Tag Archives: news

Experiments in leaving Social Media a confessional

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Probably doesn’t help being a Einstürzende Neubauten fan. They are a German band led by Blixa Bargeld that started back in the 1980s that event became so industrial that they had to rehearse under an overpass as that was the only place that could take what they dealt out.

Anyways, the band’s name means “collapsing new buildings”. You have to tear down so you start again. That’s pretty much been this.

The problems I’ve had is both time and the fact that its really easy to lose focus via the, as Sir Humphry Appleby said in the Yes Minister series

It is the department’s job to shield the Minister from the relentless shower of irrelevant information that beats against the window day after day

The problem is social media is genius at finding ways through the cracks. Because you do care. I care. We all I think to some extent, care. But if you are, to quote Scott Adam’s of Dilbert fame…

Bounced around like a ping pong ball in a dryer

all the time then you will inevitably not be in the best place to help anyone. Its also easy, especially for creative people to get suckered in to believing your bigger than you really are.

And this is where I got slammed. I was already planning the idea of escaping, or reducing my social media activity anyways and then I got just attacked, first thing in the morning because I had to check my bank balance. And that really did it. When something is not just horrible but seemingly unavoidable in future it is of course upsetting. I couldn’t even be angry because he wasn’t technically wrong. I had made myself bigger than I was. It was this, see if you spot it…

I shared it on the UK Office fan page on Facebook now removed. What’s the problem? Well why should anyone care? I’m not an A-lister. Why did I tag them like they’d respond.

Meanwhile what I should be doing is writing here. What I should be doing is studying creativity like I said. I should be doing morning pages (a la Artist’s Way), music study, production. I didn’t want to leave because of friends and family, which is how I think many feel trapped, but then something (usually political) these days will grab you by the soul and force a response, which then creates tension.

Even if there no attack you will be monitoring your device for the possibility of one. And bear in mind there is no gain for you doing this! I mean, I was bullied as a kid, but I can’t even imagine what it’s like for kids now who deal with online bullying. This was like waking up with a school bully straddling me and punching me in the face.

Meanwhile as a writer, songwriter and musician I can easy fill a 9 hour workday with things I have to do. I have lists on my note app of what I need to get to, watch later videos qued up on YouTube to go through, and just armies of books.

So after three or so days I kind of came back due to trying to do some creative work such as this below. Naturally it’s all joined so a reinstalling I went but since back I’ve been more viewing, maybe liking but only engaging with actual friends. I may reduce news and so on activity on Facebook and stick news to Twitter, creativity to Insta, Tiktok and YouTube.

Busy right now buying a car for the first time ever so this week has been goofy anyways but this will be continuing later.

Thank you for getting this far.

Cheers,

Tom

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The man who caused the 2016 election and potentially 2020.

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Ever read a run on sentence? Like a really bad one? Like a really, really bad one.

Like imagine if you had a twelve year old tabby cat that is rather spry for its age and when you were not looking at about eleven after five the cat went outside and you couldn’t find it and you ran into your neighbors and they said they didn’t see it they did want to ask you if you had seen that really interesting show on television about how their cousin Brian Williams from Albany, New York was going to be part of the US Bobsled team but was actually or at least nearly dropped because he didn’t use the proper sanitary box for his November 5th urine sample and so you decided to go get a beer with them at that new place, you know the one with the red umbrellas that overlooks the Inner Harbour around the corner from where they are still cleaning up the harbour from what use to be a paint factory and everyone is up in arms about because the contractor involved in it which is called Big Beaver Construction that seriously makes everyone laugh anyway…

You get the idea. Hard to remember it was actually about a cat.

That is part of the plan set up by Steven Bannon when he met Donald Trump at a function long before what would be Trump’s second run for office. They were going to do the media equivalent of a run on sentence and now we are all living it.

It’s why when you talk about what “he did” a week ago or what “he tweeted” feels like a different era.

It was planned.

Taken directly from Bannon’s Wikipedia page…

Bannon told journalist Michael Lewis in February 2018, “We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall. This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.” He added, “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit

So essentially, for the base he created straight forward simple talking points that they could get behind. For the media he instructed Donald to keep the media hopping with one specific thing after another specific thing, causing everyone to run defense.

Remember the mallet game at any Chunk E Cheese? It’s like that.

On multiple occasions Bannon made reference to The Camp of the Saints which is a novel published in 1973 by author and explorer Jean Raspail. Not sure what you explore in 73 but that’s from Wiki.

Not only is this book more blatantly racist than Mein Kempf (and becoming frighteningly popular) but it also anti immigration to say the least as it speaks of the western world being swarmed by “Indians” who kill, rape and worse until the last white person is gone.

As such the idea that this former editor of Brietbart Magazine, which Bannon proudly calls alt-right, would be the source of ideas like “the wall” and “fake news” shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The constant stream of one thing after another is a perfect deflection game, on top of the anti Clinton deflection which they knew they would get supporters to then join in on, a strategy that still continues just as voraciously now despite Hillary Clinton being out of political life entirely since December of 2016.

The influence of Steven Bannon on the current administration, despite him being physically gone can not be overstated.

The character of Sir Humphrey Appleby from the BBC comedy series “Yes, Minister” explain it perfectly…

“No government will change the apparatus that put them in power”

As such the far more effective thing is counter intuitive. I mean, you’re reading from the guy who slammed social media and is now here after more pushed reactions.

Oh yeah, I was counter-tweeting and liking my side this morning too. I’ve had times when I’ve made a point to not engage as it sets me off and kills my own productivity.

Sound familiar? This is it…it’s hard to do anything like that.

We have to, myself included, get to the point when we know that it’s all about getting your reaction. It’s interesting when you read our news or BBC because you start finding about the other news out there in the world you never heard about because it isn’t the 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue Soap Opera.

So my advice is to make your own point, ignoring completely the Bannon-built apparatus. Make decisions about how you “can do for your country” and go straight there. If you are running (a) holy cow! Thank you for reading and (b) drop the anyone but Trump thing. Tell us what you are going to do. Say what your plan is in your manifesto. It comes down to that one hard as he’ll thing. Ignore Trump. As Stephen Fry said “he becomes bigger as we talk about him…he fades away as we don’t. ”

Just that. Leave Camp of the Saints, Bannon and Brietbart where they belong…

Forgotten.

Cheers,

Tom

Update….More than happy that he is now arrested and facing legal trouble for fraud. Interesting how this is happening within eighty days of the 2020 election. One can only hope this wrapping up of how it started is a precursor to how it ends.

Thank you for reading! Please follow me and feel free to surf around my blog! 🌅

Read the World

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What is really happening around you? The truth is that there are numerous things that we don’t know about and couldn’t know, because we all have our own personal stories.

Consider how many stories that is, around the world, every single day.

Now I am not a voracious reader, no way as much as I’d like to be, so I tend towards piling on the audiobooks. These days, one of the benefits to smartphones is the ability to get audiobooks and books on demand. Between Hoopla (free library) and Audible (Not free but expanded) you can easy learn about every corner of the world.

Here is a direct screenshot from my device, no b.s. of the book that got me fascinated about the subject of North Korea back in December of 2016…

Later on I actually took out the following hardcover book from the Greater Victoria Public Library which may be available in your area as well.

On the same subject this book is amazing, written by an author still residing in North Korea who goes under the pen name “Bandi” which means firefly in Korean. Suffice to say he had the book smuggled out miraculously and cannot dare reveal his name.

When it came to my study of the broad subject of First Nations, well the first thing I learned straight away that can’t be one subject as it’s a bit like “ok, learn everything there is to know about the history of Europe”, so I narrowed my focus to then Coast Salish (and even that is far too vast, so I tried to focus on this area).

Of the many I read, this one stood out with it’s honest accounts of local history.

There is also an amazing dissertation by Allis Pakki Chipps-Sawyer called “Standing on the Edge of Yesterday” which you can pull down from Google as a PDF that explains so much about what is misunderstood about Coast Salish culture.

My mom got me reading a book ages ago from a middle eastern writer, who’s name sadly escapes me (gotta ask her on Monday) but here’s one that is totally worth getting however you can..

Set around the period of the Iraq war the protagonist is an American Iraqi woman who is trying to help her family and community, falling into questions of loyalty when things are seen from their perspective.

Now it is no coincidence that I picked three groups of people who have been seen as “other”. From my own experience with studying Native culture (and more) for writing, and just learning in life, when you are brought into a conversation things suddenly become clear.

The idea for this was me and a friend on Facebook talking about violence, both agreeing that noone should hit anyone. From my love of true to life things like the BBC’s The Office or NBC’s Parks and Recreation the idea of violence is uncool, pathetic and even just embarrassing.

As a human species is was not our ability to physically fight that kept us alive, it was our ability to plan and create cooperation.

A lot of violence, and the worst tends to come from faith reasons, which is how it becomes so deep set. As someone raised Catholic but a woman who would have been a nun if it wasn’t for his Dad (no kidding, mom was head of the British Columbia Secular Franciscans for years) I utterly disagree with the idea that God or any deity needs our help in enforcement.

100000000 Arnold Schwarzeneggers would be nothing compared to your supreme beings ability to snap his/her feelings and instantly fell your foe, so why does he need your help for that?

He does need your help to spread his love.

Ooh and in researching this I can a blog by a lady who has read way more than me (not hard to find)

Here’s the cover for it with the link below…

World Tale-Away challenge

Oh yeah and the music for reading, blogging and totally chilling comes from this favorite. Now I have listened to Tycho – Dive before but here’s their album from two years later called awake. Sort of reminds me of Groove Armada and Air so if you want great working ambient sound you’re good to go.

Tycho – Awake

Cheers,

Tom

🍻

P.S. checked with Mom and it was called Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana