Category: Memes; Internet & Social

Recovering Knee and Doomscrolling, 27

Daily life / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Politics / Surgery & MedicineLeave a comment

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Tuesday morning, not long after I finished my morning knee exercises, I drove to Barrie for my annual visit to my urologist — and the surgeon who removed my cancer-riddled prostate, back in 2020. You can read more about my journey with prostate cancer here. I also visit my oncologist once a year, usually in the spring. Both visits involve a prior PSA blood test to check if I have any of that hormone showing. And I don’t. Haven’t had a positive PSA result since my surgery. What matters for me about today’s visit is that I drove there and … click below for more ↓

Doomscrolling Notes, and Knee Recovery, 26

Daily life / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Well, I am happy to say I was wrong. Despite more than seven million people (possibly as many as 8.2 million) participating in the USA’s No King’s protest, the events were all peaceful, and the dictator Trump was unable to use any of them as a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, and start shooting and jailing American citizens. Trump spent his night posting AI videos and images of himself wearing a crown, including a video in which a crowned Trump in a fighter jet bombs No Kings protestors with feces. Yeah, he’s that childish. Can you … click below for more ↓

Smith, Rock, and the Trivialization of Western Culture

Books & Reviews / Culture / Media / Media Issues / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Social Order & Disorder / TV / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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If Neil Postman were alive today, sitting in a bar or café with Chris Hedges, I wonder which one would say “I told you so!” first after seeing social media this past week? The story that clogged the social media pipes this week was the slap one actor gave another on stage during the performance of the annual onanism festival called the Oscars. And as soon as it happened, even while it was occurring, a shitstorm of comments, opinions and reportage flooded social media. Every social media feed was clogged with pieces like tarry stercus and then flooded by the … click below for more ↓

Hegseth, hand washing and social media

Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / Manners & Civility / Memes; Internet & Social / Political fads / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Fox News host Pete Hegseth has said on air that he has not washed his hands for 10 years because “germs are not a real thing”. That’s the headline you read on dozens of media sites and shared throughout social media (this one from BBC News). Instant reactions (mine included) were “ewwww…” followed by negative comments on Fox News in general. But when you stop to think about it, could it be true? Can someone actually go a decade without washing his hands? No. Surely he bathes or showers regularly. One can’t believe a TV show host would be so … click below for more ↓

WTF is wrong with people these days?

Aging / Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Learning & Education / Memes; Internet & Social / New Age Codswallop / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Into everyone’s life comes the realization that we are not young and in between the time when we were, the world has changed. Not always for the better, either. In fact, it’s hard not to conclude the whole world has gone to shit since the internet arrived. Aging is not something that, as a culture, we embrace. After all, who wants to be old? Being a senior today is way too often portrayed in the media as being vulnerable, out of touch and cranky, as if we emerged from the chrysalis of middle age into a hunched curmudgeon shuffling along … click below for more ↓

You’re going to die. Again.

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Creationism / Critical Thinking / Memes; Internet & Social / Predictions and propheciesOne Comment

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Yeah, I know: we’re ALL going to die sooner or later. No one gets out of here alive. But that doesn’t stop people from saying the end is nearer than we expect. Right around the corner, in fact. The latest Magical Event being touted online (which event is absolutely not like all those others they predicted in the past…) starts December 21 (apparently “the week of Hanukkah in December 2019” because nothing says Jewish festive occasion and worship like the Christian end of the world…), according to wingnut and serial false predictor David Montaigne. Montaigne has written six books of … click below for more ↓

Misquoting Shakespeare. Again.

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Memes; Internet & Social / Quotes & Mis-quotesLeave a comment

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Let me begin with a digression on memes. Like a virus, a meme can spread uncontrollably in the right environment and infect millions with an idea or goal. This, of course, is good for such advocates of social ideals as Greenpeace or PETA, but like viruses, there can be bad memes that do more damage than good. More, it seems, than good or socially constructive memes. A meme is the self-propagating cultural equivalent of a virus*, but rather than spreading its DNA, a meme spreads ideas, cultural practices, thoughts, symbols, ideals, aesthetics and icons of popular imagination. Like a virus, … click below for more ↓

Baby, It’s Politically Correct Outside…

Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Culture / Memes; Internet & Social / Poetry & Lyrics / Political correctness gone wild / Political fads / Pop Culture / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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I must have travelled to another universe because when I awoke, the world had gone mad. Radio stations were pulling a popular, rather over-played, 74-year-old, playful holiday song because some folks thought it was about rape. Sexual assault. Or at least non-consensual sex. The media was full of Chicken Littles screaming that the cultural sky was falling if radio stations continued to play it. The song was subject of weighty opinions on editorial pages. What is going on in this strange, politically correct and apparently unhinged universe? Let me back up. Two items appeared simultaneously on my Facebook timeline this week: … click below for more ↓

The bucket list, kicked

Critical Thinking / Culture / Internet & Social Media / Logic and reason / Memes; Internet & Social / New Age Codswallop / Personal Reminiscences / Philosophy2 Comments

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Nowadays the “bucket list” concept has become a wildly popular cultural meme, thanks to the movie of the same name. Subsequent marketing of the idea to millennials has proven a successful means to derive them of their income, with which they seem eager to part. I don’t like the concept. The list, I mean, not necessarily the plucking of the millennial chickens who willingly hand over their financial feathers. They get what they deserve. Bucketlist.org has, at the time of this writing, more than 5.317 million “dreams” for you to pursue. Contributed by more than 450,000 people. And your individual … click below for more ↓

Transcendance

Culture / Film & Reviews / Memes; Internet & Social / Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder / Technology & GadgetsLeave a comment

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It’s not surprising that AI replaced the biological form in the popular Frankenstein monster trope. In fact the smart-evil-machine scenario has been done so often this past decade or so that I’m more surprised any film writer or director can manage to give it some semblance of uniqueness that differs it from all the others. Transcendence tries, tries very hard and almost makes it. But the brass ring remains out of reach. Still, it’s worth watching if you’re a scifi buff because, well, it’s scifi.* And even bad scifi is better than no scifi at all. Well, maybe not the Transformer franchise, … click below for more ↓

Type amen, click like and share…

Christianity / Culture / Faith / Memes; Internet & Social / Psychology & Sociology / Social media & cyberbullying / Social Order & Disorder / UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I created what proved an interesting discussion on Facebook recently when I threatened to ‘unfriend’ anyone who continued to out those obnoxious ‘type amen and share’ posts on their timelines. Now if you’re a FB user, you have seen these things endless times. They’re as common as the “50% will get this math question wrong” and “you won’t believe what happened next!” or the “Nine out of ten can’t answer these questions” posts. Most of these are simply trolling posts that lead to pages replete with clickbait, scams and data collection bots. Then there are those dreary click-farming posts. Press K and … click below for more ↓

Nope, That’s Not by Marcus Aurelius

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Language & Grammar / Memes; Internet & Social2 Comments

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An image appeared on my Facebook feed one day purporting to be a quotation taken from the Roman emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. Having read his Meditations more than once in multiple translations, I was baffled because it didn’t look at all familiar or even sound like him. But was it a new translation? The quote is: Everything we hear is a opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. It’s a good line, even if a tautology (the statement is itself an opinion), but I can’t find it in any online version of the … click below for more ↓

Bad News For Balderdash

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / Memes; Internet & Social / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social media & cyberbullying / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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A recent story on New Scientist gives a glimmer of hope for those of us who bemoan the swelling tsunami of claptrap and codswallop that fills the internet: THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness. What a relief that will be. Of course it may spell doom for the popularity of pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, fad diets, racist, anti-vaccination fearmongers, yellow journalism, Fox News, celebrity wingnuts, psychics and some local bloggers – all of whose … click below for more ↓

Abusing quotation marks

Humour & Satire / Language & Grammar / Memes; Internet & Social / Style & usageOne Comment

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What goes through your mind when you see words in a paragraph or a sentence surrounded by quotation marks? Like that sign in the image on your left? That they are words excerpted from conversations or written content? Or that they are special; peculiar words, or perhaps used ironically, sarcastically or in jest? Take these examples from the “Blog” of Unnecessary Quotation Marks: “Chicken” pot pies $5.99 Please open the door “slowly” “Push” the last channel button. No “Free” refills It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What is in the pie that isn’t “chicken” but we’ll pretend it is? Try reading … click below for more ↓

Our gawker culture

Critical Thinking / Culture / Manners & Civility / Media Issues / Memes; Internet & Social / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Suddenly the Net lit up with headlines news: celebrity nude photos leaked! Videos too! Facebook timelines were replete with media stories. Shock. Horror. Voyeurism. Click, click, click the viewers racked up the view count as they raced to the sites just in case they actually showed something. A little flesh to feed our insatiable desire to gawk. Meanwhile psychopaths in ISIS continue to harvest human lives and slaughter journalists, Syria continues its brutal civil war, drought threatens the American southwest, climate change ravages the planet, Russia sends soldiers to undermine Ukraine and shoot down civilian airliners, pesticides continue to wipe out … click below for more ↓

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