Article from the London Times in the UK.
August 4, 2008
In 2001 Barbara Ehrenreich wrote Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America.
You can get an idea of what the book is about by checking it out on Amazon; I won’t waste your time here reiterating a synopsis of a 7-year-old work. I’ll simply give you some of my observations.
Ms. Ehrenreich doesn’t mention her upbringing, but judging by how she seems to be rubbernecking the poor as if they were a 3-jalopy-pile-up on the interstate, I’m assuming it was solidly middle class. She details the daily struggles well, but she only touches on the culture of the poor. She is always on the other side of the divider, peering in. She seems to concentrate only on the money and survival. Her tone is more political than condescending, but it seems like she found no solace in anything, anywhere. About halfway through the book, I was feeling a bit defensive. You see, until I was 13, I grew up in that car wreck. Ms. Ehrenreich deigned to stop and watch for a few short months, but my formative years were trapped there.
In my life, I’ve been exposed to ridiculous wealth, depressing poverty, and middle class struggles. [continue reading…]
(I wrote this as a sample blog post back in March of 2008 for a potential blogging gig. Don’t know if they ever published it – which they didn’t have permission to do – but here it is. You can see some much better and funnier posts on the same subject by googling ‘weird facebook groups‘)
Facebook groups provide hours of web-surfing entertainment. Here are 5 Weird (but active) Facebook groups you will probably never surf into without the help of an internet sherpa. There are a lot of hilariously titled groups on Facebook, but these 5 have activity, have real life members, and are relatively esoteric:
PHILLIP ZIMBARDO- HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE. This is just one example of the 12 Facebook groups that center around infamous Stanford Prison Experiment psychologist Phillip Zimbardo. For those of us who aren’t familiar, the 1971 Stanford Prison study turned squeaky clean undergraduates into ruthless animals in a matter of hours. Dr. Zimbardo seems to still have his die hard fans!
“I’m a Bostonian and I’ve seen the guy on the bike who makes the siren noise” The title alone is enough to make you click through. Although the ‘sightings’ timeline hasn’t been updated since 2007, the discussion boards are still active. What’s great about this group is that its Facebook category is Sports & Recreation. ‘Boston Broken Toe Avoidance’ will be a a ratified Olympic sport by 2016.
Weird Instrument Lovers Know what mellotrons and duduks are? Do you play watermelons? Bubblewrap? How about bowed psaltry, mbiras, or a vibraslap? No? Then no tibetan signal horn soup for you.
I Tend To Fart In Public. Listed under Philanthropic Organizations, this group is worth looking up just for the first video posted on its page. Here’s the description: “This is a group for sharing horror stories about farting in a socially unacceptable setting. It’s happened to all of us and we could all use a safe place to talk about it.”
World Pet Memorial Day (Canada) “This group helps raise awareness of World Pet Memorial Day in a safe and respectful manner” says the description. There is an unsafe way to let people know about dead pets? And there are other chapters?
/rant
I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon and finally do a “Twitter rant” post. But it isn’t gonna go the way you expect.
Do a blog search for “Twitter” lately and your browser will be lit up with all the latest rants about the service’s failings. Granted, Twitter hasn’t had the best track record to say the very least. And their ‘leadership’ gave dubious meaning to the word. And they schedule maintenance at suspicious times. And they didn’t seem to care about their users. And they underestimated the popularity of their little bit of code. And they run experiments that wipe away followers and followees for a day or two. And they weren’t enforcing their terms of service. And they annoy developers by locking down their API. And… And… And…
ANNNNND: I’m growing tired of all the winge! People need to get a clue. Twitter still wails on any other copycat service. Twitter is THE microblogging giant. They are improving. They are communicating more on their blog, acquiring supportive services like Summize. I had a swift response by @Jack to a complaint about a griefer user. My followee numbers are back to normal. They are making good faith efforts.
I’m not sure what people want from Twitter. Maybe they are just the giant we love to hate, like the rest of the world loves to hate The States. Who knows? But if I hear ONE MORE EGOTISTICAL SOCIAL MEDIA WHORE whine about losing followers, I’m gonna go BOOYAH on somebody’s ass. Cyndy Aleo-Carreira has it right over on Louis Gray’s site, it’s just plain old HUBRIS that drives people to mourn and moan the absence of their ‘adoring masses.’
IT’S JUST AN APP, people. For fun and maybe a place to share some good recipes. YOU ARE NOT FAMOUS. GET OVER YOURSELF. TWITTER IS FREE. And with Twitter, you are definitely getting more than what you pay for it in time and energy. If I were the Twitter guys, I’d be a bit disgusted by this show of the worst the social media crowd has to offer.
/rant
I straddle the fence between the geeky on-line world and the nerdy writing world, and ne’er the twain shall meet.
But the rule for all worlds, virtual or otherwise, is “Wait For It.”
Well, looks I’m done waiting for those two worlds to meet, at least when it comes to sharing and discussing the books I’ve read. Imagine having a well-informed, huge, and always available book club at your fingertips. [continue reading…]