say that I think whoever ends up sandblasting stone mountain will have fixed one of the most offensive monument problems, and I also want to say that I think it has worked out well to have the monuments so there is something to deface and record the right kind of rebellion. Modern art would always have been better than statues, and that is what a lot of graffiti is, anyway. I go so far as to think Mt Rushmore is also an offense, more against nature and all of humanity than just being an issue of racism.  What could people have possibly been thinking to carve statues into the best mountainsides? The arrogance of it is almost enough of an acknowledgement itself. It could be the more strong protest to leave the monuments up as the symbol of shame for people who let themselves be represented by it all.

Homemade Covid Meme

Well everyone, what do you think about this meme that I made?  I am thinking about learning how to make memes and gifs like some of the most creative people.  But I don’t know if I got this one right. I can see a little case against all three photos in terms of how it comes across. Especially the middle guy, who is one of the people who became a symbol of bad hoarding behavior.  And yet I am not sure that what he did is any different than Target and Wal-Mart, except that he actually has what people need in stock.

political warnings

My loyalties are often conflicted because I have known so many people in different contexts who are obviously doing what they are supposed to. But I have also seen in that same variety of environments various hypocrisies as people gleefully destroy the good work and reputations of those who are clearly helping others with all their strength, or at least most of their strength. Sometimes in those margins of what is left undone, aggressors attack mostly decent people and use that leverage to try to create more damage. It is a sad thing, but I mention it just to say that I think with all the problems in our country and world, as we see parts of our culture lost and destroyed, there will be a lot of martyrdom mixed in that people think they won’t be held accountable for.  It might not be the most classic Christian martyrdom, but it might, and people are already sacrificed and persecuted for all kinds of goodness and just an innocence of basic living and staying human. Any activist who thinks they are going to gain some kind of moral victory from carelessly and lazily opposing anyone with a different belief or background is going to find themselves responsible for losses that they might not have wanted to be guilty of if they had thought through their choices more wisely of how to serve the public in the most powerful way. It could ironically become very simple after all, as people are found out to be starkly either good or bad, no matter what situation they find themselves in as everyone makes their choice of whether to treat people with kindness and justice or blatant, undisguised crime.

maybe Jeff Bezos will save us all from the hoarders

Apparently amazon is overwhelmed with orders and can’t “deliver” on its prime services that people paid for, which no one needs to be a jerk about, because coronoravirus was very unexpected.  But I do think that there is an arrogance and disrespect that I have never seen the likes of in my life when I go to inquire about a pancake mix order that is obviously deliberately delayed as a power play and the only communication option there is is to “chat” with a “bot.”  A hard to find web page with literal artificial intelligence or maybe just an insult to everyone’s intelligence as we realize that quarantined people’s hunger for rice and beans is nothing compared to Amazon’s hunger for money and power.

A virus, an economic collapse, and a government tragedy

Something interesting right now is that in November if we still have a country and a government, I will be voting for either Bernie Sanders or a Libertarian. I think the Libertarian I would vote for is named Jo Jorgensen.  Those are the two extreme opposites but I think that is where the best people are and I will not be voting for Biden or Trump under any circumstances, even to prevent Trump or Biden from winning. I also am watching the tragedy of the coronoravirus bill with terrible sadness as they write big checks to corporations and small checks to people who need groceries. I am saying some people will get 1200 dollars and some people will get 600, and it is all about a week later than what was needed.  As much as equality is a concept misused very commonly to take away what people earn, there can’t be a situation more leveling than this disease outbreak, and for Republicans to deny their real job of treating people fairly and instead try to make themselves the judges and rewarders of supposed work ethic and virtue is a disgrace and at the heart of their continual discrimination. The only thing weirder and sicker is their worship and favor of corporations, who aren’t giving workers their fair share of wages already, so why would we trust them with a bailout that could have gone straight to the people.

National Looters

    There are some realizations happening I think with the coronoravirus crisis where we suddenly see some of the risk that people have put themselves in to serve their fellow humans, to contribute to the economy in humble and faithful ways, and sometimes to simply provide for themselves responsibly. I am talking about grocery store cashiers, and of course the health care people, but especially the grocery store people who have for many years been the lowest paid workers in our country.  You could see glimpses of it during snow days when everyone gets their food and the cashiers drive home on the snowy roads, but really I think it has been more apparent than that, with just the usual amount of discipline and patience it takes to get through several hours or a whole day standing in one place facing the public, which can be collectively impatient to the point of abuse.  Of course some customers are nice, and the grocery store jobs turn out to be the secure jobs as the economy crumbles some, hopefully temporarily.  But we should still not miss this clue that maybe cashiers have always been underpaid and under-appreciated by people who have no excuse, which is mostly companies, but also in a way, all of us as consumers who tolerate it.

    As people get desperate, there could be an additional level of safety risk not just due to the contagion of the virus, but also because of people targeting stores for stealing, hoarding, and other bad mob behavior.  I should not be pessimistic, and I think already military support has been activated to keep people safe, but I think it will be interesting to see what kinds of company sharks continue to chew up their employees and hide their money that could have strengthened our whole society to face any epidemic with total resources and justice for everyone. It makes you think about who are the real looters.  When people come into the stores with baseball bats, it could still be a thin disguise for the real bullies collecting the most cash from all of it, who literally are so far from the scenes that their only link to the stores are their rapidly increasing bank accounts, growing in exact inverse proportion to the health and safety of their employees and stock market slaves.

rescuing koalas stat

     This is just a short post to say that the numbers of koala rescues I am seeing seem a little bit small compared to the stats saying hundreds of millions of animals have died in the fires. The Crocodile Hunter people I think rescued over 90,000 or more, which is amazing, and maybe I have just not seen the news enough for Australia.  But on facebook, I see one koala get temporary water at a time, with headlines saying 480 million or even a billion animals have died. Thankfully, it started raining, but there may need to be prevention measures for the future, supported by the rest of the world.
    An irrigation system could be worth investing in to prevent more problems like the fires that hurt everyone for two years.  Also, I want to point out that a certain American brand of climate activism which is very political and often just scapegoats people who haven't come around to that kind of environmentalism yet is not the exact match for what is probably needed in an emergency like what happened with the wildlife in Australia. There is some kind of heroic mass rescue effort needed that is different than just lobbying polluters and shaming ignorant people.  Fire fighting is part of it, but the scale of animal rescue needed was beyond what has been established yet, and it is probably not too late for people to take action to make those rescues possible in the future.