Tag Archives: social media

Self-consciousness sets in

social-media-people

I am feeling a bit self-conscious these days.

Why is that? Well, I’ve been pretty active on Facebook for about five years or so. I’ve developed a pretty healthy list of “friends,” many of whom are actual friends; others of them are “friends” only according to Facebook parlance.

Of late, some of my friends have expressed concern — some of them outright anger — over the politicization of this particular social medium. They don’t like all the politics being spouted on what is supposed to be a place for people to connect, interact socially and exchange good tidings.

I use Facebook, though, as a vehicle on which to distribute my blog. Many folks who read High Plains Blogger’s musings/spewage/commentary do so on Facebook.

High Plains Blogger is meant to be a platform to talk about politics, public policy and what I call “life experience.” You get plenty of politics and policy, for sure. You also get a decent dose of life experience as I enjoy writing about upcoming retirement, and ownership of a rambunctious puppy.

In order to boost my blog traffic, I like using Facebook — along with Twitter, LinkedIn and Google — to spread whatever word I feel like spreading at the moment. Indeed, my Twitter feed is linked also to my Facebook feed. Therefore, when I tweet about this and/or that political event, it goes to Facebook, too.

I should add that I generally don’t post things exclusively on Facebook that deal with politics, although I do admit to “sharing” others’ political points of view.

The day might arrive when I get so much blog traffic that I no longer feel the need to use Facebook to transmit High Plains Blogger’s message — whatever it is.

My particular problem, though, might be in determining when I’ve gotten enough traffic, that I longer need to distribute it on other social media.

Perhaps that day will arrive when I’ve decided I’ve got enough money.

For now and perhaps for the foreseeable future, I guess you’ll have to bear with me.

In the meantime, I also will just have to deal with my self-consciousness.

Step right up, City Council candidates

Councilmen_2015

A fascinating ritual is about to take place at Amarillo City Hall.

Five individuals seeking to become the fifth member of the City Council are going to interview Tuesday in person — in full public view — with those individuals they seek to join.

The city is seeking to fill the seat being vacated later this summer by Dr. Brian Eades, who’s leaving the city to set up a medical practice in Colorado.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-07-10/council-question-hopefuls

I wish Eades hadn’t taken this opportunity for professional advancement. But hey, a man’s got to do what he’s got to do. I wish him well and thank him for his service to this city.

Back to the task at hand.

The council is interviewing five folks who emerged as finalists from a pool of 14 original applicants. The 10 questions they’ve established I presume have been seen by the finalists. They’ve had time to bone up on the answers.

I sense we’ll know who among them have done the best preparation. Then again, we also might get a sense about which of them is the most rehearsed and whether that element of the preparation will present itself when they answer the questions.

Without question, the most provocative question is No. 4: How should a council candidate conduct himself or herself publicly and privately “when they may ultimately serve as the people’s ambassador?”

Pay attention to that one, Sandra McCartt. The question I’m sure is aimed at her, given the tempest that stirred when some social media posts she authored came to light. They weren’t exactly the type of messages that cry out “people’s ambassador!”

This process is new to the city. I hope it works well for the council. More importantly, I hope it works well for the public that will be listening to what these individuals say about how they intend to govern our city.

I’ll make one final point just one more time.

Council members are not obligated to convene an executive — or closed — session to deliberate over who they prefer. State open meetings laws only empower the council to do so.

If they are dedicated to full transparency and public accountability they now have the chance to demonstrate it.

Deliberate in public, gentlemen of the City Council.

Good luck to you all.

Social media turn ‘friends’ into friends

social-media-people

Social media, particularly Facebook, have this way of turning acquaintances into something more significant than that.

If we’re not actual friends in the manner I prefer to use the term, then at least we are able to communicate on a little higher level than just exchanging banal pleasantries and talking about the weather.

Take for example what happened today.

I ran into someone with whom I’ve been acquainted on Facebook, although we knew each other very casually in an earlier part of our lives. We shook hands.

“I enjoy reading your blogs on Facebook,” he said. “I don’t comment on political things because I know I won’t change anyone’s mind, so what’s the point?” he continued.

“But I guess you’ve found out that our community is full of comedians,” he said. We both chuckled at that.

I told him I don’t write these blogs to change people’s minds. I write because it’s therapy for me.

Some people climb aboard motorcycles for what one biker-friend calls “throttle therapy.” Others go to the gym and pound on punching bags for another form of therapy.

Writing is my bag, man.

I did it for nearly four decades back when I was working for a living. My full-time writing gig ended abruptly — and unhappily, for me at least — nearly four years ago.

I’m still at it. And gladly so.

Which brings me to my actual point.

This blog of mine isn’t intended to change anyone’s mind. I get that everyone’s bias informs their own world view. I also get that the media already are full of talking heads, “contributors” and “political strategists” who fill the air with their opinions.

The only time in recent memory I’ve heard of anyone mind being changed on an issue involved the Amarillo municipal election this past year. Former Amarillo College President Paul Matney came to our Rotary club and made a pitch for the multipurpose event venue. A friend of mine, a hard-nosed Amarillo businesswoman, told me later Matney’s presentation changed her mind from a “no” vote to a “yes” vote on the MPEV.

I wrote about that event:

A mind has changed on the MPEV

No one has come to me ever and said, “You know, John, that blog you wrote about what a bozo Donald Trump is really got me thinking. I’m going to vote for anyone now other than that guy based on what you wrote.”

I do not expect that to happen. Ever!

That’s not why I write this stuff. I do it because I like doing it. It comes fairly easily … now that I’ve been writing many times daily since my full-time job ended.

I appreciated my Facebook “friend” saying what he did today. It means a lot that he gets something out of these musings of mine.

But, no, I don’t expect to convert anyone.

I call myself an idealist on a lot of issues.

On this one? I’m a hard-bitten realist.

I won’t stop offering my view of the world. You can take it or leave it.

See you next time.

 

‘Not indicted’ doesn’t mean ‘in the clear’

james-comey

I just love social media responses to big news stories.

It’s usually pretty hysterical. Take the announcement today that the FBI will not seek an indictment of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal e-mail server while she was in that highly sensitive public office.

FBI Director James Comey said Clinton was “extremely careless” in her use of the server; he said she did plenty of things wrong, but nothing on which he could seek criminal charges.

It has given social media users all over the nation reason to extol the Democratic presidential candidate’s “guilt” over a variety of transgressions.

They’re saying she “lied,” that she’s “corrupt,” that Comey and the feds were “bought off by Clinton money,” that the Clintons’ privileged status among the political elite bought her leniency that others would have received.

None of that, of course, has been proved. The accusers will say, “Who needs proof? I just know it’s all true!” It all rests in the hearts and minds of those who are disposed to, well, hate the former secretary of state.

What about the rest of us? Folks such as, oh, yours truly?

I’m going to take Comey at his word that his career prosecutors — the individuals who are not political appointees — came up empty in their search for criminal culpability. To my way of thinking, when investigators cannot offer proof to merit a charge of wrongdoing, then that’s the end of the criminal aspect of this on-going controversy.

Oh, but its political element still burns white-hot.

Clinton will have to call a press conference and face the music publicly about the things Comey said about how she conducted herself while leading the State Department.

I know those media confrontations make Clinton uncomfortable. Indeed, one gets the sense she detests reporters generally, although no one has ever asked her directly, in public, for the record about what she thinks of the media.

I also am aware that no matter how forthcoming she is that it won’t quell the critics. They’ll continue to find holes in her public statements; why, they’ll even create holes in them just to foster their own arguments against her presidential candidacy.

We live in the social media age. For better or worse, Americans are forming a lot of their opinions about public figures based on 140-character messages sent out on Twitter, or on messages posted on Facebook or other social media platforms.

Hillary Clinton has known this about our world and I trust she understood it when she decided to seek the nation’s highest office.

It’s tough out there, Mme. Secretary. Deal with it.

Right idea on council selection; just need more ‘vetting’

social-media two

Amarillo City Councilman Mark Nair is correct to favor a new way of filling vacancies on the body on which he serves.

It needs to be more open, more accessible to the public. Nair helped design the new process for filling those vacancies, which he said used to be done in secret.

The new process also requires a good bit of tinkering and tweaking to avoid the embarrassment that appears to have developed in the search for someone to replace Councilman Brian Eades, who’s leaving the council this summer.

At issue are weird Facebook comments attributed to Sandra McCartt, one of the finalists being considered for the Place 2 seat. There are some doozies out there. The council didn’t see them coming.

According to the Amarillo Globe-News: “’Nothing in the process said if someone said something goofy or bone-headed in the past,’ it would determine their worthiness,” (Nair) added.

“Nair said in the past, council would have appointed a candidate in a back room and none of the conversation would have been public. He said he designed the current process because he wanted the community to be a part of the conversation, and things such as McCartt’s — and other candidates — comments on social media will be part of the discussion.”

Social media platforms are everywhere. Facebook is just one of them. People have Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr accounts. They are likely to say just about anything using any of these social media outlets.

This push for openness has created an opportunity for the City Council to work even harder to ensure they find the right people either to fill vacancies on the body, or select a city manager — which is another task awaiting the council.

Indeed, the city manager selection ought to include a thorough vetting of the men and women who make the list of finalists for that job.

The council said it was intent on invoking “change” in the way the city did business. That’s fine. The change, though, also seems to require a bit more care and attention to detail from the folks who are seeking to reform the way City Hall does its business.

A more thorough vetting of social media accounts is a reasonable place to start.

Social media bite a council candidate in the … you know

Social Media speech bubble on white background.

If you’re going to put your name into the public arena and if you intend to present yourself as a candidate for a governing board, you’d better be prepared for extra-meticulous scrutiny.

That means you’d better be ready to have everything you put into the public domain examined with a magnifying glass.

I’m talking about what you say on social media. If you’ve said something you might regret, then it’s best you not say it.

Social media have all but eliminated potential public officeholders’ zone of privacy.

There. Now I need to mention one Sandra McCartt, who’s one of five individuals being considered for a spot on the Amarillo City Council.

It appears there might be a problem with some of the things this person has said on her Facebook account.

She seems to have said some things about others that might come back to bite her.

McCartt is vying for the chance to succeed Place 2 Councilman Brian Eades, who’s leaving office in July.

I do not know Sandra McCartt. Nor am I willing to say that these things she’s reportedly said are a deal-breaker as the City Council considers her among the other finalists who are seeking to join the council. She’ll need to have her answers ready when the council starts peppering her with questions about why she said these things.

http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2016-06-04/posts-spur-questions-about-council-candidate?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_Amarillo_Globe-News

According to the Amarillo Globe-News: “Facebook comments by Sandra McCartt, a professional recruiter vying for the Place 2 position on council, picked at Amarillo, referring to it as ‘Jackass Flats,’ mocked Chinese people and compared the mayor to ‘a psychotic trunk monkey.’

“McCartt refers to Millenials as a generation of ‘entitled little shits.’ In other comments, she mocks blonde women, uses a slur against Jews to label a landlord with whom she was arguing, repeatedly refers to a woman as a ‘kid’ and ‘little girl’ and discounts the participation of entire groups in the political process.”

Amazing, yes? Well, I believe it is.

I find this new council-selection process fascinating in the extreme. It marks a radical departure from what’s been done before. Previous council appointees were chosen by the council basically with little public input. The new process is designed to be more transparent.

City Councilman Mark Nair, who helped develop this new selection process, acknowledged to the newspaper that there was no “vetting” involved with selecting the finalists.

Maybe there ought to have been some vetting.

In one of her Facebook posts, she said there were things she do for $10 per City Council meeting, but that listening to “all the crap from the dear public is not one of them.”

There are some other, um, revealing statements as well.

It looks me as though the City Council has given itself a large array of traps to run if it is going to “open up” the machinery of this selection process to public review.

One place it needs to start is to ensure that the individuals it is considering for membership on the five-member panel haven’t put thoughtless or careless statements into the public domain.

Once they’re out there, it’s impossible to take them all back.

‘Shame,’ ’embarrassment’ become campaign themes

dontvotefortheotherguy

Oh, for shame!

The remaining men vying for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination appear to have become embarrassments to the very people whose support they will need this fall when one of them square off against the Democratic Party presidential nominee.

What in the world has become of the process that selects major-party nominees seeking to become the most powerful officeholder in the whole world?

It has become a sideshow, a circus act, a schoolyard fight, a proverbial food fight.

Voters should demand better of the candidates. Then again, perhaps they secretly like what they’re hearing and seeing.

The Republican side of this carnival act has been particularly disgraceful. And that is coming from Republicans who’ve watched it.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz asked viewers who watched one of the Republican debates, the one in Detroit, to summarize what they saw. The Washington Post reported: “Sophomoric,” “embarrassment,” “disappointing,” “shameful,” “despicable,” “angering” and “schoolyard brawl” were some of the responses he received during a broadcast on Fox News Channel.

As one Republican told the Post — and this guy is a Ted Cruz supporter — the candidates need to be talking about ISIS and the “loss of freedom.”

Instead, he noted, they were engaging in the kind of talk one hears on junior high school playgrounds.

Who and/or what is the culprit?

Have social media become the communications vehicle of choice for too many Americans? We appear to be relying on Twitter feeds and Facebook posts to learn things — most of it irrelevant to actual policy — about these candidates.

Have their been too many of these Republican and Democratic primary debates? It might be that the candidates have run out of creative ways to argue the fine points of policy and have been left to resort to the kind of shameful name-calling and ridicule we’ve been hearing.

Do the candidates themselves deserve blame? Pundits keep talking about Donald J. Trump’s lack of depth and his mastery of media manipulation. Then there’s the belief among many that he is a barely closeted sexist, xenophobe and racist. The response from Ted Cruz to Trump’s insults has been, well, less than stellar as well.

The campaign should have been dignified. It has been everything except that.

These individuals are seeking to become commander in chief of the world’s greatest military machine. They want to become head of state of what many of us believe is the greatest nation ever created. They seek to lead a nation of 300-plus million citizens into a still-uncertain future.

And this is what we’re getting?

 

Social media have become a campaign curse

[ File # csp7860124, License # 1321135 ] Licensed through http://www.canstockphoto.com in accordance with the End User License Agreement (http://www.canstockphoto.com/legal.php) (c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / Blotty

I think I’ve discovered an undeniable truth.

Social media are to blame for the ghastly decline of intelligent political discourse in this great country of ours.

It’s not a big-time flash. Others likely have drawn similar conclusions and written about it.

I am now going to refer to the Twitter War that’s going on between Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz. Donald vs. Ted. It’s getting childish in the extreme and it’s lending nothing whatsoever to any kind of intelligent discussion among Republicans over which of these men should be their party’s nominee for president of the United States.

The crux of the Twitter fight centers on their wives. Melania Trump and Heidi Cruz are now being kicked around like the proverbial footballs that they are not.

It’s sickening me.

A pro-Trump super-PAC put something out there about Mrs. Trump appearing in the nude. Trump tweeted some threats to Cruz about it, threatening to say something mean about Mrs. Cruz.

Ted Cruz denied having anything to do with the ad. Trump ain’t buying it. Now it’s Cruz calling Trump a “coward.”

Back and forth they go.

And voters are supposed to make intelligent decisions — based on this petulant patter — on which of them should carry the GOP banner forward against the Democratic nominee this fall?

Give me a break!

Maybe the mainstream media — and I don’t mean as the conservative epithet the term has come to mean — is responsible. By “mainstream,” I refer to the major broadcast and cable news networks and the print media who keep reporting this stuff.

Heck, bloggers all along the political spectrum have weighed in on it — as this blog is doing at this moment.

So … I’ll accept my share of the blame for this social media craze and its alleged “contribution” to the quality of our national political debate.

I’m not proud of myself.

My only recourse is to ignore this social media sniping.

Therefore, I will.

 

Now the spouses have become targets

90

When did Melania Trump and  Heidi Cruz become candidates for president of the United States?

Oh, wait! They merely are married to men who are running for the office. Now, though, they’ve become subjects of social media messages fired by one of the Republican presidential candidates.

Let’s hold on for a wild ride, shall we?

A super PAC not associated with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign apparently posted an ad that contained a picture of Melania in the nude. Donald J. Trump responded that “Lyin’ Ted” needs to be careful or else Trump would reveal something about Cruz’s wife.

These attacks are getting tiresome, not to mention way, way off topic.

Trump took down the tweet he put out there about Mrs. Cruz. However, as we know, social media’s impact is immediate, as in instantaneous. It’s like trying to unhonk a horn; it cannot be done.

As for the British GQ article and the picture about Mrs. Trump, well, that’s apparently been out there a good while, having been published in 2000.

I’m just one individual living out here in Flyover Country.

I’d like to offer a suggestion to these two men — neither of whom ever would get my vote for president.

How about avoid talking about your wives? You guys — not the women you married — are running for the presidency. It is your views on the issues that interest me and, I presume, millions of other Americans who are paying attention to this campaign.

The rest of this baloney is tawdry and unbecoming of the office you are seeking.

Then again, so are some of the things the actual candidates for president have said about each other.

 

Social media: curse and a blessing

Magnified illustration with the word Social Media on white background.
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Social media drive me nuts.

I’m having fun with some of it. Other media sometimes confuse me. I use several media platforms to promote this blog. I am not entirely sure how well they’re serving my self-interest.

I have used one of my favorite social media outlets — Facebook — perhaps more than any other. I use it for a couple of purposes: to keep up with friends, family members and acquaintances and to distribute musings from this blog.

There’s a third purpose, too, I suppose: to offer some goofy musings on occasions.

It’s the third purpose that makes me wonder whether Facebook somehow is addictive. I’m thinking it is.

One of those musings was to declare my consideration of creating a Last Word Contest.

Here’s how it might go … if I were to proceed with launching it.

I would post a blog item that generates comments from my social media network. Do I then intend to answer every one of them? Do I seek to wear those blog readers down? Do I have the patience, the intestinal fortitude to stay the course?

Most importantly: Do I have the time?

I guess I would have to say I have none of the above.

It’s the time that breaks the deal for me.

I’ve got a large number of social media contacts along the networks to which I belong. I’m guessing it’s something north of 1,000 folks. A lot of them love to spend large amounts of time responding to this or that comment.

I’d spend that kind of time, too, I suppose if something really hit my hot button. The older I get the more it takes to fire me up. I mean really get me riled up.

I’m likely to decide ultimately against entering a rhetorical shooting match with anyone out there in social media land. Don’t take it to the bank just yet.

I might change my mind, which everyone is able to do.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep firing blog entries out there via social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr. I might look for some others.

I encourage everyone to comment on the entries. I don’t mind criticism as long as it deals with the substance of whatever I say; the personal stuff is another matter. I’ve even owned up to an error in judgment on occasion and stated my error publicly, on this blog!

Back in the day when I worked for daily newspapers I’d get into arguments with individuals who would question my love of country or even my faith when they took me to task for something I wrote.

Don’t go there, OK?

Indeed, that might be another reason to forgo the Last Word Contest. Some folks just can’t help themselves.