Tag Archives: Facebook

Why let ’em squawk? Here’s why

June 28, 2017 kanelis2012

I received this inquiry today from a longtime friend and former colleague; I figure I’ve known this fellow for just shy of 30 years. He asks:

Why do you let these crazed Trump troglodytes comment on your blog? You know you can set up your blog to screen that stuff. This … dingbat and her dingbat Trumpster pals are mucking up what is otherwise a thoughtful message. They hate the free press. Let ’em go somewhere else and make their ridiculous, baseless comments. Let ’em tell it to Hannity. He loves that sort of crap. (She) is obviously an elitist ne’er-do-well snob who, for lack of real work, spends her waking hours trolling progressive sites like yours, looking to pick fights with folks like me, thinking her silly and childish retorts will somehow make her seem like a real force to be reckoned with, when, in fact, she comes off merely reaffirming to the world that she really is the jerk she appears to be. Why, John, why?

He asks “why?” The answer is pretty straightforward.

I consider this blog to be a forum for the free expression of ideas. I distribute it along a number of social media platforms; Facebook gives High Plains Blogger its greatest exposure. I long have followed the policy of declining to block anyone simply because I disagree with their view. I’ll admit, though, to some trouble with Facebook becoming so political. I like it as a sort of social media gathering place where people at varying levels of “friendship” can talk among themselves about their lives, or about life in general.

Politics at times poisons that interaction. Indeed, my blog has cost me some friendships over the years. We’ve gotten entangled in some angry discussions about this and/or that. One fellow “unfriended” me from Facebook over a snit, which tells me he didn’t regard our friendship as greatly as I did. I regret it, but as they saying goes: It is what it is.

Thus, I don’t intend to block individuals from expression themselves. After all, I use social media to distribute my own world view to the world. Doesn’t it seem more than a little presumptuous to block someone simply on the basis of a political disagreement?

It’s a big ol’ world out there. Let ’em squawk.

local news, media news

Arguments produce ‘out-of-body experience’

June 1, 2017 kanelis2012

I am going to admit to having something akin to an out-of-body experience, thanks to this blog.

High Plains Blogger posts get distributed along several social media platforms. Twitter and Facebook are the most reliable of them.
I write these posts, then they are shared automatically through these and other social media.

What happens next produces the out-of-body feeling.

I have quite a few Facebook “friends.” Many of them are actual friends or, to be more precise, personal acquaintances with whom I have good relations. Some of them are close friends, some are members of my family. My longest-tenured friend goes back with me to the seventh grade in junior high school. Still others are just folks who are hooked up on Facebook with people I might know.

It’s a big networking deal, you know?

Quite often I will post something on Facebook that draws a sharp response. Someone then will read that response and then fire back at the individual who wrote the initial reaction. Person No. 1 fires back at No. 2. Then the back-and-forth commences.

I stay away from the fray most of the time. I will decline to say I stay “above” it all, because that sounds too self-serving.

I do enjoy the repartee, although I regret that at times the jousting gets too personal. Some folks hurl insults at each other. Even a few of them resort to profanity, which I personally dislike intensely. I don’t like cursing in public, although I’ll drop an occasional “hell” or “damn” in my blog.

The jousting is quite fun to watch. My own philosophy is that I like putting the thoughts out there … and then watching the fur and the fecal matter fly. I don’t have the stomach, the perseverance — or the time — to participate in long-running contests to see who gets the last word.

I leave all of that to others … most of the time.

Have at it, dear reader.

International news, national news, political news

Not feeling good about potential for Trump trouble

March 3, 2017 kanelis2012

My proverbial trick knee has been quiet of late. I haven’t felt it throbbing in some time.

It’s beginning to send me some signals. I don’t like the message the throbs are sending.

They’re telling me that Donald J. Trump’s troubles are just beginning, that all this Russia chatter has the potential of blowing up badly. There well might be a good bit of collateral damage if it does.

Dan Rather, the former CBS News correspondent/news anchor, thinks the “fuse has been lit” and it’s likely to explode.

Yes, I know that CBS essentially fired Rather after that bogus report he delivered about former President George W. Bush’s National Guard service. But Rather has covered more than his share of political scandals in his lengthy career as a broadcast journalist and he doesn’t like what he’s seeing develop with regard to the president and his possible relationship with Russian government officials.

There have been meetings with Russian envoys, allegedly during the 2016 election. The Russians reportedly tried to influence the election outcome. The Obama administration leveled sanctions against the Russians. The meetings involving Trump campaign officials well might have related to those sanctions.

The national security adviser has been fired. The attorney general has just recused himself from any investigations involving the president and Russia. There are questions swirling all over the nation’s capital about who knew about the Russian contacts and when they knew it.

There seems to be no end — none! — to the inquiries that might swallow up the new president’s administration.

That ol’ trick knee of mine is throbbing. I hate it when it throbs like that. It’s beginning to give me the heebie-jeebies about what might lie ahead for our brand new government.

As Rather wrote on his Facebook page: “We are well past the time for any political niceties or benefits of the doubt. We need an independent and thorough investigation of Russia’s meddling in our democracy and its ties to the president and his allies. We don’t know what we don’t know.”

media news

Feeling a bit self-conscious

February 26, 2017 kanelis2012

I am feeling a little self-conscious about one aspect of this blog I write.

It involves the way I distribute it. I use several social media to disseminate my musings about this and/or that. One of them is Facebook.

This week a young man with whom I am acquainted complained about the politicization of Facebook. He told he has grown weary of all the back and forth, give and take, the jousting over political matters on a social medium that — as he understood it — isn’t intended for such discussion.

“It’s supposed to be a place where people ‘congregate,'” he told me.

True enough.

I mentioned to him that I distribute my blog through Facebook and other social media; I don’t think he reads the blog, so perhaps he learned something about what I do in my “spare time.” The blog does produce its share — or more than its share, perhaps — of comments from those who spend a lot of time reading other people’s posts. They engage each other. They take me to task for my posts; others of them endorse whatever I am saying. They argue with each other, they get under each other’s skin.

I choose essentially to stay out of that kind of repartee. I prefer to post the item on my blog and then fire it off on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,Google and Tumblr.

I don’t intend to politicize Facebook with these posts. I merely intend to get as much exposure as I can for my blog, which I enjoy writing immensely.

This exercise, which I pursue multiple times a day, is a form of therapy for me. It keeps me engaged in public affairs and the news of the day.

Sure, my blog content is mostly about politics and public policy; it’s also about slices of life and life experience — including retirement and grandparenthood. And, yes, I enjoy writing about our adorable puppy, Toby.

Perhaps my sharing this fit of self-consciousness will help clear my head — and my conscience.

Actually, I feel a bit less self-conscious at this moment than I was when I began writing this post.

See? The “therapy” works!

national news, political news

Why keep bashing Trump? Here’s why

January 9, 2017 kanelis2012 2 Comments

A fellow with whom I’m acquainted via Facebook posed an interesting question to me today: Why do I insist on using High Plains Blogger to bash Donald J. Trump continually and why don’t I look at a particular story regarding Barack Obama’s treatment of veterans while he has been president?

Well, the story he mentioned turned out to be false.

To the other point about bashing the president-elect, I am going to answer it right here. Donald Trump deserves it!

I do not intend to look the other way when the next president does something with which I agree. Unfortunately — for him and for the rest of the country — he keeps stepping in it as he prepares to become president.

Furthermore, and this is probably more directly to the point, the level of criticism that Trump leveled at his foes entitles him to some equal measure of it in return.

Do you recall the countless incidents during the Republican Party primary and during the general election campaign when Trump said some remarkably ghastly things about his foes.

The mocking nicknames. The innuendo. The outright lies. The demonstrably false accusations.

Dare I also mention the continued years-long lie he promulgated about President Obama’s place of birth? D’oh! I just did.

Trump is about to become president. Part of the presidency’s unwritten job description means that he’s going to get pounded by critics. It goes with the territory. Surely he knows that. If he doesn’t, then he knows far less about politics and government — not to mention the unique American character — than many of us ever thought.

I intend fully to provide my share of criticism toward Trump as we all move forward.

And, no, I do not want him to fail. Were that to happen, the entire country would suffer. I intend to remain a U.S. citizen and a resident of this great country — which entitles me to use this blog as a venue to criticize the president whenever I damn well feel like it.

I’m just waiting for him to do something worthy of praise.

media news

Social media make me LOL

December 17, 2016 kanelis2012

Of all the forms of social media out there, Facebook remains my favorite medium.

I’ve told you already about my desire to wean myself of Facebook. Alas, I’m not likely to be able to do it. The forum allows me to stay in touch with friends and to become acquainted with “friends” with whom I have some connection through Facebook.

This particular social medium does give me plenty of giggles, though.

They occur when I post something either on my own timeline, such as my blog — which is distributed automatically on Facebook — or when I comment on a comment offered by someone else.

A fellow I know here in Amarillo, for example, said something disparaging this evening about President Barack Obama. I made a response. He responded back to me. Then others joined in. Indeed, as I write this blog entry, the crowd of respondents is growing by the minute. It’s becoming a bit of a free-for-all out there.

I responded to a couple of my friend’s Facebook friends, who then took me to task for my own political leanings.

Off they went. Back and forth. Commenting on this and/or that. It never ends.

That’s generally when I bow out. I leave it to others to argue the points until they run out of energy, out of time, out of things to say or when their loved ones tell them it’s time to run some errands.

I end up shaking my head. I do giggle at times. I also try to get into some of these folks’ skulls. I wonder: Are they trying to change others’ minds, or are they just messing each other? Or with me? Or themselves?

I’ve noted already in this blog that I usually don’t have the stamina to keep sniping at others. It ain’t my style. I like to put my thoughts out there and then let others talk among themselves. Oh, I’ll mix it up, but I pick my battles carefully — although I don’t really consider it a battle.

I’m still having fun with this blog and with my involvement with Facebook. Many times my critics keep me humble, which was something I reminded myself of back when I was a full-time journalist.

In this new era of social media, the critics these days quite often keep me amused.

Thanks for the laughs.

media news

Total strangers become foes, even enemies

November 15, 2016 kanelis2012

One of the downsides — and there aren’t many of them — of writing a blog is that I might be guilty of turning total strangers into enemies.

I post these musings on my High Plains Blogger website. I then transmit them via several social media outlets: Twitter, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. My aim, of course, it to maximize exposure for this blog with the hope of getting those with whom I’m connected on all those sites to share these messages with their friends and social media acquaintances.

That’s straightforward enough, don’t you think?

But then something happens. My friends/”friends” on Facebook start tangling with each other. They read what is circulated on that social medium and respond to it. Then someone else reads the response and responds to that; it’s quite often — if not mostly — a negative response. That draws a rebuttal, which then attracts another reply.

On and on it goes, too often to no good end.

I do not like getting ensnared in this back-and-forth. I prefer to stay — if you’ll pardon the high-minded tone — “above the fray.”

I put the stuff out there, having stated my piece. Then I let others have at it.

Now, if someone asks me a direct question that requires a direct answer, I’m inclined to answer it. But I don’t always respond. I also might respond to an insult, which I do get occasionally.

The upshot of this is that while I (more or less) regret the hard feelings that erupt on occasion from those who respond to my blog spewage, I won’t back off from sending this stuff out there.

It provides great therapy, even if it comes on occasion with a bit of angst over the anger that boils up.

***

I made what some might consider to be a strange reference in this blog post. I describe my Facebook contacts thusly: friends/”friends.”

I do that to delineate between actual friends and those who I know only through Facebook. I have a number of folks out there who I consider to be — if not friends in the classic sense — friendly acquaintances. Truth be told, my actual friends amount to a tiny fraction of those with whom I have a friendly relationship.

There are others I know only because we’ve connected on social media. Those are the “friends” to whom I refer.

So, there you have it. To my many friends/”friends,” I say: Peace be with you.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience