Tag Archives: social media

media news

Calling all comments

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As many of you know already, I love to write this blog. It gives me great relief, allowing me to vent on this and that, to provide my admittedly biased perspective on world events and news of the day.

However, it does provide me with a frustration. Really, it’s just one for now.

I post these items on WordPress, a platform designed for this kind of cyber activity. I also distribute it along several social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Each blog entry on WordPress contains a tab that allows readers to offer comment.

My frustration? So few readers of this blog actually take a moment to comment. One gentleman comments regularly. That’s it! No one else weighs in. Well, mostly no one.

High Plains Blogger, I am proud to declare, is read around the world. The vast majority of visitors to the blog, of course, reside in the United States. But a healthy minority of them also reside in Ireland, in Ghana, Australia, Germany.

It reaches tens of thousands of people each year. I enjoy the worldwide impact this blog might be having; I cannot confirm any impact, because I cannot be sure whose blood might be boiling or who might want to offer me an atta boy.

Occasionally I hear from a critic. They weigh in, offer a comment or two telling me I’m a dumbass. I usually respond to them, often with a touch of snark. Hey, it goes with the territory.

This blog post seeks to solicit more comments. I want there to be some honest discussion. Moreover, be advised that I never have rejected a comment because it disagrees with the brilliant observation I offer.

The invitation is out there.

local news

Phrases that drive you nuts

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I belong to a social media group that comprises alumni from my high school in Portland, Ore.

Someone in that group posted the picture you see with this brief post. I responded with “at the end of the day.” The question posed has sparked a lively talk among fellow graduates of Parkrose High School.

I feel a need to explain why “at the end of the day” is No. 1 on my list of annoying phrases.

It is, to put it simply, a setup for what comes next from the person who says it. The phrase seems to come most often from politician who are in the middle of some monologue about a policy matter. They will tell you, “At the end of the day” and then mutter a phrase that — in their vacuous mind — is the most profound statement ever uttered.

It usually is just another platitude.

I suppose I could offer all the other annoying phrases with which I am familiar. I’ll spare you all of that.

Just know that if you tell me something that follows “at the end of the day,” I am likely to scream.

I’m out.

local news, media news, national news, political news

Rep./Dr. Jackson tweets his thoughts … who knew?

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My friends and former neighbors in the Texas Panhandle are getting a totally expected treat from their new congressman: a Twitter storm of statements, proclamations and, dare I say it, demagogic grenades.

Check out a tweet that came from Rep. Ronny Jackson, the newly elected congressman from the 13th Congressional District:

We must say NO to any mandated “vaccine passport.” This isn’t about “stopping the spread,” it’s about CONTROL and restricting our RIGHTS. Vaccine passports = TYRANNY!

You know, I just love the all-caps approach to driving home a point to the faithful. Actually … I don’t. Why not? It’s so, um, Trumpian!

I am thinking at this moment of Mac Thornberry, the actual lifetime resident of the congressional district whom Jackson succeeded when he got elected in 2020. My thought is that Twitter tirades are so not like Thornberry. He was not inclined to fire off Twitter bombs. Thornberry would do that Washington thing, you know … dictate a policy statement and then issue it through his press office. The Thornberry method was more professional and for me more likely to be taken seriously than a wild-eyed, mouth-frothing tweet!

It’s not that Rep. Jackson is a stupid man. He is, after all, a medical doctor who once served as physician to three presidents: George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama and Donald J. Trump and along the way rose to the rank of rear admiral in the Navy.

Now he’s a politician and has taken so very readily to the medium of choice for many blowhards on the left and the right.

I hope my former Texas Panhandle neighbors have a stronger stomach for the upcoming barrage of Twitter messages than I believe I would have were I still living there.

media news

Time of My Life, Part 54: Technology advances

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My 8-year-old granddaughter might not know what to call this device. You know what it is. I surely do.

I started work at my first full-time reporting job in Oregon City, Ore., in the spring of 1977. Our suburban afternoon daily newspaper still operated with these gadgets.

Indeed, my favorite moment of a day publishing our newspaper occurred around noon when every one of our staff of six reporters was pounding away on their manual typewriters. I was named editor of that little — and now defunct — newspaper a couple of years after arriving there. I used to stand aside while watching the staff work feverishly to get the copy turned in on time.

We finally advanced to desk top devices that allowed us to type our copy onto floppy disks. The newsroom got significantly quieter at deadline time.

I moved in 1984 to a much larger newspaper in Beaumont, Texas, which had a significantly more advanced computer system. I stayed there nearly 11 years while the newspaper improved its publishing system along the way.

In 1995, I gravitated to my final stop in daily print journalism, moving to Amarillo, Texas, which had a publishing system named after the corporate owners: the Morris Publishing System. It was crappy. Morris Communications ditched that system to something much more workable.

My daily print career ended in the summer of 2012.

This is my way of chronicling all the changes I endured during nearly four decades in journalism. Typewriters to floppy disks to main frame computers to PCs. Now they’re taking pictures with smart phones in the field; they’re using Twitter, Instagram and assorted other media platforms to transmit the news.

It makes my head spin. Then again, my head spun plenty of times as I made my way through a craft I loved pursuing.

Today, I feel a bit like a dinosaur. I just don’t want to become extinct.

media news

Hate the word ‘tweet’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It might be just me, but I have developed a profound dislike of Twitter as a social medium that so many people in high places use for a number of dishonorable purposes.

Donald Trump made Twitter-use almost legendary during his campaign for the presidency and then during his term in the office.

Now he’s off, banished by the company that owns the medium. I hear he’s upset by his absence from the Twitterverse. Gosh … Mr. Ex-POTUS, cry me a river.

One of my sons is quite wise in determining the pluses and minuses of modern society. He and I today were talking about Twitter and he offered this bit of wisdom: You cannot formulate a complete policy statement in just the limited number of characters that Twitter allows.

His example: “If I say I oppose hate crime legislation, then people presume I am a racist because Twitter doesn’t allow me to explain myself in full context.” Point taken.

So, when I read these pronouncements from high-and-mighty pols on Twitter, I am left to make presumptions about what those pronouncements are intended to state. They may be incorrect.

Twitter has value. I use it to distribute this blog. Indeed, after I finish writing this post, I will publish it and it will go automatically on Twitter, where my followers can read it and send it along to whomever they wish. Beyond that? I am not sure about the value of trying to make a point using only 280 characters.

One more point …

When I read about politicians or celebrities sniping at each other via Twitter, I am reminded of some kind of schoolyard taunt, where folks don’t have the guts to tell someone they’re full of crap to their face. They sit at some comfortable distance and say it via this cyber platform.

And when I hear the word “tweet,” as in “So and so tweeted something” in response to someone else, I only can equate its verb-form use to the word “fart.”

Is that really useful? No. It isn’t. There. Rant over.

media news

On a roll that keeps on rolling

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, everyone! I’m on a roll.

A while ago I posted an item on this blog about my approaching 600 consecutive days of posting. Well, I am now at 618 consecutive days … and counting.

I won’t go on and on about this feat. I just want to boast a bit that my volume isn’t abating. Not one bit.

The truth is I am blessed with a phenomenon that bloggers and other commentators occasionally find most rewarding. It is that I have a wealth of topics on which to comment. The cool aspect — one of the many such aspects — of running my own blog is that I work for no one but myself. That means the universe is open to me. So I get to write about it.

I admit that I don’t hit home runs every trip to the plate. I whiff on occasion. Hell, I might be whiffing with this brief comment.

But that’s OK. I am able to keep my streak alive for as long as I can.

Technical difficulties at times nearly get in the way of maintaining this consecutive streak. I had a close call just a few weeks ago. High Plains Blogger’s consecutive streak stayed alive.

So, with that I’ll keep on going. Thanks in advance for reading. You are most welcome to share this spewage whenever the spirit moves you to do so.

media news

Weird free-speech fight?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Maybe it’s just me, but I believe a Texas Senate bill that takes aim at social media platforms is really bizarre, weird and goofy defense of the First Amendment.

Senate Bill 12 seeks to ban social media companies — such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — from blocking points of view expressed by those that come from within the Texas borders.

Which makes me wonder … huh?

Gov. Greg Abbott has endorsed the bill, saying that social media companies led by West Coast billionaires are taking unfair aim at conservative thoughts and thinkers.

The Texas Tribune reports: “They are controlling the flow of information — and sometimes denying the flow of information,” the Republican governor said at a press conference in Tyler. “And they are being in the position where they’re choosing which viewpoints are going to be allowed to be presented. Texas is taking a stand against big tech political censorship. We’re not going to allow it in the Lone Star State.”

Gov. Greg Abbott touts bill to stop Twitter, Facebook from banning Texans | The Texas Tribune

What gives this legislation its weird quality is that it seeks to protect conservative thoughts that come from this state. I am trying to figure out how you control or patrol the airwaves to limit thoughts that originate from a particular state. How does it affect conservatives who happen to live, say, in California, or New York, or New England?

I don’t get this one. Not at all.

Someone has to explain to me the selective enforcement aspect of this goofy legislation.

national news

Trump still commands attention

3 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jack and I go back a long way, more than 50 years.

He is a friend of longstanding. He also disagrees with me politically. Jack is a supporter of Donald J. Trump; I am not. So, with that background established, he asked me over social media when I am going to look ahead and stop commenting on Donald Trump’s comings and goings. He wonders when I will start thinking critically of Joe Biden.

I will answer my friend here in this brief response. He reads this blog, so I hope he won’t object to my using this forum in that manner.

My intention is to put Trump away as soon as humanly possible. I desperately want to stop commenting on him through this blog. However, he remains something of a political player. He keeps fomenting terrible lies about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and those lies keep the “base” of voters he commands stirred up. They have swilled the poison he is dispensing. Thus, they remain a political force with which we must reckon.

As for President Biden, I make no secret of my joy at his election. I have mentioned several times over the past year or so that he wasn’t my first choice to run against Trump, but he survived the Democratic Party primary donnybrook. He was nominated and he ran a successful campaign.

I also have been critical of one of Biden’s key Cabinet choices, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. So it is not as though I am going to give the president a pass on every single thing he does or says. Just this week he referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to life the mask mandate a sample of “Neanderthal thinking,” which I believe is a bit harsh; I will have more to say on that later.

As long as Donald Trump continues to be “in the news,” I feel compelled to comment on him. I want him to vanish from the headlines. At least, though, I can declare that he isn’t occupying as much of my time as he formerly did.

That’s progress.

political news

Lesson learned from this OMB director fight?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden’s nomination to become the next head of the Office of Management and Budget appears to be nearing an end.

She has zero Republican support and one key Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has announced his opposition to her becoming OMB director; in a 50-50 U.S. Senate, Manchin’s defection appears to be the deal-killer.

Shelby endorses Shalanda Young for OMB director should Biden pull Tanden’s nomination (msn.com)

To be candid, this fight gives me a mild case of apoplexy.

Republicans are mounting a laughable crusade in targeting Tanden’s Twitter rants as their reason for opposing her. As if GOP politicians haven’t said or done the same thing that she has done via that social medium. My personal concern about Tanden’s nomination is her lack of budget management experience.

Having noted the Twitter nonsense, there does appear to be a lesson in this tempest. It is that politicians ought to stay the hell off Twitter, particularly if they aspire to advance their political careers or standing. Tanden has developed a notorious reputation for saying some mighty cruel things via Twitter. But … haven’t her GOP critics said or done the same thing?

Fairness requires me to point out that other Democratic politicians have self-inflicted plenty wounds over Twitter.

As we have learned to many politicians’ dismay, you cannot ever un-say these things once they’re out there. They become inscribed instantly and indelibly in the public record, even after the author of these statements “deletes” the offending tweet.

Will any of the pols who argue that Tanden’s tweets are offensive take heed of the message? Oh, probably not. Still, it is a lesson worth heeding.

Uncategorized

Getting through the crisis

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It has been fascinating to me to follow my social media friends’ struggles to get through the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

The various social media platforms out there have kept me informed on their progress. To be candid, some of them are actual friends, while others are just, oh, “friends” in the social media contact sense of the word.

However, social media being what they are, we get to share in the ups and downs, highs and lows with folks who play no particular role in our lives.

Still, the vaccinations are mounting  rapidly each day. Which tells me that if my social media contacts are any indication of the larger trend, we well might be on the verge of whipping the disease.

These keeping up with our networks of acquaintances and actual friends reminds me of the blessings that social media have brought to our modern society. Sure, the platforms spread lies, conspiracy theories and can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

Informing the larger world of our progress in whipping a killer virus remains a distinct positive aspect.

I am delighted to hear the good news.