Iron Filings - 78
June 1, 2023
Iron Filings - 78
I was thinking of putting in a heading along the lines of "This is why we pay these folks?" when I first read that the North Carolina legislature is pushing a bill that would do away with "participation" trophies in sports – you know, those little plastic things that kids get in a tournament regardless of how well they, or their team, did. I've never been a big fan of those things myself but, for heaven's sakes, kids put in countless hours of work and dedication so is it really that bad that they get just a modest memento? The rationale is that, supposedly, kids need to learn about failure and that simple effort or simply showing up is not always rewarded. Trust me, they know that.
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One of the major stalking horses of the Republigun party right now is the idea of "woke." If they don't like a person, position, policy, or practice it's because it's woke. Of course nobody actually knows what woke means – not even the GOP. My own interpretation is that it relates to waking up – to those elements in our history and culture that are important but which time and events have more or less swept under the carpet. For example, we love the image of the pilgrims and Indians sitting down at Thanksgiving and sharing Pop Tarts together, but we need to wake up to the fact that those were tense moments and didn't do anything at all to stop the mutual slaughter both sides carried on. Our myths, however, comfort us and we don't like it when we have to wake up to how things might have actually been. It's a waking, though, to the truth, and the truth always makes us better people. Again, that's just my take on the notion.
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Our mass-shooting response is pathetically predictable. On the left are calls for prohibition, regulation, registration. On the right is the gospel of the Second Amendment. What gets ignored in all of this, however, is the elephant in the room: social media. As a shooter, I am empowered by those who would tell me it is right to take my anger to its ultimate limits, and they are out there; by those who would tell me that justice is to be found in the bodies of the unjust, and they are out there; by those who would tell me that my enemies will never be brought to righteousness and must thus be eliminated, and they are out there. Yes, those voices are out there and some whacko who might in another time have vented his rage to his neighbor or the corner bartender and let it go at that, now gets affirmation for God knows what kind of action from a plethora of like-minded folks living on the bare edge of sanity on the internet.
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Interesting Sidebar: Facebook and Google are being sued by families of victims of the Buffalo supermarket massacre, "for allegedly feeding the convicted shooter "racist, antisemitic, and white supremacist propaganda.""
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I do wish people would stop using the word 'passed' instead of 'died.' Whenever I hear that one of my senior colleagues has passed I can only think that, against all odds, they were yet again able to renew their driver's license.
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For The Record (distasteful to me, too) – A New York jury recently certified Donald Trump as a sex abuser. I hope you're not surprised.
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Oh, The Horror – Just for fun I asked Microsoft's Chat AI what it could tell me about a monthly column called Cold Iron. Here's what I got:
"Cold Iron is a monthly column that has been published in "Dermatology News" since 2015. It is written by Dr. Brett Coldiron, a dermatologist …"
Trust me, I know nothing about dermatology.
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Sic Transit Gloria Facebook – A number of times in the past I've recounted some of my struggles with tech issues and how I resolved them. Recently, however, someone apparently got into my Facebook account and changed the two main identifiers: the email address and my phone number. So when I go to log in I keep getting an error message for either my email address or password. Now, Facebook gives you lots of options for recovering a hacked account or changing your login or password, but they all require you to login – which I can't do. I went down numerous rabbit holes and explored options but none of them worked. Ironically, I finally decided trying to fix the problem wasn't worth it – I hardly ever post on Facebook, and the posts I follow are generally people I'm in touch with in other ways. So I quit. Done with Facebook. It's kind of an odd failure, though, because it feels rather refreshing.
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You're Invited - So many people are so angry right now I think we all ought to sit down with a little ganja and just mellow out. Let's have a smoke-in for three-hundred and thirty million Americans. I'll bring the chips and brownies.
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G.K. Wuori ©2023
Photoillustration by the author