Tag Archives: Twitter

Everyone is famous … for 15 minutes!

Andy Warhol clearly was ahead of his time.

The avante garde artist once declared that “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” I don’t believe he foresaw the advent of social media when he made that declaration.

But it has happened. Social media in all its forms have delivered fame to many millions of human beings who don’t deserve it, but who have it anyway.

Who knew?

To be brutally honest, the instant — if fleeting — fame is one of the aspects I detest about social media. I get that it’s an efficient way to get messages out there. I heard today how retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who got crossways with Donald Trump over the Ukraine matter that led to Trump’s first impeachment, continues to use Twitter to deliver his version of the truth.

Many of these instant celebrities have used social media, namely Twitter, just to promote themselves. That’s fine. I use Twitter, too, although my roster of followers is nowhere near where it is among many millions of others.

Thus, I cannot claim any sort of “fame.” No worries. I don’t intend to seek it.

I’m just going to sit on the sidelines and watch others grasp for fame. Many of them will get hold of it. They might keep it for a while.

I just wonder what Andy Warhol would be thinking today as we all watch his prediction pan out. He is likely laughing out loud!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Staying away from initialized responses

I want to say a few words about a trend that became prevalent with the advent of social media and about how — as a general rule — I choose to communicate like a semi-normal human being rather than relying on this social media trend.

The trend is the use of initialized phrases. You know what I mean: LOL, SMH, LMAO, BTW, ICYMI … whatever. I can’t remember ’em all.

What’s more, I am not at all nuts about other abbreviated word forms that appear on my Twitter text messages: plz and ur come to mind immediately.

I prefer to write in complete sentences, using actual words with real definitions that one can find in a standard desk dictionary.

Why mention this at all? I guess it’s because I fear we are bastardizing our language, turning this complex language called English into something not entirely recognizable.

It was bad enough that my journalism career contributed to the destruction of my penmanship skills. My fellow journalists out there know of which I speak. I was forced over many years to write as rapidly as I could to be sure I can publish the quotes accurately from the individuals who were doing the speaking.

The result was a gradual decline in penmanship … for which I received good grades when I was in elementary school. I once was proud of my handwriting. No more, man.

Social media have taken that destruction to another level.

I am somewhat active on social media. I use email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn mostly. I just want to resist the urge to type those silly initialized references to phrases I normally would write or speak, although I do understand the reason for their existence in the first place: Twitter allows only a few characters to generate a message, so these are space-savers.

Oh, this modern method of communicating. It drives me nuts.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Astonishing turn in one congressional district

Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing an astonishing and frightening turnaround in at least one Texas congressional district, which happens to be one district I know quite well, given that I lived in it for 23 years before moving southeast to Collin County.

It is the constant haranguing of the commander in chief by a member of the House Armed Services Committee, who happens to represent the 13th Congressional District of Texas. Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and one-time Navy admiral, cannot stop berating President Biden via Twitter and the Fox (Propaganda) Network.

The turnaround involves the quality of representation that befell residents of that district and the dignity the district residents used to witness from Jackson’s predecessor in Congress, fellow Republican Mac Thornberry.

Jackson is a loudmouth wacko who cannot stop suggesting from afar that President Biden lacks the snap to perform the duties of the office to which voters elected him. He keeps yammering via Twitter and on Fox about the need for Biden to take a cognitive test. What the hell for … doc? He’s just as sharp as you are!

Thornberry, a man with whom I had plenty of differences, wouldn’t dare take to the Twitter-verse to stage the non-stop harangues we keep seeing from his dipsh** successor. Jackson won’t stop.

We’re represented in Collin County by a GOP House member. Van Taylor is as conservative as Jackson, but he doesn’t resort to the constant barrage of epithets via Twitter to make his point. Indeed, Taylor actually reaches across the aisle to work with Democrats when issues present themselves. Does the former doctor now representing the Panhandle do any of that, or is he just too damn busy seeking ways to undermine the commander in chief?

Ronny Jackson simply just pisses me off. The dude is a disgrace.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Twitter acts correctly in banning fear-mongering liar

Marjorie Taylor Greene can yap and yammer until she runs out of breath.

Twitter acted correctly when it banned her personal access to the social medium permanently. The company’s reason? Greene, a Republican congresswoman serving her first term from Georgia, is peddling lies and dangerous misinformation about the COVID-19 virus that is still killing Americans.

Yes, it is going to prompt a debate about whether Twitter is violating Greene’s First Amendment right to free speech. It isn’t. You see, it has long been established that the constitutional guarantee does not allow anyone to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, which is the equivalent of what Greene has been doing by pushing out the lies regarding the COVID virus and the vaccines developed to rid us of the virus’s effects.

Remember that Greene was elected in 2020 to the U.S. House of Representatives and promptly equated mask and vaccine mandates to what Jews endured during the Holocaust. House Republican leaders had the good sense — finally! — to strip her of committee assignments.

She continues to bloviate, though. Twitter, a private company, said it has heard enough from the QAnon queen of the House.

I agree with what the social media firm has done.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What about other issues, doc?

Maybe I’m a bit slow on the uptake, or am not paying close enough attention.

Still, I am wondering why the man who represents the congressional district I once called home spends so much of his Twitter energy blasting the daylights out of President Biden with ad hominem attacks.

Rep. Ronny Jackson, the Republican former Navy admiral and medical doctor, doesn’t seem too interested in tweeting policy matters related to the Texas Panhandle, where he moved more than a year ago to run for the office he now occupies.

The only tweets I see from this clown concern Biden’s mental snap. Jackson doesn’t think the president is up to the job and he keeps saying so — incessantly — through the social medium.

What the hell?

This goofball ought to direct some of his waking hours to legislating on behalf of the victims, ‘er voters, who sent him to office.

Just for grins and giggles, I took a look at the Twitter feed of my current congressman, Republican Van Taylor of Plano.

Taylor also is critical of the president, but he bases his criticism on issues and doesn’t lambaste Biden with baseless assertions that seek to sow doubt about his ability to do the job to which he was elected.

Hey, I get that presidents deserve to be criticized when issues present themselves. I just get a serious sense that Rep. Taylor is more dialed in to the needs and concerns of his constituents than Rep. Jackson, who’s dedicated to making as much useless noise as he can while he sits in Congress.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Rep./Dr. Jackson channels AOC

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It didn’t take Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez long at all to make a name for herself after she got elected to Congress in 2018.

Suddenly, this New York City progressive lawmaker became all the media’s No. 1 TV, radio and print “get.” They wanted to know what this rookie congresswoman thought about any issue of the moment.

So, now it’s 2021. We had a congressional election in November 2020. Who among the crop of rookie congressmen/women has emerged as the latest go-to individual? None other than Ronny Jackson, the Republican who now lives in Amarillo, Texas — where my wife and I lived for 23 years before we moved to the Dallas ‘burbs in late 2018.

Jackson wants to make a name for himself, too. He is using the same medium that AOC used to elevate her profile a couple of years ago: Jackson has become a Twitter tyrant. He shows up on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, sorta the way AOC showed up on liberal outlets in 2019 and 2020.

I called AOC out then because I didn’t believe she had earned her spurs. She needed more seasoning to be considered any sort of authority on congressional matters. I tend to listen more intently to those with years — rather than weeks or months — of experience legislating at the congressional level.

As for Rep. Jackson, the one-time presidential physician who now represents the 13th Congressional District of Texas … well, he just needs to shut his trap.

Where are legislative proposals?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have spent a good bit of time on this blog bitching about a congressman from up yonder in the Texas Panhandle, where I lived for 23 years before moving to the Metroplex.

Republican Ronny Jackson seems to spend an inordinate amount of time tweeting this and that invective-filled message castigating Democrats. He isn’t alone among GOP lawmakers who just love to blast their former pals on the other side of the great political divide.

I am left to wonder: When are these yahoos going to produce some constructive legislation?

I am not seeing or hearing anything from Rep. Jackson, the former White House physician and Navy admiral. All I see are Twitter messages calling President Biden everything but the son of Satan. Hell, maybe he has slipped that on through but I just didn’t see it!

Is this going to be the GOP caucus strategy moving well into the Biden administration? Obstruct, delay, yap and yammer? Will they be able to produce fundamentally sound legislation to at least have some valid talking points on the table to compare to what Democrats are seeking?

So it appears that Rep. Jackson is marching to the cadence being called by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and his pal in the Senate, GOP leader Mitch McConnell. He’s a freshman legislator and might believe he lacks pull to strike out on his own.

The do-nothing caucus appears to be full of others just like Rep. Jackson. What a flippin’ shame.

Rep./Dr. Jackson needs to shut the hell up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s official.

The individual who now represents the congressional district where I lived for 23 years has established himself as a first-rate a**hole.

Republican Ronny Jackson said this via Twitter: Fauci and Democrats have been covering for China for over a year about the origins of this virus. They’ll badmouth America any chance they get, but with China, they’re SILENT. Wonder why that is??

This guy is a menace. To think that he gets to vote on laws that affect all Americans, not just those in the Texas Panhandle — where he moved to run for Congress in 2020 after spending his entire adult life far away — is reprehensible on its face.

He succeeded Republican Mac Thornberry, who served the district with dignity for 25 years, even though I rarely agreed with his politics. Jackson has taken to Twitter to taunt Democrats, just like his hero, Donald J. Trump.

He sickens me.

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.

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.