Premature Articulation

Ok, I'm a shitty blogger.  First of all I seldom post anything and even then I'm too long winded.  Worse, I started this thing without considering the ethics of blogging and I want to apologize to those who've supported me even without my reciprocation.  

  In my defense I have been too busy with golf, new motorcycles and beverage-laden nights out.  I'm going to be more conscientious, more attentive, less verbose and more relevant.  I'm getting my head out of the clouds and putting my nose to the grindstone.  I'm going to stop now before this sounds anymore like Jerry Maquire's mission statement.

Nick took the "What kind of knucklehead takes these stupid Facebook quizzes"  quiz with the result "Too many of his Facebook friends"

If this looks familiar you probably have a Facebook account.  If not, congratulations you are likely well adjusted, sane, have a normal real life and have no need of a virtual peer group.  You could probably quit reading now and you won't miss much.  If you do have a Facebook account or you are curious please read on.  

Facebook is a "social networking" site ostensibly designed  to facilitate cyber communities of acquaintances and to provide access to events and services not otherwise readily available.  I like to think of it as the 'Borg' for all you Trekkies out there (that may be a future topic), because it organizes participants into a homogeneous glump devoid of personal expression.  Unlike MySpace or some of the other such sites everyone's page is identically laid-out and subject to a steady stream of mindless babble and advertising.  All of that begs the question, why do it?  

The attraction to this site seems to revolve around the voyeuristic scrutiny of the activity of one's friends.  Titillating as that may sound it comes at a price.  It has been argued that people are willing to sacrifice their own privacy for the opportunity to peer into the lives of others.  This symbiotic form of relationship wouldn't be so bad if the exchange were limited to one's friends but the access is viral.  That is to say that while I can view steady streams of news feeds posted by my friends I can also view things like the photo albums of their friends, people I don't even know.  While most of this stuff is so banal it's painful, occasionally something comes across that seems entirely inappropriate.  I mean, we're all adults here but there is something pretty creepy about perusing some friend's niece's photos of a bunch of scantily clad adolescents pounding jello shooters in compromising poses.   Yes, I've done it and it's not as innocent as the inability to turn one's eyes from the proverbial train wreck.  At best it's invasive at worst it's pederasty.

As bad as that seems there is something significantly more pernicious about Facebook and those vile quizzes I mentioned at the outset are just one form of a series of mechanisms rooting about in our psyches.  The extent to which this subliminal mind-mining will succeed wholly depends on the willingness of participants.  At this point there seems to be limitless and gleeful acceptance.  Oh come on you say, don't take yourself so seriously.  Well trust me I'm no alarmist, I think maybe the Warren commission called it like it was but this kinda scares me.

There are a couple things that set up my personal paranoia.  One is that Facebook was developed by a former executive for an information gathering think-tank enlisted by the CIA.  Another is a failed marketing scheme called the beacon which would have linked specific partnering businesses with personal profiles.  Activity with those companies would automatically generate news feeds to your friends.  Something like "Nick bought 'Debbie Does Dallas' at Amazon.com today" would feed out to all my friends.  Worse, Amazon can have Friends (or fans as they're called for businesses) who would also get that feed and anyone can be Amazon's friend.  Even my parole officer.  How would he like to see "Nick bought a Glock at Sportsmans Wharehouse today"?

So, with that in mind it seems pretty obvious what these quizzes are all about.  At their most innocuous they are about establishing demographics.  These quizzes typically ask things like "Which Muppet are you?" or "Which punk rock star are you?".  The inanity of this is palpable.  For those of you who found they were Patti Smith I have a news flash: Patti would prefer a non-anesthetized appendectomy to taking one of these quizzes.  And, well need I remind anyone that Miss Piggy doesn't actually exist.  The geniuses that created and proliferate these applications are building data.  Soon you'll be seeing Miss Piggie wristwatches and posable Patti Smith dolls at your local WalMart.  Ok that's a little extreme but you can bet the results of these quizzes will find their way into the marketing of goods and services because why else are these applications available.  

Does anybody think Facebook subsidizes the development of these 'games'.  Hell no, they are paid to host the access.  So who is paying for it and why.  Is it some misguided old hippie spreading the love, some wealthy hobbyist hoping to share a love for games and puzzles?  Uh no!  Nothing is free, you can't even walk in the park for free, its use is paid for by taxation.  So why should we think we're getting free games from Facebook?   We're not, we're paying with our very souls, we're shelling out tidbits of our very essence to the lowest bidder who will turn this information to use in their benefit and against our own. 

The other day I saw the most alarming quiz to date, "Which foreign country are you?".  Several of my Canadian friends found they were America.  This generated a rash of dialogue regarding personal and public ideas about US policy and culture.  Some of it was not too flattering some of it was conciliatory and some was just stupid.  But I had to wonder what would come of this information being so insipidly gathered, who would be looking over those comments and whether they might some day come back to haunt those who made them.  

When once asked by an interviewer if he thought people should keep their social distance Bob Dylan said "I believe people should keep everything they've got".  I'm with him!  

Blowin' in the Wind

I recently moved back to this country after 35 years of self-imposed exile.  My reasons are valid enough but not a day goes by that I don't question the wisdom of such a move.  Don't get me wrong I'm cognizant of the many and varied benefits of American life and nowhere I've ever been can rival the bounty available to those who succeed here.  But let's face it, as sure as there's an order in the universe, symmetry and balance in nature, there is a down side to America's rich tapestry.  

I'm not talking here about the last several years of moral and ethical decline on the world stage, and I'm ignoring, for now, the unscrupulous American business practices which precipitated the disastrous events that have ruined the world economy.  These issues have at their core that quintessential Americaness on which the country was founded.  I think Goofy immortalized the idea in that now canonized Disney cartoon when he sang so unselfconciously "Oh the world owes me a living".  That basic concept coupled with the right to bear arms is the fundamental ghost in the American machine. 

The first woman I dated when I moved back here is a captain in the army.  To her credit she's decidedly left leaning and passionately active in the preservation of the environment but nonetheless competent with a 50 caliber machine gun.  There are within 2 miles of my home 3 grocery stores and 5 places to buy guns.   Portland Magazine recently included in its list of top ten things to do in town, taking a date to the indoor shooting range.  Craigslister's looking to unload their boats and cars often suggest trades for a glock or 9mm.   It is a country rife with firepower, scurrying to acquire ordinance before the lefties in power revoke their privileges.  The conventional wisdom ( I use the term advisedly) is that the right to bear arms is a constitutional guarantee and yet there is a great deal of discussion regarding the concept as it was proposed by the framers.  Whatever the idea may have been and however it may apply today, the proliferation of weapons among the general populace is alarming and nearly every page of the first couple sections of any city newspaper has at least one article about somebody discharging one of them.  

 That said, even with its myriad of gun-totin' stories my morning newspaper has a much more sinister depository of horror;  the editorial page.  The local paper here, which I would call fairly conservative, is now considered as many others like it to be decidedly left-wing.  Admittedly there is an attempt to balance the reportage and even the editorial content but the idea that Conrad Black or the Hearst Corporation have suddenly become New Socialists is a bit far-fetched.  This paper alternates voices from opposing camps in the daily columns but it's the reader's letters that are scary as hell.   There is a subtext in the bulk of these letters that promotes the notion that the righteous path has been lost.   

Only two months into a new administration and already they lament the passing of those halcyon days of enlightened leadership that secured our shores and protected our homes.  More importantly they decry the passing of lower taxes and rail against the costs of earmarks and pork fat doled out by the new socialist government.  If there's one thing Americans don't like it's paying taxes.  As a culture it's been genetically inscribed beginning with the tossing of tea barrels into Boston Bay.  We are a people who collectively say 'No one's the boss of me' so 'don't tread on me' or 'I'll grab my 9 and bust a cap in your head'.  

As much as all this frightens me it also fascinates.   When I was a kid it was considered cool to smoke, a right of passage that lingered on into adulthood.  Smoking was cosmopolitan, a symbol of rebellion and distinction.  Maybe the Glock is the new Marlboro.  I haven't encountered the tiniest resistance to the notion of a date at the firing range.  So, maybe it'd be cool to pack, women seem to think it's 'interesting' and as an added bonus if some interloper should darken my door, well woe be it.  It's almost as though it's my civic duty.  Sure they're dangerous, guns kill people, or people kill people I'm not sure which but anyway when they go off in close proximity to people sometimes someone gets killed.  I guess that someone could end up being me if I happened to run into someone else being cool but at least it wouldn't be that lingering death carting around the oxygen bottle.