I’m not sure whether to consider this statement merely stupid and misinformed, or downright malicious and intended to undercut the ability of professionals in all fields — not only photography — to earn a living.
When did access to tools become equivalent to professionalism? When were talent, skill, experience, and training made irrelevant?
Using the same reasoning, everyone who owns an electric saw or other woodworking tools is a professional carpenter. Is anyone who owns a few rolls of electrical tape and a few gauges an electrician? Is a plumber anyone who can afford wrenches? Is everyone who owns a computer and a printer, who has a blog or posts on Facebook a professional writer? Since anyone can buy paints and an easel, that means I’m a painter, right? Everyone who has a digital camera can make movies, so are we all professional filmmakers?
If ignorance is bliss, I believe Marissa Mayer is the happiest woman on earth.
What do you think? Does access to professional equipment and/or professional tools make a professional? Does ownership of tools convey professional status on anyone with a credit card? I’d like to hear from you. Personally, I find this highly offensive. Am I overreacting?
Last year at this time a facebook status, some stories in the news and a number of You Tube videos on "coming out" compelled me to write on a topic I might have otherwise avoided. As you will see below, I could not find a dramatic You Tube video at the time on the harrowing coming out story to which I referred.
In case you’ve failed to notice, the importance of something going on in the world has an inverse relationship to the amount of attention it gets in the press. By “press,” I’m not referring only to newspapers, radio, television, or newer sources like social networks, websites and blogs. I mean all of it plus the other stuff — newsletters, email — the collective dissemination of information from a wide variety of perspectives. If you care about truth and facts, you have a lot of ways to find it.
The current definition of “news” is what news organization say it is. Whether or not this actually is the news is an entirely different subject. The control of news content is not, as many people seem to think, in the hands of reporters or even editors and publishers. Control lives in corporate boardrooms run by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, people who have no interest in keeping us informed. It’s all about power, politics and money. Mostly money. It’s business, not public service.
I’m not sure when the news stopped having to do with “what’s new (subtext: important)” and became “what corporate suits think people will watch and make them buy our sponsors’ products.” To a degree, that has always been a part of the news business. For a brief shining period from the mid 1940s through the early 196os and perhaps a bit beyond, the “Ed Murrow” effect was a powerful influence in American news. Reporters were invigorated by getting some respect for their work and tried to be “journalists” rather than muckrakers.
People my age grew up at the end of that era. Walter Cronkite was The Man. He carried such an aura of honesty and authority, I thought he should be president not merely of the U.S., but of the world. Who would have the temerity to argue with Walter Cronkite? He sat next to God in the newsroom and some of us had a sneaking suspicion God personally told him what was important. If Walter said it was True, we believed. Thus when Walter Cronkite became the person to get Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sit down and talk … the beginning of the Camp David Accords … it seemed natural and right. Highly appropriate. Who was more trustworthy than Uncle Walter? Who carried more authority? He walked in the glow of righteousness.
He always made my mother giggle. It was not Walter, the reporter or man who made her laugh. It was his name. “Cronkite” in Yiddish means ailment, so every time his name was announced, my mother who had a wild and zany sense of humor, was reduced to incoherent choking laughter. It was a nightly event. Eventually she got herself under control sufficiently to watch the news, but the sound of her barely contained merriment did nothing to improve the gravity I felt should surround the news. To this day, the first thing I think of when I hear Walter Cronkite’s name — something that happens with less and less frequency as the younger generations forget everything that happened before Facebook — is the sound of my mother’s laughter. That’s not entirely bad, come to think of it.
What brings this to mind while awaiting what, according to Harvey Leonard, will be the biggest snow storm in 30 or more years, is that Google is stealing our freedom, or at least a good chunk of it, and it’s not on the news at all. No one is interested.
The silence from the press is deafening. Yet this is important and it will affect a lot of people, almost everyone eventually. It’s not another celebrity divorce or trip to rehab. If left unchecked, this is the beginning of the end of the free Internet.
Virtual space is the last truly free thing we have. Everything else is regulated and costs money. Once upon a time, television was free. It wasn’t very good and our TV reception looked like a snowstorm, but the TV was all we needed to access anything on the air. After we bought the television, we had no more TV-related expenses.
Cable brought us nice clear pictures, giant monopolies, and ever-increasing monthly bills to watch television. Cable companies already charge us a hefty monthly fee to hook up to the Internet, so it isn’t really free any more than television is, but it is about to get much worse.
For the past 20 years, communications conglomerates have been looking for a way to capture the Internet and make it pay. More precisely, to make youand me pay for it. It’s the communications mother lode, the last un-mined nature resource for communications moguls. The amount of money to be made by whomever is able to get a lock on the Internet, to charge us for what we currently get free, will make some corporations so rich it makes my head spin thinking about it. All those zeroes!
There’s a gigantic amount at stake here. Not just money, but civil rights, personal freedom, constitutional issues, broad social implications. You name it, this story touches on it. Moreover, a lot of people’s livelihoods are on the line. Many of us make earn our living via the Internet, directly or indirectly. We’ve become so accustomed to shopping online, having friends online, communicating online — living online — we think nothing of it.
What will you do if they take it away? Suddenly you will have to pay your “internet bill” above and beyond whatever you already pay for high-speed connectivity.
Once they get their hooks into you, it’s going to be your cable company all over again. How much do you love your cable company? That much? Hmm. Well, you’re going to love your Internet gatekeepers even more.
Who is involved? Not just Google!
It’s not just Google, though they are the ones currently in play. AT&T and Verizon, Amazon, Microsoft and others are all eyeing the Internet as the next place to make some really big bucks now that the sale of computers is slowing. Hardware is not delivering the kind of profits it once did … time to find a new source. The Internet — cyberspace — could be the mother lode, the biggest financial jackpot in a century. Think of this as Clash of the Titans. The prize is the Internet … and we are in the way. Ouch.
Back to why no one is covering the story
This is a complicated issue. For it to make sense, you need to be familiar with the technology of the Internet, with search engines and their ever-increasing role in information dissemination. There’s a big segment of the population who won’t get it anyhow, no matter how well you explain it because they can’t understand it or don’t want to. Another bunch of people don’t care about anything that isn’t about guns, sports, or in some way related to beer.These folks will be affected, even though they don’t know it, but they don’t want to hear about it. They want to hear about the latest sports or Hollywood scandals and of course, the weather.
A story likes this requires time, research and patience. Patience to collect information, make it coherent and comprehensible, time to explain it. A newspaper would need to give it considerable space and have someone actually put more than a few seconds into writing it. Add it all together and it spells “just ignore it and maybe it will go away.”
That so much of what we value will probably go with it? Oh well.
People are lazy. I look around and see a lot of lazy, stupid people who have turned themselves to the “off” position. Folks who were once thinking entities have slid into “duh.” Maybe it’s sensory overload, too much stress and non-stop bombardment by crises so when something really important is happening, everyone is tapped out. Too pooped to pop.
Anyway, the story isn’t sexy. It isn’t going to sell beer in the coveted 18 to 45 demographic, so why bother?
Presenting yet another gem from the heartland of the Internet — Facebook.
This is classic irresponsible bullshit by people who figure that they have the right to shoot off their mouths, write drivel on public forums, and bear no responsibility for the results of their actions. These are the same people who would probably think shouting “fire” in a theater was funny and if people panic and are injured or killed, it’s not their fault.
FYI, I made a good faith effort to find a synonym for bullshit and discovered there really isn’t any. If you find a good synonym, I’d like to hear it.
Here’s what I think.
You are responsible. For what you say and for making sure you are understood. For what you write and how you write it.
You are morally required to make a good faith effort to speak and write the truth in such a way that others can understand it. You need to be sure what you say makes sense. If you aren’t responsible, who is? If you write a pack of lies, or half-truths, or rumors — exactly who is responsible but you for whatever misunderstanding will inevitably result?
Everyone is responsible. You may not be able to 100% control how others understand, but you can make your best effort to be honest, to double-check facts, and explain what you mean as clearly as possible.
The casual, widespread attitude that it’s okay to say or do anything and if other people don’t like it or “get it,” too bad for them is the definition of what is wrong with our society. We act irresponsibly, refuse to admit mistakes. Like little children, we blame everyone else, then wonder why we can’t trust anyone.
If all of us refuse to accept responsibility for our own actions and statements, why should anyone be more trustworthy than we are? If “it’s not my fault” is going to be our national motto, when you hear that flapping sound, it’s your chickens coming home to roost. The result will be that we will live in a world where nothing anyone says or does can be trusted because honesty has been replaced by bullshit.
It really is the writer or speaker’s responsibility to communicate. It is not the responsibility of your listener to decipher your poorly written and badly expressed language.
My granddaughter and many of her friends are having big problems in high school. Their problems are identical to those of my generation but this generation is even more clueless than we were. They have no idea how to cope. They are like those monkeys raised with wire mothers, at a loss to relate to other monkeys.
They don’t know the difference between a real friend and a casual acquaintance. The glib labeling from social media is, for them, the real deal … until they discover it’s not.
Becoming a misfit in high school is easy. If you are different, you are going to have social problems. How large these problems loom is a function of the vulnerability of the individual.
In the “good old days” when I was growing up, rumors and lies spread no faster than however long it took to pass the word from person to person. Today, with the click of a mouse on a Facebook page or mobile phone, the same meanness, backbiting and gossip that has always been with us can be distributed instantly to hundreds, thousands, even millions of people. It’s the same stuff, but it gets around faster.
Schools can’t deal with the problem. It’s too amorphous. They can’t control the Internet, text messages, and social media sites. It’s so easy to pick on someone. It doesn’t even have to be intentional.
A moment of pique, thoughtlessness, a casual reference, ordinary gossip can do an enormous amount of damage to a fragile adolescent ego. The electronic world is as real to them … maybe even more real … than traditional relationships. I’m not sure they understand there is a difference.
I’ve watched the dynamics of this first generation of young people for whom cell phones and computers are as ordinary as electricity was for us. I’ve watched them sit together in groups preferring to text each other rather than talk. I’ve wondered how in the world they would ever learn how to have a real relationship, to make the kind of friends that last a lifetime.
The answer is that they haven’t learned. They are lost.
They are starting to pay the price of hiding behind electronic communication. They have used it as a substitute for face time, conversation, of really being with other people.
Shy kids have had no motivation to get over it. They can’t handle even the simplest conversation. They don’t get it that people can be two-faced, dishonest, and just mean and that it isn’t personal. People are what they are. We older people could help if they let us, but we’re fossils, stupid old people suggesting they talk to each other, spend time together, that you can’t become “best friends for life” by exchanging emails.
They’ve relied on words alone, out of context of the rest of the package: facial expression and body language. They have never learned to “read” people. They can’t see when someone is lying.
Growing up is hard. Being a teenager is rough. It was as true 50 years ago as today, but we never had the choice of hiding behind a computer.
A lot of young people have had only minimal contact with other kids. There are a lot of forces at work, not only the hyper-availability of technology but also the fearfulness parents, the limited availability of free time, the overly structured lives kids have. They can’t just hang out. They aren’t encouraged to do stuff independently.
If my generation suffered from unwillingness to discipline our kids, this generation of parents not only doesn’t discipline kids, they smother and over-protect them from life itself. They label everything as bullying. They do not encourage their offspring to face problems and assure them they can handle it, that you don’t get emotional strength by avoiding life. Instead they buy into the endless psychobabble and make their kids feel even more helpless.
I’m not surprised at the problems. Despite my son and daughter-in-law’s contention that kids are meaner than they were, I don’t agree. Kid, people, are no different than they ever were. The difference is that parents are afraid to let their kids work out their problems. They don’t let them grow up. Sometimes, I think they don’t really want them to grow up, as if they want them to stay permanently dependent and childish. They have no idea how much they will regret it.
It’s natural to want to protect your children from hurt, but you shouldn’t protect them from life.
Life hurts. Life is also wonderful, rich, rewarding, exciting. But never pain-free.
There’s no turning back from technology. Nor would most of us want to dump our computers and cell phones. There does need to be a better balance. Technology won’t produce relationships. Exchanging words is not bonding. Sending texts and emails can’t establish closeness.
It’s a tall order convincing teenagers that emotional pain is part of growing up. Nothing but experience will help toughen them up so they can function in the world.
No one gets a pass from pain. Money won’t buy it. Private schools won’t keep life away. There’s only one way to become a survivor — experience. These kids need to get out and live. Put the cell phones away and talk to each other. Get involved. Let life happen to them, be swept away by events and emotions. Learn that feelings are manageable … with practice.
They aren’t getting the message. Maybe if they read it on Facebook?
I started this blog in February 2012, but it wasn’t until the end of May that I started to write regularly. Before that, I posted erratically and rarely.
In September, I tossed off a very short post about Criminal Minds (the TV show, not politicians) that somehow wound up the first result in a Google search. It has stayed in the top 5 search results (out of 4,100,000 possible results) for more than a month. I have no idea how that happened. That single post has gotten more than 3,500 hits and keeps going. It took me 5 minutes to write and was a response to something that bothered me about the show. Who knew that so many people cared about a television series about profilers and serial killers?
The ups and downs of popularity remain a mystery. Immediately after that post, my numbers went way up, then as I expected, began to drop, then level out. Even so, I tripled the hits I get each day. Folks came for that post and stayed for others. I also have an unknown number of followers on Bloggers, Twitter, ScoopIt, Pinterest and StumbleUpon.
I am, as my blog title suggests, eclectic. By profession, I’m a writer. By inclination an historian. My hobby is photography. I have distinct audiences for writing and photography. I haven’t figured out how much these groups overlap. Even within my writing, subject matter varies quite a lot. Amongst philosophical ramblings, discussions of whatever current events are on my mind, and so on, I write a lot of stuff about movies and TV. There is a specific audience for the media posts.
Posts I labor over may be barely noticed; others that I just drop on the page get lots of hits. I have learned, through trial and error, a few things worth mentioning. I’m sure I’ll learn more. I need and want to learn more. Meanwhile, here are 10 things I’ve learned that seem to be true:
Less really is more. More than 1000 words is too long. 500 words is plenty, especially if you include pictures. Sometimes, just a caption is enough.
Use more pictures, fewer words. Everyone likes pictures especially nature, pretty girls, children, dogs, and for some peculiar reason, Arizona.
Funny gets more hits than depressing. Being serious is appropriate for serious subjects, but you can use a light touch even with heavy material.
Popularity is nice, but it’s your blog. Do your own thing. That’s the point, isn’t it?
Digress but remember to come back. When I tell stories, I ramble. It’s my style. I wander before I get to my destination, but there’s a limit to how far and how often you can roam without losing your reader.
Be economical in how much material you use per day and per post. If you set yourself an unsustainable pace, you’ll burn out.
Have fun. Have a lot of fun. Enjoyment is contagious.
Do what you love. Blog about the things you find beautiful, important, amusing, or interesting.
If you aren’t having fun, give it up.
On the graphics side, leave white space. At least 50% of the screen should be empty. This percentage includes the space between pictures and text, between paragraphs, margins at the top and both sides, space between columns. Clutter is hard on the eyes and gives your site a “rummage sale” look. Do you really need every widget?
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
