I think Facebook is a wonderful thing. It has facilitated my reconnecting with people whom in some cases I had not seen in decades. It also provides a way for me to communicate with people in different time zones and different countries. I have rekindled dormant friendships and had a chance to end embattlements and mend broken hearts (my own included). For all of the aforementioned and more, I am truly grateful for Facebook.
However, I have noticed that some people do things on Facebook that I can only hope they would never do in real life. Allow me to illustrate my point: I decide to go over to a friend's house uninvited. I don't speak to my friend ahead of time or go inside. I put up a billboard on my friend's lawn that contains a quote that I think is just great.
Does anyone think that's a good idea? Is that something that people do? Of course not. I’ve never done anything even resembling that, and never would. Yet, there are people on Facebook who seem to think this is perfectly acceptable. It isn't. Please stop it. And stop sending me virtual stuff. I don't need a virtual drink, hug, flower arrangement, blessing or anything else that doesn't actually exist.
The next time you see me, if you really know me—let’s not extend the friend metaphor beyond reason—feel free to hug me. I like hugs from my friends. In fact, my friends and I hug each other with startling regularity. I don't ever recall a time when a friend "gave" me a virtual hug. Because you can't give someone a figment of your imagination no matter how much you really want to. I know you think it’s cute. It isn’t. Please stop it.
Some of you reading this might think I'm being harsh. Thank you for paying attention. If anyone reading this is truly offended by anything I've written here, I sincerely suggest you virtually kiss my actual...
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, October 2, 2009
Everything Old Is New Again
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Born 10/2/1869
How bold for a man of peace to speak this way. Not really. Peaceful action isn’t always cradled in peaceful words. 140 years after his birth, Gandhi’s words have a particular sting to them. it reminds me of his response to the question of Western civilization, “What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.” Ouch. For some people, them’s fightin’ words. How dare anyone, especially a “ferner”, speak ill of the good ole U-S of A?
Check this out: “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.” Oh, man. Listen to this: “That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.” Yeesh. If those troubled you, take a gander at this gem: “Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS -- our inferior one varies with the place.”
By the way, all of the quotes in that last paragraph are from Thomas Paine, one of the fathers of our country. His brilliant work, “Common Sense”, ushered in the American revolution.
We have degenerated into a frothing-at-the-mouth, hyperbolic mass of jingoists and hate-filled Bible-thumping freaks. People are saying the most horrible things I’ve ever heard this side of the Holocaust, and the only thing that troubles me more than what they say is the fact that they say them so blithely. We make “A Modest Proposal” seem quaint by comparison.
Let’s take a collective cleansing breath and exhale the hatred. Our hatred of one another is spawned by fear. Our fear is spawned by the endless Hatfield-McCoy distinctions we make. We make distinctions because we think we’re different. We’re not. In all of human existence, there are virtually no distinctions in DNA. Accommodations for climate and geographical realities, along with typical variances among species has lead to different skin tones and facial configurations. These are superficial and ultimately meaningless.
I’d rather think the way Abraham Lincoln did on March 4, 1861, when he concluded his inaugural address with the following:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
How bold for a man of peace to speak this way. Not really. Peaceful action isn’t always cradled in peaceful words. 140 years after his birth, Gandhi’s words have a particular sting to them. it reminds me of his response to the question of Western civilization, “What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.” Ouch. For some people, them’s fightin’ words. How dare anyone, especially a “ferner”, speak ill of the good ole U-S of A?
Check this out: “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.” Oh, man. Listen to this: “That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.” Yeesh. If those troubled you, take a gander at this gem: “Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS -- our inferior one varies with the place.”
By the way, all of the quotes in that last paragraph are from Thomas Paine, one of the fathers of our country. His brilliant work, “Common Sense”, ushered in the American revolution.
We have degenerated into a frothing-at-the-mouth, hyperbolic mass of jingoists and hate-filled Bible-thumping freaks. People are saying the most horrible things I’ve ever heard this side of the Holocaust, and the only thing that troubles me more than what they say is the fact that they say them so blithely. We make “A Modest Proposal” seem quaint by comparison.
Let’s take a collective cleansing breath and exhale the hatred. Our hatred of one another is spawned by fear. Our fear is spawned by the endless Hatfield-McCoy distinctions we make. We make distinctions because we think we’re different. We’re not. In all of human existence, there are virtually no distinctions in DNA. Accommodations for climate and geographical realities, along with typical variances among species has lead to different skin tones and facial configurations. These are superficial and ultimately meaningless.
I’d rather think the way Abraham Lincoln did on March 4, 1861, when he concluded his inaugural address with the following:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Like a Virgin
I just read about the 22 old woman selling her virginity online. Well, you can imagine my reaction, “There are 22 year old virgins?” After the shock wore off, I wondered why this was an issue for some people. Part of the rationale for the people who object to this is that they see it as prostitution. Prostitution strikes me as a particularly strange thing to criminalize. The law says that sex for free is legal (although free is a dubious notion), but sex for pay is illegal. So, the problem isn’t the sex, it’s the money. How strange is that? You can buy all sorts of pharmaceuticals that have horrible effects on your body. You can buy fast food that kills you slowly. You can drink and smoke yourself to death. Cigarettes even tell you you’re killing yourself. But, if you want to feel good, and pay for it, you’re breaking the law. You can’t make this stuff up.
When are we going to stop being a nation of inconsistent prudes? I use the word inconsistent because there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the decisions we make about what’s morally wrong. People of the United States seem to love breasts. When is the last time you can remember leaving your house and not seeing breasts on display? They’re all over the magazine rack (not pun intended). Women wear clothing and bras that display and enhance them. Virtually every billboard has a woman with just enough clothes on to cover them. Even news shows make a point of hiring women who look great in tight sweaters. So, it’s clear we love breasts. You know what we hate? Nipples. That’s right, nipples—but only the female variety, just to add to the confusion. Remember when Janet Jackson’s nipple made a surprise 3 second appearance? You would have thought she unleashed a plague on humanity. People were outraged and complained that it ruined their enjoyment of their wholesome family entertainment, the Super Bowl. Let me get this straight. One of the most violent sports—a sport where people have been killed and crippled—is considered family entertainment, but a woman’s breast (I mean her nipple) is the end of everything good?! What kind of world are we living in?
When are we going to stop being a nation of inconsistent prudes? I use the word inconsistent because there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the decisions we make about what’s morally wrong. People of the United States seem to love breasts. When is the last time you can remember leaving your house and not seeing breasts on display? They’re all over the magazine rack (not pun intended). Women wear clothing and bras that display and enhance them. Virtually every billboard has a woman with just enough clothes on to cover them. Even news shows make a point of hiring women who look great in tight sweaters. So, it’s clear we love breasts. You know what we hate? Nipples. That’s right, nipples—but only the female variety, just to add to the confusion. Remember when Janet Jackson’s nipple made a surprise 3 second appearance? You would have thought she unleashed a plague on humanity. People were outraged and complained that it ruined their enjoyment of their wholesome family entertainment, the Super Bowl. Let me get this straight. One of the most violent sports—a sport where people have been killed and crippled—is considered family entertainment, but a woman’s breast (I mean her nipple) is the end of everything good?! What kind of world are we living in?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Remove Gmail Attachments
With people sending unreasonably sized attachments (over 5mb), even the huge storage space in a Gmail or Google Apps account can fill up quickly. I read a few sites looking for a way to delete attachments in Gmail the way I do in Outlook. In my opinion, there's no reason to keep an attachment once I've read the message. Unfortunately, most of the suggestions were about deleting the entire message. According to Google's help section, there is no way to remove an attachment from a message. They’re right, sort of.
I stumbled upon a way to remove an attachment and keep the message. It's a few steps, but it works.
Before you try this, you must enable IMAP in your account settings.
Next, set up your accounts. I use Mozilla Thunderbird, but you can set up IMAP accounts in Outlook and just about any other e-mail program. I’ll skip the instructions for that, but they’re all pretty much the same. When you create the account, just make sure you set it up as IMAP instead of POP.
When you get a message with an attachment, either open it or have it showing in the preview pane.
Right click near the attachment and select “Delete” (or “Delete All...” for multiple attachments).
Confirm that you want to delete the attachment. You’ll notice that the message disappears from your Inbox. Not to worry. Expand your Gmail folders and go to “All Mail”. Now you’ll see two messages. One without the attachment, and a duplicate with the original attachment. You’ll also notice that the message you removed the attachment from has an attachment icon. For some reason Gmail adds a note the stripped message letting you know the attachment was deleted.
The last step is to drag the attachment-laden message into the “Trash” folder, and you’re done. Now, you’ll get more out of your Gmail storage.
For those of you inclined to send large files, please use the various free services that allow you to send links to files up to 100mb. You’d be doing all of us a favor.
I stumbled upon a way to remove an attachment and keep the message. It's a few steps, but it works.
Before you try this, you must enable IMAP in your account settings.
Next, set up your accounts. I use Mozilla Thunderbird, but you can set up IMAP accounts in Outlook and just about any other e-mail program. I’ll skip the instructions for that, but they’re all pretty much the same. When you create the account, just make sure you set it up as IMAP instead of POP.
When you get a message with an attachment, either open it or have it showing in the preview pane.
Right click near the attachment and select “Delete” (or “Delete All...” for multiple attachments).
Confirm that you want to delete the attachment. You’ll notice that the message disappears from your Inbox. Not to worry. Expand your Gmail folders and go to “All Mail”. Now you’ll see two messages. One without the attachment, and a duplicate with the original attachment. You’ll also notice that the message you removed the attachment from has an attachment icon. For some reason Gmail adds a note the stripped message letting you know the attachment was deleted.
The last step is to drag the attachment-laden message into the “Trash” folder, and you’re done. Now, you’ll get more out of your Gmail storage.
For those of you inclined to send large files, please use the various free services that allow you to send links to files up to 100mb. You’d be doing all of us a favor.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
What's The Big Deal?
I remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of homosexuality. I was 9 years old and playing around during recess. One of my classmates was teasing me and asked if I was a “mo”. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him to explain it. He said something to the effect of boys liking other boys the way boys like girls. I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. I asked what the big deal was with boys liking other boys. I didn’t get it.
That was in 1973. I am 44 years old as of this writing, and I still don’t get what the big deal is. Homosexuality is a non-issue. This is where people usually interrupt and ruefully ask me, “What if your son was gay?” I happen to have a son. I always respond the same way, “I guess I wasn’t clear enough the first time. Homosexuality is a non-issue.” I am a heterosexual, always have been, but I just can't seem to muster up the energy to care about anyone else’s sexuality.
Think about it for a minute. Why in the world would you care about how someone feels about someone else? Why would you care about how consenting adults express how they feel about each other? Why would you care about homosexuals having sex in the privacy of their own home? How does any of it affect you?
Everywhere around you there are horrible things going on every day. Spousal battery, drug & alcohol addiction, bestiality, child abuse, rape, murder, et cetera. These are real, they happen all the time, and they are among the worst things that human beings do to themselves and each other (and other beings, in the case of bestiality). I particularly hate it when adults hurt children. Pederasts are sub-human. How can anyone look at a beautiful child and have sexual urges, let alone carry them out? It's worse than murder, in my opinion. Once you kill someone their troubles are over. When you rape a child, you take their soul and leave a person who will be wounded forever.
How about poverty? All over the world, people are starving and dying from diseases most people have cures for in their bathroom medicine cabinet. Tuberculosis is on the rise, malaria is running rampant and water shortages are devastating certain areas. AIDS continues to ravage Africa and is still a huge problem in the United States. There are cattle that live better lives than some people do here in the richest country in the history of the world. Gun violence is insane. Our economy turns out to be a house of cards. Human and constitutional rights violations have been off the charts for way too long now, and war continues to plague humanity.
All these things are going on, and your biggest concern is whether two people of the same sex kiss? Seriously. No, seriously?
I happen to be an immigrant to the United States. I was born in the Dominican Republic and landed here when I was 2 years old. English is not my first language, but I think I've gotten a pretty good hang of it. The point is, I experienced racism and bigotry first hand, and sometimes violently, when I was in my teens. My family moved into a white neighborhood when I was 9 years old (for the record, I lived in a bi-racial home. My mother is Dominican, my step father was Jewish. My step brother and two step sisters are Jews as well).
As I walked home from school, people would come out of their houses to yell racial epithets at me. When I got to junior high school, older boys got in my face and threatened to hurt me. Some actually tried to hurt me. They were always shocked to find out that it wasn’t so easy to hurt me physically. They stopped trying by the time I was 14, concluding that it was a dangerous proposition for them. Even so, it was clear to me that minorities were not considered people, and some would be willing to end my life to illustrate that.
Although these events happened decades ago, they are fresh in my mind and took a long time to get over, especially in a country whose original sin is racism.
Now we come to the amazing and almost unbelievable events of November 4, 2008. The first black president was elected in the United States. I could fill pages expressing what that means to me, and I might another time. But the victory is tempered by the fact that homosexuals lost the right to marry each other in California because of Proposition 8. California's Proposition 8 consists of a single sentence: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." To refresh your memories, there was a time when marriage was defined as a man and a woman of the same race. Doesn’t that idea seem ridiculous now? How long will it take before banning gay marriage seems ridiculous?
What's particularly shameful to me is that 70% of blacks voted for the ban. Yes, we can. We shall overcome—screw everyone else. What kind of sentiment is that, at such an amazing time in our country’s history? How can people—like me—who have been repressed, suppressed and abused look at other people without compassion? It is absolutely bewildering to me.
I know some of you may attribute your belief to the bible. Do me a huge favor and don’t trot out all the passages that justify your prejudice. You would be mistaken if you did. Read this. Remember the following: The Catholic Church supported slavery until it became too unpopular and they still don’t see women as equal to men. Do you think Jesus Christ would support your belief? I think you know that he wouldn’t, especially since there is not a word recorded in the bible expressing his thoughts on the subject. Are you trying to tell me that the son of God was sent here to deliver the word of God and the part about gays slipped his mind? So, let's leave the dogma out of the dialog.
Instead, think about how you felt when it was announced that Barack Obama was elected President. I for one will keep that feeling with me for the rest of my life. I also want everyone to feel that way. I can only hope that people will wake up, and soon. A black president was thought to be impossible in this country. In our lifetime, it has come to pass. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Although those words were not true when they were written, isn't it about time that they became true for everyone? What's the big deal?
That was in 1973. I am 44 years old as of this writing, and I still don’t get what the big deal is. Homosexuality is a non-issue. This is where people usually interrupt and ruefully ask me, “What if your son was gay?” I happen to have a son. I always respond the same way, “I guess I wasn’t clear enough the first time. Homosexuality is a non-issue.” I am a heterosexual, always have been, but I just can't seem to muster up the energy to care about anyone else’s sexuality.
Think about it for a minute. Why in the world would you care about how someone feels about someone else? Why would you care about how consenting adults express how they feel about each other? Why would you care about homosexuals having sex in the privacy of their own home? How does any of it affect you?
Everywhere around you there are horrible things going on every day. Spousal battery, drug & alcohol addiction, bestiality, child abuse, rape, murder, et cetera. These are real, they happen all the time, and they are among the worst things that human beings do to themselves and each other (and other beings, in the case of bestiality). I particularly hate it when adults hurt children. Pederasts are sub-human. How can anyone look at a beautiful child and have sexual urges, let alone carry them out? It's worse than murder, in my opinion. Once you kill someone their troubles are over. When you rape a child, you take their soul and leave a person who will be wounded forever.
How about poverty? All over the world, people are starving and dying from diseases most people have cures for in their bathroom medicine cabinet. Tuberculosis is on the rise, malaria is running rampant and water shortages are devastating certain areas. AIDS continues to ravage Africa and is still a huge problem in the United States. There are cattle that live better lives than some people do here in the richest country in the history of the world. Gun violence is insane. Our economy turns out to be a house of cards. Human and constitutional rights violations have been off the charts for way too long now, and war continues to plague humanity.
All these things are going on, and your biggest concern is whether two people of the same sex kiss? Seriously. No, seriously?
I happen to be an immigrant to the United States. I was born in the Dominican Republic and landed here when I was 2 years old. English is not my first language, but I think I've gotten a pretty good hang of it. The point is, I experienced racism and bigotry first hand, and sometimes violently, when I was in my teens. My family moved into a white neighborhood when I was 9 years old (for the record, I lived in a bi-racial home. My mother is Dominican, my step father was Jewish. My step brother and two step sisters are Jews as well).
As I walked home from school, people would come out of their houses to yell racial epithets at me. When I got to junior high school, older boys got in my face and threatened to hurt me. Some actually tried to hurt me. They were always shocked to find out that it wasn’t so easy to hurt me physically. They stopped trying by the time I was 14, concluding that it was a dangerous proposition for them. Even so, it was clear to me that minorities were not considered people, and some would be willing to end my life to illustrate that.
Although these events happened decades ago, they are fresh in my mind and took a long time to get over, especially in a country whose original sin is racism.
Now we come to the amazing and almost unbelievable events of November 4, 2008. The first black president was elected in the United States. I could fill pages expressing what that means to me, and I might another time. But the victory is tempered by the fact that homosexuals lost the right to marry each other in California because of Proposition 8. California's Proposition 8 consists of a single sentence: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." To refresh your memories, there was a time when marriage was defined as a man and a woman of the same race. Doesn’t that idea seem ridiculous now? How long will it take before banning gay marriage seems ridiculous?
What's particularly shameful to me is that 70% of blacks voted for the ban. Yes, we can. We shall overcome—screw everyone else. What kind of sentiment is that, at such an amazing time in our country’s history? How can people—like me—who have been repressed, suppressed and abused look at other people without compassion? It is absolutely bewildering to me.
I know some of you may attribute your belief to the bible. Do me a huge favor and don’t trot out all the passages that justify your prejudice. You would be mistaken if you did. Read this. Remember the following: The Catholic Church supported slavery until it became too unpopular and they still don’t see women as equal to men. Do you think Jesus Christ would support your belief? I think you know that he wouldn’t, especially since there is not a word recorded in the bible expressing his thoughts on the subject. Are you trying to tell me that the son of God was sent here to deliver the word of God and the part about gays slipped his mind? So, let's leave the dogma out of the dialog.
Instead, think about how you felt when it was announced that Barack Obama was elected President. I for one will keep that feeling with me for the rest of my life. I also want everyone to feel that way. I can only hope that people will wake up, and soon. A black president was thought to be impossible in this country. In our lifetime, it has come to pass. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Although those words were not true when they were written, isn't it about time that they became true for everyone? What's the big deal?
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