My wife and I were just strolling through the mall.....it was June of 2007 I believe....we passed the AT&T store and I wondered if they sold a device that I could pull up the news on....I'm not a big techie folks. The salesman looked at me strangely.....I'm well familiar with that look....and said...."Well, today is the day that a new phone called an iPhone goes on sale." I had no idea what it was...."OK, I'll take one." When I finally traded it in for a new one a few years ago the salesman looked at it as if it were a Model T Ford. Then his amazement turned to my contacts......"I have never seen so few contacts on an iPhone!" He didn't know of course that I have a feather quill pen and ink that I use occasionally in my attempt to get as far away from this ill and deluded age that I can.
I spotted the evil of Facebook immediately. It was an idol of narcissism.....and a potential for tyranny of the mind....on a worldwide scale. If you want to pass your opinion on today to just about any radio talk show host or columnist you have to go on Twitter. This was made for Donald Trump whose limit for forming new thoughts is about twenty words at a time. I will never partake of either Facebook or Twitter but that leaves me at somewhat of a disadvantage as I struggle to come up with email addresses.
A few decades ago I put together a newsletter that I titled A Pilgrim's Progress...and just mailed it out. I wrote a lot of letters-to-the-editor but they started to limit the number of words also. People were talking about something called blogs so I thought that I'd give one a try. I got a 'follower'....what's this.....a follower.....I don't want followers....don't follow me.....follow Christ.....I just want to get an idea out there and let people do with it what they want. I deactivated the 'follower' button.
So it's not really a blog.....it's more of an electronic pamphlet. My only advertising is my bumper stickers.....pens....and my hat....a ballcap with specialdogg.blogspot.com on it. The hits to these posts are approaching 80,000 and the visitors to my profile are over 5000. That's probably not a whole lot in an age where a YouTube of a cat taking a nap in a boot can generate a million hits.
The following is my first post back on November 27th of 2008. If we had mandated a la carte cable television back then it would be a markedly different country today.
A La Carte Cable
If only it were just a "vast wasteland!" Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its purpose was to lessen our cable bill. Some say that it will not do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on a society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of a la carte and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weening itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your representatives and senators.
I spotted the evil of Facebook immediately. It was an idol of narcissism.....and a potential for tyranny of the mind....on a worldwide scale. If you want to pass your opinion on today to just about any radio talk show host or columnist you have to go on Twitter. This was made for Donald Trump whose limit for forming new thoughts is about twenty words at a time. I will never partake of either Facebook or Twitter but that leaves me at somewhat of a disadvantage as I struggle to come up with email addresses.
A few decades ago I put together a newsletter that I titled A Pilgrim's Progress...and just mailed it out. I wrote a lot of letters-to-the-editor but they started to limit the number of words also. People were talking about something called blogs so I thought that I'd give one a try. I got a 'follower'....what's this.....a follower.....I don't want followers....don't follow me.....follow Christ.....I just want to get an idea out there and let people do with it what they want. I deactivated the 'follower' button.
So it's not really a blog.....it's more of an electronic pamphlet. My only advertising is my bumper stickers.....pens....and my hat....a ballcap with specialdogg.blogspot.com on it. The hits to these posts are approaching 80,000 and the visitors to my profile are over 5000. That's probably not a whole lot in an age where a YouTube of a cat taking a nap in a boot can generate a million hits.
The following is my first post back on November 27th of 2008. If we had mandated a la carte cable television back then it would be a markedly different country today.
A La Carte Cable
If only it were just a "vast wasteland!" Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its purpose was to lessen our cable bill. Some say that it will not do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on a society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of a la carte and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weening itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your representatives and senators.
