I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: twitter

  • tis the season – not that season


    Pretty drew a line in the sand regarding television news following the 2016 election, a line which has stood with remarkably few breaches during the past four years. This boycott includes the presidential and vice presidential debates so I was watching the Veep debate alone in the den while Pretty scrolled Twitter in our bedroom last night.

    Moderator Susan Page had her hands full with the candidates answering questions she hadn’t asked, not answering the questions she had, time violations, talking over, under and around each other – but Ms. Page plowed on with admirable determination. Not a perfect scenario, but definitely easier to hear than the presidential debate last week which hardly qualified as political discourse.

    When the  black fly landed on Pence’s white hair, I thought it was a real fly on my television screen. For a few seconds, I waited to see if it would move. Nope. Still there. I got up from my recliner and hurriedly swiped at the fly on the screen with a napkin. Nothing happened. The absurdity of the random moment got me tickled, and I started laughing while I stood waving my napkin in the air at the fly that had actually landed on the head of the vice president of the United States during a historic debate for the 2020 election.

    Pretty, I yelled to my wife from our den, there’s a fly on Mike Pence’s hair!

    What? Pretty yelled back.

    I said there’s a black fly on Pence’s white hair, and it’s not moving, I shouted to her. I thought it was on the outside of our tv screen, I continued with a loud voice now mixed with laughter, but it’s a real fly on his head, and IT’S NOT MOVING. Quick – turn the tv on back there and look.

    Nothing from Pretty and then this: no need to turn the tv on, she said with equally loud laughter, it’s all over Twitter now.

    A star is born, I thought, as I clicked the remote to end the debate in our house and join Pretty in the bedroom. We were both still laughing as we drifted off to sleep.

    **************************

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned. Make a plan to Vote.

  • OK, BOOMER? let’s see what you got first


    Pretty will be the first to tell anyone that I am the world’s last to know anything about pop culture because I am not a twitterer, instagrammer, pinterester, redditer, or snapchatterer. I am not linked in, tik tokked, or tuned in or up on most days. I’m not passing judgment on any of these or the countless other social meda platforms nor am I necessarily proud of being uninformed although I remain stubbornly committed to Facebook regardless of whether anyone is bothering to influence my vote in the 2020 election. Just try. Please try. I will get you.

    I do, however, continue to watch CBS Sunday Morning faithfully because it is one show that Pretty and I can enjoy together. (Remember she continues to boycott all real news programs since the 2016 elections but instead gets her news information from Twitter.) So yesterday Pretty half watched CBS Sunday Morning by herself until I straggled in from our bedroom in a semi-conscious state thirty minutes into the broadcast. Segments came and went as I ate leftover sweet potato casserole from Thanksgiving for breakfast before taking my morning meds.

    I was shaken out of my television reverie by the Faith Salie commentary called OK, BOOMER in which she humorously described ok, boomer as a recent put down by the Gen Z (1995 – 2010) population of their aging Baby Boomer elders (1946 – 1961). Hm. What up, Gen Z?

    Apparently we the Boomers are being blamed for “rising waters, disappearing species, crippling debt and crumbling democracies.” Whaat? That’s all our fault? Easy for you to say, 48-year-old Faith Salie (Gen X 1961 – 1981).  Where were you guys when we were ruining climate change? Ho, ho, ho – and a merry old millenial (1981 – 1996) to you all for a holiday season free of guilt for any of the world’s most dangerous threats. The Boomers did it.

    Anyhow, as my now deceased Greatest Generation friend Libby Levinson used to say whenever she was about to change the subject,  Faith’s sally struck a nerve that I usually reserved for my free-floating anxiety over the current criminals in charge of the country. It was a bridge too far.

    I can’t bear to be thought of as old and irrelevant, I ranted to Pretty who was quite familiar, of course, with the OK BOOMER memes. Then I got irritated with her for not feeling disrespected because she was, after all, one of those Bad Old Boomers herself. The only person who can ever make you feel disrespected is yourself, Pretty said. Oh, sure, I said. Go ahead and quote one of my favorite Eleanor Roosevelt quotes back to me. Sigh. I could feel the air being let out of my anger. That Pretty.

    Today I sat in the pedi chair that belongs to the great pedicurist/philosopher Esther Isom who was responsible for the title of my last book: Four Ticket Ride. I couldn’t let the Ok, Boomer thing go so I was still raving about it from her chair which reminded me somewhat of a throne so I’m sure I had my proclamation tone in full force. I couldn’t believe Esther hadn’t heard of the funny haha put down from our children either, because she also was always in the cultural know, but she took it with a grain of salt.

    Tell them let’s see what you got first, she said with a laugh. Of course we won’t be around to know how they’ll do, she continued, but they’ll learn life isn’t as simple as they think it is.

    Point taken. I am not unaware of my generation’s shortcomings – we have been poor stewards of our planet, insensitive to the needs of the poor, squandered the earth’s resources to keep gasoline in our vehicles, failed at equality for people of color, elected corrupt public officials at every level of government – to name a few. I sadly recognize and confess my Baby Boomer sins.

    But hey, we’ve been on the front lines marching against the Viet Nam War, opened up amazing opportunities for women in the work force and athletics,  secured marriage equality for same sex couples, fought for civil rights; and worked, worked, worked to achieve the American Dream. We were competitive but with the spirit of a rugged individual. We were the original gangsters so… before you write me and my cohorts off as ancient and irrelevant, let’s see what you got first, kids.

    In the meantime, show some respect.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • I’m All A-Twitter


    I Tweet, therefore I am.

    Cotweeto ergo sum is my just made-up version of the seventeenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes’s cogito ergo sum loosely translated: I think, therefore I am.

    What would Descartes or other philosophers of his era think about social media and blogging, I wondered.  It might go something like this.

    I must Tweet so that you can Follow Me and I will Follow You and Re-Tweet your Tweets which are my Favorites and to which I shall Reply by sending you a Message which you may choose to Tweet or Not to Tweet because that is truly the question.

    I rarely Tweeted for years, and never in front of anyone. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.) I had many excuses…I was too old to Tweet, I had no time to learn to Tweet, I had no one to Tweet to…but mainly I didn’t Tweet because I had Facebook. Surely that was sufficient for my foray into social media. It took me a LONG time to learn how to navigate the murky Facebook waters and I was afraid I might expire before I mastered Tweeting.

    Plus Tweeting apparently was limited to 120 characters per communique. Are you kidding me? I could zip through 120 characters in saying hello to someone – never mind writing anything else and what kind of letter begins and ends with hello anyway. Nope, Tweeting wasn’t for me.

    I never would have joined the ranks of the Tweeters if it had not been for my lone Twittering Florida friends Skye and her dog Sonny. They Favorited and Re-Tweeted all three of my blogs faithfully for more than a year and I faithfully Tweeted to them – but only to them. Last month that changed. I’m not sure why or how, but I began Tweeting to their suggested friends and became a full-fledged Twitterer. I give Skye & Sonny credit and thanks.

    I now have over 300 Twitter followers on all three of my blogs which may not seem like many to Ellen or Steve Spurrier, but it’s amazing to me.  I’m not sure if any of them actually read my posts, but I like to think they at least give them a cursory glance and I know I am happy to have them on board.

    And who can say? Perhaps Rene Descartes would have welcomed the opportunity to Tweet.