Back in the (Blogging) Saddle Again

Those of you who've been patiently reading my blog since my first post on March 8, 2006, know that I posted more or less daily for most of that time. About 2 or 3 years ago, I decided to cut back my regular posting to Fridays (alternating the "Ass Clown Awards" with "Great Moments in Editing and Signage"), Saturdays (Cartoon Saturday) and Sundays (alternating Poetry and Music), with other posts on a random basis as I felt the urge to pontificate on something. I hadn't run out of ideas, but I'd sort of run out of steam.

Lately, though, I've been feeling the need to get back to more frequent posting ... maybe not every day, but perhaps two or three times during the week ... because the times are such that I have to either express myself or explode from frustration and anger at the rampant stupidity that's on the march and not being challenged.

So, Dear Readers, I'm back. If you've chosen to read this blog, chances are you mostly agree with my points of view, and I welcome your confirmation of my sanity*. But I also want to know when you disagree, too. Let me know if you think I'm wrong**, or misguided, or have ignored some aspect of the topic du jour that you think would lead me to change my mind. Do it ... it's good for both of us. 

But ...

If you leave a comment that's nothing more than an ad hominem attack, or that propagates without proof the lies and conspiracy theories of the moment, I'll cut you off in less time than it takes to say "Q." If you can't justify your position with reason, facts, and evidence, I'm not interested in anything you have to say. You've been warned.

Just a quick observation before I go ...

Der Furor has been suffering from a deficit of orgasmic adulation since Facebook and Twitter finally cut him off back in January. Not long ago, his office launched a much-ballyhooed "web presence" (a simple blog, actually) to allow him to communicate directly with his followers***. Like his presidency, the blog was pretty much a dismal failure, and after 29 days Der Furor shut it down because the more rational of his advisors told him it wasn't getting much traffic and was making him look "small and irrelevant."

This means that Der Furor, with the help a staff of flunkies and ghostwriters paid for by you and I from the generous pension and expense account he receives as a former president, couldn't publish a blog that would hold even an audience of MAGAts for more than 29 days. As of today, my blog - 100% written and edited by a staff consisting entirely of yours truly - has been in regular publication for 15 years, 2 months, and 3 days ... a total of 5570 days, or almost 200 times^† longer than Der Furor's.

Which of us actually has ideas people are willing to read?

Have a good day, and watch this space for more frequent posts on the things that interest or upset me, which I think may interest or upset you as well. I look forward to your comments and ideas as we move warily into the great social, economic, and political unknown.

Bilbo

* Such as it is.

** I know my hawkeyed old friend Gonzo Dave will let me know of any typos.

*** I've heard it pithily described as a forum for people who don't read, by someone who can't write.

† Actually, 192.07 times, but who's counting?

New Schedule

Good morning!

Those of you who have been with me for a while know that over the last 12 years and over 4,000 posts (!) I have managed to post to this blog almost every day. I've occasionally taken short breaks, and at one point during a very busy personal period cut back to only posting every other day or so.

While I enjoy writing this blog, which has become my favorite creative outlet, the simple fact is that putting out the quality posts I like and you have come to expect is not an easy task. Especially as summer has now arrived and I want to spend as much time as possible in my garden, the time spent indoors in my study researching and writing seriously limits the amount of time I can spend outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

Therefore, Dear Readers, I am going to cut back on my posting, at least for the duration of the summer. Instead of posting more-or-less every day, I'll post all the regularly occurring features (Great Moments in Editing and Signage, the Ass Clown Awards, Cartoon Saturday, and Poetry/Musical Sunday), and other posts on an as-I-have-time-or-a-good-idea basis. When summer is over and the weather turns wintry, I'll look at picking up the pace again.

The general rule for bloggers who want lots of readers is to post lots of stuff. I've built up a good (and very much appreciated) group of readers over the years and don't want to lose any of you, so please either keep checking back every few days or use the "Follow by E-Mail" link (upper left corner of the page) to get a notification every time a new post goes up.

Have a good day, and stick with me. More thoughts coming, if not quite as frequently.

Bilbo

Post Number 4000

Yes, Dear Readers, today I have reached a milestone - this is my four-thousandth post!

Yes, Post Number 4,000!!

I created this blog twelve years ago, after I was asked to leave an online discussion group whose members thought I was insufficiently conservative. My first post was published on March 8th, 2006, and I have posted more-or-less regularly since then.

As you know, my topics vary depending on what interests me at the time I start writing. Over time, I've established certain "regular" posts: Cartoon Saturday appears weekly; Great Moments in Editing and Signage and the Left- and Right-Cheek Ass Clown Awards appear on alternate Fridays; and Sundays alternate between Poetry and Music. The rest of the time, it's whatever I feel like writing.

Many of you have been with me for a long time, and have tolerated (if grudgingly) the full range of my random thoughts; some posts are, of course, better than others, but I think that all have something worthwhile (or at least, entertaining) to say. Here are links to a few of my favorite posts from the last twelve years:

Don't Dig Here! As a linguist, I'm fascinated by the uses and designs of language and communication, and in this post, I looked at the challenges of designing warning signs for radioactive waste dumps that will be deadly for tens of thousands of years.

Another Word for "Hero." I wrote this post after the death of American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon; it was based on a speech I gave to my Toastmasters Club in 1977. The bottom line was that we don't need another word for "hero;" we need men and women who can live up to the meaning and expectations of the word we have.

The Ways We'll Be Remembered. This genesis of this post was a quote from a book I'd been reading - "Most human beings have vanished into the past without leaving a trace of their existence." The author's point was that few people leave anything of themselves behind after they die, such as diaries or letters to families and friends, and so there's nothing for future generations to remember them by. I think that's sad beyond words.

DUMBCON 1. This was the post in which I introduced my concept of the National Stupidity Condition (DUMBCON) based on the military's system of "Defense Conditions" (or DEFCONs). My original construction, like the military system, had five levels; I have updated and revised the system a number of times since then - it now has nine levels to accommodate the ever upwardly-spiraling level of national stupidity, and we have been at the new highest level, DUMBCON -3 (Minus Three), since June 5th, 2017.

Thoughts About Flags. On July 7, 2015, I wrote a post about the principles of flag design, and what makes a particular flag meaningful and memorable. I proposed a revision of the American flag to change the outdated symbolism of 50 stars and the red-white-and-blue motif to reflect modern American values. Check it out.

Celebrating a Life. My father passed away in January of 2015, and I wrote this remembrance of his life and the lessons he tried to teach me.

When Walls Don't Work. This post from two years ago was the latest iteration of my detailed plan for solving our contentious immigration debate. Most of you liked it as written or posed valid and well-reasoned issues; I also sent it to all of my elected representatives, who replied with the usual "thanks for your interest" form letters and went back to talking past each other.

Okay, that's enough self-congratulatory back-patting. Go back and look at those posts if you're new to the blog, or are interested in golden oldies, or just want to kill some time. And keep coming back - you're always welcome.

I want to close by thanking each and every one of my just-dropping-by readers and my regular readers and friends, some of whom I've been lucky enough to meet in person: John, Mike, Andrea, Amanda, Kathy, and Buggie, among so many others. You make writing this blog worthwhile every day.

Have a good day. Lots more thoughts coming!

Bilbo

Social Media Friends vs "Real" Friends

From Bilbo's Department of Shameless Plagiarism of Good Ideas comes today's post, inspired by fellow blogger John's post from last Saturday.

In his post, John ruminated on the differences between the friendships we maintain on social media and the friendships based on close and in-person contact. In John's view, social media relationships aren't "real" relationships, and we shouldn't have the people we routinely see every day as social media friends, because they deserve more personal contact ... we should have live conversations with them, face to face, and reserve the social media-level of friendship for those who are separated from us by great distance, or who are not necessarily our closest and warmest friends.

I sort of agree with that. Right now, I have 220 "friends" on Facebook, which is my primary social media outlet (I have a Twitter account, but almost never use it). Of that 220 number, probably about a third are people I've either never met in person or met once at a party or conference, and probably wouldn't recognize if we encountered each other on the street ... although I'd probably enjoy actually meeting and getting to know most of them. 

My 220 social media (Facebook) friends fall into the following general groups:

Members of my extended family (brothers, sister, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and so on);

High School and college friends with whom I've gotten re-acquainted (and in some cases, acquainted for the first time);

Dance friends from our time as active ballroom dancers and competitors;

Former work colleagues, including people I got to know because we rode the commuter bus together every day for many years;

Blogging friends (a fair number of whom I've actually met face-to-face - among them Andrea, Mike, Kathy, Birgitta, and Peggy, or by phone or exchange of snail mail - like Amanda from sunny Australia); and,

Friends of friends (people who have initiated contact with me because of things I've posted that they've seen on their friends' Facebook pages or blogs). This is a relatively small, but slowly growing group.

While I greatly prefer to enjoy my friendships up close and personal, I've found social media (Facebook, in the main) to be a great way to maintain contact and share information with friends and relatives who live at a great distance. It keeps us connected as much or as little as we wish to be, and it's a good way to prevent the sort of profound shock that often happens when we run into people we haven't seen for years ... what I think of as the "you're WHO???" reaction. In fact, that's how I got started on Facebook - when my high school class had its 40th reunion back in 2009, one of the organizers encouraged all of us to set up Facebook pages and post a few recent photos so we'd sort of recognize each other when we got together. Most of us did, and kept going, and it's been great fun.

One of the more recent problems is that much of the political anger and divisiveness that has ruptured the country has spilled over into the social media world. I've always been pretty outspoken about my political views in my blog and on Facebook, and I've engaged in a fair amount of heated discussion with various friends on FB, but so far nothing has yet reached the point where it's become nasty and vituperative* ... I've not yet felt the urge to "unfriend" anyone. I have both liberal and conservative friends, but most of them are reasonable and rational people with whom I don't mind the volley of competing ideas. Those who disagree with me are wrong, of course, and they think I am ... but we manage to remain friends.

But getting back to John's original blog post on this topic, here's a quote I don't think he'll mind me using:

"I'm actually more interested in meeting the people that read this blog and write their own personal blogs more than I am in meeting many of the people that follow on various forms of social media."

This is true. While it's nice to be able to keep up with the activities of our friends, it's even better to sit down once in a while over a coffee or lunch or dinner and really get to know one another. Of course, if we actually met in person, we might not recognize each other, given that we tend to be ... um ... generously selective with the profile photos we choose.

Bottom line: while I agree with John that "real" friends are better, I'm not likely to give up my "virtual" Facebook friends just yet. In any case, what we think of today as "social media" is not that much different from the concept of the "pen pal" that those of us of a certain age will remember. I like to think that my friendship with Amanda in Brisbane, Australia - whom I'm never likely to meet in person - is any less warm because we've carried it out through the exchange of blog posts, snail mail and one memorable phone call.

Have a good day, whether live or on social media.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Snide and snarky, yes, but I can live with that.