The Village Idiot Knows No Shame #WordstoLiveBy

There is a reason that we should not elevate imbeciles to positions of power. That's all I have to say today. Excuse me, I need to unplug for a moment.

Fight for Your Right to ... #Privacy Your Home is Your #Castle

The United States Senate recently voted to pass a bill that would allow ISPs (you know the people who control the internet pipes and can see all the data flowing through them) to track you, package you and sell you to advertisers --- all without your consent. Apparently, the senators voting for this bill have forgotten that privacy is an inalienable right. If any internet businesses should be bound by strictures it is ISPs due to their (mostly) unfettered access to everything their users do online. With privilege comes responsibility and giving ISPs free reign with customers data is not a good idea any way you slice it. There is nothing wrong with being tracked with consent, there is plenty wrong with trying to say that a consumer does not "own" his own data and its OK for companies to use said data (including browsing history) without asking. If you can't be transparent about data collection, then it's likely shady. Just saying. If you don't want ISPs "tapping your wires" call Congress and give them an earful. Tell them, "I am not your product, so stop trying to sell me."* (As a staunch privacy advocate this crap makes my blood boil.)

*My slogan. Order your T-Shirt now! (Kidding about the Tee. But this is my slogan.)

Amending the #GoldenRule: Treating People #InKind #Manners

I spent my life (up to this point) living by The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is a nice thought. Unfortunately, humans are base creatures and when one treats them with civility and respect (which is how I wish to be treated), many of them view it as an invitation to take advantage. You treat people well, but in response they consistently behave as assholes, abusers, users and idiots (and sometimes as all of the above), which, of course, leads to your life being of out whack.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I have amended The Golden Rule to instead treat people in kind, to treat people as their actual behavior warrants. This means that if you act like an asshole, I will treat you as an asshole. Imbeciles are given no quarter. If you're an idiot, expect me to cut you no slack, etc., etc.. This little tweak has made my life much more peaceful and equitable. You should try it.

Those Wild & Crazy #Vikings! #Norway Ditches #FMRadio, Goes #Berserker. #DAB #BFF

I have a thing for Vikings, or perhaps, more accurately Vikings have a thing for me, because I certainly seem to attract all manner of them. (I kid you not, I was once handed a credit card and told to book myself a flight to Sweden in order to rendezvous with a certain Swede at his cabin in Göteborg --- 'twas quite the pickup line.) It's appropriate then, that one of my besties is a Viking... er... mickay... I mean, he's Norwegian.

The two of us have been good friends for well over 15 years and presumably we'll remain as such for the rest of our lives (baring his or my turning out to secretly be a serial killer or something worse). We met in California when I was still a student at university and he was working as a Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist and afterward spent a LOT of time in each other's company. We were so close that people often assumed we were a married couple when encountering us out & about, and I seemingly picked up a Norwegian inflection to my speech at times.¹

My friend and I continue to keep in touch via Skype (mainly in-app txt & Skype-to-phone), regular txt and email though he's since returned to his native Norway and I'm back in my native Georgia. We crack each other up, as we both have a sometimes acid sense of humor, coupled with a VERY secure sense of self.

An etymological aside: The English word "berserk" meaning crazed or crazy is derived from the Old Norse term bearserk, the frenzy into which bear-skin wearing Vikings or bearserkers would work themselves with all that raping and pillaging, which apparently takes a lot of energy. (You've got to respect a culture that gives yours the word for crazy.)

We spend a good deal of time ribbing each other over the various and sundry things which make our individual countries and cultures great. For instance, a month or so back an entire herd of reindeer were struck by lightning when a freak storm caught them out in the open on a random Norwegian plateau. After seeing the article on a news site, I sent him a quick Skype txt asking why Norway had it in for reindeer and pondered whether Santa Claus would be next on their "hit list."

Norway also happens to be one of the most oil-rich nations in the world and so, (circa 2003, i.e., the Iraq War) I would tease that he'd better watch out because America might "discover" Norway held WMD and use it as an excuse to invade any day now. In his turn, he, of course, laments American hubris and gets in his own zingers. We argue good-naturedly over who's selected for the Nobel Peace Prize each year ---- Norway names its recipient, while Sweden picks the recipients of the remaining Nobels --- and sometimes watch the annual Nobel concert together virtually. Between us, nothing is sacred.

On 11-01-2017 at 11:11a local time, Norway began turning off FM radio transmissions, becoming the first country to officially ditch the band, and started moving to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) which proponents say will be cheaper to operate and provide more clarity of signal. Opponents, of course, worry about the Norwegians who live in far flung rural areas and who travel in older vehicles who might not be able to receive digital signals. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but either way, it was so kind of Norway to act as world guinea pig in taking on this endeavour. I sent my friend a quick txt asking if he could still hear me now or if the broadcast signal was fuzzy where he is and attached the article. (He lives in an Oslo suburb, so I was obviously being facetious, but that's the point.)

As for the transition to DAB, as a tech geek, I like the idea of a crisp digital radio signal. And I also believe America will have to cross this same bridge soon enough --- rather like our recently completed transition to DTV. But as someone who grew up in a rural area, I can definitely understand the concerns that Norwegians in rural areas are voicing. As America is a much larger country with huge swaths of wide open spaces, such issues will no doubt be compounded for us and a solution (potentially a subsidy like that employed to assure rural America could get telephone service) will have to be found. Fun times are ahead!

____

¹An explanation for my Norwegian accent: At a friend's house party in San Francisco one evening, I happened to end up standing next to some guy who was regaling everyone with tales of the years he'd spent working in Finland. He'd also traveled extensively throughout Scandinavia, he said. He kept trying to cozy up to me and at one point asked if I wanted to go back to his place, which so happened to be right around the corner. Shaking my head "no," I made an offhand excuse which elicited a very odd look from the guy (odder than being politely turned down should have elicited). When I inquired as to why he suddenly looked as if he'd seen a ghost, he responded, "This is so strange, but you just spoke with a Norwegian accent." I laughed so hard I think I probably snorted my drink through my nose. In between my peals of laughter, the poor fellow tried to find out why on earth this was so funny. I finally gasped that as I spent nearly every day hanging out with a Viking, I suppose that was fair consequence and that I'd also never hear the end of it, if said Viking ever gets wind of the fact that he's succeeding in "turning" me Norwegian.

Please Tell Me I Didn't Just See an Ad for a #RealityTV Series About Tracking Down Ethnic Groups??? #Hunted #WTF #BadIdea #JumpedtheShark

Flipped the TV channel to catch a news program while making breakfast this morning. An ad came on and the voiceover said something about "nine fugitive pairs" and "that's eighteen people on the loose" while displaying little headshot photos, then it zoomed in on one set of pictures and cut to a "live" interview with a featured pair, two Muslim guys of (presumed) Southeast Asian descent who were talking about being dropped off in an altogether different Southeast (that of the United States) and knowing they'll stick out like a sore thumb (not blend in) and thus, be found quickly. It cuts to the show title, Hunted.

My head swiveled. I was like, "Did I just see an ad for a "humans as prey tracking show" that uses ethnic and/or religious identity juxtaposed with the idea of a "homogeneous" society to thwart cover options?" I was only half paying attention as I tend to tune out ads when waiting for actual TV programming, but zeroed in as the gist of the show concept unfolded. I'm hoping that I misheard or at least missed a crucial detail of the show overview. Otherwise, expect the proverbial crap to hit the fan in 10, 9, 8... once it gets out that some Hollywood-type greenlighted a show where the concept is to hunt down humans using gross stereotype as a point of "tension" (and this occurs, not in a suspended disbelief movie set, but in a "real footage" television show). Who thought this would be a good idea? Social media is gonna have a field day, on both sides of the aisle. If we ever needed any proof that Reality TV jumped the shark (a long time ago), we could simply cue this commercial.

No wonder I avoid (most) regular TV. Thank the Maker, I can filter out nonsense like this. As a cordcutter and a timeshifting viewer, I control my media programming. (I seldom see ads, period, and never "just watch" whatever happens to come on the TV.) Entertainment is one thing, idiocy is another.

Are #Bats #Bootiful? @USGSWildlife #BatHouse #Entomology #Halloween #HelpfulMammals #OrganicFarm #WhiteNoseSyndrome

Eek! What's that? A flying bat. Run for your lives! Or preferably, one could display some uncommon sense. The motif of a swooping bat as an object of fear and terror is so common that children's cartoons and youth comics employ it regularly, indoctrinating us early, implanting an idea that bats are to be run from, are to be reviled, are to be eradicated. I'm Batman, anyone? The entire concept of a "batman," a vigilante crime fighter who strikes bad guys under cover of darkness, relies heavily upon our collective fear of bats. (In fact, this misguided fear is literally what inspires the comic book character Bruce Wayne to take up a bat's image.)

How many Halloween cartoons did you view as a child that featured at least one scene with a swooping black cloud of bats? (Every "spooky" one of them.) And what is always the response of anyone encountering a bat/s in any of these cartoons? (Abject terror. Shrieks and screams.) Bats rely on bio sonar or echolocation. When sound is how an animal "sees," can you imagine what it must be like to have nearly every human contact involve bombastic tones? Poor bats. Traditional Halloween imagery has unfortunately done a great disservice to bats. (Don't even get me started on the whole vampire bat thing.) We have taught the common man that bats should be avoided at best and dispatched on sight at worse.

As misfortune oft has it, bats desperately need our help these days. Enclaves of bats are being wiped out wholesale by a horrid spreading disease called White Nose Syndrome which is caused by Pseudogymnoascus desctructans, a cold-loving white fungus that burrows into the hibernating mammal and kills indiscriminately. [See NWHC WNS data.] In many areas the bat populations have thinned considerably and the disease is not yet contained. It does not aid the situation to have humans be squeamish (and shrieking) on top of things. These are dire days for bats. We must step up to find a cure obviously, but we must also try to bolster healthy bat populations in the meanwhile in order to prevent the possibility of a catastrophic extinction level event for bats. This is happening on our watch. Therefore, we must deign to stop it.

It is well past time, we citizens reclaim the bat for the good side. I will lead the charge, as someone must. Here's a tidbit: a single insectivorous bat will eat approximately 1/3 its weight in insects each night of a successful hunt. You heard me. This is nature at its finest, natural pest control. A word to the wise, if one plans to farm organically then there had darn well better be some bat houses placed strategically throughout his farmland. Not a farmer? If one is a proactive community resident, a so-called good neighbor, it wouldn't hurt to build a bat house or two around his property. In this new Age of Insect-borne Pandemics in which we live, the benefits of cultivating animals which help control insect populations cannot be stressed enough. If you're unable to build a bat house, consider surveying bat populations in your area and submitting your findings to the National Wildlife Health Center [Go to www.nwhc.usgs.gov for further instructions]. As if chowing down on pests weren't sufficient to make us adore bats, these helpful mammals also pollinate flowers and disperse fruit seeds. (There goes your food chain.)

Bat drawing, vintage sketch

Time to spread some bat love! As much as I would like to believe otherwise, I do realize it may not be feasible for everyone to build a bat house in his yard; however, there is something that anyone can do and that is to work to reclaim the bat's image, restoring its identity as a helpful mammal that should be appreciated. We don't have to remove bats from Halloween celebrations, we merely need to adjust our thinking. If we must think of Halloween when we think of bats, then let's create anew, coining positive associations. I'll start. I declare bats are bootiful! Hopefully, the next time someone encounters a bat/s unexpectedly, the person might recognize that the bat is likely as startled as he, and respond accordingly, by stifling any screams. Remember, be kind to bats!

P.S. It's my hope to write and illustrate a children's book using the term "bootiful" as an image altering descriptor of bats. I have a rough idea for it in my mind now --- it'll make for a perfect Halloween book release, providing the entire North American bat population hasn't been wiped out by then. In order to truly counteract the negative imagery of bats in our society, we've got to (re)educate everyone, starting with our young.

#Photography Fools and Public Pictures

I hate having my picture taken. It is anathema to me. I cringe on the inside. I sometimes can't help but flinch on the outside. My mother did not like having her picture taken, her mother did not like having her picture taken either. It is apparently hereditary.

I am thankful for the few photographs I have of my mother and my maternal grandmother. I will sometimes consent to being photographed --- mostly at the behest of friends and family who complain that they "have no pictures of me.." But neither of these things change the basic truth that I hate being photographed.

I will say that I have no issue with photography as an art form and appreciate its merits. I love the history of photography, the history of the development of the camera and the magic of early photographs. (I happen to collect daguerreotypes and large format prints.) 

Being that kind of geek, I eagerly took a course at uni to learn how to develop my own photographs. Except for the fact that I'm seriously allergic to the chemicals used to develop photos --- as I unfortunately found out during the aforementioned course --- I could see having my own darkroom in my home.

Living in an Age where cameras are ubiquitous and where (most) people seem to assume everything needs to be photographed relentlessly and posted onto social media has upon occasion proved a source of consternation. It throws people when you say "please don't take my picture". They think it's some vanity or affectation. It's neither. "How could you NOT want to be photographed?" they inquire.

Sad to say, our society is such that some people ignore my request. While I well understand there is not a legal expectation of privacy when in public, there is (or should be) a certain amount of respect for your fellowman. But humans can be animals! I stand my ground and draw a line at aggressive photogs. I've unfortunately encountered a few. Though tempted, I haven't punched anyone... yet.

I'm asocial. I don't like attention. I always seem to attract it, however. Regardless, I don't think I will ever be comfortable with being photographed. However, I've tried to become more open to taking pictures (of things) from a professional standpoint. Pictures can be helpful, I know, but it's not natural to me. I didn't own a camera, until I took that photography course.

Nowadays every gadget comes with multiple cameras. (Most of which I've covered with black electrical tape.) I accept that cameras are everywhere. I do not have to like it. This has nothing to do with how I look or being "wanted by the police" which are apparently the top two reasons for a person not desiring to be photographed. Ha!

If you've wondered why most of this blog is text, know that I mentally debate if a picture is necessary with every post I make. I'm trying to be more objective, but words were my first love. I'm a shaky novice with a camera.

I hope to become more proficient, to develop an eye. I hope to strike a balance on this blog where images become a graceful and welcome addition. (I created accounts on the major social media platforms, many of which are reliant on photographs, both to encourage my fledgling skills and protect brand identity.) It's a work in progress adjusting my frame of view. Bear with me.