Tag Archives: Youtube

It Was 40 Years Ago Today …


by Roxanne Tellier

When you are smack dab in the middle of massive change, it’s nearly impossible to parse what is going on all around you.

Baby boomers have been there a few times. The chaos of the sixties, when the world suddenly went from belonging to your parents, to belonging to you and your like-minded friends – remember that?

That same sort of overturning of the norm happened between 1981 and 1984, and most of us just rolled with it, not realizing how irrevocably our world was about to change. Once again, the world was being handed over to a new generation, and those who wanted to keep current, were about to be sent back to school or risk being considered a dinosaur.

A Facebook buddy, Walter Frith, posted something that I can’t stop mulling over in my mind … how is it that I lived in the middle of a complete technological upheaval, and never felt so much as a tremor?

Walter wrote, ” I’m watching the first season of The West Wing again for the zillionth time and having begun in the 20th century (September 1999), it’s a hoot seeing the occasional typewriter, enormous video cameras, referencing the Encyclopedia Britannica with no mention of smartphones, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter, all of which had not been invented yet. Watching a political drama series without ANY reference to social media seems almost absurd now but the times were what they were back then, 19 years to be exact.

… mind … blown …..

… not a cellphone to be found …

I was actually working in tech back then – first at Oracle, then as a writer and sales person for the Canadian rags Toronto Computes, then The Computer Paper, and finally We Compute!

I had a cell phone in the early nineties, but it was enormous, and cost hundreds of dollars a month to service. Very few people, beyond those who could write it off as a business expense, bothered with cell phones back then.

We moved to Scarborough in 1998, and I found a new career selling collectibles on eBay (which had debuted in 1995.)  Most of my transactions were done by cheque or money order, until PayPal launched in 1999, and forever changed international commerce.

There was no Wikipedia prior to 2001, and though it may feel like you’ve always been on Facebook, that site launched in 2004, eventually burying MySpace, which had launched in 2003.

From Parade Magazine: The Evolution of the Cell Phone

  • 1973 – The first cell phone. The phone Martin Cooper designed for Motorola weighed 2.5 pounds and had a battery life of 20 minutes.
  • 1983 – Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. …
  • 1984 – The Nokia Mobira Talkman. …
  • 1995 – The Motorola StarTAC. …
  • 1996 – The Nokia 8110. …
  • 1998 – The Nokia 5110. …
  • 2004 – Motorola Razr. …
  • 2007 – The iPhone.

YouTube came along in 2005, and Twitter arrived in 2006. Mixtapes were effectively put out to pasture when Spotify debuted in North America in 2011.

And the smartphones .. ohhhh the smartphones! It was 2007 before we began arguing over which iteration of LG, Samsung or iPhone was best. Can you imagine that? In only eleven years, trillions of dollars have been generated for an industry that didn’t even exist before 1973.

It’s hard to envisage how we lived prior to all of this tech. Cast your mind back to 9/11, for instance. At that point, with almost no social media, the North American phone network became impassable in hours, as we all tried to connect with people who might have been affected by the tragedy.

You know what else didn’t exist, even ten years ago? The iPad (2010,) and tablets in general. Uber (2009),Lyft (2012,)  AirBnB (2007,) Pinterest (2010,) 4Square (2012,) Instagram (2010,) and KickStarter (2009.)

And that’s just a few of the apps we think we can longer live without .. and we have no idea what leaps and bounds of thought and tech might be coming down the pipeline to blow our minds in the 2020s or 2030s.

There’s only one way that this relentless tech explosion can be stopped – if someone, so out of touch, narcissistic and megalomaniac were to take over the heart of this tech – the cell phone – and bend it to his needs. That would be a bridge too far, I believe, and might even cause those who rely on that convenience to bury their phones in the backyard ….

oh oh ….

=RT=

This entry was originally posted on September 16, 2018 on Bob Segarini’s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” blog site.        

Stop LYING To Me!


by Roxanne Tellier

With apologies to Al Franken, I am utterly sick of Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them. Sick to death of the posturing, the gaslighting, the sneaky grins that escape their mouths when they think we can’t see them.

I am exhausted from having to watch the machinations of old men pretending to be young and strong, for an audience of increasingly ill-informed or misinformed citizens.  And I am stunned that America, for all it’s claims of might and right, is apparently unable to find a man under the age of 70, of either party, with the integrity, honesty, and moral vision to run in the 2024 election to lead a nation of 332 million citizens.

I am disgusted that Donald Trump appears to be getting away with committing, if not treason, then most certainly sedition, while his reprehensible party pearl-clutch and fail to hold him accountable for any of his heinous misdeeds.

I’m sick to death of watching a straight-faced Mitch McConnell utter his bazillionth BS-ery as he makes up twisted tales meant to frustrate the actual ruling party and to ensure that his ugly minority trumps America’s actual majority, and of watching Chuck Grassley stammer thru his false teeth about some arcane decision of 1866, of which apparently he was party to, that would disallow any Democratic president of ever installing a liberal Supreme Court Justice.  

I blaze with anger when I see the po-faced liars in the GOP who were privy to information about the January 6th insurrection, who may well have been instrumental in perpetrating the incursion, and who yet daily continue to mouth platitudes about the outcome of the 2020 election, who perpetrate the Big Lie, while they lie to themselves and their constituents that they are upholding their party, it’s former conservative mandate, and the Constitution.

And every single one of those liars is running again for another term. And may well win.

I cringe at the failure of nearly all social and terrestrial media, that regularly allows ‘both sides’ of any given event to be argued, rather than use their journalistic talents to investigate and make a proper pronouncement on the society they claim to be defining with their presence. They have failed to learn the most important aspect of journalism, which is that, if one party says it’s raining, and the other says it’s sunny, it’s not the reporter’s job to give both options equal time, but rather to get out the bloody door and see for themselves if it’s dry or wet outside.

I am still reeling at the twisted mis- and disinformation that has poured from nearly every nation as the deadly COVID pandemic pulsed out from wherever it originated, and insinuated itself into every square inch of our planet, twisting itself into permutations that have cruelly taken the lives of nearly six million humans. From its onset, those meant to be giving us the truth have been politically manipulated in an effort to make a virus do their bidding. Instead, the virus showed us that we are mere mortals, and it would do as it wished, regardless of our pleas. 

And, that lying from the people on high allowed this current climate of distrust and anger to form, preventing nations from truly dealing with the crisis properly, and ensuring that, in the end, man may propose, but God (and virii) will dispose.

I cannot bear that we are constantly being manipulated, used, and lied to by every social media app that we dutifully use to the point of addiction, and that there is little to no recourse when the apps turn against us.

“Everyone bitches about Facebook. But where else are its users supposed to go? Ditto re Instagram. And TikTok. And YouTube. Of course, there’s some crossover between all these platforms, but in many ways they’re unique. Whereas the similarities between Amazon, Apple and Spotify far outweigh the differences. You can switch platforms and not lose that much. Hell, Apple is now pushing that you can hear Neil on its music service. You don’t see some social media company doing the same, competing with Facebook.

So this is a test case. This is where the war is being fought.

It should be fought at Facebook. But because of the lack of competition and the hubris of Mark Zuckerberg, along with the duplicity and misinformation of Sheryl Sandberg and the rest of the execs, the company evades accountability and ultimately doesn’t change. As for change…it’s all algorithms, a secret sauce no one who doesn’t work at the company is privy to. And after the whistleblower, Facebook has been siloed, you can work there and have no idea what is going on at the company other than in your own vertical.

But we’ve got to push back against technology. We have to recapture truth from the techies who have taken it from us, knowingly or unknowingly.“

Bob Lefsetz, lefsetz.com

I’m revolted at the sight of Putin pushing his bare chest into the faces of Ukraine, NATO, and the world, capering like an over aged, over the hill, wannabe satyr who denies he’s about to plunge his saber into the maiden, even as his troops gather along the skirts of her nether regions. His motives are completely self-serving, an attempt to cement his place in Russian history, when in truth, his legacy will be one of terror, murder, grand theft larceny, and a terrifying lack of self-knowledge. Indeed, his foolish attempt to reunite Mother Russia will most likely only succeed in destabilizing his country, and to make Russians poorer, angrier and, ultimately, more eager for the change that another leader – ANY other leader – will bring. 

I’m angry. I want change, but I don’t want change. I want things to be like they used to be, but I also want those things to be better, and I don’t know how to achieve that.

We are all reeling from not just the last two years of COVID, but from decades of lies, that have increased and compounded and torn our nations apart, pushing us all to the edge of civil war.

But the answer is not an insurrection, or a Trucker Convoy that brings the disgruntled, violent, and divisive into our nations’ capitals, drunk on social media attention and the millions pouring into a GoFundMe enriched by the dollars of the bored, the riled up, and the Canadian far right,  American militants, and Russian nihilists who would love to see our country fail.  

The answer is within each of us. We have to stop allowing ourselves to believe convenient (and inconvenient) lies, and start respecting ourselves, our fellow citizens, and the people that we have elected to lead us in tough times.

No more desecrating of the statues of our heroes. No more dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, or peeing on the Cenotaph. No more bullying and theft from homeless shelters, or aiding and abetting those who willingly create violence or commit crimes just because the group presence allows them to do so.

Start with yourself. Stop lying to yourself. Then let it spread outward.

I guarantee you, there will come a day when you’ll once again be proud to look at your own face in the mirror.

I know that because our real heroes have always been those who have at least tried to tell you the truth. And that’s why they are our heroes.

The Long Strange Trip Continues


by Roxanne Tellier

If you had told me, twenty years ago, that this last decade would be one of the most terrifying/interesting/instructive/growth inducing periods of my entire life to date, I’d have laughed uproariously, and then kicked you out of the room. 

And yet – here we are. Whether you have been glued to media – either social or terrestrial – or have simply been putting one foot in front of the other for the last ten years, you’ve been buffeted by the winds of change like never before.  Or perhaps, like we’ve not seen since the sixties.

If you were around when the ‘youthquake’ hit in 1964, you’ll remember the ripples that spread mere hours after the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night television show. Overnight, what had come before was overturned, and those that weren’t ‘hip’ to what they’d seen took out their shovels and began digging the Generation Gap that would divide the world into those that ‘got it’ and those who would try and hold back the tsunami of change.  

The Generation Gap

As Michael Nesmith put it in his terrific autobiography, Infinite Tuesday:

“It was unthinkable to everyone who had just fought World War II that the music, the fashions, the designs, the whole cultural imperative of the victorious warriors would be torn down by their kids as if it were ugly curtains in the den. Armed with originality and intention, the youth of America would take off their clothes, ties them in knots, and toss them into vats of dye with all the colours of the rainbow, then got skinny-dipping and make love while high on grass and LSD. Put any four in a room and they would start bands like the Grateful Dead. The generation gap was deep enough that one could die from falling into it.

The early rock and roll of the 1950s was subsumed and transformed by the rock and roll of the 1960s. How could this be? I asked a friend of mine at the time why he thought the Beatles had affected such a profound changed. He answered in one word: hair. It was a flip remark, but probably truer than either of us know. It shows how little anyone understood what had taken over.

Many said it was the music.  Many said it was the new drugs. Many said it was the new art. Many said it was television. Most said it was all of the above. Certainly, these forces all came together to create The Monkees.”

Something similar, though not nearly as edifying, happened in the mid 2010s. While the catalyst may have been Trump, the move towards a more militaristic society with autocratic governance in the United States had been creeping forward since Americans had had the audacity to elect a black man to the presidency, not once, but twice.

Someone was going to have to pay for that overturning of American history. Trump just came along at exactly the right time to push the already ripe for discontent, economically frustrated, closeted racists into joining a new cult revolving around his personality, that he would attempt to turn into a dictatorship within four years.

In 2016, Robert Kagan of the Washington Post, wrote:

“What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger.

….              What he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the ‘mobocracy.”

Where the Beatles had had magnificent hair, trump had an orange swirled haystack, but his trademark MAGA hats would hide his, and his aging supporters, lack of hirsute elegance. The Beatles brought laughter and intelligence to their interviews; from the beginning, trump’s interviews were laden with malapropisms, garbled slogans, and word salad. The Beatles wanted everyone to love everyone; trump brought the hate, channelling all of his supporters economic and political anxiety into a burning hatred of anyone that didn’t look and think exactly like he and his fan club did.

A broken mirror image, but with nearly the same outcome. Trump had a huge effect on society, but other factors were in play as well.

Prior to 2010, cell phones were gaining in importance, but by 2019, only about 4% of the population did not own a phone.  

Cell phones changed more than how we communicated with each other; they changed how people dated, as online dating became the primary way to meet a new partner. Apps that automated your cell phone made the remote control of your home’s lighting, media and security became common place.

The improvements made to those phones also allowed other societal changes; while MTV had first launched new musical acts, now it was YouTube and Vine that propelled the viral videos that made new stars overnight. YouTube and a profusion of specialty channels, also viewable on your phone, led many to ‘cut the cord’ and abandon their terrestrial TV and cable usage.

So much has changed, and yet we’ve barely noticed, as we have become more dependent on our social media, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen;” our new reliance on rebooted dramas or cartoon superheroes to populate our movie screens; a wide acceptance of the once verboten, but now legalized pot in our homes, and the growth of services like Uber Eats to call on when the munchies attack.  

Canada legalized same sex marriage in 2005, and the United States finally did the same in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that statewide bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. That lead to members of the LGBTQ+ community, along with those that identified as pansexual, transgender, and non-binary to be more comfortable and visible in society.

The rise of the gig economy, along with a relaxing of work constrictions in the white-collar world, lead to a confusing place where would be entrepreneurs learned that working from home or as a contractor for Lyft or Uber meant never actually being ‘off the clock.’ With wi fi, telecommuting, or a ‘side hustle,’ people could work after hours, on weekends, and on their holidays, at least until they finally collapsed from overwork.

And, of course, Facebook morphed into an arm of the right wing, choosing to align with the most contentious of messaging, rewarding all those treasonous ‘likes’ with more exposure, and allowing gangs advocating hate and violence to be exposed to the most viewers possible within the network.

But, saddest of all, we broke politics. Where once it was possible to hope for hands across the aisle on important, national issues, partisan divide on basic issues like race, immigration, social services, and democracy are deeper than ever before. The right thinks the left is insane; the left thinks the right are nuts. You can’t successfully run a country with that kind of animosity.

For every bit of progress gained, there’s been enormous steps back, particularly in the U.S., but also here in Canada, where so many aspire to the same sort of politicking.

To add even more angst to the trump years, the pandemic came into play in 2020 and had a chilling effect on society and the economy. There will be long term consequences to the planet from the ‘pause’, and not just in terms of overall health.

Outbreaks are like black holes; all resources and all expertises are drawn into its maw. While we deal with the problem at hand, other agendas, like education, child survival, and even basic primary healthcare services are interrupted. Kids due for their measles and mumps jabs might fall between the cracks, as might seniors, who typically see their doctors more often as diseases of the elderly progress.

How we work has been forever changed. It’s unlikely big companies will return to leasing large office spaces for their employees to do the things they can do as well, if not better, at home. That will change those large business buildings in the heart of the city; will they remain empty, or be converted to more necessary uses?

Schooling from home has been a double-edged sword. Kids thrive on communicating and getting to know other people. Many kids flee to school for some of their basic needs, like food, and sometimes psychological aid. But for many kids, working from home, at their own speed, has actually enhanced their connections with their families, and allowed the student to learn at their own pace.  

Dealing with a deadly pandemic, while trying to right the economic vehicle is tricky, and not a job for the faint of heart. Watching Biden attempt to deal with all of the current societal ‘fires’ in his nation, while also respecting that ignoring COVID and its impact could destroy all they have worked for, has been a spectacle, rather like watching a world class juggler. The more items he’s given to juggle, the likelier that some will fall. But eventually, all the agendas will be back in his hands and moving smoothly.

I contend this last decade has been the most significant since the 60s. We’ve been forcibly required to acknowledge that inequality is rampant in our societies. It has become clear that those with wealth are the most likely to survive, assuming they take advantage of the healthcare and vaccines available.

We have learned that our essential workers are those most likely to make the least money, and to be the most likely to be exposed to the virus. It’s the people who had to keep working, relying on a daily wage, or those who live in crowded housing, that paid the highest price.

A lot of those minimum wage workers have learned that the small amount of pay they received for doing a necessary work was just not enough to warrant their continued labour or loyalty. Many of those workers used the pandemic down time to gear up for a change of career. It will take a few years for there to be people needy enough to queue up for low paying jobs with little future.

Around the globe, people in third world countries often are without access to clean water and soap, or able to enforce social distancing, and those countries are even less likely to be receiving the vaccines, or care when ill. In the case of forcibly displaced populations, like the Haitians fleeing their politics, or the highly vulnerable East Africans, the pandemic is just on more incredible challenge, which they will experience in overcrowded and under-resourced refugee camps, if they’re lucky enough to find themselves there.  

We have learned that we don’t need to buy so much ‘stuff’, but that it’s often fun to do so anyway. We’ve made trillionaires out of billionaires. We’ve seen some of the world’s wealthiest people push to the head of the vaccine line, and then use their largely untaxed dollars to build rockets meant for joyriding millionaires, but ultimately turned into machinery for the delivery of arms to other nations around the world.

Some parts of the economy were killed, and will never return, just as the once ubiquitous buggy whip companies saw their day come and go.

Now, in September 2021, Kagan returns to the subject of trump, his cult, and fascism, and makes these predictions:

“The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial…

The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. Partisans on both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to inflict harm than they were in 2020. Would governors call out the National Guard? Would President Biden nationalize the Guard and place it under his control, invoke the Insurrection Act, and send troops into Pennsylvania or Texas or Wisconsin to quell violent protests?  Deploying federal power in the states would be decried as tyranny. Biden would find himself where other presidents have been — where Andrew Jackson was during the nullification crisis, or where Abraham Lincoln was after the South seceded — navigating without rules or precedents, making his own judgments about what constitutional powers he does and doesn’t have…

Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation. The political and intellectual establishments in both parties have been underestimating Trump since he emerged on the scene in 2015. They underestimated the extent of his popularity and the strength of his hold on his followers; they underestimated his ability to take control of the Republican Party; and then they underestimated how far he was willing to go to retain power. The fact that he failed to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way — if Biden had not been safely ahead in all four states where the vote was close; if Trump had been more competent and more in control of the decision-makers in his administration, Congress and the states. As it was, Trump came close to bringing off a coup earlier this year. All that prevented it was a handful of state officials with notable courage and integrity, and the reluctance of two attorneys general and a vice president to obey orders they deemed inappropriate.”

Trump Rally, Perry, Georgia. September 25, 2021

It’s been an interesting decade … and it ain’t over yet ….

Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The Run Down and the Wrap Up


by Roxanne Tellier

Ah, dang it. Like death and taxes, unwanted summer electoral politics are inescapable.  Rumour has it that our PM Justin Trudeau is determined to call a snap election, reportedly to be held on September 20th. Why? Because he believes that doing so at this time will ensure his party can win a majority government, allowing him to avoid what he has been calling “opposition obstruction.”

Trudeau had a majority in the House of Commons when he first came to power in 2015, but there’s been an erosion of confidence in the years since, leading to his party being reduced to a minority in 2019. I find it hilarious, how easily those that lean right can be manipulated. “Here’s a 20-year-old photo of a young man in black face!” “I KNEW IT! Hang him high!”

There have been rumblings for months that the Liberals would spring an election on Canada, two years ahead of schedule, in response to an unfavourable slate of choices available from the NDP or the Conservatives. 

In a summer fraught with tension over where the COVID virus could pop up next, and in what variant, the Libs are walking a financial tightrope. They’ve racked up record debt levels in an effort to help both the people and the businesses of Canada, but they have plans to inject another huge chunk into the economy – between 3-4% of GDP, or about $100 billion dollars. To do so, they’re going to need more than a minority government. And they would prefer not to have to count on the help of the NDG and the Greens to push thru legislation. 

A Conservative attack ad that hit YouTube on Friday night has even their own party members disgusted, calling the ad dumb, tasteless, and embarrassing. It’s a 37 second video that has a cut out of Trudeau’s face pasted over the face of spoiled brat Veruca Salt, in a clip from a scene from the film “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” where the brat throws a tantrum in a song called “I Want it Now.”

With any luck, it’s already been taken down. Posting link for the strong-stomached.

Meanwhile, polls have shown that most Canadians have climate change on their mind, and are focused on a transition away from the fossil fuel industry. And the reports of summer’s horrific high temperatures and fires, here and around the globe, along with the UN’s newest report that global warming is “dangerously close to spinning out of control” would agree on that course.

“ Humans are “unequivocally” to blame, the report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. Rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could limit some impacts, but others are now locked in.

The deadly heat waves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes that are already happening will only become more severe. “

On the plus side, August 13 came and went without trump being reinstated, as promised by the pillow guy, so that’s a win.

The rising tide of COVID in Florida, on the other hand, is most definitely a loss. There were over 151,000 cases in Florida, and 1,071 deaths in just the last week.

It’s so bad that doctors are warning patients seeking emergency help for their children that there’s simply no more staff, equipment, or rooms available, and parents will literally have to wait for some other sick child to die before their child can even be admitted to the ICU.

The Brookings Institute made an interesting observation on the Fourth Wave battering red states. They noted that

“It is rare that a politician acts against his own self-interest—but then again, Donald Trump is a rare breed of politician. No politician has made it a habit of acting against his own electoral interest like Donald Trump…

A total of 17 of the 18 states that voted for Trump in the 2020 election have the lowest vaccination rates. The exception was Georgia which went for Biden by a very small margin…

Historically, rational political calculus has been a bipartisan quality, but not in the Trumpified GOP. If Trump wants to preserve the lives of his best voters, he would turn his rallies into mass vaccination sites. There is still time, but it is running out for thousands of Americans.”

Brookings.edu, July 2021

Meanwhile, in Ontario, we have 111 people in ICUs around the province. 110 of them are either unvaccinated, or have only had one dose.

This week, hospital teams of doctors and nurses have literally been trolling the Danforth and Gerrard Avenue, trying to bring vaccines directly to people who might have used inaccessibility as an excuse to avoid the jab.

What is it going to take to shake these dreamers out of their reveries? Ah.. right … the carrots are not working, so here come the sticks.

“The new travel vaccination policy will apply to passengers and workers in the federally regulated air, rail and cruise ship sectors. It will be enacted “as soon as possible in the fall and no later than the end of October,” the Canadian Treasury Board said on Friday.”

We need our kids back in school, our economy back in gear, and our hearts, minds and butts in restos, bars, nightclubs, theatres, and arenas. Come to the Light Side, you of the Great UnVaxxed.

Times have been hard for everyone, in the last year and a half. So much that has happened, that has upended our reality, our ‘normal,’ has been beyond our control, and due to its very novelty, often really frightening. We have been spoiled in the last 80 years; there’s been no war waged on North American land.

That’s made us quite spoiled, and sometimes very silly. Without an actual opponent, so many decided they’d make one up, turn mild adversity into a fear of escalating hardships. They created paper tigers of the innocent, blowing up the annoyances of inconvenience into firm red lines that must not be crossed. They salivated over fantastical and imaginary creatures, spent incalculable hours planning how they’d survive a zombie apocalypse, built bunkers and hoarded supplies against Armageddon.

But when a real catastrophe – a pandemic! – came along, few broke out those emergency supplies. Wouldn’t this have been the perfect time to extol one’s own prescience in prepping? How could it be that so many quite simply did not recognize a crisis when it actually came along and took a bite out of their lives?

We lived with loneliness. We lived with fear, anxiety, depression, and grief. We monitored our health, and the health of our loved ones, and when someone we loved died, we were told how and when to mourn, and how many of us would be allowed to share in that moment of remembrance. I often think about those we’ve lost, the ones we were told that we would have an opportunity to memorialize, ‘when this is over.’ That’s not how grief works. Grief cannot be put on a shelf until a convenient time arrives.

I often think about how we were encouraged, all this time, to simply ignore the sickness and death the pandemic brought. While I would have expected the media to spend hours of video on covering a world-wide disaster, there far more often seemed to be some sort of weighing of coverage, almost as though the media, usually quite open about ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ was suddenly taking a stance more akin to trump’s pandering ‘good people on both sides.’

Perhaps it was that sloughing off of brutal truth and reality that allowed a segment of people to cease to care about their places in society, prioritizing their own opinions and wants over the rest of societies truth and needs.

That attitude spills over into all aspects of our lives. I find it heartbreaking that the people of Afghanistan are mere puzzle pieces in America’s ongoing war games. I expected the callousness of trump’s decision to leave Afghanistan; I am dumbstruck that Biden would be in agreement. When Biden first said that he’d follow trump’s lead, I assumed his reasoning was that if he didn’t, the GOP base would tear him to pieces.

But now I hear that this is simply part and parcel of a numb and hard-hearted populace who just don’t care about what is to come for the innocents of Afghan.

“…. There is, quite obviously, a calculation behind all this, which is that, after all this time and with more than enough blame to go around in both parties, Biden will not suffer politically from leaving behind an unwinnable war. Put bluntly, there is a strongly held belief in Washington that Americans simply do not care what happens in Afghanistan. Poll numbers back it up. “ 

“The Pentagon has warned every one of the last four Presidents that an abrupt U.S. withdrawal would lead to some version of the Afghan military debacle we are seeing this week.”

The New Yorker, August 12, 2021

Yep, we’ve been suffering through some very ‘interesting times.’ Sometimes, all you can do is keep looking for those odd bright spots that bring joy to your day and life.

During the pandemic, we’ve had a few cool things happen here at the old homestead, where ‘there’s always something happening, and it’s usually quite loud.”

This particular cool thing involves a video that the heymacs made five years ago. As one of the Mackettes who donned their fur coats, wigs, and high heels on that blustery morning, I certainly never dreamed that there’d come a day when we’d be ‘nearly famous’ in far away places with strange sounding names!  

From Macky’s notes:

“So, several years ago, the heymacs started stumbling into their first music videos, and one of us said “Let’s put them on the internet. All the kids are doing it” .

Someone else said “How’s anybody gonna know about them? There’s no cash to do promotion for our flicks”. Also brought up was the fact that the situation probably wouldn’t change, as we weren’t playing live to spread the word and, maybe, flog some T-shirts to aid with the cash shortage.

What’s more, there’s no friggin’ way any record company was going to sign a bunch of Rock’n Roll relics, and what band management company would waste their time on some guys whose main pass-time was hanging out in the alley behind the warehouse where they got together to plan what tunage to work on next. 

But, couldn’t hurt to give it a whirl, so we picked one we liked and stuck it out there. At first, nothing much happened . . yeah, it got a few more views on the yootooby every month, but the going was slow.

Then, suddenly a couple months ago, our cover of Ray Charles’ little beauty “Hit The Road, Jack” took off like a rocket! Ten thousand – – twenty – – then 50,0000 and 125,000 – – and, soon, a quarter-of-a-million – – and, at this moment 498,730

Well, it’s looking like it’s gonna cruise past 500,000 tonight, so the heymacs want to thank anyone who gave us a peek and supported the effort! Cheers, dudes & dudettes . . we like your taste in tunes !!“

Macky, of the heymacs

The heymacs cover of “Hit the Road Jack” hit the ½ million mark, and then just kept on climbing. 550,000 clicks as of this morning. And where it stops, nobody knows …

And that’s it, folks, that’s your wrap up and run down.

Happy Summer Folks!

Straight Outta Facebook Jail


by Roxanne Tellier

I’m happy to report that the rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated.  I’ve only been dead to the social media world for the last 30 days. 

But, let me tell you – if you’ve ever wondered if people would miss you after you’re gone, take a long Facebook break. The majority will most certainly not even notice your absence. It’s a fast-paced world, and either you’re in the fast lane, or you’re eating everyone else’s dust.

this is great – never knew there were two versions of this Canadian Classic!

Facebook has really been cracking down on its users over every little thing since the last time Zuckerberg had to explain Facebook’s ways to Congress.  Zuck’s been able to rely on Section 230, which allows social media companies to self-regulate. It shields the platforms from liability, shunting any blame to individual users, who can be sued for posted content, while granting legal immunity for good faith efforts to remove content that violates their policies.

The key part of the provision reads: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

While there have been small inroads into Section 230 protections, lawmakers have only been able to do so much. In 2018, a law was passed making it easier to sue internet platforms that knowingly aid sex trafficking, but there’s the rub again … define and prove ‘knowingly’ when a cadre of well-paid lawyers are claiming ignorance. Federal crimes and intellectual property claims are further exceptions, but again, there’s a rallying cry of ‘prove it!’ whenever the platform is charged.

Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey of Twitter claim that their platforms could not exist without the protections provided under Section 230, but at the end of the day, what stays or goes on these platforms remains solely under their jurisdiction.

Which is perhaps why we’re hearing more and more horror stories from Facebook users who are being penalized unfairly, without recourse, and lately, even for offences committed four to seven years ago.

Musician/radio personality Bill King noted today that there doesn’t seem to be an actual court of appeal for unfair charges.

“I was there (FB jail) recently for a humorous post of which I challenged, won, and still got a week. I’m serving a 60-day sentence for something from 2020. This is crazy.”

The most famous North American repeat offender is, of course, Donald Trump. The former president was banned ‘indefinitely’ from all Facebook platforms after the Capitol riot of January 6th, when his supporters ransacked the hallowed halls in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win.

The ban was a disaster for Trump, since social media played a huge part in his campaign and subsequent presidential term. He appealed, which resulted in his claim being kicked upstairs to Facebook’s Oversight Board. There, the suspension was upheld, but the board chastised the company for not having a clear policy, and for imposing an indefinite time period.

Facebook’s principals responded by creating new enforcement penalties that deemed Trump’s ‘severe violation of our rules’ to merit the highest penalty available – a two-year suspension, effective from January 7th. This would keep his account suspended until January 7th 2023, when it was determined that he would only get his accounts back if “the risk to public safety has receded.”

Naturally, Trump’s furious over being held accountable for his sins. Although he was a supporter in the good times, now, like a belligerent husband furious that the wife is refusing to iron his underpants, he’s determined to break Facebook and Twitter, by any means possible.

Trump’s response:  “What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country. Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.”

And then, in a separate statement, Trump again claimed fraud in the 2020 election, because of course he did.

Meanwhile, there’s a pretty solid front of both Dems and Republicans who believe that all of social media’s big companies have become too powerful, and need tougher regulations to hold them more accountable for policing content.

Democrats, led by Biden, want Congress to revise Section 230, considering the lack of liability a big gift to Big Tech. They want social media to be compelled to remove hate speech, proven falsehoods, extremism, and election interference.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans, led by Trump, are more concerned about the Orange One being banned, conservatives being censored, and a limit to political reach on social media platforms. Florida’s Ron DeSantis recently passed a law that cracks down on the Big Tech platforms, claiming that they are conspiring against conservatives, and their free speech.

This law would make it illegal for Big Tech to remove political candidates from their platforms in the runup to an election, while also making it easier for Florida’s attorney general and individuals to sue these companies if they felt discriminated against.

(But DeSantis DID exempt ‘companies that own a theme park’ – such as Walt Disney Co, which runs Disney+, a streaming service. He knows which side of the Floridian bread is buttered by the Mouse.)

There are so many holes in this law that I imagine there are ACL lawyers across America wetting their pants over who will be the first to challenge this snowflake fest. Firstly, it’s unconstitutional. The bill is a violation of the First Amendment’s ban on government controlling the free speech of private companies.

Corbin Barthold, internet policy counsel for the Washington, D.C., nonprofit group TechFreedom, wrote, “The bill is extreme. It’s a brazen assault on the First Amendment. DeSantis wants to compel websites to speak. He can’t. He wants consumer-protection law to erase free-speech rights. It won’t. DeSantis is attacking the very constitutional principles Republicans just spent four years putting conservatives on the courts to protect.”  

Beyond that, it would seem yet one more example of DeSantis currying favour with Trump and his acolytes, by standing by his man. The snowflakes are thick on the ground down in Florida, it would seem.

There’s a lot of other factors going on here as well, since, no matter how you look at it, Facebook is near to keeling over from ‘death by demographics.’ 10% of Facebook’s advertising audience are 55 and older, while Facebook remains the most popular social network for seniors. 62% of Americans 65 and older use Facebook. And – fun fact! Guess who shares the most fake news on ANY social platform? Seniors! We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!

As is the case in Japan, people over 65 make up the brunt of Facebook’s population, and that number is rising. Meanwhile, the ‘kool kids’ bolted years ago, to the hipper pastures of TikTok and Instagram.

So why do so many stay on Facebook, despite the arbitrary updates of it’s interface, unreasonable banning, lack of customer support, or recourse for common errors? Basically, it’s all about sunk costs.

It’s a lot like changing jobs or moving house; when you’re younger, there’s always a greener pasture to be found. But the older you get, the less you want to gather up all the energy you’ll need to get up and out of that comfy chair. So we stay, year after year, and simply take whatever the social media platform gods dish out.

There aren’t a lot of platforms that ring the same bells as Facebook. The current ‘next best option’ is Liker.com, which bills itself as the ‘kinder, smarter, social network’. Liker has recently gone through a serious overhaul and revamp, further to being hacked in March of 2021 by ‘politically motivated trumpers’, and allegedly in retaliation for the Gab data breach and scraping of data from Parler.  

I have re-upped with Liker, and hope to be setting up a new home over there as soon as it’s back up and running. With Facebook now so hair-triggered, it can’t hurt to have somewhere else to go, especially for those days when you get kicked off the platform for the despicable crime of quoting Shakespeare.

So, a month without Facebook. It was fine, really. After the first few days of withdrawal, I started to realize how much free time I had, when I wasn’t constantly monitoring the freeform thoughts of the masses. In a way, it was sort of like those first few days after Trump was originally banned from Facebook – at first, you can’t put your finger on what’s not bothering you anymore. Then you realize – it’s the absence of the white noise that was constantly permeating your environment, keeping you slightly off balance at all times.

I’ve been reading all the books on tech and social media and current social issues that I can carry home from the library. I’ve spent a lot of time on YouTube, scarfing down educational programs, TedTalks, documentaries, music specials, and watching the antics of The Sorry Girls. I’ve redecorated the front porch, started working on sorting out the back deck and the shed, and have a couple of document files I’m about to rework into eBooks to see if I can make a few bucks off that tech writing certificate I aced decades ago.

And the funniest thing is, once you get off the Facebook treadmill, you soon start to realize how little ‘new’ there’s been for the average person to marvel over, since around 2015. It’s as though the world was so fixated on trump and politics that actual societal progress halted, while the right gloated over the one bill they passed in four years, that being the one that made the rich even richer, while doing nothing for the other 99.9%.

We’re still fighting old wars. We’ve gone through a global pandemic, serious incursions upon our democracy, and we are making tentative forays into re-entering this post-pandemic world, without many people even noticing that nearly six years have passed, but very little has changed.

Thirty days away also gave me perspective on how seriously too many people take their Facebook presence. For the average user, any social media platform should be either an escape, or a legitimate business outlet.  But many people get so addicted to the place that they have to share every minor moment and experience of their lives, along with what they ate for lunch. It’s almost as though they believe that nothing is real unless it’s seen by an audience.  

Then there’s the huge segment of people who seem to think that the expression of their thoughts and opinions is tantamount to a ‘job.’ Facebook isn’t paying anyone I know to tell them ‘What’s on your mind?’ No one pays me to curate news items, or to be first with a link to the latest Randy Rainbow video. The water cooler we gather around is virtual, as are most of our friends, and if there was a break room, your sandwich would already have been stolen by a troll.

And, let’s face it – Facebook is also where you go to ask random strangers whether or not you should bring a baby to a ‘no kids allowed’ wedding. Or to seek the seal of approval on your not wanting to get vaccinated before getting on an airplane and going to said wedding.

So, yeah, back again, sadder and wiser. Thinking I’ll use Facebook for my business social media purposes, maybe keep another account for private convos.

But there are still reasons – which have nothing to do with how FB is run – to be on Facebook.

One, is finding the little precious nuggets hidden on the internet … I’d never have found this video, or seen these incredible, sensual contortions, had I not been pointed in their direction by photographer Anne J Gibson ….

(The 13th Floor Elevators – Roller Coaster – Footage by exotic dancers Janik and Arnaut, 1954.)

And of course, I’ve got a lot of people I really enjoy seeing and interacting with on Facebook.

But let’s face it, the odds of me being a recidivist are pretty high. I’m a terror, you know, a wild one, a granny with a grudge, a troublemaker that just doesn’t learn. Odds are good it won’t be long until they’ve sent me back to the pokey.

It’s just the way I roll. Unrepentant. A Facebook Felon. You’ll never take me alive, copper!

The Joy of Research


by Roxanne Tellier

Since the end of last year, I’ve been working on a mammoth project that I hope – fingers crossed! – to be ready to launch by the summer. Why is it taking so long, you ask? Why, because it is a multi-pronged, multi-media venture, and I want to get it right before anyone sees the finished product! 

I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of my venture, but suffice it to say that I’ve really had fun working that three-year certificate that I took in technical writing and editing. It is standing me in very good stead, since having a firm grounding in research and how to explain things to people who want to learn about things, was the foundation of the course.

Writing courses, teaching people how to use technology or how to work with different media, is harder than you’d think. Most of us have taught someone how to do something; parents teach kids how to cook, make their beds, drive. Artists show students tips and techniques. Musicians have taught learners how to tune their instruments. And it’s great, when you’re one on one, and have a firm grounding in information that you want to pass on to a questing newbie, especially if they’re eager to learn.

But it can be a little more difficult if you’re trying to explain to someone how to use machinery, or how to understand computer code, or how to manipulate a complicated computer program. Especially difficult if you’re trying to explain something completely new and unknown, by writing down every single step necessary to get from A to Z, while bearing in mind that the tyro you’re training is quite likely to find some way to make a mistake that can potentially harm them, the machinery, or the program. That’s the essence of tech writing.

But the fun thing about this kind of writing, once you’ve become skilled at it, is that you can use it to explain how to do just about anything. If you can wrap your head around it, then you can potentially master a subject, and then pass on the knowledge by teaching someone else how to comprehend and utilize that information as well.

Learning how to learn

I’ve always had an ability to grasp the essence of how things work. I find it easy to learn how to do things that interest me. What I found difficult, prior to my course, was how to walk someone else through all the necessary steps. If you are a quick learner, you tend to glide over the tiny steps that are necessary to complete a project successfully. It’s the reason why so many memes (and columns!) have misspellings, bad grammar, or missing words – our brains charge ahead when we’re eagerly creating, and we see the end product, instead of the nitty gritty that makes up the whole.

Creation is one skill. Editing is another. It’s impossible to do both simultaneously, without sacrificing the niceties of one or the other.

What I’ve found the most interesting about this project, much of which I’ve researched on YouTube and on websites, is how open and giving enthusiastic amateurs can be about sharing information, tips and techniques. Granted, many of the people who are visible on video networks, or who have cobbled together a website that rises to the top of search engines, are people that are not just enthusiastic, and relatively proficient at what they do, but are savvy about self-promotion in the brave new world of the interwebs. I’m not saying that they’re all young and born writing computer code, I’m saying that those who are not, have had the good sense or good fortune to connect with people who can help them frame their work in a way that’s pleasing to people browsing the internet. 

As someone who just loves to lose themselves in research, the hardest thing for me is knowing when to stop. Like potato chips, it’s hard to eat just one! Each subject I chose to delve into is fascinating to me. I’m transfixed by those who are artistic and able to create beautiful things from next to nothing. And each time I find someone who takes a basic craft or tool and elevates the project to another level, it’s like Christmas for me. Such a gift they are giving to anyone interested in their métier!

Marketing product in today’s internet world is a complicated thing. While the gatekeepers of the past, those sentries who kept so many from getting product to market, are largely no longer at their posts, the flood of art and craft that flowed into the wide-open web spaces can be overwhelming in scope. Getting your product to the front of the line is nearly impossible. However, there are a few ways that may help in getting your work seen and/or heard by those interested in your particular niche.

Search Engine Optimizer

To create the skeleton of the project I’ve been working on, I began by internet searches. That led to websites, and videos showcasing a subject. While you can use an SEO (search engine optimizer) to parse the data that shows which sites and video links get the highest amount of hits, I looked for enthusiastic comments and subscriber figures to see which creators best made the casual or dedicated viewer excited and salivating for the next time their idol launched an email or video. 

I also spent a lot of time cruising the library data base to find books on the subjects that interested me. Some days I’d be ordering, and then picking up, 15 to 20 books at a time, only to quickly scan the tome, capture any images that inspired, and then return the book to the library, within a few days. Having access to the Toronto Public Library system, whether in person or virtually, is a boon to a researcher.

Once I had the framework for the books and PDFs I wanted to write, I began a deeper dive into branding. That led to another dozen books on creating interest on video sites, and of course, how to tie and cross-merchandise the information on multiple sites. (And don’t even get me started on merchandising! That’s another whole science unto itself!)

In the last few weeks, I’ve been deep diving into books on how to create and market product for the internet, which is where so many now reside. E-books, PDFs, audio books, websites, mailing lists, autoresponders, lead magnets – for me, I’d rather delay launch by getting all of my ducks in a row pre-show, then run aground from a lack of good marketing, losing potential fans and buyers after the fact.

It’s all been a wondrous deep dive into creativity, and my adventures down the rabbit hole would make Alice jealous. Every day I wake eager to learn more, and ready to tackle yet another program that will help me reach my goals. When you’re riding out a global pandemic, having something that keeps you interested without having to deal with other humans, is a very good thing indeed.

I’m nearing the end of the research, and getting ready to plunge into accessing some programs that I hope will increase my reach on the internet. And all of this comes BEFORE actually beginning the creative process of writing the books, which at this point, are merely outlines, copious notes, and chaptered layouts.

Computers and the internet handed us the keys to a universe of information. Everything you could ever want to know is just a few keystrokes away. It’s a cornucopia of delight to me. The least that I can do in return for these gifts is to try to help others to find the same pleasure in learning and creating that I enjoy.

Fingers crossed that I succeed, if only in some small way, in doing so.

Lockdown Letdown


by Roxanne Tellier

I don’t want to play ‘Pandemic’ anymore. I really don’t. I’ve had enough of not seeing my friends and family, of scarcities and lineups that make me feel like I’m in post-Communist Russia, and of people being cranky. I’m sick of worrying about if there’s enough of this or that and if not, how to figure out when and where to get more, and I’ve had it with not being able to just go out to restaurants and socialize like normal people… I’ve had enough.

At this point, when I and most of the planet have it up to our teeth, and as the holidays loom, mere weeks away, and mainly due to the efforts of organized anti-maskers and scofflaws who endanger us all with their YouTube engendered f*ckery, we’re going back into another ‘lockdown.’

With just a few days notice, people are panic-shopping, the stores are jammed, there’s lineups around every block, and – maybe I’m going a little nutso with the panic buying. I mean, who really needs five boxes of Harvest Crunch? Apparently, I do.   

But what’s worse is that this lockdown is likely not even going to help much, but it may well ruin more small businesses, most of which have been barely hanging on by a toenail.  What’s the point of keeping restaurants closed when the schools are still open, and the anti maskers are out loud and proud every weekend with megaphones and free hugs, ensuring that we may never successfully emerge from this pandemic? And why aren’t the cops charging and fining every one of those scofflaws each time they’re caught maskless? Why are the rest of us having to suffer while these attention seekers get off scot-free?

I’m so done with these anti maskers, the selfish, self-centred covidiots. They are like the kid that murders his parents, and then throws himself on the mercy of the court, because he’s an orphan. It’s not down to them to decide that their YouTube research trumps actual scientific fact. Masks help to reduce transmission. There’s your fact. Denying it is the hoax.

This is a public health crisis, not 11th grade. I am SO done with these dangerous saps. Fine them into bankruptcy, and if that doesn’t stop them – well, even Typhoid Mary eventually got quarantined on North Brother Island for the last 23 years of her life. We have precedent for dealing with super-spreaders. 

Global daily deaths to Nov 11, 2020

We’ve now suffered eight months of this pandemic, and lost far too many good people before their time. It’s not just those old people housed in long term facilities, who didn’t deserve such ignominious and lonely passings; health care professionals have been decimated by the virus as well. The virus doesn’t ask to see your driver’s license, citizenship papers, or electoral choice – it kills indiscriminately.

The numbers are insane – in Canada alone, we’ve lost roughly 11,500 people. The US has now topped 256,000 dead, and there’s 1.34 MILLION dead around the world, with another 55.6 million infected. Don’t tell me that this is a ‘hoax.’ It’s one thing to believe that places might be faking the numbers of the dead, but it’s another thing entirely to believe that anyone is faking cremations. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.

To the south, Americans are just plain screwed. Severe lockdowns loom amid skyrocketing hospitalizations, with no financial relief in sight. And yet, apparently that’s not enough to stop many from jamming the airports and crisscrossing the country for Thanksgiving.

While Trump tries to hang on to a job he doesn’t really want anymore, he still won’t let Biden’s transition crew get in there and help the country. Trump’s painted himself into a corner, where he’s still enjoying presidential perks, but the rest of America is looking at ending the year sick, hungry and homeless.

Middle-class homeless in California

They desperately need another coronavirus relief bill, as the economy lurches into deeper economic depression. By the end of the year, about 12 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits. Those who’ve been struggling just to keep afloat will find themselves on the streets – homeless and impoverished. 

At that point you can quit worrying about whether or not COVID is real, because 12 million hungry Americans forced to fend for themselves without any hope are not going to be ‘good neighbours.’

Trump’s biggest enablers, his buddies in the admin and his FOXy Friends, have begun to whisper that it’s time ‘someone’ did something, but their faithful followers aren’t likely to pay any attention. Fox viewers have been thoroughly indoctrinated into believing that Biden stole the election, and that the virus is a hoax, no worse than a flu. Biden beginning the transition into the presidency confounds what they’ve been lead to believe.

Biden being barred from normal transitioning means that medical and economic help will be delayed a further two months, and the situation will worsen. Plans for the vaccine? Back-burnered. A relief bill? No need; trump’s got this. Somehow. Right after this back nine…

There can’t BE a transition, you see, because trump says (without evidence) that’s there’s been widespread voter fraud, and he’s using that as leverage to suck the last few dollars out of his followers’ wallets, to pay for a team of double-talking, but ultimately useless, lawyers. Trump’s followers are fully invested in the hope that somehow, they’re going to overturn the Biden win.

You won’t want to be around trump’s ‘believers’ when their dreams come crashing down, and they find themselves sick, hungry, and homeless.

For those in the conservative media, or the Republican party, who half-heartedly want to encourage trump to do the right thing – concede, and allow work to begin on the pandemic – such talk is tantamount to committing a trumpian double sin. Firstly, they’re whispering that trump may not actually be president when work begins on distributing the vaccine. But secondly, trump has downplayed COVID 19 to his cult for so long, that the vaccine is not even supposed to be a big deal that needs to be addressed. He’s told them the pandemic isn’t such a bad thing .. look at how quickly he got over it! … so, no worries. Que sera sera. All in good time. Manana. Hakuna Matata, baby.

On Saturday, “the G20, the “Group of Twenty,” which consists of leaders of developed or developing countries from around the world, met virtually. After speaking briefly, Trump turned his attention back to tweeting false information about the 2020 election. Then, while members of the G20 began to talk about responses to the global pandemic, Trump went golfing. This was his 298th golf trip during his presidency. Today America surpassed 12 million coronavirus infections.”   (Heather Cox Richardson, historian-author)

The world is beginning to lose patience with America’s lack of response to the pandemic. Denial and dysfunction on an epic level have revealed that America, under trump and under pressure, was simply not up to the task of protecting their people and their economy. Any sympathy towards those caught up unwittingly in the cobwebs of this massive abuse of leadership is fading, after an election that showed that clearly half the nation was still on board with trump, and will follow him, even unto death.  

While the United States juggles both a health and an economic crisis. the nation also finds itself sharply split, politically. That polarization, combined with a public distrust of government institutions that plays into trump’s refusal to take simple health precautions seriously, would be enough to bring any nation to its knees. But now, as trump supporters refuse to believe the results of their election, United State’s democracy is truly under attack.

Today’s America – a nation sick, broke and broken, and fighting against itself. A house divided.

In the face of such a complete and total failure of leadership, golfing is all that trump has left. He failed the nation, and willfully ceded everything asked of a leader.

Fore!

A Pocketful of Rudy


 by Roxanne Tellier

It’s been eye-opening (if you’ll pardon the pun) to discover how I time waste while I recover from this eye surgery. It’s hard to see print, on screen or paper, so I’m spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching a ton of political and comedy entries, but also getting knee deep into the murky waters of decluttering and crafting. Should this next Covid wave hit hard, I’m swimming in craft supplies, so no one need worry that their holiday stockings will be empty come December – Glitter R Us! (I’M KIDDING! Or … am I?)   

With nothing pressing or even ON the social calendar, I’m not missing a minute of the madness as the countdown continues to the American election. Even sat down and tried to watch the trump/Biden debate (Shawn and I were better prepped with quips and answers than either of those septuagenarians, but I digress) Still waiting for that October Surprise. Not sure there’s gonna be one, at this point.

Although, that’s not for lack of trying. Witness a pretty obvious attempt at a Hail Mary pass from Rudy Giuliani, the man once known as America’s Mayor. 

In a nutshell, Rudy wants us to believe that he somehow stumbled upon a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden, at a computer repair shop. As Slate dot com explained,

“According to the Post, someone abandoned the laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware, and the data on the hard drive subsequently reached the FBI and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is also a lawyer for President Donald Trump. Steve Bannon is said to have notified the Post of the hard drive’s existence, and Giuliani then supplied the tabloid with a copy. The Post has now run a series of exposés based on the contents of the hard drive, the most purportedly explosive of which has to do with an email that Hunter Biden supposedly received in 2015 from Vadym Pozharskyi, a board adviser at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. In it, Pozharskyi thanks Hunter Biden for introducing him to then–Vice President Joe Biden. This would seem to be evidence limply supporting the Republicans’ allegations that Hunter Biden, who worked for Burisma, had convinced his father to do favors for the Ukrainian company using the powers of the vice presidency.”

Quite a coincidence, that the guy that’s been heavily involved in the nonsensical Ukrainian conspiracy theories that got trump impeached, just happened to find the evidence he’s been promising for months, already conveniently converted into PDF format that is, unlike regular email, stripped of any code that might actually show provenance.

We’re to believe that the same Hunter Biden that was savvy enough to be a lawyer and partner in two international investment firms somehow just snapped, and left evidence that coordinates with what Giuliani has been touting, in a rundown shop in some mall halfway across the country, conveniently run by a blind, but plucky owner, able to not only fix said laptop, but decode any potential passwording or security built in. And that guy also just happens to be best buds with Giuliani. Got it. Right.

It’s not surprising that no reputable journalists or outlets are taking the story seriously; you could shoot a cannon through the holes in this tale. Even the journalist with his name appended to the Post story has disavowed the piece, and there is scant evidence of anything remotely considered fact. It’s classic Russian disinformation tactics, right down to the hinted upon, though not pressed, suspicion of pedophilia. No authentication has been produced for any of the files.

But even trump’s most loyal cronies are distancing themselves from the story, and AG Bill Barr has taken a little Me Time, Down Time, for himself, rather than answer trump’s bellows for an investigation.

Finally, FOX News, which, like the Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, passed on the story. They just didn’t trust Giuliani, or the provenance of this well travelled hard drive’s data.

And then – just when Rudy began to slip out of the news again – the new Borat 2 film trailer arrived, along with some juicy footage of America’s Mayor trying to get jiggy with an actress in the film whom he has been told is just 15 years old.

If you’ve seen the film (and blink, and it will be gone, after the election) the scenes are cringeworthy indeed. This is cinema verité – the footage is candid camera style. Giuliani believes he is being interviewed by a young, naïve woman who is a little in awe of his legacy. Throughout their interaction, his ill-fitting grin is in full display, and he frequently touches her arms, leg, waist, hip, with a familiarity that any adult female will recognize as a type of foreplay.  

When the actress asks him if he would be more comfortable continuing their chat and drinks in the bedroom, he is agreeable, and sits on the bed, as they both ham-handedly attempt to remove each other’s microphones. Rudy lays back and puts his hand down his pants, a move he later describes as tucking in his shirt, but that seems to involve a fair bit of genital handling en route. At which point, Sasha Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, and dressed in lingerie, bursts into the room, crying that the girl is, at 15, too old for him, and offering to take her place as a sex partner.

Giuliani has denied any sexual intent. But most aren’t buying his bluster.

The spotlight has been on Giuliani since he joined the president’s legal team in April of 2018, while former fixer, Michael Cohen, was under criminal investigation. (He was later charged, and did prison time, for campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud.)

Right from the jump, Rudy had both feet firmly implanted in his mouth. In TV appearances, he implicated trump in federal crimes, and suggested that he regularly paid off women to keep quiet about alleged affairs, saying that Cohen had to either pay off Stormy Daniels, or watch trump lose the election.

On a personal level, Rudy’s love life was on evidence when his third wife filed for divorce on the basis of a current affair with a married woman named Maria Rosa Ryan. In the past, Giuliani had held a press conference to announce that he’d be leaving his second wife to take up with his mistress. Unfortunately, his second wife learned that news along with every one else as he’d neglected to mention it to her prior to the interview. And of course, Giuliani’s first marriage was annulled when he discovered that his wife of 14 years was his own cousin. Oops!

Meanwhile, son Andrew Giuliani is best known for suing Duke University after he was cut from the golf team. He’s currently serving as the Public Liaison Assistant to trump.

Giuliani squandered his accidental canonization as “America’s Mayor” in pursuit of relevance and to help his idol, trump.  Most Americans didn’t really know much about Giuliani before events of 9/11 propelled him into a perception of being a widely admired civic leader. In fact, prior to the attack, Rudy was better known as the ‘leaky’ Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), famous for making sure his pet journalists were made aware of where and when suspects would be taking their ‘perp walks’ into court. This made him friends of those print and broadcast media hounds who were more concerned about getting eyes on their headlines, than on the defendant’s protected rights to a presumption of innocence, and a fair trial. It also created a bond between the journalists and the prosecution that virtually assured that only the proscribed narrative would be aired.  

But in truth, there were many in New York City – and particularly members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) – who had their own fire axes to grind on his mayoral decisions.

Giuliani was sworn in as mayor of New York City on January 2, 1994, less than a year after the World Trade Center had been attacked with a 1200-pound bomb that had been concealed in a metal truck, and parked in the basement.  Six people died that day, 1000 were injured, and 50,000 more were forced to evacuate the building.

In a report written after the event, that was published in 1994 by the FDNY, a crucial component in the deaths and injuries had been the inability of firefighters and their officers to properly communicate over their analog radios. This issue was flagged as a ‘vital issue’ that needed to be addressed.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t until March of 2001 that new digital radios were deployed, but, even so, the new radios were shelved after the radios failed to work during a basement fire in Queens. The old analogs were put back into service, and were what the FDNY had to deal with on 9/11, when nearly 3000 people were killed in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Of the dead, 343 of them were uniformed New York City firemen.  

Mayor Giuliani was blamed for the failure of the new radios, because, as was claimed by a report issued a month later by the New York City Comptroller, his administration had willfully and recklessly violated city contracting rules, by issuing a no bid, non-competitive contract that was basically just an extension of an existing Motorola contract.  In fact, the new digital radios, purchased in an improper process, were never properly tested before being distributed to the FDNY.

“As the IAFF video documents and as the 9/11 timeline confirms, at 9:32 am on September 11th, an FDNY Chief ordered all members in the North Tower to the lobby. Even though he repeated the order, not a single company responded.

At 9:59, the WTC South Tower collapsed, and at 10 am, the order to abandon the North Tower was repeated. Inside the North Tower were 121 firefighters who never heard that order. They perished when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 am.

“On 9/11, firefighters went into the North Tower and started ascending the tower, yet they were being called back, and they kept going, “ said Richard Salem, an attorney who has been representing several of the firefighters’ families who lost loved ones when the North Tower collapsed. “Not one other uniform(ed) officer from any other department (who had functioning radios) perished in that tower other than the FDNY.

Despicably, Giuliani tried to cover up his own malfeasance by telling the 9/11 Commission that the North Tower firefighters had ignored the radio orders because of ‘their willingness, the way I describe it, to stand their ground.” 

Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, who lost his son Jimmy in the North Tower, will tell this tragic story to anyone who will listen. He and other surviving family members shadowed Giuliani during the 2008 primary, and carried on a media campaign that was picked up by outlets like The Guardian.

“These radios did not work in the WTC in 1993, and they did not work in 2001. We got the story out there, but when the media christened him ‘America’s Mayor’, it all went away.””  (Salon, October 2019.)

Two weeks after September 11, Giuliani asked then-New York Governor George Pataki to cancel New York City’s 2001 mayoral election, and to extend his term limit, so that he could stay in office, claiming that, “there were people that wanted me to do it. I never asked (Pataki) to do it. I never made the decision to do it.”  

Pataki considered the idea, but then decided it was a ‘bad idea both as a matter of principle and politically, “adding “Are you really, right now, after a terror attack on our state, our city, asking me to just cancel the entire election? I am a conservative. We respect the law. For God’s sake, you’re a prosecutor! You know the law!”

In January of 2019, Giuliani was asked in a New Yorker interview if “Saying things for Trump, not always being truthful about it—do you ever worry that this will be your legacy? Does that ever worry you in any way?” 

And Rudy’s answer was, “Absolutely. I am afraid it will be on my gravestone. “Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.” Somehow, I don’t think that will be it. But, if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead.”

And he added, “I don’t think about my legacy. All I think about is doing a good job and what I believe in. When I was mayor, I got criticized for a lot of things I am praised for now. “

Nearly two years later, the 76-year-old is even closer to the grave. And it’s hard not to wonder when he will ever actually take responsibility for his misdeeds.

Is That You, Rona?


by Roxanne Tellier

Funny, I always thought that I’d get so much more done. Whenever I felt like I just couldn’t keep up with all of the richness and offerings of modern life, I’d mutter to myself…

“If only time would stop – just for a day or two – and let me catch up on all of this watching, reading, and writing!”

So here it is, and guess what I’ve been doing? Lying on my bed, watching YouTube, playing games on the tablet, and spending quality time with the cats. Between naps.

I have 24 library books here to be read and used for the three major projects I’m working on, but I’ve not opened one of them. Instead I’m storming through my stack of paperback novels, the pulpier the better.  Occasionally I feel guilty about not working on those weighty projects, but then I tell myself that I just can’t possibly start yet, not without that one other book that was on its way before the library so abruptly closed. 

I keep busy, no question. And I spend a lot of time wondering if I’m sneezing because of allergies, or because of the coronavirus.

I’ve also been doing daily stealth assaults on my local big box grocery stores. I’ll go very early, hoping to run in and out again without any physical contact. From the beginning, I’ve assumed our isolation could get well beyond two or three weeks, and have foraged accordingly. The shelves are full, you can’t squeeze one more item into the freezer, and I think I’m even good on fresh produce, at least for a while. I’m the daughter of a prepper – I was born knowing how to stockpile the essentials.

Which is a good thing, because on my last foray to FreshCo, there was nary an egg to be found, nor a bag of pasta representing. Panic in aisle 3.

(In my own defense – I HAD to do the shopping. If I left the hunter gathering up to the hubby, we’d be trying to divvy up a package of sliced processed cheese, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of raisin bread.)

Anyway, I think I’m good. I think we can now pass another couple of weeks without having to resort to UberEats or the like. Based on how the stock market plunged last week, not sure if we could afford UberEats anyway.  

For all that, for all of the inconvenience, for all of the upset and the crippling uncertainty of our futures, we’re actually doing pretty good, compared to others. Sure, I’m missing a library book or two that I really wanted to read, but luckily, I wasn’t in the middle of some government tug of war over my income or a missing passport. I’m not dependent on any addictive substances. I’m not waiting for some obscure medication to arrive from some far-off land. Heck, I’m not even waiting on anything from Amazon right now!

Although we worry about our families, and our friends who are vulnerable, we’re stocked up, we’re relatively healthy, we’ve got each other and our cats, and life could be a heck of a lot worse … and is, for many, all over the world.

At this point, all we’re really being asked to do is to stay home and not spread a disease. The Greatest Generation stormed a beach in Normandy – we’re being asked to Netflix and chill.

This is our chance to be unsung heroes, by just staying home and not actively harming other people. We’ve got this.

I worry about those who rely on convening in groups to deal with mental and health issues. So many people who are struggling to survive without drugs or drink, or who are depending on other people sharing helpful words and kindness are suddenly being thrown into close quarters, confronting their demons by themselves under highly unusual circumstances.

However, there’s a bright side. For once, this enforced solitude and curtailment of our usual mad rush through the days is allowing us to actually have time to do some things that we might just brush over normally. We’ve got more time to listen, and to think. We also have the option to be the ‘helper’ in our world; some have been offering to help those who can’t leave their house. Others have been sharing their creative output.

It turns out that musicians, artists, and creatives are far more important that was previously thought

This is a great time for those who have something entertaining to share to get their work out before a larger and more receptive audience than usual. We’ve got a lot of time on our hands. And look! There are people writing poetry, short stories and novels, and sharing their work for free or a minimal price! There are musicians giving free house concerts on Facebook!  Sure, there will always be meanies who choose profiteering over sharing, but the good people who just want to be a part of a bigger community far outnumber the bad guys.

The government is also really trying to do it’s best to try and help every citizen survive, even as we shelter in place. Beyond that, some companies are going beyond the minimum, in an effort to soothe the pain.

The United Nations declared internet access a basic human right in 2016, saying that all people must be able to access the internet freely. All well and good in principle, but far too many people can’t afford full internet access in Canada, which has one of the highest cost structures in the world. The good news is, nearly all Canadian internet service providers are suspending data caps and allowing freer wi-fi on their home internet plans right now. And Rogers has made all of its cable channels free to watch.  

In both Canada and the US, the government is preparing to spend trillions to keep the economy going. There are plans to ensure a temporary form of Basic Income for all taxpaying Canadians – a good first step in addressing some of our country’s inequalities. The most vulnerable need to be protected. We need to stop the shutoffs of electricity, water, internet that some predatory institutions may attempt. Mostly, we need to spend this money – the nation’s money – on infrastructure and in helping our people survive.

But they’re also talking about using billions and even trillions to prop up businesses that might be best left to fail. The hotel business, cruise lines, airlines, gambling,  – these are not necessities, they are extravagances. 

I worry that we will follow the ragged script left over from 2008, and once again patch up the buggy whip companies that have survived only by bailouts. People should be demanding that this money be spent on healthier, greener choices. If not now, when?

Times change. People change. Even those who continue to say that humans are not responsible for climate change must have seen what has been happening to the planet since we got out of Nature’s way. Cleaner air and water happen when we’re not inserting ourselves into the natural world, with our needs and our garbage. 

Yeah, when it’s all over, we could all be in clover, as Van the Man once said.  All we have to do is spend our time and our “Blue Money” wisely.

It will be worth all of the pain if we can come out of this crisis a better planet.

Whatever Happened to the Artsy Fartsy BBS?


by Roxanne Tellier

In the nineties, I ran the Artsy Fartsy Bulletin Board System out of my home for several years. Those were the days of 2400 baud modems and the scree scraw weeeeeeeeeekkkk!!! sound of the connection soon became a part of my every waking and sleeping moment.

In those days, tens of thousands of hobbyists around the globe ran primarily text-based boards, where users could exchange messages, upload and download files, (often pirated) play games, and generally hang out with other computer geeks.

leisure suit larryThese boards were in someone’s home, and that system operator (sysop) could see what the incoming caller was doing, since their actions scrolled by on the sysop’s own monitor. Sometimes a sysop would break into your session for a one-on-one chat, which was always a little bit of a fanboy experience. The sysop controlled entry – they could disallow your admission, or give you access to the ‘secret’ files you craved, like the latest version of FileMaker Pro or the naughty Leisure Suit Larry video games. And all you knew about this person was that they were probably as cuckoo for computers as you were.

Roxanne Online We ComputeThe boards were personal, they were usually rather unprofessional, messy, and run by teenage boys, and the boards were often geared to special interests. For about three years I wrote a bbs column, Roxanne Online!, for We Compute!, a monthly paper I helped launch, describing local boards, how to access them, and how to find boards that catered to your personal needs.

(I still have all of the clippings of those columns, and someday I intend to scan them, and upload the texts to a website. Patience, padawan.)

Only the cognoscenti, the nerds like myself who used local bbs boards, could foresee that this ability to communicate, pretty much for free, with likeminded people around the world, was the future. I loved being a bbs user, and when my old friend, Iain Grant, offered to set me up a board on my own PC, I jumped at the opportunity.

I became friends with many of Toronto’s FidoNet Region 12 Net 250 sysops along the way, getting to know people like Craig Hastings, Paul Chvostek, Don O’Shaughnessy, Luke Kolin, James Korolas, and Loralie Freeman, many of whom I remain in contact with today.

Over time, and as I trawled the Net Echos for fun, I came to know and eventually spend a lot of quality online time with, some of the denizens of the FidoNet Writing Echo. Each of the writers, whether their writing was yet in print or not, had interesting details to share about their work, and publishing. Pakki Chipps, Laurie Campbell, Rocky Frisco, Dennis Havens, George Willard, Jack Lynch, Billie Sue Mosiman, Shalanna Collins, Lisa Peppan, Carl Thames, Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet, Diane Lamoureaux, Kevin R. Tipple, Karen Rhodes, Jack Ruttan, Douglas Rhodes, Rich/Rachel Veraa, Michael Nellis, Patrick Goodman, Rebecca Bohner were just a few of the people I would never have encountered, had I not discovered this wonderful online world.

And it was a very egalitarian world. When you chatted with people, you only knew as much as they’d decide to tell you. Anyone could present as any gender, race, or sexual preference. No one was ‘The Boss.’ the horseman

While most of us used our real names, there were a few who preferred to be known by a pseudonym. George Willard, aka Mark Matthews, was an ‘animal lover’ in the carnal sense, and his book, “The Horseman,” got him and his ‘bride,’ Pixel the Pony, as guests on a Jerry Springer TV episode that was the one episode Springer never aired. It was a very long time until the episode became available at all, and then, only on some rather shady video tapes.

I met Pakki Chipps ‘in real life’ soon after my mother died. I had mentioned in an online post that I needed to go somewhere and heal, and she immediately messaged me to say she was preparing a room in which I could stay, and that her daughter Weyla was already out picking flowers for the room.

sooke bcAnd that’s how I came to stay on a reserve in Sooke, BC, where I spent a week doing nothing but relaxing on verdant hills and exploring rain forests with someone whom I had previously only known online.

Many of us were musicians as well as writers. Rocky Frisco was a true Oklahoman character, adept at many fields. He’d been a race car drive, a disc jockey, a writer, an actor, and JJ Cale’s goto keyboardist from 1957 until Cale’s death in 2013. Rocky’s Wikipedia entry is a study in just how much one man can pack into a life. I was honoured to finally meet him when he played The Phoenix with Cale in 2002.

I would often feel that this entree into the online world was slightly unreal. I’ll never forget the time we were on vacation in Florida. We drove up to a Miami medical treatment centre, where we had arranged to have coffee with Rich Veraa, a writer who was a resident there. As we pulled up to the centre, I saw two men in wheelchairs – one white and one black – and realized that I had no idea what this long time friend actually looked like. It was an ‘aha!’ moment for me; in the future, I realized, people could be whomever they wanted to be online, unconstrained by any reality. For good OR ill.

rachel veraaSomewhere along the line, Rich Veraa became Rachel Veraa, but not many of us gave it a lot of thought. People lived their lives as they pleased, and most of us didn’t care what you got up to, as long as you had something interesting to share in your writing.

Not having met most of these writers in person was no impediment to very long, very strong friendships. Although the Writing Echo is long gone, I still stay in touch with many of it’s denizens, on Facebook, and thru the Writing Tavern Google group. I get to read the exploits of Laurie Campbell, as she and her husband prepare to return to New Zealand in retirement, and Dennis Havens can be counted on to keep me in the loop of what he’s been up to in his writing, and in the music world, where his past as a life long Vegas musician and composer of many a Sousa flavoured march makes him a delightful raconteur.

billie sueThe first time I encountered one of Billie Sue Mosiman‘s horror tales (she wrote over a hundred novels, and was also a well-respected editor of horror anthologies) I was a little bit in awe of actually having this talented woman as a ‘pen pal.’ I often think about how she would describe accompanying her beloved husband Lyle, a long distance trucker, while she sat in the cab and wrote to the rhythm of the road. Billie Sue loved her man, her little dogs, and her life, all with equal passion.

wireman“To look at her, Billie Sue looks like a typical Southern belle (born someplace like Mobile, Alabama, I think) with no more concerns than the cotillion and whether there’s enough Spanish Moss on the oak trees adorning the plantation house… okay, I’m being silly again—I know those sorts of Southern belles went out about the time the carpetbaggers invaded the Deep South after the War of Northern Aggression, as some call it. Although she lives in Texas (or Alabama, I’m never quite sure) with her husband Lyle, I don’t think they can afford a plantation or would want one if they could. And probably the cotillion would be the last thing on her mind—unless as a setting for a massacre; she’s been a full-time writer for years, and her favourite genres are (surprise!) thrillers and horror/fantasy, at least judging by what she’s been publishing lately. The first book of hers I read was called Wireman, about a singular serial killer who used piano wire to garrote his victims. And she looks so normal!” (from AmazingStories.Com/2015)

pamela dean tam linEvery time I pick up one of Pamela Dean‘s wonderful science fiction or fantasy novels, I marvel again at how lucky I’ve been to have had access to her generous sharing of writing and publishing knowledge over the last three decades.

Times were very different, pre the sort of Internet connectivity we now take for granted. You probably didn’t know what a BBS was unless someone you knew was a hobbyist. Most people were actually a little afraid of computers in general; when I applied to be the executive secretary of the CN Tower‘s food and beverage director, the job involved working on one of the only five computers in total that were in use in the executive offices at that time.

first IBM PCTimes changed pretty quickly, though. We went from, “computers! too scary!” to “How does this thing work, and why do I have a steamer trunk full of AOL starter discs?” almost overnight. Prodigy and CompuServe also got into the game, and soon the internet was so intertwined with the corporate world that any sense of the intimacy or personality of the bbs days was gone. When the internet went viral in the late nineties, it was the computer equivalent of the dinosaurs being wiped out by comets – one day BBSes were there, and the next … poof! Gone.

Though – in the beginning, none of the majors really sounded much different than they had back in the 2400 baud modem days.

 

It was right around that time that we were moving from our home in the east end of Toronto to a bungalow in Scarborough, and that seemed like a good time to shut down the Artsy Fartsy, and put the home pc to better use, making a living, working from home (which was ALSO considered an impossible ‘ask’ for the average office worker in the mid nineties. Old school bosses just didn’t believe they’d get an honest day’s work out of anyone whom they couldn’t see by a quick glance around the workplace.)

BBSes were the gateway drug that allowed many computer geeks to get involved with the Internet, well before the hordes arrived. There’d have been no eBay, PayPal, or Youtube without the hobbyists who were the first to see the potential of a worldwide connectivity.

These days, what with our dependence on smart phones, and the ubiquitous
hyper-connectedness of the internet, most of the social media sites tend to feel more like corporate-sponsored trips to the mall.

Our interactions with friends and family (and Russian trolls) are interspersed with cute animal videos and products tailored to the information big data firms glean from our conversations, enabling big corporations to better target what they’ve decided we need in our lives, all for a pretty price.

It’s slick, and professional, and very corporate, impersonal to a fault. And it’s not anywhere near as fun as the bulletin board systems of the nineties.

You just had to be there.