Facebook Gets Me Into Trouble

   Facebook got me into a little bit of trouble recently.
   A couple of weeks before Christmas, I described in pretty accurate detail on my Facebook status a brief exchange I'd been part of involving one of the people I work with and a cashier in a liquor store. If you are someone who knows me on Facebook, please feel free to scroll back to that particular post and get caught up.
   The person I was with that day is someone who gets occasional assistance from the agency I work for, an agency which provides supports to people with intellectual challenges. We were at the liquor store at that person's request so that he could buy a Christmas gift for someone. As we were talking to the cashier, the conversation suddenly took an amusingly "sideways" direction. I was so tickled by the exchange that I posted a verbatim account of it as my Facebook status that evening. The post received quite a few positive responses.
   A short time after this, however, my manager asked me to come and stop by her office when I had the opportunity.
   It seems that somehow or other someone who had viewed my Facebook post had had reservations about how appropriate it was and this had made its way back to management.  According to what my manager was able to ascertain, apparently it was inappropriate simply because I had talked about someone our agency supports. This goes against our fairly new and, hopefully, still-evolving social media policy.
   I am not entirely new to the social media policy and had gone out of my way not to identify the person in my posting. Still, the post was deemed as inappropriate. Just to double-check, I went back over the social media policy in our manual and still had a difficult time seeing where I had gone wrong.
   If all I actually did wrong was write something on Facebook about someone my agency supports then there are a whole bunch of us who have done something wrong. It is not terribly uncommon for one of our staff to make passing reference to someone they support on social media, almost always with great care not to identify that person. For those of us in the know, however, it is generally pretty easy to figure out who is being talked about. To date, I suppose it is possible that any of those other people might have been spoken to about it but, so far, not that I'm aware of.
   In my case, however, I was spoken to about it.
   My biggest concern was that perhaps people out there were thinking I had cast a negative light on the person I was with that day. Truly, that was not my intent when I set out to describe the incident on Facebook.

   In actual fact, I walked out of the liquor store that day with this sense of joy that I had been part of an exchange which had perhaps illuminated someone (in this case, the cashier) with a somewhat altered view of  the world around them and all the possibilities which abound in it. No words were spoken in anger or ignorance on any of our parts.
   I don't very often talk about my job on social media sites. It is even less often (never) that I describe job-related difficulties I might be having. I suspect that the vast majority of my Facebook friends have no idea what I actually do for a living or who I work for. This particular issue, however, seems different.
   Suddenly, I have an entity telling me what I can and cannot say in a public forum. Because I have identified myself as an employee of an agency then I automatically represent that agency and, by extension, the people that agency supports. Therefore, I must be careful what I say. Regardless of whether it's a simple truth or not.
   At this point, however, I am also wondering if I need to be careful about whatever I say, about anything!
   Can I loudly announce as a Facebook status that I have taken up Satanism, as an example? (I haven't...) Would this reflect badly on the agency I work for and the people it supports, even if I mentioned nothing about either one of them? I'm really not sure anymore.
   An underlying issue for me, as well, is the anonymity of the person who "reported" me. It seems likely that it was one of my fellow employees, many of whom are Facebook friends of mine. Or, given the convoluted way social media works, perhaps it was someone I don't know who merely saw something that someone I do know "liked" on Facebook. If it is one of my fellow employees, I certainly hope that it is not one of the ones I see and work with on a regular basis---it would be difficult knowing that someone who was able to see me interact with the people we support on a regular basis would then go out of their way to initiate something that could potentially land me in hot (tepid?) water. I appreciate the fact that anonymity makes it easier for people to speak up about things they feel strongly about without fear of retribution and especially if it involves the well-being of the people we support. Unfortunately, though, in this case the anonymity involved here has made me suspicious of everyone. Doesn't quite seem fair--either to myself or the other awesome people I work alongside.
   At this point, as far as management is concerned, because the issue has been raised and I have been made aware of it, it is now closed. It could be that it never was much of an issue but, given that someone brought it up, it needed to be dealt with. There is a bit of a temptation on my part to just drop it but further investigation will be necessary because somebody told me there are things I can't write about. And, if you are a writer, this just doesn't sit very well.
   
   

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle..."

   "The lion sleeps tonight".

   An American big game hunter goes to Africa and kills a famous lion. People find out about this and many end up wishing and calling for retribution on this big game hunter. 
   The retribution they demand is varied; some call for legal prosecution, some call for a brand of social shaming which will end his livelihood, some call for his torture and murder.
   In the midst of this, and a little bit after the initial revulsion has died down, some people begin to look at how the death of this lion fits into their view of the world around them.
   Most of us are aware, at least, that big game hunting goes on in many parts of the world, North America included. We may not be totally aware of the ins and outs of it---the regulations around it or the manner in which it is sometimes carried out. Lately, though, we have been getting a bit of an unsettling education.

A lion. Just not THE lion. Because it doesn't really matter.

   Our horror, in this case, revolves around what is perceived as the breaking of rules and the fact that this lion was only initially wounded and then suffered for almost two days before its demise. It was then beheaded and its carcass discarded. To top it all off, it was a famous and well-loved lion.
   What makes it seem even less savoury (if that is possible) is what I believe to be peoples' perception that this affair was perpetrated by a wealthy privileged white man in a third world country where he both felt impunity to its laws and total disregard for basic morality.
   The man and his family, of necessity, are now in hiding. After the details of this lion's death came out, an internet mob immediately formed and began directing its wrath at the man. Some of the ensuing invective was hard to read. In most cases, it was people simply venting their outrage. Given at least the vocal support of so many thousands of people, though, it is not hard to imagine a few among them who might feel vindicated by this support and then go about trying to seriously harm this man or his family. Hence their disappearance.
   In the last few days, there has been article after article and link after link regarding this lion's death. Some have been of the angry variety and others have taken a step back and attempted to look at the issue from different angles.
   One of these angles is that of conservation. It gets pointed out that big game hunting and the rules and regulations around it are there to promote the continued existence of big game. Were it not for hunting, the numbers of certain big game would exponentially explode, thereby destroying what is considered to be a fairly delicate balance in the ecosystem.
   Another angle I heard mentioned was that this episode seems to have stirred up much more anger here in North America than it did in Africa itself. Some African government officials, when contacted by the press for their reaction to the uproar around the death of this lion, were not even aware of it. In other places, it was pointed out that so many Africans are killed each year by wild animals such as lions, hippopotami, and crocodiles that the idea that one of them might have been killed by one of us was simply not that distressing.
   Other people pointed out that big game hunting helped the economy of wherever it took place. Hunting is obviously big business and brings in much needed money. It also was pointed out that the carcass and bones of the dead animal gets used by the local villagers as food and fertilizer.
   

If you really NEED to kill something,
why not do this instead?

The observation was also made that, given the advanced age of this particular lion, the natural death which awaited him was likely more horrific (to us) than the one he actually endured. As mature male lions weaken, the younger ones begin vying for the position of head of the herd. In the end, this involves continued physical attacks on the older lion which, eventually, kill it. Apparently, lions don't just trot off into the sunset at the end of their lives.
   Finally, it was noted in several places that we, as a nation of principally meat-eaters, were all too quick to condemn the death of one lion while at the same time enjoying the endless succession of steaks, burgers, and pork chops we fill ourselves with. At the same time we do this, we ignore the oft unspeakable things which happen to animals before they become our meals.
   Obviously there are many ways to look at the issue and many stands which can be taken.
   At the heart of it all, I wonder about the people who want to kill large animals.
   After all the reasoning and rationalizing are done, you are then left with someone who is more than willing to spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars so that they can bring down large and, essentially, defenseless animals. They do this in Africa, they do this out in the woods behind their own houses here in Canada and the States. They will use many of the above arguments in an attempt to rationalize hunting as a past-time but when it comes right down to it, they are people who like to kill animals and are willing to to sacrifice huge amounts of money and time so that they can kill animals.
   One of the observations I ran into the past week was rather poignant and telling. The point was made that when children, who are essentially immature, kill animals they are regarded as being potentially mentally disturbed. When adults, who are generally considered to be knowing and responsible, kill animals, however, they are considered skilled and daring! Why is this?
   At some point in our evolutionary history, it was necessary to hunt animals in order to survive. That some people still hunt, I imagine, is testament to the tiny parts of this instinct left over from those primitive days. It is no longer necessary to hunt for our meat, though, and it is unsettling that people still feel the need to kill. This may be the hypocritical me speaking, as I do enjoy meat as a food base. Long before a lion was killed in Africa, though, I was already having a difficult time coming to grips with what I was eating needing to be killed first. Is there a vegetarian me sometime in the future. Could be! If there is, I will often think of dead lions in Africa as I'm sitting down to every meal!    

   
     
   
   

Idiot Men

   About a month ago, my ball hockey team won against a team higher in the standings than us. The game had been close and this generally leads to tight, physical battles during play. After the game, both teams ended up beside each other in the dressing room hallway, waiting for the rooms to be unlocked.

   I was a little late getting there but apparently something had been said by someone on one team to someone on the other team and this had led to a verbal altercation. It was one of those chest-pounding, my-brother-is-tougher-than-your-brother kinds of things, with the two teams sidling dangerously close to each other. Sort of like playground stuff. I stepped in between two of the main verbal combatants (fairly safe when you've got goalie equipment on), faced my guy and basically gave him the "let's knock it off" speech. The refs were also busy keeping the peace and so both teams retreated to their now-unlocked dressing rooms and the whole incident was over.
   Men, acting like idiots. Again.
   Not long after I got home (and possibly the next day) I came across an article in social media. It's a piece written by Margaret Wente for the Globe and Mail and it's called "When men behave badly." You can read it for yourself here. 
   In it, she refers to a British Medical Journal study in which they investigated male behaviour in regards to risk-taking, particularly low-reward risk-taking. The gist of the study was that men have a much higher propensity for doing stupid stuff than women, stuff which might not even offer viable rewards. Essentially, men are idiots. The study even coined the term "male idiot theory" (MIT).
   Okay, I didn't tell you anything you didn't already know, did I?
   For the purposes of this blog post, I am going to lump in the types of men Wente described (those who relish in silly stunts and risk-taking) along with men who see their maleness as a licence for power. I consider them all to be "idiot men". You may have an idiot man in your life and, if you're lucky, he's one of those idiot men who has a few other redeeming features and that is why you possibly still love and/or allow him to exist in your world.
   If you are un-lucky, however, the idiot man in your life is (at best) an albatross around your neck or (at worst) a threat to your life and the lives of the ones around you.
   My circle of friends has supplied me with examples, seemingly endlessly, of idiot men.
   These men treated their spouses or girlfriends with extreme disregard. The women were belittled, ridiculed, controlled, ignored and quite often kept away from their support groups. They were asked to conform to the man's idea of what he thought was good for them. In the odd case, women came face-to-face with physical violence.
   Most of this was reported second-handedly but some of it happened right in front of me. Each time it happened, my jaw dropped, at least figuratively. It was incomprehensible to me that one human being could be so disrespectful to another, let alone a man to a woman he professed to care for.
   Every time something like this happened, my list of idiot men grew. A brief sojourn through the daily news and the list becomes seemingly endless.
   It is the quest for power (or perhaps the irrational fear of losing it) which fuels idiot men, I believe. When we won that game over that better team, we stripped them of some of their power. Their power became our power, suddenly, and out of this arose the post-game conflict. 
   Losing your power to a woman is even more problematic for idiot men. In all the gradations of power conflict, the fact that most women are at least physically weaker than men (ignoring for the moment my own personal belief that most men would die during childbirth) makes losing power to them that much more inconceivable. An idiot man can rationalize his team losing or his male boss having control over him or a big loss on poker night but he will have issues when and if a woman strolls into his life in a position of viability.
   

So, from male idiocy on a global basis (think Boko Haram) to male idiocy on a national basis (think Jian Ghomeshi) to male idiocy on a neighbourhood basis (think that guy you know who referred to his wife as a stupid bitch), the world is rife with men acting like idiots. The irony, though, is that often when you give up that irrational need to be in a position of power you actually become more powerful! If one hockey team stands outside a dressing room voicing insults at the other team and that other team just goes yeah, whatever and marches into its own room then where does the true power lie there? 
   It is a freeing thing when you give up the trappings of male idiocy. When there is  no need to live up to some testosterone-driven hype or standard about the need for dominance, you become free to simply live your life. Threats will disappear or become diminished. People will work with you, rather than against you. And, chances are, you'll live longer!
    
     
   
   

Ham and Agassiz

   A little over a month ago, I came across a poetry contest sponsored by a well-respected Canadian poetry journal called Contemporary Verse 2 (CV2). The contest is called, simply, the "2-Day Poem Contest".
   Here's how it works.

   You are given forty-eight hours to write a poem. There is a catch, however. They also supply you with a pretty random list of words you must use in this poem. You must use each word at least once. The poem must also not be longer than forty-eight lines (if you appreciate symmetry, this works out to one line per hour). The contest begins at midnight of one day and ends at midnight two days later.
   I thought this was an extremely cool concept and so I entered! This past Friday evening at midnight (CV2 is published out of Winnipeg so, given the one-hour time difference, it was 1:00 A.M. on Saturday my time) these were the words we all received:

   Did I mention it was a random list...?
   The word that stood out the most for me was "ham". I knew I didn't want to write a poem about food or cooking so how to work "ham" into a poem? I used the above pic as a Facebook status over the weekend and one of my FB friends commented that she didn't know how I was going to write a good poem with the word "ham" in it. I was rather in agreement. I spent about half an hour pondering this list of words and then finally went to bed with them swimming in my head.
   I woke up the next morning and had, for all intents and purposes, wasted about seven hours of potential writing time. I didn't want to stray too far from my normal routine so I got up, would have read the paper if they'd actually delivered it, had some breakfast and coffee and spent a little time on social media and then decided I should maybe get to work.
   I sat down with the words again, hoping that some connection or common thread would make itself known to me.
   Just a day or two previously, I'd been going through an album of pics we'd taken on a trip to Agassiz, B.C., back in 2009. Lewis Nunn Agassiz, my great-great grandfather, had settled on a plot of land on the Fraser River in the mid 1800's, after an unsuccessful attempt at gold prospecting. Others found their way there as well and soon there was a thriving community which became known as, appropriately enough, Agassiz. I found myself looking at a pic of his travelling trunk. His name and other writing was on it and it appeared to me that it had been stenciled on. I remember a train of thought which had me wondering when they started using stencils for things.
   Then, a day or two after this, I receive my ten contest words and, lo and behold, "stencil" is one of them. I continue on through the list and I come across the word "pyrite". Pyrite is also known as "fool's gold", something I'm sure Lewis likely encountered. At this point, I knew what the poem was going to be about! And I also had an inkling what I was going to do with word "ham"!
   I sat down at the dining room table with my writing pad and started really looking at the words (now that I had an idea what the topic of the poem might be) and trying to work with them. I ended up with a bunch of scattered lines, words scratched out, arrows drawn, the whole rough copy thing going on. I then sat down with the laptop and started putting the whole mess together!
   Back in the mid-eighties, I wrote poetry all the time. Much of it (as I'm sure a lot of poets would attest to) was garbage. I did, however, manage to get 7 or 8 of them published in well-thought-of literary journals, both in Canada and in the States. Then, for some unknown reason, I stopped. I do remember enjoying the process, though, and found myself once again on the weekend all wrapped up in wordsmithing. And loving it!
   Here is the poem I finally came up with:

     Agassiz

The satellite, overhead, told me how
to get here.

Before, though, much farther away
and in a different century,
he is on his knees, broken in a creek-bed,
and every golden fleck in the pan is pyrite,
just pyrite.
The water laps up to the soles of his boots
and freezes.
He knows now the promises were faked or fabled
and the one last tenuous fibril of this dream
is lapsed, dissolved between his fingers
and flowing away with the 
glacial melt.
Back down the Fraser, then, finds flat land
at the foot of a mountain, goes into the forest
and begins to break it.
Stalwart beams interlock and crisscross
above his family who have come from
the other side of the continent. Wing
has cooked the ham, it is soaking in its juices,
its aroma and the wood smoke drifting
up among the rough-hewn timbers.
He is in the corner, sitting, 
his own smoke is like a veil.
And through this veil, there is a trunk.
There are quilts and blankets on top of it
and on the side someone has taken a stencil
and painted on it, boldly, L. Agassiz esq. 
His travelling trunk, it has followed him here,
it is ever-present and his eyes are upon it.
When he has gone again, the land continues to grow.
The sons and daughters grow as well and
generations are there, in black and white, on the front
lawn. Tea is being served.
In the next hundred years, it is a place
of pilgrimage, children playing on the back lawns, 
grandchildren in among the trees,
great-grandchildren appearing
through the mountains
and then there is

me, standing in what is now
their driveway. 
I am there with spirits.
There is still one hewn log visible in this place, the rest is
mirrored halls, chests of drawers, appliances.
And, above me, a ripping satellite.

    So there you have it, my entry in the 2-Day Poem Contest. On CV2's website, you can go back and read past winning entries. Given the quality of those entries, I don't think this poem has much of a chance. I was aware of this as I was writing it and pondered starting all over. If I had done that, though, I simply would have been trying to copy someone else's style of writing and that would not have sat well with me. Nor should it have. I did find myself all caught up with the family heritage of what I was doing and this gave it a worth of its own, regardless of whether it goes on to win anything!
   For fun, you can go back to the original list of words and double-check as to when and where I used them. I wrote the poem somewhat based on a picture of me standing in the driveway of "Ferny Coombe", the name given to the Agassiz homestead. I remembered having to use the our GPS heavily on our trip to Agassiz, and this really was the easiest way to fit in "satellite". And the "Wing" I mentioned was the Agassiz family cook.
   The contest winners will be announced round about July 1, will keep you all posted! Wish me luck!

Porno Here! (uh....just kidding)

   In my last blog post, I attempted to share with you my experience with new guidelines being introduced by Blogger, regarding explicit sexual material on our blogs. I did so in what I hoped was a reasonably light-hearted manner and, if you didn't read that post or aren't able to remember it clearly, you can read about it here.
   Well, just recently, it seems, Blogger decided to change its mind. This is the message we bloggers are now seeing:

An update on the Blogger porn content policy

This week, we announced a change to Blogger’s porn policy stating that blogs that distributed sexually explicit images or graphic nudity would be made private.

We’ve received lots of feedback about making a policy change that impacts longstanding blogs, and about the negative impact this could have on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities.

We appreciate the feedback. Instead of making this change, we will be maintaining our existing policies.

   Apparently the feedback they received from their bloggers convinced them not to implement the changes they'd planned and life can go on as usual for us here in Blogger world.
   For me, this really doesn't mean a lot---I don't personally produce porn (although I think, in most of its forms, it's quite awesome) and my blogging efforts would have continued on unabated, regardless of any potential policy changes.

   But now I can do porn! Hurray! Lots of posts with boobies, butts and protracted penises! Or, then again, maybe I WON'T!! Because, really, that's not what I do. It's way too easy to find explicit material  all over the place without needing to come here for it. Instead, you can visit "Neanderings" for near-neanderthal musings on totally random and meandering topical generalities.
   Because that is what I do!  

   

   

No Porno Here! Sorry!

   For the last couple of days, I have been seeing the following message whenever I log on to Blogger, the website offered through Google which enables (allows?) me to produce both "Neanderings" and "Strides":

Adult content policy on Blogger

Starting March 23, 2015, you won't be able to publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity on Blogger.

Note: We’ll still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.

   Well, my first thought was that I didn't really have too much to worry about, neither of my blogs are rife with nudity or sexually explicit material. I'm quite happy and comfortable talking about sex but I don't remember any of my posts containing what I think Blogger might find objectionable.
   To be on the safe side, though, I went on my list of blog posts and perused the titles. The only one which really jumped out at me was a post I wrote a little over three years ago, titled "Sex". If you want, you can read it here.
   I used the word "Sex" more as a social experiment than anything. I was curious as to whether or not a mildly suggestive title would generate a larger amount of pageviews. Well, it generated a hugely larger amount of pageviews over a relatively short matter of time. I can't say as it surprised me! In this post, there were several pics of scantily clad men and women in different poses, embracing. A quick look at these to refresh my memory and I was pretty sure Blogger was not going to have a problem, especially within that context.
   Now whether or not this post offered a "substantial public benefit" in any of those categories or not is up for debate. I like to think my random blog posts would substantially benefit the whole world if I could just get that kind of readership but, according to my stats for that particular post, only 68 people have viewed it. Or one person viewed it 68 times, who the hell really knows? I guess the point is that neither of my blogs are going to rock the world regardless of the filth I might end up infusing them with!
   I also wonder if Blogger, along with perusing the pics, is also reading the posts. Could there not be actually more offensive stuff in the written part than on the pictorial side...? What if, in a post, I have nothing but pics of cute little bunnies and kitty cats but in text all I write about is how much I hate fucking goddamn bunnies and kitty cats? (sorry for the language, just trying to make a point...and, by the way, I love bunnies and kitty cats)

   I guess the real point in all of this is that someone is paying attention to what we blog about and is quite prepared to curtail our (and your ) experience based on pretty subjective criteria. I also don't know who, ultimately, makes the decision---I can't imagine one person being able to keep track of all of Blogger's writers. Which means that groups of people must be applying what their interpretation of someone else's interpretation of "explicit" actually is. Unless everyone is sitting around a table, passing nude pics back and forth, hoping for a consensus (and would this make for a long meeting or a short one?)
   Is this censorship? Yep. So am I pissed off about this? Nope. If I was paying good money to a website so that I could use all its resources for my blogging and then that website turned around and tried to arbitrarily restrict what I could put into my blog then I would be more than pissed off. Blogger, however, lets me blog for free and beggars can't be choosers, can they? Can they....?
   So I'm glad I don't have the job of trying to figure out what stays and what goes on Blogger these days. On the other hand, if I did have that job, likely just about everything would stay---it takes a lot for me to find something offensive about nudity. We are not born with clothes on, after all.
   Ironically, these new guidelines come to us through Google, an entity I would suggest has led more people to images of nudity than any other in the history of the world. And not only has it directed us to sexually provocative images, it has also pointed the way to things I would suggest are truly obscene. When, with a single click, you can watch a man being burned alive in a cage, it's a little hard to handle Blogger trying to restrict what might be only brief views of naked body parts.
   So I will continue to do what I do here on "Neanderings", regardless of what happens after (magical) March 23, 2015. I would really rather offend people with words than pictures anyway, it takes a little more craft!
   
   
   

    

Dad's Facebook Page

   It was my Dad's birthday yesterday. Facebook went out of its way to give me several days notification that his birthday was impending (along with a handful of other people's) and also did a fine job of alerting me that his birthday had, in fact, arrived.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   Of course, I don't need reminding when my Dad's birthday is---it is etched into my consciousness almost as boldly as my own birthday. I do enjoy seeing my Dad's face pop up on occasions like this, however, so I suppose I should thank Facebook.
   What is secondary to all this, though, is that my Dad's been deceased for two years!
   In light of this, receiving Facebook reminders about his birthday are somewhat bittersweet, naturally. I have no idea how many other FB friends of his still continue to receive the same messages as I do, I suspect that some do and it wouldn't surprise me if others have already "unfriended" him.
   Personally, I don't have a problem with receiving these little reminders and notifications periodically---they feel more like happy little memories than anything else. At the same time, I can't help but think that the appropriate thing to do would be to shut down his Facebook page.
   This would be hard to do, though! Whenever I find myself on his page, I am assailed by nothing but pleasant memories and pics of people I love. Kind of hard to delete! I find I also have a hard time throwing away greeting cards and deleting romantic e-mails, etc. Just doesn't seem right.
   So I am in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with my Dad's Facebook page. I don't exactly know how to delete an entire Facebook page but I do have Dad's password for it so I'm sure I could find out.
   Because I have his password (and because I also have a particular sense of humour), I have many times been tempted to send "messages from beyond" via his Facebook status. Yesterday I really wanted to make his status say "Thank you for the birthday thoughts, everyone, am having a wonderful time, just wish it wasn't so damn hot down here!" You know, stuff like that...
   When my Dad passed away, there was a tendency to want to save everything of his---old clothes, stationery, pots and pans, those kinds of things. With a little time passing, however, common sense has set in. It's now much easier to see what was actually important and worth holding on to.
   I suppose most of us go through something similar when a loved one passes away. You want to hold on to as much as you can for as long as you can. Well, this is where I find myself with my Dad's Facebook page.
   People have been dying for millions of years now but most of them didn't have Facebook pages. A lot of the elderly these days still do not, so it's not like there's an accepted protocol for how to handle situations like this. There's also not much on my Dad's page that isn't stored elsewhere so it's not like I (we) would be losing valuable pics or anything. He  never truly engaged people on FB, beyond the more-or-less perfunctory salutations, so we would not be losing significant conversations he might have had with anyone, either.
   What to do then?
   I suspect that at some time in the near future, barring any possible objections from the people who were his friends and family, my Dad's FB page will cease to exist. When that time comes, I'm sure it will all boil down to the single "click" of a button. And that will be hard to do...
  

Facebook And The Soundtrack Of My Life

   About a week and a half ago, to celebrate its 10th birthday, Facebook did the service of allowing us to view our individual "Look Back" videos.
   These were one minute vignettes of selected posts and pics that were deemed the most popular, or "viewed", dating back to when we each joined the social media site.
   I was moved by mine. I understand that many of us were and that some of us were even moved to tears.
   None of us saw pictures or posts we'd never seen before, obviously, and yet we were still moved.
   For me, it was the music.
   Yes, music was a big part of it but it was also the juxtaposition of the music and the particular photos that appeared on my video which truly touched me.
   For the most part, they were family-oriented and significant--pictures of our wedding, kids, and both of my parents.
   These pics were already significant to me but combining them with music and streaming them through my consciousness in such a manner seemed to give them that much more significance.
   I guess that's what a soundtrack will do, it will provide that extra aural and emotional context to what you are seeing. How many movies can you think of that are hard to separate from the music that accompanied them? Hard to imagine such movies as Gone With The Wind, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Pink Panther, Jurassic Park, Lawrence of Arabia and Pulp Fiction without the iconic music which accompanied them. One of my all-time favourite scenes from any movie occurs during Jurassic Park, at the moment when the visitors to the island come across dinosaurs for the first time. They are brought, literally, to their knees as the scope of what they are seeing becomes apparent. At this point in the movie, John Williams' music is both soaring and majestic as man comes face-to-face with...well...history. In my mind, an indelible moment is created as much because of the music as for any other reason.
   Without thinking about it too much, we took pictures. For a variety of reasons, we gathered up pictures which had already been taken. If the mood struck us, we said something that other people might have thought was pertinent, important or perhaps humourous. Singly, the significance of all these actions was possibly not obvious to us. String them together, though, and then add music and all this changes somehow.
   So does the music just add emotion or does it bring out the emotion that was already intrinsically there? Does it act somehow in a similar way as alcohol, heightening the emotional intensity of a relationship to a person or event?
   It's almost as if music breaks down whatever subconscious defense mechanism we've deployed to keep ourselves on the even emotional keel which gets us through our days. Throw in a little music, however, and we are emotional in a variety of ways over things which did not seem terribly momentous at the time they actually occurred.
   If you are at all like me, you may have been just a touch creeped out that Facebook was even able to do these videos. I realize that none of the pictures or statuses on my Facebook page are truly private but I was trying hard to imagine that nobody was paying any attention to, or had any vested interest in, them. This seems to not be the case. In an example of marketing at its low-key best, Facebook has wormed its way into our hearts and all it took was adding a little music to the soundtrack of our life. 
  
  
  

I Am A Blasphemer (Apparently)

   In my most recent post, I talk about the idea that you need to consider who is going to be reading or listening to the things you write and say. You then need to understand that the things you say and do may bear some consequence.
   In an extremely ironic twist, just a couple of days after I wrote this, a comment popped up which was attached to a post I wrote last year called "Christians in the park". There is a link to that post here, if you weren't one of the ones that read it the first time around. Essentially, the post described my distrust of groups or individuals who seem to have used Christianity as a cornerstone for either their own gain or as part of a political agenda. I then cited examples, as quickly as they popped into my head, of some of history's worst offenders.
   The person's two-line comment appeared at the end of the post but I have since deleted it, thinking that readers might attempt to link back to its author's blog and give the person a sense of audience he or she might not deserve. The comment described the post as "pure blasphemy" and then added that "God will surely repay" me. In my brief reply to this person, I quoted one or two nice things I did say about Christianity and then left it at that.
   The person who commented did so anonymously. You were able to follow a link back to his or her own blog but it was a blog in title only, had no content of its own and did nothing to actually identify its author. I also have no idea if its author read my follow-up comment, which has since been deleted as well.
   In my three years of writing "Neanderings", this is actually the first truly negative comment I have encountered. Because of this, I was initially taken aback. I then had to remind myself of my own warning to others---be prepared for the consequences of what you say and do.
   I have personal friends and acquaintances who are Christians and who demonstrate this and espouse it on a regular basis. I have never received a negative comment or even an inquiry from them as to things I've said about Christianity in the past. It could well be that they simply have not followed the blog (not everyone I know actually reads it) and therefore have never questioned me about it. Apart from this particular post, I have written on the subject several times in "Neanderings". I think this is because I often find myself wondering about, for lack of a better term, the "meaning of life". I wonder what, if anything, lies beyond. Because this is an underlying current, I write about it. I attempt to be fair when I do this and I attempt to explain myself clearly.
   If you go back and read "Christians in the park" very carefully, you hopefully will get the point I attempted to make. I can see where it's possible that someone might consider it to be "blasphemy" if you only were to consider some of the associations I make in it and if you only read the accompanying pictures I culled from the internet. It could be that the post is viewed as tainted simply because of those things.
   If anything, this episode has reminded me that there is an audience out there and that they may have strong opinions of their own. My biggest discomfort here is that the person who left me the comment chose to do so anonymously. I, on the other hand, do not have an issue with identifying myself. My best guess is that the person leaving that comment considers themselves to be a Christian. If he or she is a Christian who feels it's appropriate to anonymously attack (at least it felt like a bit of an attack) another total stranger's beliefs then I feel as though they might somewhat easily fall into the category of yet another person or group with an agenda of their own who props it up under the guise of "Christianity". Which is to say, under what I understand a Christian to be, that they are probably not one at all. In trying to take a truly Christian approach to anything, I understand that one of the best things to do is ask yourself what would Jesus do?
   I have a bit of a hard time imagining Jesus attacking me over a blog post.

Be Careful What You Say

   Sometimes, you need to be careful what you say and to whom you say it. Sometimes, you also need to be careful what you do and who might view it. 

 

   Someone I know has a little blurby at the bottom of all the e-mails she sends out which goes something like this: "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."
   I believe this is true; as much as we might be caught up in our own little turmoil, we need to remember that every other person we run into is in the midst of a turmoil of their own. How they are dealing with that turmoil may not be the same as how we are. We also need to remember that their ability to handle that turmoil might be on thin ice. It could be that they have completely lost that ability. Just at the moment that they may have totally lost the ability to handle the stressors of daily living, your path may cross theirs and what you say and what you do may have much more impact on the situation than you ever could possibly have imagined.

   You might save their life with a simple, random word or two. You might somehow or other ensure that their life ends, possibly right in front of you. It is not beyond the realm of reason that something you say or do might cause your life to end. I don't think there is a moment too innocent for this to happen.
   In light of all this, I pretty well constantly attempt to assess situations as they occur.
   I sometimes run afoul of other drivers out there. There is occasionally the temptation to lay on the horn or make some less than complimentary hand gesture and then I stop myself. I stop myself because in the grand scheme of things I don't know what effect this might have on that other person. Maybe there was a reason for why they were driving like that. Maybe it was just a brief moment of inattention, something we are all guilty of from time to time. Perhaps that person is speeding to the hospital because a loved one's been hurt. You just never know what a person's story might be.
   In this age of social media, you have the opportunity to interact in a variety of ways with hundreds of people all at once. Depending on the nature of that interaction, it might then be shared with hundreds of thousands of people.
  

This past Halloween, a young girl in Michigan made the mistake of dressing up for the occasion (as many people did) and then posting pics of herself on Facebook and Twitter (as many people did). Her mistake, though, was dressing up as a Boston Marathon bombing victim.
   She was immediately deluged with hate mail--some directed at her and much of it swirling around her. She had also previously made the mistake of posting nude pictures and her driver's licence on another social media outlet. This gave a whole bunch of extremely angry people access to some of her personal information. Soon, she and her family were receiving death threats. All of this because of a (terribly) misguided costume choice and then the ill-fated decision to make it so public.
   I occasionally find myself wrestling with what to put out there on social media. Most of it revolves around my quirky sense of humour and trying not to offend anybody with some of the stuff which comes out of my mouth. You have no idea how many times I've re-written a blog post or agonized over a Facebook comment so that no feelings would be hurt. This is all because you just never know how something you say might be interpreted or how an action might be seen.
   There is a world out there that is listening. More people than you might think are paying attention to what you say and do. As much as it might be enjoyable to say whatever comes to your mind whenever it gets there, it's essential to remember that this is not a consequence-less exercise. For the most part, we are all guilty of wanting to say or do things that will only get a positive response. Unfortunately, this is not the way the world works.
   This is not to say don't be outspoken or brave. Just be prepared for (but not scared of) what your bravery brings you in return.    

It's A Good Age To Be!

   In just a little over three weeks from now, the world will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.


JFK, moments before his assassination and one of many
similar images you will see in the coming weeks.

   The date is November 22 and, coincidentally, it is also a Friday, as it was back in 1963. There have already been ads on T.V. for planned specials to commemorate the event and you can be certain that the media will be inundated with Kennedy images.
   I am one of the older of my peer group and because of this I am one of the few who can actually remember that day, with clarity.
   At the time, I was in Grade Five and was attending Braemar Public School in North Vancouver. We were all sitting at our desks when the intercom came on and the principal informed us the Kennedy had been killed. We were stunned but we were stunned in a ten-year-old kid sort of a way---it was more of a holy cow kind of a moment for us and the true solemnity of the situation was, I think, lost on us. One of the girls in the class broke into tears, however, and was excused. Why this had happened rather perplexed us until our teacher told us that the student was actually an American and that the awful news had much more import to her.
   As the weekend went on and we found ourselves glued to the black and white images on our T.V. screens, the holy cow feeling I'd had in my classroom totally disappeared as the gravity of the times sunk in.
   I am pretty well able to remember every little image from that weekend. Many of them became iconic and I can only imagine that in the lead up to the fiftieth anniversary they will be everywhere you look. I, however, feel privileged to have seen them as they happened.
   This is one of the things I treasure the most about being the age I am. I am able to say that I was witness to much of the history we now have venerated, analyzed, distilled and

Armstrong steps on the moon.

fashioned idols around. Occasionally I was witness to it as it happened---I watched as man first set foot on the moon and I watched as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal against the Russians in '72. If I didn't happen to be watching when the event actually occurred then I was immediately afterwards immersed in its wake and denouement.

Henderson in '72

   As much as history books and T.V. can attempt to recreate an historic moment what they generally cannot accurately recreate is the emotion of the time--the looks that might have been passed back and forth by total strangers, the utter joy or the total dejection. At some point in the next few weeks there will likely be a replay of Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS newscaster, announcing to the world President Kennedy's death. The words he used were straightforward. It was the look on his face that was harder to describe. It was the same look that many people had those days and if you weren't there to experience it then you cannot know it accurately.
   I like being able to say "I was there", even if only as viewer and from far away. As terrible or as joyous as a world event might be, when you are my age you are able to place it within the context of all that has gone on before. When you have lived through as many monumental events as I have, the monumental events of today are somehow greatly lessened and I envy the clear-minded eighty-year-olds who are able to remember back even farther than I am.
   This, then, is my little window--I am at that age where there is much to remember but I am edging closer to the time when there will be much to forget. For now, though, it is a good age to be!