The best thing I have ever seen about gun violence

Zonk Deck:  Might have to change this meme, eh?

Like    Reply    5 hours

Matt Bille:  I agree with tighter nationwide regulations, but so many guns are in circulation that I don't know about the impact. I don't fear the guns so much as the people who use them.

Like    Reply    5 hours

Dick Ostrander:  Actually fear cars, cars killed more Americans than guns. Let's ban cars...

Like   Reply - 1    4 hours

Dawn Kresan: Cars are needed, guns are not.

Like    Reply    4 hours

Thomas Behnke: That's why you have to pass two tests to get a license to drive one, you have to register the vehicle, and have liability insurance, you can only drive a certain speed in certain places, and car manufacturers are REQUIRED to include features that are designed to ensure public safety, like seat belts, and mirrors, and there are certain features that are not legal on public roads, unlike guns that have none of these restrictions, even though a car is a tool whose primary purpose is to transport people and things faster and more efficiently than horses, where a gun is a tool whose primary purpose is to kill things faster and more efficiently than a cross bow. Because America and logic have never been the best of friends.

Blogger's Response. This, whether it's strictly allowed or not, is a transcript of a bit of dialogue on my Facebook page about gun violence. While I have a very hard time believing that Isis killed only four Americans in a year, and while I assume the rest of the statistics are pulled out of someone's ass for sake of a dramatic internet meme, it's nevertheless making a good point. But that last comment is something we need to think about. The flip remark "Actually fear cars, cars killed more Americans than guns. Let's ban cars. . . " is dismissive and even mocking, and either supports gun culture or is downright contemptuous of any attempt to condemn it. The next couple of comments put it all into perspective. 

Facebook: yet another riveting post

(Names removed to protect ME. I just cannot figure out why any sane person would discuss this on Facebook!)

     I got sized for new bras over the weekend... because weight fluctuates/moves. I went to a small locally owned lingerie company that sells super nice bras for every size and the new ones are so comfortable... but I only bought 3 because (of course) they're really too expensive to buy more than that at one time. Three bras covers most of my needs, but philosophical question (asked as I fold laundry) how many sizes to the side should I keep as extras? Currently my collection has four different sizes--and the new ones make a fifth... le sigh.

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     The struggle is real. If they are more than a cup size off donate them. Lots of domestic violence shelters really need bras, so that's one way to get rid of them.
 

    But seriously, by the time I can afford the number of bras I would actually like I've already changed sizes again. I know there are some people out there who are the same size for years but... not me.
    

     It's been a fortunate life, I've worn the same size bra for 45 years, since I was 20

        
      Lucky!

        I know that feel. I think I went up a cup size every year at Hamp.

  
  Yep, mind I didn't get my first bra until I was seventeen and then only one.....

   So the theory is you're supposed to have a few so that the elastic can bounce back before the next wear (you don't have to wash bras every time you wear them). Then I like a light one, a dark one, a few pretty ones to make me feel good on silly days, and a strapless one... Which adds up to like 5 or 6 in optimum rotation.
   

    I bought 10 pairs at half price, $30 each and still have three pairs not yet worn, all colours, satin and Lacey pretty ones, when I wash them I make sure they are washed in a bra bag and are hung by the under length with two soft pressure pegs

Facebook: just because we care

"Margaret, we care about you and the memories you share here," says Facebook to me on a desolate Monday. The notice just appears out of nowhere, popping up and interrupting my news feed. So they post something from two years ago that they assume I would want to see again.

Well, I think I'll go on living, folks, knowing somebody "cares about me" and the memories I share here. The thing they thought I'd like to look back on from two years ago was a chart which illustrated the inbreeding of Charles II of Spain, with a family tree in which half his relatives were either first cousins or uncle-niece combinations. 

It gave me a warm and lint-covered feeling to realize that Facebook cared enough - yes, CARED enough about me individually, as a person, to carefully select this damp and frothy memory. No doubt their loving, even tender choice revealed much about me, someone who shares special, nay, irreplaceable memories with her many thousands of Facebook friends on a daily or perhaps hourly or even moment-by-moment basis. But even more caring are all those ads for Walmart which they keep blasting in my face twenty times a day. Nice to know they're thinking of me as a potential market for corporate advertising - not just now, but always.

When I deleted this thing, a notice came up in bold type that said, "We're sorry, we know we don't always get it right." I heard muffled sobbing in the background. Or is that just the ever-present hum of the Facebook engine? Whatever, the statement was designed to produce a little twinge of bad feeling, something that would stay with you all day and just blight your joy a little, a sense you'd somehow been insensitive and done something gratuitously hurtful and wrong. 

Don't worry, the good folks at Facebook are apologetic and contrite, and just beating themselves up for doing this to you - but hey, didn't they do it just to please you, to make your day a little brighter? So if you don't appreciate their honest efforts to cheer you and make you a welcome part of Facebook Nation, doesn't that say something about YOU? Did you ever stop to think what a shit you are?

Survival of the meanest

Margaret Gunning shared HOT 104.5's photo.

October 17 at 1:19pm · 

What I object to are very obscure statements that seem to come from the middle of a thought, that "only certain people" will "get". This is Facebook, folks, it's social media, not a private email, and you should have gotten over whispering secrets to "certain people" in the schoolyard so that everyone else will feel left out.

This was one of the things I got testy about (not that I ever get testy! Jeeeez.) The original from HOT 104.5 (radio, I assume) had half a million likes and comments, etc., and even my own "share" had many more than I usually get, although I was surprised. It was an admission of something that goes on as standard practice, though obviously a lot of people object to it.

It ties in to the snickering-on-the-playground nature of social media, and it really hurts young people and has even triggered suicides, but nobody tries to do anything about it. Humans are elitist by nature: we're in, you're out. If we're herd animals, some of us just don't make the cut.

I deleted a couple of recent posts because, to be honest, I didn't want to put out that kind of negative energy. This blog is for my own enjoyment, and though a very few times I've had a very large (for me) number of views, these are aberrations. The rest of the time, the process is all. But I salvaged this image, because I felt it was worth keeping and thinking about.

So you can make up your own mind about this. Most people say, oh yes, isn't that awful, I just hate it, then go right back to doing it. Survival of the meanest, I guess.

Why is Facebook so fucked up?

I don't often post journal entries, because I make a distinction between blogging and journalling. But lately I have been more and more sickened and offended by what I see on Facebook. I have no idea what is going on here, as I used to enjoy it, with a few exceptions. I don't think this is just a case of "bad friend choices", as everyone is telling me.  Elections on both sides of the border have brought out the ugly in everyone, but there has been some real frat-house-level sexual humour and depictions of blow-jobs and menstrual blood and cunt pillows made of red velvet and that sort of thing, and I get sickened before I've even had my breakfast. "So don't go on Facebook any more! Get lost!"is the response. That's like throwing someone out of their country because they don't like its politics. Or something. Anyway. I want to preface this by saying I don't object to profanity if you are so incensed that your head is ready to blow off your body. The f-word, smeared around so liberally, should be reserved for occasions of rage mixed with headspinning nausea. Like - fucking right now!

FB makes me even more sick now, if that’s possible. That guy who wrote the sensitive, moving piece about his struggles with mental illness boasted that he was in a film in Toronto that played at a festival. Fine, if egotistical. Then I looked at it, and it was a film showing a woman giving a man oral sex, complete with grunts and groans and head-pushing. This was going on even as the movie began, so there was no preface for it, no context at all. It took a while to realize it was simulated, as it was obviously meant to look as much like a real live blow job as possible.

Are you surprised to hear me say I don't want to watch a blow job at 10:30 in the morning, or ANY time? It's all very well to say, "duhhhhhh, wellll, then just don't watch it, eh?" - but after looking forward to something half-decent from a friend, it was an ambush. This "don't look at it" does not work for me - the problem is once more "my fault". These posts are either impossible to ignore, or rotten and disgusting when (lured by an interesting headline) you open them.

Hard on the heels of the blow job, there was a giant pillow representing a vulva. A big fat. . . I mean, I've seen this kind of thing before, but isn't it getting just a little bit stupid? (As usual, it was wrongly called "a vagina", which is now slang for anything below a woman's waist. A vagina is a tube. Sperm goes in; babies come out. But "vulva" sounds erotic and dirty, so it's never used.)

(For further information on this topic, read my former post, which got a lot of views because it had the term "twat" in it until I changed it. To vulva.)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2012/04/vagina-vagina-lets-call-whole-thing.html

If it were a penis, would it fly (or whatever)? Who knows. But once again, the comments were all squeals of joy and enthusiastic praise, stating how "empowering" it was. But who would have it on their living room sofa? These liberals, put to the test, aren't liberal at all, because you can be anybody you want on Facebook, even a brave feminist who keeps her mouth shut in company. Then there was the picture of Donald Trump painted in someone’s menstrual blood, which everyone screamed and raved about and ooh-ed and ahh-ed over because it was, I guess, "feminist", but it still makes no sense to me. It was as much of a political statement as painting a picture of Alfred E. Neuman in your own snot.

Then the Stephen Harper thing. Yes. Stephen Harper, loathed by all my friends, just skewered in every post. Compared to Hitler, that sort of thing (which is a horrible insult to Holocaust survivors, but hey, haven't most of them died off already? It doesn't really matter what we say now.) The worst one, posted by Mick Gzowski (Peter Gzowski's son, who had up to that point been quite supportive of my posts) had a series of photos with Stephen Harper wielding a giant dildo. Yes, folks, because I am NOT a dried-up, prissy little old lady, I do know what a dildo is, and I still don't know why this is considered "good political satire". It's a fake penis, guys. Washroom wall stuff. A fourteen-year-old could come up with something funnier and more relevant. All the comments joined in the sniggering and "awe-some, man!" attitude. God. PLEASE bring back Mark Twain or someone who knew what it was to put a politician in his place without pulling out a fake dick!

I've been told over and over again that the problem is my own poor choice of friends, but it doesn't make a lot of sense that this has escalated so much in the last couple of months. It might be the friends of friends thing, which I don’t remember before. These are posts that friends supposedly "like" or "comment on" which are now shoved in my face, so they're not from friends at all. It’s getting so bad I just don’t know what to expect. I haven’t had any really good links in a very long time, and I used to get at least a few a day to interesting sites with some actual content.

I’d clean out all the dead wood, except that I have around 800 friends (a relatively small number by Facebook standards) and can’t anticipate who will send me this stuff. I had NEVER seen that kind of crap from Mick Gzowski before. If I housecleaned I’d be taking stabs, and end up with basically nothing. This has turned irreversibly sour for me, and nobody’s listening, I mean nobody. All I’ve been posting are complaints lately, it seems, because the stuff I’m seeing is either offensive or just plain stupid: oohing and ahhing over the wisdom of Pamela Anderson’s comments on politics and the coming election. PAMELA ANDERSON, Miss Tits and Ass herself! This was posted by someone I thought was smart! I don’t dare say what I feel, which is, are you out of your fucking MIND?! Has your IQ dropped by 20 or 30 points just by being on Facebook?

FB used to be more-or-less enjoyable and I went on it every day with a degree of anticipation, and now I just wait for the offensive material. I don't have to wait very long.  One of the problems is taking "friends" on for similar interests, such as silent film and other film-related things, then finding out they are Tea Party Republicans and have the personality and insight of Great White sharks. You can’t tell by the color of their eyes OR their interests whether they will possess a complete brain, vestigial insight, or a white uniform with a hood in their closet. I could not keep this meme because it made me want to vomit, but it depicted JFK at the top and Obama (with a circle around his picture) at the bottom, and said "If we're going to assassinate a  Democrat, next time let's make sure we get the right man."

Another Republican splat in the face, offensive for an entirely different reason, was one of those gooey religious ones about Jesus loving us all. It had a meme of the traditional picture from the Sunday School wall with some kind of message like, "Share if you love Jesus!" I could not believe what I was seeing. One of my friends had apparently commented on this, probably very negatively, so - there it was, clogging up my feed, making me feel like I needed some sort of Facebook Drain-o to flush all this crap away.

There is all sorts of stuff on the net, but the quality of it has really degenerated in recent (very recent) times. The "news" sites are just junk with no content at all. So-called satire, much of it of the look-at-my-penis variety, is muddled together with "real" news stories to create deliberate confusion. Newspapers are dead and are even closing their doors. Apparently the Edmonton Journal, whom I wrote for for more than 15 years, is now huddled in the corner of their old building, with the printing being farmed out elsewhere, probably the Third World. The ink is so pale you can’t read it, and the type is smaller and squashed-together, a shrinkage that has been going on for a couple of decades now. The image is extremely potent. My old-school milieu, the only place where I felt I had a sense of accomplishment, is slowly and ruthlessly being squeezed into oblivion. Once again I am left alone on the playground, which is the worst feeling in the world.

P. S. I have decided to vote for Harper. Why? I'll tell you why. Because of the Hitler moustache, and so many other things that are ludicrously over-the-top and even unfair. I am voting for Harper because you don't want me to. Because you have ruined my day with your tasteless and even stomach-turning frat-house crap. Because I am sick of lefties yapping about human rights from their plushy fat-cat houses with three-car garages. Because I'm afraid of protesting any of this garbage because I know I will be abused, and afraid of expressing my real views because I know I will be sniped at. Because I'm tired of the gooey idealization of that pretender-to-the-high-IQ, Justin Trudeau. I lived through his father TWICE, and I am sure as hell not going to live through him! As for that other guy, orange never looked good on me, and I'm sure it wouldn't look too good on my country either.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

"Better than having no goals at all"?

As you can probably tell by now, I have a little-little bit of a problem with Facebook. Generally speaking, what makes me gag is the narcissistic posturing of authors who are glad to play down their recent bestseller/literary award so long as you know all about it. And then there's the "PLEASE, people, don't even attempt to friend me because I have very few spaces left in my 5000 limit! I just don't believe people have an excuse to think they can approach me at a time like this, when *I* will hand-pick my last few friend requests from my most loyal supporters." Ad nauseam.

But this took the (let-them-eat) cake. This is an actual Facebook post, with actual responses that I don't think are meant to be ironic (though there is always hope). The people posting the comments are sniggering over the fact that a 29-year-old woman hasn't even finished high school and considers it her educational goal. You can just feel the disdain, even contempt for someone that age who is so ignorant that she doesn't have a high school diploma. Not only that, but going back to high school is painted as something unworthy, if not shameful, something she should have done at the proper time (as they no doubt did). I had something to say about this, although I do not believe there will be any more comments, except perhaps to take me on for being "negative".

I've left names on this time. All this has already been on FB, so why not? I'm still trying to stop gagging over their ignorant superiority and "at least. . . " condescention. That sardonic ". . . again. . . " was the killer. What if someone said that at someone's second wedding?

Peerless Kent: Last night, I had a coffee date with a 29 year old girl at Starbucks. At one point, my date shares with me that she has the itch to go back to school. I was curious, was the goal to complete her bachelor's or master's? Turns out, she was talking about finishing high school.

Ella Winters *Stunned crowd* Well at least she wants to do that wink emoticon

Maria-Luiza Popescu Better having that than no goals at all. smile emoticon

Laurie Schmidt Lee PA At least she wants to try...again.....

Margaret Gunning  Imagine the obstacles in the way that must have
kept her from finishing high school to this point. I really am surprised
how negative the response has been here. Is this sort of a "let them eat
cake" thing? She may have been forced to work to support herself (and
others?). She may have had personal or health problems. The fact she
wants to go back now is incredibly courageous, especially if others are going
to disparage her goal. This is just my two cents, not trying to start a fight
and people can believe what they want. But there's a meme going around
that people post, but don't really practice: be gentle with others, because
everyone is fighting a battle that we know nothing about. I don't think "oh
well, at least. . . " reflects that view, but seems to say, "is that all she wants
to do?", as if a Masters. or post-graduate work is more worthy and will lead
to a better job. I have it on first-hand authority that it often leads straight to
the unemployment line.

Post-Blog Boggle: I was too incensed to cut and paste this reply from Peerless Kent (whose name gives you an idea of his mindset), but the gist of it was, "Hey, Margaret, I'm with you all the way on this, but she was a party girl living on a trust fund and really didn't seem to be very serious about this. But she seemed like a nice person, so I'll do whatever I can to help her." 

In focusing on only one example, and judgementally/disparagingly at that, he completely missed my point about educational goals, as did his Greek chorus of lackeys. Hey, this girl is a loser and perhaps a hooker, sucking the system dry, so why should we take her goals seriously? But hey, "at least" she's doing something. . . finally. . . 

BLOCK PEERLESS KENT.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Facebook hacks: or, why it is so depressing to be a blogger

Well, first of all nobody buys your books anyway, even though you forced yourself to start a blog to promote the book. Which everyone told you you HAD to do.

It's all a  popularity contest based on views and followers, meaning 98% of bloggers will beat you every time.

The only really enjoyable thing is writing the posts, which is considered the least important.

But no. THAT is not the thing that pisses me off today.

At the top of my Facebook page, a yellow bar appeared today that I cannot get rid of. This yellow bar has a little triangle with an exclamation point inside it, and it wants me to give my phone number to Facebook "to help secure your account AND MORE." The "and more" is never explained.

I do not want to give my phone number to Facebook. At all. EVER. No matter how many reassurances they give me that it will be kept private, it won't be. Things are being hacked all the time, daily, things which, incredibly, are even more important than Facebook.

This post is a sad little thing. I wrote a nice fat juicily angry one backed up with lots of articles from The Guardian, etc., saying that I was right and should NEVER give my phone number to Facebook, no matter how much Facebook tells us it's all right.

Facebook telling us it's all right is supposed to make it all right, or at least make us THINK it's all right.It isn't. All right.

Phone numbers and a lot of other personal information is for sale on the Internet, and Facebook, or, sorry, no, somebody PRETENDING to be Facebook, might be selling it even as we speak. This information is being tossed to advertisers like herrings to hungry sea lions.

That's still not the worst thing. This yellow bar won't go away and is still sitting at the top of my Facebook page and has no "no" option, though it appears to. It has a "dead" x that does nothing in the corner, giving you the illusion you have a choice and can turn it down if you want to. You can't. You can't even click it away so you don't have to look at the stupid mocking piss-yellow thing any more.

But it gets even worse. In trying to write a blog post about that yellow bar and the evil it represented, that selfsame yellow bar (incredibly) transferred itself to the top of my blog home page. It was greyed out so I couldn't get rid of it or do anything with it. At all. I know it was the Facebook yellow bar because it had the Facebook "head" symbol on the left side, but no lettering on it. Then Internet Explorer told me I didn't even have a blog any more, that it had been completely wiped. I clicked around and managed to accidentally delete the post I've been working on all day. It's gone. But the grey/yellow bar is gone, too.

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE?????

Like a virus, that unwanted "invitation" to give my phone number to Facebook jumped to my blog home page and destroyed a post about me NOT wanting to give them my phone number.

From the Deep Web (a sort of Twilight Zone of creepy cyberstories) to the Cloud, which may or may not actually be suspended in the sky, the internet just gets scarier. Soon it will develop consciousness, like HAL in the movie 2001, and spew astronauts out in space with no oxygen supply.

Meantime my magnificent post about Facebook's attempt to hijack and pirate my privacy has disappeared. Hey, I'M not saying Facebook had anything to do with this. But it's possible their little ghouls read my mind, or my blog, and decided to wipe the whole thing clean.

Or not. But FUCK how I hate having to reconstruct a post which I KNOW will never be as good as the original.

POST-BLOG GLOB: So here's what they told me! Facebook's "response" to my query about their request for my phone number:

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. We’re constantly trying to improve Facebook, so it's important that we hear from the people who use it. Unfortunately, we can’t respond to your emails individually, but we are paying attention to them. We appreciate you taking the time to write to us.

If you're having any problems with your account, please visit the Help Center (http://www.facebook.com/help) where you'll find information about Facebook as well as the answers to many of your questions.

Thanks again for your feedback,
The Facebook Team

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Facebook: "I have so many friends, I'm SWAMPED!"

Actual Facebook post from an actual Facebook friend, actually read by me this morning.

"What is going on with FACEBOOK? I'm getting inundated with "friend" requests. If you have referred someone to my page and I've declined, I apologize BUT I only have just over 200 "slots" left. Please invite your friends to follow my FB page, "like" my Watchdogz page, and check out for my website which is coming out late next month. They can also view my book trailer (please repost the link). Thanks to the many authors who have connected with me and lent me some good advice, shown me some phenomenal reading material, and have been "friends." I hope you will continue on this journey with me."

For reasons that have to do with self-preservation only, I will withhold the name of the person who wrote this Facebook post. But I think it's a brilliant example of casual, tossed-off narcissism expressed as irritation: oh, those pesky fans of mine! Why must they overwhelm me with their petty requests to be my friend? As if they think they are close enough to my lofty status to "friend" me. I'm almost at the 3000 upper limit, for God's sake. Have they no manners? Don't they realize that the last 200 friend "slots" must be filled by people I love, cherish and see face-to-face every day (just like the other 2800), not to mention people who are good for my career? I have forgotten how to refuse friend requests, by the way, which gives me a very good excuse to complain about it here.

But then comes the topper. This whiny  post which is so disdainful and even contemptuous of her fans then switches to blatant advertising for her new web site and her books. Then her tone seems to miraculously settle down, maybe because this message has been sent out in one form or another about 50,000 times. Having prepared the ground by letting everyone know what a literary superstar she is, she then moves in for the kill.

I see this sort of thing all the time on FB: sometimes phony irritation about those pesky people who debase themselves with abject adulation, sometimes phony humility ("I don't know how this ever happened - it seems impossible - I know I probably don't deserve it - but GUESS WHAT, guys! I just won the Giller Prize. Yippee!"). One strange one I saw went sort of like, "I hate having to do this - it just tortures me every day, but I HAVE to do it, it's part of a writer's burden. My publisher insists that I promote myself, so it's not my fault. They insist I talk about the, no, I won't say it,that I announce to everyone, not that I want to, my nomination for the Gasbag Award for 2015."

There are twists of double, triple and quadruple meaning here, all of them veiling a narcissism that causes a level of nausea in me equivalent to spraying an entire can of Reddi-Whip in my mouth at once. Nobody's straight about it. The petty foot-stomping over all those presumptuous fans is the worst, but I've also seen things like, "I apologize to all my friends in advance. I'll be taking some time off Facebook for some much-need R & R. Be back in an hour." One went, "My email is down and is going to be down for the next half-hour. Please message me on FB - not all at once, please, I can't possibly get through them all! - or email my overflow email, or my overflow-overflow email, or just sit there and miss me for half an hour. Or better yet, go on my fan page or buy my book on Amazon and give me five stars. OK?"

The published authors are snooty, the "famous" published authors who actually have an income are astonishingly, headshakingly vain and narcissistic. I don't know how many times I've seen links to artlcles such as, "Why it's so heartbreaking to fail as a writer," which consists of a few paragraphs about what it's like to be hopeless loser who never gets anywhere because they don't know what the hell they are doing. Then comes the REAL article: how I beat the curse of being a hopeless loser and got a $250,000.00 advance on my next novel that isn't even written yet. So what the hell is going on here? "Yes, OK, I know how it must feel to be a total failure, happens to the best of us, and it might even have happened to ME, except, you see, I know what the hell I'm doing. And you don't."

Say what you mean, people. If you're a failure, poop it out. If you're successful, march around with a banner. Just don't be so goddamn devious, please - you are making me sick.


Post-blog blob. Just thought of something that happened quite a few years ago at a writer's workshop. A novelist, best-selling by Canadian standards - i. e. a few thousand copies - was telling us all about the perils of fame, and what a nuisance her fans can be. She told us a story to illustrate this. After doing a reading from her latest best-selling novel featuring a dysfunctional Canadian family living on a broken-down prairie wheat farm in the 1800s, with the mother giving birth to a stillborn baby in the barn, etc. etc., a fan came up to her and said, "I just wanted to tell you that your reading brought back all sorts of vivid memories for me. Your character Mac McMackintosh reminded me so much of my great-grandfather and his stories of the Great Grasshopper Plague of 1892." 

The author looked at us in horror with a sort of shrinking-back, dread-mixed-with-disgust body posture and said in a whiny voice, "I don't want to get involved with these people and their traumatic memories! I have nothing to do with their dysfunctional families! I don't want to hear about how my work triggered whatever-the-hell in them. That's none of my affair and they should know that." (Eye-roll, shrug)"Honestly." Composing herself, rearranging her poofy

hair and straightening her I-don't-really-need-these glasses: "Besides, it was crickets."

BLOG BADDA-BOOM! A follow-up to the follow-up to the quote from my anonymous friend's Facebook page. I am sure she has no idea of the staggering level of narcissism and entitlement expressed in her post. But it would be no fun without it!:

"Wow, this has been an eventful 24 hours. First of all, I have had to decline so many friend requests the past week as I have been swamped. Unfortunately, some people are not happy about this. I invite everyone to follow my FB page, "like" my Watchdogz page, and keep an eye out for my website which is coming out late next month. Facebook places a 5,000 person limit on "friends" and of course, we know this can be difficult. As of writing this message, I have 188 spots left and have been trying to carefully select people who I feel will genuinely be supportive to me as an author and will continue on this journey of my mystery/thriller adventures."

"Over the last couple of days, I have sadly lost a longtime "personal" friend who has accused me of "poaching" from his friend list to develop my own friends and demanded that I cancel them from my account. I value all of my FB friends and I have contacted each and everyone of the formerly (I have blocked him from my page) 60 mutual "friends," that we shared and advised them of the situation, inviting them to "unfriend" ME if THEY so desire. This individual is attempting to get me "banned" from Facebook and has launched a very vicious attack on my integrity. I would like to say, I value all of my friends, am responsive to their thoughts and comments and do not wish to intrude on people who think otherwise. Please feel free to "unfriend" me if you so choose (although, I hope you won't) as I am also feeling strained by people requesting to join my page that I have had to regrettably decline.

Phew! I thought, that I would enjoy my retirement and hopefully entertain some people with the stories (that my personal friends all know) I love to tell.

Blessings to all,

Narcisse A. Nonnee-Mousse

P.S. This is my book trailer: 

(removed by blogger)

You know, I have all those same problems, but I have decided to raise my maximum number of friends to 7 billion, thus taking in all those poor Third World souls who need my enlightenment. Sorry this is so long, I just had to include that last, noisome entry. The author, having been unfriended by me, now must scramble frantically for a replacement to top up her list. Such a hemorrhage! Oh well, she told me I could do it.

P. S. to the P. S.: This doesn't deserve a post on its own, but it's yet another example of "oh God, poor me, I'm in such pain because I just have SO many people reading my stuff!" It's backhanded narcissism, but what dismays me is how many likes and "oh, poor baby" comments she got on Facebook. Sharyn Wolf wrote some sort of memoir about being a shrink (!?) whose marriage broke up, and oh God, more than 250 (NOT 249, NOT 251, though it's likely up to 2500 by now) people sniped at her for writing such a shallow useless thing. ONE person said she liked it, but it was Cher, so it kind of negated all the criticisms. If you believe in love. . .

Sharyn Wolf Oh, sadly, this is true. I had more than 250 comments--a surprising fight between a bunch of people who thought I should be drawn and quartered against one kind soul who claimed that English teachers don't have to publish a novel to teach writing. I read an interview with Cher about a million years ago, where she said that with 50 great reviews, she only recollects the few horrid ones. I learned recently that we cling to those because our brain is velcro with the bad stuff and teflon to the good.

"You had me at hello"

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Not About Thomas Merton: escort cards of yesteryear

  

Now these are interesting, sort of. One of them things you see on Facebook, a link-to rather, while you're scrollin' along trying to ignore unbelievably hot-air-inflated, narcissistic swaggering and self-absorbed primping by writers who want you to know, in no uncertain terms, that they are More Successful Than You (while pretending to bewail the fact that they only sold 250 copies at their latest book-signing). Never mind. So you click on it, and sometimes it's interesting. More often than not it's a time-waster. But this is a little piece of sociological history. I didn't know about these things, presumably passed from a gentleman to a lady, and I am not at all sure what the exact meaning of it was, or the protocol. Was the gentleman in question really supposed to walk the lady home for reasons of safety? So she wouldn't have to traverse those dangerous streets alone?

"I shall be miserable if I can't love you" can be taken any number of ways, as can the description "sensible and good". He seems to be saying "your virtues are all on display, now please can I take them away"?

Hell, these are pickup things. What else COULD they be? How could you hand one of these cheesy things to someone you already know, and if you DON'T know her, doesn't the whole thing smack of "transaction"?

Think about it, though. If a lady walked alone, particularly in the evening, it sent a particular message. Kind of like all those elaborate signals you could send with a fan (like "come hither" or "up yours"). This one sounds like something out of a 1930s Busby Berkeley musical: "my style and complexion/going in your direction". Selection, affection: cute. But this innuendo-laden promise of "protection" is starting to remind me of an ad for Trojans.

Cute devil cartoons aside, the whispers between the lines are interesting. "Confidential card", "between ourselves": these don't seem to bespeak a jolly little talk between a lady and gent as he accompanies her a few blocks to her front porch. These seem to hint at Something Else.

Why am I suddenly thinking of Belle Watling's whorehouse in Gone with the Wind?

Here's a good one, with a little Cupid-esque figure on it. It talks about "appointing time and place for an interview" - and I don't think they mean for a typing job. The droll misspelled postscript "enter nous" seems to have a double meaning, somehow.

So. If she won't go home with him, he wants to reserve the privilege of staring at her as she walks by. Creepy.

This one expresses more ardour, or else is more arduous than the others. Strangely, two amphibia frolic (with no clothes on!), and "blissful" pleasure is hinted at. The card-bearer and his potential inamorata are "two souls with but a single thought; two hearts that beat as one". Very, very interesting indeed.

More ogling from the fence. Miawwwwww!

Sa-a-a-a-a-ay, are these cards really what I think they are?  For if they are, all this is beginning to seem a bit pink about the edges.

And I ask you, what could be so erotically-charged as an oven mitt? Such a signal could leave no doubt as to a gentleman's intentions. God only knows what those initials stand for.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA