Empörungsgesellschaft – Crazy bloggers, twitterers, facebooklings, and so forth, are able to impinge upon the public consciousness in new and historically unprecedented ways?
Someone had suggested I put some pro-vaping info on my blog recently, as a result of my previous annual Great American Smokeout posts.
In the beginning of each year, I select a post for each month of the previous year, using a random number generator, which may not actually be random, or not, but is adequate for this exercise. I like to see how well it reflected that year just passed, or did not.
I figure if I do ABC Wednesday once a week, it should show up once or twice. Those link summaries are 2 or 3 times a month, so a couple of those too, I imagine.
And Allah help me, but I have no idea how many times I mentioned, or at least alluded to, the current American regime. It was painful enough to live through, and I might have to regurgitate it? Them’s the rules.
I’m fairly sure I got this from Gordon, who lives in Chicago and still remains the only non-local blogger I’ve ever met.
But I love it because it’s quasi-mathematical, like doing the first level of these Brilliant quizzes that I get in my email and occasionally get right. “You have a one-day streak going.”
The pic is me putting in a random search in Google limiting to .gov site. The pic’s from NIST, but I don’t know the context.
When one of my favorite actresses died, I noted the CBS lineup during the run of the show named after her. AITF is All in the Family. MTM is of course the Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show is the one based in Chicago, and Burnett is The Carol Burnett Show. The # indicated shows produced by her and then-husband Grant Tinker’s production company.
Answering Chris’ Ask Roger Anything question, citing Deborah Tannen’s 2001 book “I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You’re All Adults”
May: Q is for Quisp and Quake cereal
It [Quisp] was brought back in the mid-1980s, then again in the 1990s and in 2001, where it was relaunched as the “first Internet cereal”.
ABC Wednesday post about my fascination with breakfast cereals.
July: Music Throwback Canada Day: The Guess Who
“Quality Records credited the [1965] single [Shakin’ All Over] only to ‘Guess Who?’ in an attempt to build a mystique around the record…”
I’ve been doing Music Throwback almost weekly as well.
One of the relatively few times I posted twice in one day.
October: Q is for a Famous Quotation
That apparent need to always say SOMETHING is often to the detriment of the speaker, and, quite often, of us all.
For ABC Wednesday. The quote was: “It is better to remain silent and be thought of as a a fool than to speak up and remove any doubt.”
November: E-cigarettes: a solution to smoking?
“In addition to the unknown health effects, early evidence suggests that e-cigarette use may serve as an introductory product for preteens and teens who then go on to use other tobacco products, including cigarettes…”
Someone had suggested I put some pro-vaping info on my blog recently, as a result of my previous annual Great American Smokeout posts. But, in doing the research, I became less than enthralled with this alternative, though I suppose it’s better for people already smoking.
ABCW: I HAD to give you the following line, or you’d be lacking the payoff
***
And now the Kickstarter I’m supporting (deadline: Wed, January 10 2018 11:59 AM EST). LOLISTRAW is the world’s first edible, hypercompostable straw aimed at replacing the 500M plastic straws used every day in the US.
They’re doing it all: killing health care, lowering taxes on the rich, destroying the environment, taunting other world leaders
This is that thing that Jaquandor does on December 31, but I do on January 1.
Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Ya know, it wasn’t a New Years’ resolution, per se, but my wife and I swore this year (and for about ten years previous) that we would make a will, and we finally did this summer. You should probably do that too.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
My friends Susan and Anna had babies
Did you attend any weddings?
Don’t think so.
Did anyone close to you die?
Shockingly, no
What countries did you visit?
None, but my passport is in order, just in case.
What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?
To live in a just country.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
The aforementioned will.
What was your biggest failure?
Failing to create more Roger time, which can generate stress.
What was the best thing you bought?
A smartphone, my first. And I got that ONLY because I lost my flip phone that I had had for a decade or more.
Whose behavior merited celebration?
A lot of people, actually:
Robert Mueller
Those who went on the Women’s March on January 21
The #MeToo women and men
The folks loosely called the Resistance
The comedians, including John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah, the folks at Saturday Night Live, and, surprisingly, Jimmy Kimmel, who I did not particularly like heretofore
Those who helped the people dealing with the weather disasters of Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma in Florida and especially Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
Those who helped the people dealing with the human-made disasters of explosions, mass shootings, and weaponized cars
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, who appears to be as terrible as promised
The US Congress, passing legislature, passing legislation contrary to the needs and the will of its constituents
The US Cabinet who have the mission to negate all the success their agencies have achieved
The White House liars-in-chief, such as Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders
The litany of sexual predators, starting with Harvey Weinstein
And most of all, the terrible guy who promotes awful legislation, negates the progress of previous administrations, tells big fat lies, AND who is a sexual predator
Where did most of your money go?
The house, though we had no big projects.
What did you get really excited about?
The idea of retiring someday; also seeing Sheila E with Lynn Mabry in NYC in August
Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Only a little sadder, but really pissed off
Thinner or fatter?
About the same
Richer or poorer?
Richer, marginally
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleeping, writing, thinking
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Thinking about Agent Orange
How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve means singing at church, so that. Eventually we go to the in-laws
Did you fall in love in 2017?
Sure
How many one-night stands?
Jaquandor: “Now, that’s not the kind of question a gentleman answers! (Another stock answer!)”
What was your favorite TV program?
Finding Your Roots, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS This Morning Saturday, JEOPARDY!
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is such an ugly word. But I certainly loathe the behavior of a whole lot of people; see above
What was the best book you read?
Inventing America: Rockwell + Warhol from the Norman Rockwell Museum
What was your greatest musical discovery?
There’s a group called Spoon I saw on CBS This Morning Saturday who I really liked
What did you want and get?
The new Hess truck
What did you want and not get?
Clarification of what I’m supposed to do about Medicare if I’m not retiring yet
What were your favorite films of this year?
I Am Not Your Negro; Hidden Figures; Kedi; The Big Sick; Fences
What did you do on your birthday?
I took off the day from work and…oh, who knows?
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?
I still don’t get those pajama-like items being worn in public
What kept you sane?
Yet again I argue the premise of the question. That said, my dads’ group in church. seeing my best college friend more than once.
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Surprisingly, Ariana Grande (who I disliked from her Disney shows), who showed up in Birmingham, England only a couple weeks after her show was disrupted by a bomb
What political issue stirred you the most?
Here’s the thing: lots of people said THEY are doing THIS to DISTRACT you from them doing THAT. I don’t believe it. They’re doing it all: killing health care, lowering taxes on the rich, destroying the environment, taunting other world leaders (unless they’re thugs, such as the guy in the Philippines), etc, etc. That said, immigration, and our restrictive policies is doing large and possibly irreversible damage to our economy, is probably my core issue. It’s hurting education, tourism, farming…
Who was the best new person you met?
Some new church members.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” – Augustine of Hippo
The cost/benefit analysis of singing in the choir mitigates in its favor
Melanie, who got married recently – congratulations, you’ve made an honest man out of your honey! – asks:
What was the most important thing you learned this past year?
That I REALLY have to be more selfish. I find this, at some level, to be an anathema to me. There’s all this service that needs to be done, people to be helped, tasks to be fulfilled.
And I get this message not from my church, though it emphasizes it, but from deep within me. It was modeled by my father and I understand its import.
But if I’M not happy, then I’ve got nothing to give. It’s like when you put your air mask on first if it should drop from the airplane ceiling. If I tend to the other first, without getting my oxygen, I’m likely to suffocate.
Not sure I can pull it off. But emotionally, 2016 was emotionally battering, and it wasn’t just Agent Orange and those who supported him.
Another thing I learned is that some folks just are not fact-driven. A person mentioned, on FB naturally, that “Under God” wasn’t always in the Pledge of Allegiance. In reply, someone wrote: “I’m too lazy to research it at the moment, but, actually, I think ‘under God’ was always in the pledge.” This person had IN HIS HANDS a device that would allow him to access the answer.
What is something you are hoping to learn this coming one?
I want to know if I really can write in long-form. Blogs are, relatively, easy for me, but I suspect a book, on one subject, would be hard. Yet I’m about 75% sure I want to write one, which will mean clearing the deck of other things.
But I’m not giving up the blog, because the blog is what keeps me sane. Looking for a graphic for something else, I came across the item pictured. I’ve known it a while, but it’s no less true for that. And sometimes I forget.
I don’t know ANYTHING, in terms of many opinions, until I’ve written it down, which may require looking up facts – REAL facts, not GMO facts. Until then, I’m in flux. This is why I always do those Ask Roger Anything things in the first place, to find out my truth, as it were.
I also need to keep singing in the choir. The cost/benefit analysis mitigates in its favor.
I’ve tired of half-read books, and old newspapers and magazines piling up. I want to read more, NEED to exercise more. But time is not fungible, it’s finite, at least on the three dimensions I understand.
Facebook will be a casualty; no big loss, though items will continue to be automatically posted there, since it is an effective tool.
Oh, I have a book on learning how to play bridge, the card game. Always wanted to learn that. To be continued…
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LEAVE IT IN 2017 and Some looks at the year just gone
In the beginning of each year, I select a post for each month of the previous year, using a 
