A Less Friendly Facebook

The other day I took one of the biggest risk anyone can take these days -- I posted a critical minority view of something to Facebook.

At the personal level, Facebook is not meant for people to disagree with each other.  (It's not the same for celebrity or corporate Facebook accounts, which practically invite strangers to troll.)  Facebook is all about inviting friends, which for the most part leads to everybody mindlessly 'liking' every friend's status update.  It's a fact that this usually is done by females to females, not only because they dominate Facebook, but because that's what female friends do.

The only exception I can recall to this universal 'like' business was during the 2012 presidential campaign, when obvious political differences came to the surface.  Even then, however, the disagreements were docile.

In my specific case, I posted an third-party blog entry that was somewhat critical of this summer's e so-called ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  (If you're reading this in a different year, I'm sure the Google or Facebook archives will tell you all about it.)  In short, the article called the challenge a form of 'slacktivism' where some people made it seem like they were helping a charitable cause, when in fact they were doing nothing.

Essentially, I was calling out everyone who was cluttering up social media with videos of people having water dumped on their heads, which was akin to jumping into a lake because someone else told them to do it -- and then calling it fun.  My comment was an 'the emperor has no clothes' kind of thing.

The outcome was underwhelming.  I did get agreements from a few folks, who were relieved to know somebody else thought like they did, but no real push back.  Ironically, it may be that there are now so many ice bucket videos in the feed that not that many noticed my post!

Regardless, it was a little disappointing.  I would like Facebook, actually all social media, to be more intellectually stimulating.  I get tired of seeing pictures of other friend's children, or pets, or food.  How about a little more hard information and opinion-sharing?

Maybe I just need more friends.

On Turning 50

I turned a half-century old this week.  Just a few quick thoughts about it so far:

* You know how the build-up to Christmas Day is often more spirited than Christmas Day itself?  That’s how turning 50 was for me.  The actual day was a little bit boring, at least in comparison to the build-up.  That may have been due in part to the day falling on a Monday.

* I feel like I suddenly have society’s permission to lower the bar in how I live life.  If I want to exercise less, if I want to take more time off, if I want to be less social, etc., age 50 means I can do all of those things without being as harshly judged.  That said, I have no intention of doing any of those things yet.

* Mentally, I still feel much younger than 50.  (Physically, not so much, but mentally I do.)  Plus, I hang out with a lot of people who are a few years older than me, which makes me feel even younger.  I’m not sure age and attitude are correlated, but if they are, I’m in good shape.

* AARP discounts.  A choice to play from the senior tees.  These aren't bad things.

Why Some People Hate America (Secular Version)

Last weekend, I was in a large grocery store picking up a couple of items.  This store had its own public cafeteria area, and a worker was just removing leftover food from a breakfast buffet it had set out.

I stood and watched as she took a tray filled with more than a dozen doughnuts from the buffet, brought them behind the counter, and scraped them into the garbage.  I didn't hang around, but there's little doubt this same garbage can would become the final resting place for all of the other leftover buffet food.

Multiply the leftovers from this small buffet by the thousands of others across America, over thousands of days, and I'm guessing you'd have enough to feed a small impoverished country for an entire meal.  Add in every other food item that restaurants toss daily, and maybe it's enough to feed that country for an entire day.

This is what we routinely throw into the garbage in America.  Yet, even some of America's own citizens go hungry.

I get it, it isn't the store's fault.  We have rules about food disposal and safety in our country.  The problem is, those rules aren't entirely written for the protection of the consumer; they're also written for the protection of the merchant, to avoid a lawsuit.  In other words, we throw away food to protect us from ourselves.

I also get that it's a distribution problem.  There's so reasonable way to transport perishable food thousands of miles.  But is it so hard to think it couldn't be put to some better use locally?

For full disclosure, I have to consider my own contribution to American food wastefulness last weekend.  I stopped at a convenience store on a road trip, where you could get 'any size' fountain drink up to 52-ounces for a dollar.  So of course, I got the 52-ouncer.  Why get only 20-ounces when you could get more than twice that for the same price and just throw away what you don't want?  And sadly, that's what I did.

I've been thinking more about American excess in general lately, ever since a trip to Las Vegas.  There, it isn't just food and beverages -- it's excess in every way, from the gambling all the way up to the imported Italian marble floor tiles.

We know that some people hate America based upon their own warped religious beliefs.  They are crazy idiots.  If there's anything to hate on us for, it would be our lack of humility in how much we waste.

Terrorists > VEISHEA, Part Two

ISU President Stephen Leath announced in a press conference August 7, 2014 that VEISHEA will be discontinued and the name will be retired.

"I'm not going to continue to put students at risk so we can observe what to many has become a week-long party," he said.

Leath, you are a politically-correct puppet for a few Republican cronies on the Iowa Board of Regents, and everything I said about you last Spring is as true now as it was then.  Only a close-minded fool thinks they have the means to control what they have no power over, such as the off-campus antics of mostly non-students.

Jerk.

Raking Up In Vegas

Spent another few days in Las Vegas recently, and when I say 'spent' I'm talking about money.

Not money from gambling losses -- that was no issue.  It's spent on the other mainstays of Vegas:  Eating.  Drinking.  Hotels.  Shows.  Tips.  It's become a sneaky expensive place to visit, at least for those who don't visit enough to get food and lodging comps.

I wrote some about this three years ago.  The Strip has become a place where it's very hard to find a reasonably priced meal, or beverage, or an under $15 minimum table game.  I didn't go downtown on this trip, where I know it's still less expensive.  But I don't go there to spend a lot of time in the downtown area, I want to be on the strip, where there are more things to see and do.

The reason it's so expensive is as basic as supply and demand.  There are currently a lot of people in this world with a lot of disposable income (or trust funds), and they're willing to spend it in the playground that is Vegas.

You've heard the economy is sluggish?  Don't tell Vegas.  I was there on a non-weekend, but the hotels and bars and pools and restaurants all seemed very busy to me.

Having said this.....oh yeah, I'll go back.  Preferably during football season, when the sports books are going strong.  They were all super-dead this time, with nothing but baseball for anyone to barely care about.

If I want it to cost less, I suppose I need to go back more often, for comps' sake.