Category: thoughts on the fly

The Problem with Social Media

Posted on by D. L. Keur

Here’s a problem: Citing articles that you know nobody will read through, then attributing some quote to someone that isn’t in the article. Anyone can attribute a quote to anyone, grabbing a picture of them somewhere and then laying some outrageous text in quotes on it. And maybe they didn’t say it, at all. Then, again, maybe they did. There is a social responsibility to be honest and to verify sources. I know that sounds like it’s only for “real journalists,” but, today, we are all “journalists,” so we all own a responsibility not to falsify our content and to provide valid citations.

Morning rant due to this: https://www.facebook.com/MintpressNewsMPN/photos/a.427073724002835.96035.277613075615568/782852705091600/?type=1

While I have no doubt that  corporate mentality holds this view, I still want to see proof–legitimate proof–before accepting something as fact.

ADD/EDIT:

David Revad Riley, a premier artist friend of mine found this: And I quote.  (The post is on FB.)

David Riley Such an old story too. here is a better quote…

“The fact is they [activists] are talking first of all only about the smallest part of the water usage,” he says. “I am the first one to say water is a human right. This human right is the five litres of water we need for our daily hydration and the 25 litres we need for minimum hygiene.
“This amount of water is the primary responsibility of every government to make available to every citizen of this world, but this amount of water accounts for 1.5% of the total water which is for all human usage.
“Where I have an issue is that the 98.5% of the water we are using, which is for everything else, is not a human right and because we treat it as one, we are using it in an irresponsible manner, although it is the most precious resource we have. Why? Because we don’t want to give any value to this water. And we know very well that if something doesn’t have a value, it’s human behaviour that we use it in an irresponsible manner.

And the source article in the Guardian newspaper back in 2013.
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-peter-brabeck-attitude-water-change-stewardship

This Year, New Year’s was Different

Posted on by D. L. Keur

Every New Years, there’s this sense I feel among people around me of renewal, of hope, of cheerful expectation. This year was different. Maybe it was the fiscal cliff issue in Congress that changed the tenor. Maybe it was the Newtown massacre. Whatever it was, for most I met around town, this New Year’s lacked verve, that is, vigor, spirit, and enthusiasm.

I asked myself ‘why’, because, for me, I felt my rather usual sense of “time to plan and start anew.” My verve was not lacking, but this was not so among my compatriots–not among my neighbors, not among my associates and friends, not among my clients nor acquaintances. Instead, there seemed either a stoic sense of “trudging on” or a simple tiredness. And not all of my friends are antiques. In fact, most of them range from youthful to moderately middle age, and all of them are like me, self-starters and fiendishly energized. (Yes, I seem to know people who, like me, have that similar built-in drive to do things.)

I’m not the only one who’s noticed it. Many around me, even those who admit to lacking that New Year’s freshness in themselves, agree that it is observable among those in their circles, too.  Whatever the cause, this lack of verve disturbs me. And them, even in themselves. It disturbs because a new start, a fresh beginning, a clean slate, has in its actualization an important, energizing effect upon life, projects, and, especially, spirit.

 

 

Everybody is All Sorts of Upset about Aurora, but…

Posted on by D. L. Keur

It really strikes me as odd that, while everybody is all upset about the folks killed by that disturbed guy over in Aurora, Colorado, they just can’t get worked up about worse things which happen all over the world by the hand of our own government–civilians killed, tortured, maimed, and, always, forgotten or, worse, dismissed.

So twelve people got blown away by a whacko, but thousands are suffering worse everywhere else, and we just shrug it off…don’t even give it a second thought.

Why is that?

Proximity?