Tag Archives: Facebook

media news

Self-consciousness sets in

2 Comments

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.

local news, media news

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:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/10/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.

 

local news, media news

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.

local news, media news, political news

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.

media news

Facebook biased against conservatives? C’mon!

Facebook

What in the world am I missing here?

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is fending off allegations that the social media site is “biased” against conservatives.

What? Huh? Seriously?

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/05/13/zuckerberg-denies-facebook-has-anti-conservative-bias.html

I’m trying at this moment to figure out how it is that my Facebook news feed keeps getting items purporting to come from conservative sources.

If there’s a bias against conservative thought, well, that one has gone way past me.

There’s some issue with “trending” items. Facebook introduced the feature a couple of years ago. Conservatives say their point of view is suppressed on the trending category.

(For the record, I’m not even sure I’m getting all this techno-social media terminology correct.)

I’ve got a lot of Facebook friends and “friends.” I put the latter reference in quote marks to distinguish them from actual friends, if you know what I mean. A lot of them share their political views on the news feed that pours into my account. They are conservative. I get them — constantly.

Fox News reports: “Facebook’s list of 1,000 news outlets contains several popular conservative sites, including Fox, the Drudge Report, Glenn Beck’s site The Blaze, the Daily Caller and the Washington Times.”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t object to getting much of this stuff.

I’m just trying to grasp the notion that some political activists are alleging some bias against conservative thought on Facebook.

If it’s there, I’m not seeing it.

 

media news, national news, political news

‘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?

 

media news

Social media: curse and a blessing

Magnified illustration with the word Social Media on white background.
.

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.

 

media news, political news

Command decision: no-politics policy to be lifted …

trump and carson

… The day after Christmas.

I’ve made a call on the immediate future of High Plains Blogger. I can do that, because it’s my blog.

I had pondered whether to maintain the “no-politics zone” policy on the blog through the entire holiday season. I stated it publicly here. My hope initially was to keep presidential political commentary out of this blog through Christmas and through the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

I no longer can maintain my silence in this forum for that long.

We’ve only got 15 more days until Christmas. I believe I have the intestinal fortitude to keep presidential political commentary out of High Plains Blogger through Christmas.

After that? No can do.

There’s too much material out there. Too much low-hanging fruit. Too many fish in that barrel. Too many targets of opportunity. The environment is just too damn target-rich.

I won’t name names. You know who  I’m talking about.

For now, I’ll leave it at that.

I’ll keep offering brief commentary via Twitter, which feeds to my Facebook news feed.

High Plains Blogger, though, will remain a no-politics zone.

For now …

 

national news, political news

Entering the ‘no politics zone,’ more or less

politics_free_zone_classic_white_coffee_mug-r06ea56903c024c82a802c8b987c7d54d_x7jg5_8byvr_324

Bill O’Reilly is fond of telling viewers to his talk show on Fox News that they’re entering the “no spin zone.”

Well, of course he’s wrong. He spins the news to his point of view every single night.

That’s his right to do so.

Accordingly, High Plains Blogger is entering — if only for the holiday season — what I’ll call a “no politics zone.” I’ll be truthful, though, on this point: I might not be totally faithful to that pledge.

My plan is to stay away from the presidential campaign at least through Christmas. I will give it my best possible shot to stay away from it through New Year’s Day. I cannot guarantee success.

Where might I fall short on my no politics pledge? A candidate running for the highest office in the land just might say something so outrageous, so beyond the pale, so ridiculous that I might be compelled to comment.

I’ll resist that temptation with every fiber of my being. I can promise that.

However, this bears repeating because some of my social media contacts didn’t get it the first time I announced this hiatus from politics: I will continue to write snarky comments on my Twitter account, which then will be fed automatically to my Facebook account.

It’s High Plains Blogger that’s taking the break. Got it, y’all?

The blog will continue to provide commentary on issues of the day. There is quite a lot going on out there that has little — if anything — to do with raw politics. My intent is to keep my eyes and ears open.

I am just tired of the sniping, lying, demagoguery, fear-mongering, name-calling, reputation-impugning, mud-slinging and whatever other negative term you want to hang on the nature of this campaign.

I do not expect any of it to cease during the holiday season. I’m just planning at this moment to tune most of it out while I celebrate (a) Thanksgiving and (b) Christmas with my family.

The way I look at it now, a rest from most of that bad political behavior I going to allow me to rest up for when the real campaign gets going after the first of the year.

I’ll need some good karma, though, to help me resist the temptation to weigh in.

I’m asking for it here. My true intention really is to maintain a no politics zone.

Meantime, let’s all enjoy the season that’s upon us.

 

 

 

political news, Uncategorized

Time to suspend politics

political-debate

The business card I have been handing out for some time now talks about High Plains Blogger’s intent, which is to comment on “politics, current events and life experience.”

Well, dear reader, I’ve made a command decision regarding this blog.

I am suspending the “politics” part of this blog’s mission effective on Thanksgiving Day. My intention is to stay out of the political dialogue through Christmas. Heck, I might be inclined to wait until New Year’s Day before re-entering the fray.

Why the change?

I am weary of the anger and the nonsense that’s coming out of the mouths of all the presidential candidates … in both major political parties. What’s more — and this is even more to the point — I am weary of the back-and-forth that has ensued, not just among the candidates but also among their legions of supporters and opponents.

I’ve at times entered the fray with my own commentary, only to be sniped at by those who disagree with me. I don’t mind the disagreement. I’ve merely had it up to here with the anger that such commentary — not just from me — has engendered in partisans on both side of the aisle.

So, High Plains Blogger is going to take a breather from all of that.

Will this blog comment on current events as they occur? Certainly. It will not, though, engage in the political discourse that emanates from those events. And by all means the blog will comment on life experience, both personal and of things the author — that would be me — observes on his journey.

Rest assured on this point: I am not giving up totally on politics cold turkey. I will continue to comment on politics through my Twitter and Facebook feeds.

I do not intend to use this blog as a forum to state my own political bias. The way I figure it, Twitter only gives me 140 characters to make a statement. That’s efficient and doesn’t require too much emotional energy on my part; plus, my tweets are posted automatically to my Facebook feed, so — pow! just like that — I’m able to perform a two-fer.

But I’m also thinking of scaling back significantly the political commentary on those two social media outlets. Nor am I going to argue any point.

So, those of you who spend a lot of time engaging others in political debate and name-calling on social media are welcome to knock yourselves out; I will not join you in that exercise in futility.

Here’s my final thought on all of this.

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all that we have. I am grateful beyond measure for the many blessings in my life. Christmas? Well, that is the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. What more can I say about that?

In keeping with the Christmas spirit, I hereby refuse to be dragged into the emotional gutter by politicians whose mission is to distort the other guys’ world view.

Thanksgiving is almost here. High Plains Blogger will stay in the game for a little while longer.

After that? I’ll see you on the other side.