Facebook Privacy = Myth. Google+ Privacy = ???

So, I think part of the big reason that this blog atrophied so much was my new love affair with Facebook. I could post things that only friends would see, and have reasoned discussions with like-minded (and some not-so-like-minded) people, and it would always be respectful. Couldn't get that with a blog in general, without registration, but even with that, there would always be the concern troll or fifty (if I was lucky).

Yesterday a new Facebook Freak Out™ made its way across our fair Faceland and incited another privacy panic, into which I was duped by a well-meaning friend (and then bailed out by another). I felt like a well-greased cow sliding through a stampede with little to no effort. I don't even mind the privacy issues with Fbook; I've already resigned myself (and my generation) to having no privacy by the time we reach retirement age, so why whine about it now?

The point is, Google+ (or GooglePlus, if you like) seems to be the name dropped whenever these privacy issues come up on the big F. I even have an account for it, but I never use it. It seems like another flavor of social poo, different look. Hard to see how I could convince so many friends to switch over without candy or Journey tickets. How in the world did Google expect people to come over in any substantial ways without addressing this aspect?

Happy New Year!

Sick of looking at Barack Obama's face and wondering why I haven't changed anything since two years ago? Well fret no more! At least I think so... more content coming, but I can't guarantee political incisiveness.

See you soon!

You Decide, Mr. President.

I give up

This isn't about Ted Barlow's Syndrome. This is about just not being able to communicate with certain portions of our community. I prefer to use the term Agro-Parsing, but what it comes down to is having your every utterance put through some kind of ultra-lefty machinery, which detects slight ambiguity and interprets it in the worst way possible. Or, put more succinctly, someone takes the time to find the needle in the haystack, and then jams it into your eyeball.

You can see below, I've had a previous experience with Melissa at Shakesville. She's good, she's really good, at what she does. She is one of the leaders of the fight to equalize our world in every way possible, via the web. I have no issues with her fight, and I wish her well. What I do have a problem with is WHO she is fighting.

Obviously I must have rubbed her fur the wrong way (oops! didn't mean it like that sounds, Liss, really), and she has decided that I can't be allowed any leeway in newspeak. Is it hyperbole to refer to what she is trying to form as newspeak? Probably, but she's not doing her cause any favors by attacking someone who is A) Entirely for equality, B) Believes that women should be able to control their own destinies in every way, and C) Thinks that the time has come to make changes. It really makes no sense to me, but what do I matter, I'm just a neanderthal man with a penis and not much brain.

I relinquish my duties as an ardent supporter of women's rights, Melissa. Obviously you don't need my help, nor that of many other men who feel the same way I do. Go ahead and play your little dominance games with what THIS person meant by saying THAT. And I DO think you're changing the world one teaspoonful at a time, but if you keep up your Agro-Parsing on your boards, you're going to lose more than you gain. Have fun in your brave new world.

The Ass of Dorian Gray

Looking in the mirror this morning, I see that same, sweet, slim face and neck, arms, chest and whatnot. I feel fine.

THEN I put on my jeans. Not so much the same. Everything I do to my body goes somewhere else, somewhere I can't immediately see, but it grows and festers like a painting hidden in the attic somewhere...

It's working its way up my body, though. My midsection is slowly chunking up, and soon enough I will have to ward off the man boobs and howler monkey chins.

I love this season, but I can't wait until the parties are all done and I can focus on HELPING my body, heh.

TEH MOSTEST OPPRESSED PEOPLE EVAH

Just a little note to Melissa at Shakespeare:

I love your writings dearly; you are a real power to behold and read when many of us are tired, so very tired, of everyone else's bitching online.

That said, I guess it struck me as a little odd that you would choose to disagree with the notion that maybe gay teens have it the worst at our nation's high schools. When I mentioned that a gay high school might be a good idea because at my high school it seemed they got the worst treatment, I didn't expect you to accuse me of making sweeping generalizations at other groups' expense (which I did not).

Perhaps it was my recent admission that I was a white hetero male that caused you to view me differently, perhaps as THE OTHER, the stereotypical BAD GUY? Hey, the Nazis worked for Spielberg.

You maybe didn't think that I was thinking of the recent election, where a black man was elected president, his female primary contender just barely losing to him (if that) earlier in the year, a cabinet full of women and minorities (and at least one lesbian, I didn't forget). I won't mention the various anti-gay people associated with Mr. Obama and he still won. All this CHANGE, and yet anti-gay legislation went through in at least 3 states. Hmm. I don't remember any anti-woman, anti-minority legislation going through recently, do you? Hmm. Could it be that certain things are verboten, while other things, like Prop 8, are not?

Melissa, you have to walk a fine line on your blog, and not offend people in a group of folks who seem to be striving to be TEH MOSTEST OPPRESSEDEST. I don't blame you for trying to make an example out of me so your other more 'understanding and less generalizing' readers can feel better about you and themselves. You go ahead and make everybody feel special, give everyone that shiny medal for being oppressed. Meanwhile, in reality, some of us can see the trends in America and think that maybe, just maybe, some groups have it harder than others.

I think you made the point earlier in a post about the Advocate's stupid cover (Gay is the new Black); this isn't a zero-sum game. Is there still racism and sexism and other-ism happening? Duh, of course. But you try to tell me that my saying gay teens might have it tougher than others, my saying that is wrong and over-generalizing? Read the newspaper, or better yet, your own blog. Openly gay people do have it tougher.

Twitchings

I'm ready to move on. I feel good about the future government, no matter what conspiracy (or non) theories get thrown out, or what CDS bullshit is heaped upon Hillary whenever a position of power goes her way.

Give me a breather; I'm freelancing like a bastard right now and it's great, but no time for this stuff. More later.

BTW I made the comment that we have to come up with a meaning for the word 'Blooger' at some point. Or is there one already? My suggestion: A particularly odious post from an otherwise decent blogger, as in "Josh Marshall just flicked a blooger at my screen."

Wait, I forgot. Josh Marshall is no longer an otherwise decent blogger. My bad.