I’m thinking soon to do a WP hiatus, six to twelve months, to work on a book of short stories. Here is one I’ll likely include; it’s first version is four or five years old, but I will do some minor polishing. I’d been thinking about the shitshow that dating has become in the web era, especially for young people who never experienced a purely un-virtual adolescence. Then… I had a strange dream that night, similar to this sci-fi lite tale, situated in the middle of the 2030s.
In the early part of January of 2016, I had occasion to travel to delightful Burkina Faso in West Africa, located just below the Sahara desert and just above the equator. Long a bastion of peacefulness, stability, and welcoming generosity among it’s neighboring countries, Burkina went through an uncharacteristic stretch of political upheaval in the past 5 years. There was also the matter of the horrific terrorist attack aimed at ex-pats which occurred at a downtown Ouagadougou hotel the evening after we safely departed, which was orchestrated by outsiders. Yet, the predominant mood I encountered was one of strong positivity and sincere friendliness. The Burkinabé believe in the their future, are proud of their national demeanor, and have good reason to be. This is one of a series of reflections occasioned by my visit there.
Where did IT (Information Technology) come from? And what is it’s underlying premise? The factually inclined rush to their Wikipedias and mime out the history. But suppose you wished to distract two or three generations of logically oriented career seekers away from reality? Could you do better than to ‘invent’ IT?
I heard that story, a month ago, about some radio station in Ohio or somewhere proclaiming they’d banned any further airplay of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” due to its supposedly Neanderthal take on #me-too morays. Don’t really like the song that much, but my gut reaction was to organize a marathon podcast featuring every cover of the song I could find. Then a dream came a few nights later, resolving the matter in a different direction. Adapted below… it takes place probably somewhere in the mid 2030s.
These lines made me write them early last Christmas morning, while still half asleep in bed… they still seem entirely relevant and quite difficult to improve upon, so I offer them again this holiday season, having added only exactly one word. Warmest hopes and thanks to all readers. 🙂
It is the question you cannot ask which matters
The axiom you must never scutinize
The Trump fiasco has in part become a raging fire bursting open the seeds in the pinecones of female indignation lying in gestation on the forest floor. Which helped fuel #MeToo. Which will eventually bring him and the testosterone-centric worldview down.
I think on biographies often of late. Not that I read them much, just occasionally. I’m more attracted to imagining the life maps of people I’ve crossed paths with, sometimes in major encounters but just as likely in subtle, ephemeral ways, like when a billiard ball kisses another in passing on a pool table. As experience grows, so does the depth of meaning one becomes able to infer from these encounters. It was such an imagination which caused to me look up an old high school teacher not long ago…
In the wake of Mark Zuckerberg’s public vacillating over the culpability of Facebook regarding its user base data privacy, a follow-up to last month’s ‘public service announcement‘ about the impact of the web on our social cohesion and culture.
Pretty much I don’t do re-blogging, though I love lots of blog sites. This place is for me; what I think, and what I create. But this wonderful overview of the present technology-mediated crisis Western (and now global) culture is ensnared within — is simply too good and too important not to draw attention to. I hope and wish that some will listen to this short talk, which was given three days ago in Vancouver, and think about it. (Thank you if you do!) This person is “one who knows”, but is practically devoid of egotism.
||skirmishes|| ||with|| ||reality|| 