Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The approximation of a smile
Facebook as a stock share probably means it will need to become more commercial. Becoming more commercial is why I left eBay and watch less movies and TV. Now it is rare for my e-mail to include a personal letter, but there is a whole herd of commercial spam. I don't tweet because being terse and limited in word count makes sense to me mainly for cussing. My hope for my electronic life is for connecting with others, enjoying creativity, and finding nuggets of knowledge, news, or interesting discussion. Sometimes it is about the search, journey, and discovery. But it is also about having the patience not to de-friend Frankenstein. With a constant fear of being hacked and other sordid technological mysteries and miseries. And the reality is that the electronic world has to contort punctuation in order to offer the approximation of a smile.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Information Station
Here are various items in the news or in my thoughts for this week...
As a study, I listened for and noted any time that Twitter was referred to as a source within TV, as I surfed many channels for one week. I heard only one reference. It concerned a "tweet" from reality TV star Snooki concerning her "baby bump." (And I do dislike the replacement of the word "pregnancy" with something that sounds like it came from a TV reality show, which I also dislike.) Anyway, I don't know what this says about Twitter, but it would make a fascinating graduate study about the times that other media forms use the social media of Twitter and if it is about serious news or celebrity chatter.
I have not joined the Twitter world yet. I tend to think the restriction of words mainly only makes sense for headlines or for cussing.
According the Rock the Vote organization, 13,000 young Americans turn 18 years of age every day.
Another statistic: About 600,000 students drop out of high school every year.
Another statistic: Being terminated from your job can take one year off your life, according to a recent study.
What creature has killed the most people in history? According to the History Channel, the answer is mosquitoes.
For the first time in American history, minority births (at 54 percent) outnumber white births. But does that mean then that everyone becomes part of a minority group?
When Kim Kardashian, Rhianna, and Justin Bieber end up on Forbes magazine's Top 10 list of the Most Powerful Celebrities, it does make me realize how unfair life is. And that luck is an underrated commodity.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made $20 million in one day when Facebook offered shares of stock this past week. Apparently the rich 1 percent were the ones who had early access to buying shares. (The rich 1 percent always need an edge to help them out.) But 57 percent of Facebook users apparently never click on ads or sponsored messages.
Not all social media stories end with great success. Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace for $580 million, but later sold it for $35 million.
Over the last 100 years, only two names for babies have remained in the top 10 of popular baby names in America (and they are both for baby boys). The names are Michael and William.
A reality show on Spike TV channel is called "Repo Games." It is about this guy who quizzes frazzled people (who need their cars) about trivia. If they answer the trivia questions correctly, he won't repossess the car. !!!
A SyFy channel show called "Total Blackout" puts contestants in total darkness and they must identify objects with only their senses of touch or smell (not sight). It was amusing to hear this one lady screaming like crazy when, in her imaginative mind raising all kinds of fears, she had to touch the rough texture of a pineapple. Scary!
As a study, I listened for and noted any time that Twitter was referred to as a source within TV, as I surfed many channels for one week. I heard only one reference. It concerned a "tweet" from reality TV star Snooki concerning her "baby bump." (And I do dislike the replacement of the word "pregnancy" with something that sounds like it came from a TV reality show, which I also dislike.) Anyway, I don't know what this says about Twitter, but it would make a fascinating graduate study about the times that other media forms use the social media of Twitter and if it is about serious news or celebrity chatter.
I have not joined the Twitter world yet. I tend to think the restriction of words mainly only makes sense for headlines or for cussing.
According the Rock the Vote organization, 13,000 young Americans turn 18 years of age every day.
Another statistic: About 600,000 students drop out of high school every year.
Another statistic: Being terminated from your job can take one year off your life, according to a recent study.
What creature has killed the most people in history? According to the History Channel, the answer is mosquitoes.
For the first time in American history, minority births (at 54 percent) outnumber white births. But does that mean then that everyone becomes part of a minority group?
When Kim Kardashian, Rhianna, and Justin Bieber end up on Forbes magazine's Top 10 list of the Most Powerful Celebrities, it does make me realize how unfair life is. And that luck is an underrated commodity.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made $20 million in one day when Facebook offered shares of stock this past week. Apparently the rich 1 percent were the ones who had early access to buying shares. (The rich 1 percent always need an edge to help them out.) But 57 percent of Facebook users apparently never click on ads or sponsored messages.
Not all social media stories end with great success. Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace for $580 million, but later sold it for $35 million.
Over the last 100 years, only two names for babies have remained in the top 10 of popular baby names in America (and they are both for baby boys). The names are Michael and William.
A reality show on Spike TV channel is called "Repo Games." It is about this guy who quizzes frazzled people (who need their cars) about trivia. If they answer the trivia questions correctly, he won't repossess the car. !!!
A SyFy channel show called "Total Blackout" puts contestants in total darkness and they must identify objects with only their senses of touch or smell (not sight). It was amusing to hear this one lady screaming like crazy when, in her imaginative mind raising all kinds of fears, she had to touch the rough texture of a pineapple. Scary!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Why the bully mentality matters...
The psychology of a presidential candidate is always interesting and can be important in how America functions inside its borders as well as with the rest of the world.
A recent story in the Washington Post noted a long-ago incident involving Mitt Romney at his private high school. Apparently, Romney led a group of boys who took down another boy and used scissors to cut off the boy's longer hair.
As some people have noted, kids can do some stupid things in high school. Even in college, too. And it doesn't mean they would ever do similar acts again...Or does it?
I think too often people get forgiving boys and girls for youthful immaturity mixed up with trying to understand why they did it in the first place and how their personality, which they carry on into adulthood, is impacted by their actions and thoughts. Yes, it is forgivable to do stupid things as a kid. But, on the other hand, if they carry forth their mentality as adults, that's not so forgivable. If the teen is a bully, what are the chances that he will be a bully as an adult? Is there a reality for that connection?
I recently read an article that noted that, for his campaign, Mitt Romney seems to lack the personal narrative of defending differences and thus standing up to the larger group. This is interesting because Romney is a minority when it comes to his Mormon religion. If anything, from this campaign alone, especially in dealing with evangelicals and conservative Christians within his own political party, he must realize the pressures that confront a minority group.
But religion is a little different than the more appearance-based aspects of other minorities, particularly ethnic minorities. A person can have very different thoughts and beliefs but still blend in, through traditional appearance, and camouflage that kind of minority status.
Romney comes from a conservative religious background. Conservative religious groups tend to celebrate conformity, not differences. The socialization is about being part of the group--Being like-minded, but also sameness in appearance and probably like-groomed and like-fashioned for acceptability.
Thus, in the high school bullying incident, Romney apparently felt driven to assault some high school teen who dared to look different, as the boy with the long hair was an affront to the socialization of Romney's world.
So, what does that say about Romney today, 50 years later?
One lingering curiosity I would have is if any of the sons of Romney ever had long hair or looked the least bit different from one another. But that's personal and part of the family dynamics, so that's private and affects them but not the American public.
More interestingly is Romney's comment on the campaign trail that he "likes to fire people." Hmmmm. Now who, even as an employer, would say that and use the word "like" with firing people from their jobs? Most employers I know don't find the matter of terminating an employee to be an enjoyable task. The loss of a job is going greatly harm someone's economic condition, whether they deserved the job loss or not. If a boss likes doing that, it rather fits the bully mentality.
And why is the bully mentality something America needs to avoid at all costs? For one reason, it can mean a disrespect for people or groups perceived as different, which is contrary to the good ideal of diversity in America. That can impact social issues.
Even greater, the bully mentality tends to surface particularly in the actions of war. I think that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had "bully mentality" issues of personality (which often also is a sign of insecurity). When secret prisons arise and the word "enhanced interrogation" becomes part of the national conversation and it's real meaning is "torture," then the bullies are in power and setting the agenda.
And another grave consequence for America was two, long wars.
A recent story in the Washington Post noted a long-ago incident involving Mitt Romney at his private high school. Apparently, Romney led a group of boys who took down another boy and used scissors to cut off the boy's longer hair.
As some people have noted, kids can do some stupid things in high school. Even in college, too. And it doesn't mean they would ever do similar acts again...Or does it?
I think too often people get forgiving boys and girls for youthful immaturity mixed up with trying to understand why they did it in the first place and how their personality, which they carry on into adulthood, is impacted by their actions and thoughts. Yes, it is forgivable to do stupid things as a kid. But, on the other hand, if they carry forth their mentality as adults, that's not so forgivable. If the teen is a bully, what are the chances that he will be a bully as an adult? Is there a reality for that connection?
I recently read an article that noted that, for his campaign, Mitt Romney seems to lack the personal narrative of defending differences and thus standing up to the larger group. This is interesting because Romney is a minority when it comes to his Mormon religion. If anything, from this campaign alone, especially in dealing with evangelicals and conservative Christians within his own political party, he must realize the pressures that confront a minority group.
But religion is a little different than the more appearance-based aspects of other minorities, particularly ethnic minorities. A person can have very different thoughts and beliefs but still blend in, through traditional appearance, and camouflage that kind of minority status.
Romney comes from a conservative religious background. Conservative religious groups tend to celebrate conformity, not differences. The socialization is about being part of the group--Being like-minded, but also sameness in appearance and probably like-groomed and like-fashioned for acceptability.
Thus, in the high school bullying incident, Romney apparently felt driven to assault some high school teen who dared to look different, as the boy with the long hair was an affront to the socialization of Romney's world.
So, what does that say about Romney today, 50 years later?
One lingering curiosity I would have is if any of the sons of Romney ever had long hair or looked the least bit different from one another. But that's personal and part of the family dynamics, so that's private and affects them but not the American public.
More interestingly is Romney's comment on the campaign trail that he "likes to fire people." Hmmmm. Now who, even as an employer, would say that and use the word "like" with firing people from their jobs? Most employers I know don't find the matter of terminating an employee to be an enjoyable task. The loss of a job is going greatly harm someone's economic condition, whether they deserved the job loss or not. If a boss likes doing that, it rather fits the bully mentality.
And why is the bully mentality something America needs to avoid at all costs? For one reason, it can mean a disrespect for people or groups perceived as different, which is contrary to the good ideal of diversity in America. That can impact social issues.
Even greater, the bully mentality tends to surface particularly in the actions of war. I think that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had "bully mentality" issues of personality (which often also is a sign of insecurity). When secret prisons arise and the word "enhanced interrogation" becomes part of the national conversation and it's real meaning is "torture," then the bullies are in power and setting the agenda.
And another grave consequence for America was two, long wars.
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