The role of Faith in the Age of Trump

There is a case, I suppose, for forgiveness and love in your heart for all mankind. In the case of the President-Elect Donald Trump, I would say the time for action is now. Dr King told us: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." I believe that the time to be vigilant has come. Not simply for people in the faith community, but  for Progressives who are concerned about war, parents worried about their children's future both as a military concern and a moral one, and the parents of young children who don't know how to explain this man who is a habitual liar and has molested women and is now rewarded with the highest office in the land.

We don't know the reason as to why Trump was elevated to the office of President or the Grand Scheme of things. But there must be some reason that we are being tested by this dark time in the history of the United States. I believe we could be stronger together, and find out that Love Trumps Hate if we do continue to believe that our best days are not behind us and we can organize and be uplifted by faith in each other. I know that some faith leaders, Sister Simone and Pope Francis, Reverend Barber and other faith leaders have spoken out against the divisive hate and ugly rhetoric spewed by this man.

But the point is this. No one can stay silent. The role of faith in our religion teaches us that we must put our words into deeds. And that means mobilizing if necessary, and marching and protesting against racism, sexism, hate speech and against war. There is a time for prayer and silent contemplation, but in this Brave New World, the time for action is now. Dr. King also said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

The $64,000.00 Question in the Information Age

In continuing my quest to Understand Media, I've again returned to the ultimate source, Marshall McLuhan's book written over sixty years ago. After reading McLuhan, here's my personal take on how he predicted our dilemma in the 21st Century work force:

We started with the Typewriter and ended up with the computer keyboard. These two instruments have altered the mental habits of writers and artists. Many times I've heard writers, especially older ones, talk of the need to simply write things down in a notebook or journal, unfettered by the addition of the computer and all its subsequent baggage. In writing on the keyboard, the typing creates a performance for the composer. The meaning is simply typing. Capote had it right. It's not writing, it's typing. Hence the slogan: the medium is the message. We can understand this clearly when we see the emphasis placed on Project Management and Team Leaders. The work is divided into segments, fragmented and doled out in short bursts that create more work and the illusion of productivity.

The next translation of the transformation of the work place comes when we see energy transformed into a new form. One example was turning trees into lumber, or clay into bricks. Now, in the office, the number of office workers goes up as the actual production goes down. One startling conclusion from McLuhan was that the internal relations, those in offices who gather just SELECT information has become the principal source of wealth in this Information Age. From about 1960 through 1992, this has slowly emerged and is now the norm. So in today's world, if  you do know how to market information, or to fix broken computer connections, or to program and create software, or graphics and can manipulate data, you are desirable. These select tasks all lead to the Information Age jobs in the world we live in today. All predicted by McLuhan many years ago.

In the Mechanical Age of the Industrial Revolution, work meant processing materials on the assembly line. The work was fragmented by parts and design, and it was given to those managers to delegate authority within the hierarchy at the plant or factory where you worked. In this new Computer Age, programming means the effect of information plus knowledge. It basically cuts out the middle man. Many jobs are delegated to online graphic designers and marketing firms. The website is built by someone who may live in another country. Or, in other terms, the composer, or business person, may compose the compartmentalized piece that is given directly to the individual to play (or to work). Where does that leave us?

The fragmented age means an individual could achieve success with just the illusion of imparting valuable information. For example, there is the book that was a best-seller: "The Art of the Deal". The historian Boorstin was scandalized by the fact that celebrity in the Information Age meant fame could be achieved not by a person's actual achievements. They could become celebrities and do nothing but simply become known for being well known! 

This is where we find ourselves in today's world. Celebrity has actually flooded into the worlds of  entertainment and television plus politics and foreign policy. The two worlds have converged and given us Donald J Trump. That is one explanation of why we are now dealing with the after-effects and fallout of our fragmented societies that have been cobbled together in the Information Age through internet connections and television celebrity.

Where do we go from here? That is the $64,000.00 question!

On Writing of our Dead Dogs

Here is a small addendum to add to the essay about all the dogs we’ve loved before...and to add to the list of the fallen is my Chloe. She was so full of energy, so full of boundless energy, and I knew as I lay with her on the rug and they were getting ready to simply give her the sedative to put her down that she would have none of it. Rage, rage against the dying of the light came to my mind, but in her case, simply Rave! Rave! against the dying of the light. She wanted to lift her head to the last minute, and if I could bottle up that energy and spread it out in the universe, I would...

She was a classic Setter, inquisitive, clownish, loving, sweet, funny, gentle and ready for anything at a moment’s notice. She ran full speed ahead to every adventure in her life, and we loved her and she loved us and as Josey Wales would say, “I got no complaints.”

At some point, if you live long enough, you go through the painful ritual of putting a dog down more than once. So it goes that this depressing task has fallen to me more than one time in my life. And inevitably, I knew the day would come when my beautiful little Irish Setter, Emma, would leave this Earth. 

Still, it’s a depressing and sad thing. So instead of writing about the pain of loss and separation, I would instead choose to remember what a joy my Emma was, and how much satisfaction she brought to bear in my life.

I got her at a time of more unbearable sorrow, after losing at an early age the dog of my heart, Hannah. I chose to take on a rescue dog, and when Emma came into our home, she was skinny and skittish, afraid of men and too cautious of everything. She was scared of thunder, and had lived outdoors for the first three years.

Soon, when she discovered the joys of couches and pillows, of treats and car rides, of naps and petting and hugs and indoor living, she blossomed before our eyes. She loved to run and she loved our regular trips to the dog park. To watch that beautiful streak of red as she took off through a field was a joy to behold.

Setters tend to be clowns, and she would enjoy the ritual of being gently scolded and reprimanded for getting into mischief. Once, I found her sitting on a bag of apples she had absconded with from the grocery bag. She loved to know that all reprimands ended with her being loved and petted.

She also took to mothering our younger setter, Chloe. Not knowing how she would take to another puppy, I told her to “groom the baby.” She thought it over and set to licking and grooming Chloe every day of her life. This was a ritual, and extended to the little malti-poo, Abby, and even our family cat.

Emma was a treasure and a delight and a joy to behold. She was a beautiful soul, inside and out. She will be missed as we talk about the Rainbow Bridge where our dogs await us in heaven. But Emma will be inspecting and grooming and mothering and clowning about as we seek our reunion with her. She was a special soul, my Emma. Of course we will seek to grasp for the heavens, as we know our dogs have paved the way.

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Saying Goodbye to the Dog Days of Summer!

Greetings to all my friends and followers! Saying goodbye to the Dog Days of Summer is never hard! In our house, the dogs welcome each new season. Here are the three amigos together: Emma & Chloe &  little Abby.  If you have pictures of your dogs, please send them to me to post on my magazine “Doggie in the Window”, as I love to hear about your pets-speaking as one dog lover to another…

That's why I've created a contest. We'll vote to find who’s got the cutest “Doggie in the Window” picture!  The winner gets a basket of goodies from my “The Book of Malti-Poo" site. You’ll win Natural pet products and more if your dog’s picture is chosen!

The cookbook is coming together. I’ve got a rough draft ready to go, and hope to have it done by the end of the month. It’s one “baby” that I’m anxious to introduce to the world.

Speaking of babies, our extended family has just welcomed Baby Noah, my niece’s first baby. Waiting for Noah is one of the things I’ve written about on The Writers Hub. I’m so excited about my new improved site here at the Writers Hub. for someone as “low-tech” as me,the new look, complete with new graphics and layout really makes everything look…well, as if I knew what I was doing!

Please follow me on my Facebook Authors Page and on Twitter @mljtpa. My Flipboard magazines are updated daily, with news and politics, film and fashion, cooking and arts, and trending topics to boot! Don’t forget to go to 6 Degrees of Film to sign up for my Fall Newsletter. It’s just out and I’d love to hear from you about which new films you’d like to see. Send me an e-mail at mljtpa@6degreeswriter.com to comment or keep in touch. I’d love to hear from you and don’t forget-send me some of your favorite dog pictures too!

Thanks for stopping by…ML

The Known Unknowns....

Not being a huge fan of Donald Rumsfeld, I find myself much in sync with him on the subject of the things we know and the things we don't know that we don't know! Instead of waxing lyrical about the military capabilities of the United States, I stick with a much smaller sphere of influence. For me, it's the computer. Although I've had this MacBook for about a year, I've been reluctant to make the switch from PC to Mac.

The learning curve, you see, is just one more bump in the road, one more thing I didn't need. The laziness innate in me, my reluctance to abandon the soft comfort of my compartmentalized knowledge and the fear of the unknown all combined to hold me back. But the inevitable slowing of my trusty PC and the demands of my work forced me to turn on the machine with the Apple logo.

Now, I'm learning what I didn't know I didn't know. As Rumsfeld should have said, it's the Known Unknowns that get you in the end. It's not really that bad. It's not too hard to learn. It is time-consuming and interesting to learn new things. It's empowering to learn a new operating system. And it brings back memories of the first time I learned to use a computer.

Reminiscent of the Apes of 2001 fame, I cocked my head to the side and first pressed the power key on the machine many moons ago. Those of us who are Baby Boomers remember the computers the size of a small car, the blinking D.O.S light and the box with the computer when it first arrived. And then we had to figure out where to put the thing!

Knowledge is power always. We are still learning the Known Unknowns and should be grateful and loving that fact. Perhaps we take it too much for granted these days. We should bow our heads to the Known Unknowns in our lives, both now and in the future. May we all rise above the fear and embrace the power even as we strain under the yoke and attempt to master the future unknowns together.

Waiting for Noah

I’m reminded of the famous play, Waiting for Godot, where the action centers around two people anxiously awaiting the arrival of someone who never appears… The watched kettle in our family is little Noah, who will make his appearance sometime around the end of August.

His mama is my niece, my little Kirsty. Little Kirsty was just a baby herself a blink of an eyelash ago. Now she is getting ready to give birth! The night she arrived on the planet, we were all so happy for my brother, our family went to celebrate at the local landmark restaurant, the Colonnade. Since the Colonnade is no more, we’re going to have to figure a way to survive the highs and lows of life without that landmark place as a constant.

Where shall we wait for Noah? 

The Last Baby Shower

Just attended what I hope will be the last Baby Shower of my life. It’s one of those things, like Tupperware parties, that can stay with you for a long time. And like a bad meal, it doesn’t go down well and the memorable parts are generally not the ones that bring back the fondest of memories.

Actually, this one was fine, but the lingering memories of past baby showers, wedding showers, Tupperware parties, or just fashion/jewelry parties where you are expected to buy something and make small talk, are indelibly printed in large neon flashing warning signs in the remotest corners of my brain box.

Someone noted later that we left the party before they played games. Darn, I’m so sorry I missed the games portion of the program. To quote Jack Nicholson, “I’d rather stick needles in my eyes”. There must be a special corner in hell for those who came up with the original idea of having women sit around and not only talk about their horrific experiences in giving birth to their children, but also to tack on some completely inane parlor game just to add insult to the original injury.

The poor pregnant mother-to-be is usually ready to fortify herself with a nice stiff drink, which she is unable to have due to the impending birth. And the mothers and grandmothers all try to be helpful and malicious at the same time as they offer advice and support, along with more horror stories.

Giving birth was never meant to be anything but a momentous occasion, but the ritual of baby showers does seem to be overkill. The best idea is to give the party for the fathers-to-be, and include them in all the fun. Men are expected to do more these days in the diaper-changing and hands-on parenting department, so it seems fitting that they should also be included (subjected) to the perils and pleasures of the obligatory baby shower. 

Notes from a Native

Taylor Swift has made the news! That girl is a miracle of modern marketing. I actually admire her, and the news we hear about her is usually pretty benign. She has tweeted or posted something or has a boyfriend, or wrote some new song or has gone somewhere. It’s never anything really bad or startling, it’s just newsworthy, I suppose.

 We have another shooting, a lone wolf senselessly murdering people….we will have to start numbering them A47 or Shooting #5DKG...

A happier thought: God made Ice Cream because He loves us and wanted us to be happy. Happy National Ice Cream Day!...

The 40th High School Reunion: Turning Lemons into Lemonade...

I couldn’t make it this time. That was a disappointing outcome, as a close friend was sick and we had to cancel the room and arrangements when it was down to the last few days before the event. But, the good news is that in the wide world of Social Media, you can almost virtually attend. As they say, Social Media brings good things to life…Which means anyone can find out who’s going & who’s not, who’s living & who has died, and who is “living large” for the world to see with a veritable avalanche of photos and messages on Facebook.

The whole ambience of the event comes across with pictures and images that takes us back to the fun of “Beach Week” or the excitement we felt before graduation. We were comrades in arms and buddies. So the close ties and unbreakable bonds are still felt after all these years.

“What time do we check out?” comes from a 58-year old teen at heart writing on Facebook. Other messages followed like, “I’d like to start working out now!” or “Sorry I can’t make it-take plenty of pictures!” And boy, do they have pictures, at times it looks like an onslaught of Hallmark photo spreads.

These are mixed with more hilarious messages, and then some poignant ones, “My doctor didn’t ok me to travel so I can’t be there”. And then there’s always the over-eager beavers in the crowd, “We arrived yesterday. I went 5.5 miles on the treadmill, and then had a quick dip in the Ocean before getting ready for the party tonight!”

All of these things bring back memories of high school. Has it been 40 years…really? It seems like only 40 days have passed. A friend & I used to have dreams where we were back in high school. We were racing to finish an exam or we were late to class invariably. Even after College, I had these dreams. What could they possibly mean? Anxiety dreams perhaps, or maybe just a longing for a simpler place and time…

The 10 year Reunion was a high/low point on the Spectrometer Scale of Reunions. It’s an anti-climactic let-down combined with an eye-opening jolt of adrenaline for most of us. One of my close friends was subjected to the “mean girls” syndrome at this event and has never quite recovered. Another close friend has never bothered to go at all. Still others plan for weeks in advance and decide just what they are going to wear because they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

High School Reunions in general remain a big business in this country, and they often live up to the spectacles they create and the drama that ensues. And beneath it all, burned somewhere deep, remains the psyches and sentimentality of a group of homogenous Western teens who were raised in another era- a time of blue jeans & bell-bottoms, of Watergate & pot-smoking hippies, of protestors & the looming shadow of the Vietnam War.

That era is bygone, a remnant of the time machine found buried deep inside each of our heads. But it pops out every now and then when we greet each other at the ritualized American Ceremonial Event known as the High School Reunion. 

Understanding Media Part II

Media is explained, as Marshall McLuhan saw it, as a staple in the same way that corn or oil is a commodity. For every new staple, there’s an adjustment in the society at large. There’s an adjustment taking place in society with the way we process media. The instantaneous nature of information leaves us numb to the ad wars that used to rivet the chattering classes and the pollsters. People are affected by their own version of news, be it conservative or liberal or moderate. We can adjust the thermostat, the temperature controls to hot, medium or low as we like it. That means that politicians and advertisers must figure out new ways to reach the customer.

Emails and embedded messages, the subliminal acceptance is always important. Repetition and branding, the idea that we watch an ad without really knowing what product is even being sold is vital in the new medium. As McLuhan saw it, the content can’t offer clues to the “magic behind the media”. Or to the subliminal changes that occur in society. Those changes are occurring now. Trump just stepped on the gas and pushed the pedal down in a slowly accepting public ensconced in a fast-moving media environment.

 A world where anything is possible

What was possible then? After the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press, what followed? In order to explain the society and to understand our age of Mass Media as we assimilate into the Internet Age, we need to look at the master of media, Marshall McLuhan. Mcluhan wrote about media over fifty years ago, and the things he wrote about are just as relevant in today’s world.

 After Gutenberg, came the Medieval Guilds and individual enterprise, where before the printing press, individual business guilds couldn’t have existed under the feudal system. Trade monopolies emerged with the guilds. A sense of Nationalism triggered the rise of the first superpowers in Europe. The British Royal Navy, the Spanish Armada and on and on. The Revolutionary War with the printed words from Thomas Paine and his Common Sense pamphlets and the newspapers of Benjamin Franklin were made possible with the printing press. The splintering of the Christian religion from Catholic domination to Protestantism, after Martin Luther was able to post his Theses on the door of the church,  was only possible after Gutenberg. The American Civil War erupted from the roots of the writings of abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe with her best-seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin. None of these events would have been possible without Gutenberg and the Printing Press. Knowledge and information flowed ever more freely, and the masses became enlightened.

Now we look at the Internet. Already we are seeing such phenomena as the Arab Spring uprising, the rise of ISIS (not all things are necessarily good discoveries!), online dating, Facebook, Twitter and Social Media, Gaming, Drones, privacy issues and Big Brother, smartphones and cell phone tech, the rise of the Independent voters and the Utopian Dreamers who are all caught up in the constantly evolving Matrix that is only possible with the coming of the World Wide Web-the Internet.

 So many things we couldn’t have imagined without the Internet and the Computer Age. We are still in the early days of a great cultural shift. Where does this road lead?

(Stay tuned for the next installment...Where are we going with this?)

 

Notes from a Native: Know the Territory!

 

·        Some thoughts on the horrifically horrible week that just ended in Orlando. First the death of the young singer from "The Voice". Next, the worst mass shooting in US History. Now, an alligator kills a two year old at Walt Disney Resorts.

It's a sobering thought as we think of Orlando as a fun-filled resort town. Orlando's governing body have just had to find spaces to bury up to forty plus young people in their cemeteries...

   One thing that people who live in Florida know is that Disney was built on top of a swamp. And if you have small dogs and children, you don’t let them go to the edge of a lake alone.    Dogs are constantly being pulled under by gators. My cousin fought one off in Immokalee, Florida and she won! The gator let go of Dixie, her Golden Retriever. Sara Lee is petite, and her Golden was fairly large, but she was able to fend off the gator.

Scores of people have told me of gator attacks on dogs. And when some old gators are killed, they have been known to find many collars from hunting dogs that disappeared in the bowels of the Florida lakes.

Someone should let the people who come to Florida know the truth. Florida was not just this white sandy beach that popped up with pristine and manicured lawns. The Disney World land was carved out of a swampy area in Central Florida.

Florida is known as the Land of Flowers and beaches. But there is more to it than that. There are orange groves and sugar cane fields, there’s marshes and lakes and swamps and gators. All of these things are native to Florida. It’s not exactly the dark side, but it’s the side known only to Florida natives, and Florida Crackers.

Know the territory, as they said in “The Music Man”. You have to educate people about the history of a region, even if you are going to bill it as “the happiest place on Earth”. You should know that there’s another side to the land of Disney. Welcome to Florida, the Sunshine State, complete with Gators and mosquitos, with oranges and semi-automatic weapons and over-crowded highways. Know the Territory and Welcome to Florida!

A Return to Understanding Media

 

 To understand the phenomena that is Donald Trump, I went straight to the source. The source in terms of understanding media is Marshall McLuhan.  McLuhan wrote Understanding Media over 50 years ago, and I wanted to find out if the ideas that were revolutionary then might still apply in the Computer Age.

 

Sure enough, some of the controversies and media hype surrounding this campaign season were things that could be plugged in to the ideas McLuhan wrote about in the sixties. For example, the idea of subliminal acceptance was one that McLuhan equated to be like a prison without walls. “If you cannot see where you are going, how can you be free?”, he asks. In that sense, the type of mindless pabulum that we, as viewers and consumers of mass media, have been subjected to, not only in the political campaigns, but through television and electronic devices and mass media at large come into question.

 

We have become numb and disbelieve practically everything we hear or read! That’s one of the take-aways from this election season. It’s no wonder that the Pied Piper in the form of Donald Trump has mesmerized people by telling them to wake up. He is figuratively slapping people in the face and telling them to stop the subliminal acceptance that is around us. Bernie Sanders has done the same.

 It’s thinking outside the box that people profess to admire. And it’s akin to one of my favorite films. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives in a black and white world until she opens the door to Oz and discovers this beautiful new world surrounded by bright flowers and little people wearing gorgeously colored clothes. That is the figurative reasoning for the 21^st Century acceptance of the Trump phenomenon.

 

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              Friends: Here’s my pledge to you….sign up for The Readers’ Hub here

          http://authorp.blogspot.com/

 and I’ll send you updates about my work and interesting trends and ideas I come across. I hate spam and don’t like to get reams of e-mails either, so I’m not going to be bugging you with too many annoying updates! (Two times a month-topsJ)

Here’s a few odds and ends I’ve collected as I’ve worked on various projects around the internet. Every month, I’ll send you a short note. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy! –MLJ

Weddings, funerals and retirements have been the focus in this year of our Lord 2016. So many friends and family members, and fellow Baby Boomers are now retiring. Children I helped to raise are now marrying and starting families of their own. And some people, good people, tend to die too young…

 

·         The Writers Hub: Weddings and retirements are featured, as well as Notes from a Native, and The Blurb Blog, all part of the newly incorporated one-stop blog shop:The Writers Hub.

·         6 Degrees Summer Newsletter is out. New releases haven’t bowled me over of late, but critics these days are working with less material from even more film sources. So we have to separate the wheat from the chaff. See what’s coming in 6 Degrees of Film at the Movies.

·         Non Profit News debuts this month. Working in a church gives me an overview of not only issues that affect us here at home, but globally. See the list and the links in NPN.

·         The GF Writers Cooking Journal is the home of our magazine of the same name. Eventually, the book will debut! Meanwhile, check out the encore posting of the excerpt: “Marge & Dad: A Love Story” on the blog.

This summer promises to be as productive as all summers tend to be. You go in with a bang, thinking you’ll have plenty of leisure time and lazy days to finish that novel, clean up the mess in your {fill in the blank} and to just chill and relax. It all sounds good and it goes so fast…Proof is in the picture below, of my niece Kirsten, now married and expecting her first child. Oh, how time flies!

Please connect with me through The Writers Hub and sign up for monthly updates. Here’s the link….Or go to  my website: 6degreeswriter.com. You can also e-mail me at mljtpa@6degreeswriter.com.  I’m on Twitter @mljtpa. My Facebook connection is just Mary Lee Johnson.  I’d love to hear from you!

Tis the Wedding Season

 

Jane Austen always ended her stories with a wedding. So it seems fitting that the final episode of Downton Abbey closed recently with another wedding. This is the season when weddings abound.

 Spring blooms forth, and those of us ridden with allergies reluctantly peek our heads around and venture out to participate in weddings and picnics and walks in the park.

 With a wedding in the works in our immediate family, all eyes are on the bride and groom, along with the upcoming shower and pre-nuptial events. There are engagement photos and bridal showers, the catering and flowers, the planning and the all-important dress.

 

All of these things condense to a point where we are left wondering where the fantasy ends and the reality begins. One of my favorite bits was from an old Bob Newhart show where Bob tries to bring the prospective groom back to Earth with a reality check on the practicalities of day-to-day life for a young couple. To which the young man responds, ‘To heck with marriage, Bob, we’ve got a wedding to plan!”

 

So apropos is that remark when staring down the barrel at another young couple’s approaching wedding date. No practicalities can match the starry-eyed fantasy attached to a young girl’s Dream Wedding.

 

If only we had a society where high school and beyond came equipped with classes designed for reality. “Everyday Living with Others”, “Budgeting”, “Compromise in Relationships”, “Learning to swallow your pride” and “Love means learning to say you’re sorry-several times in the course of a day!”

 

So with great regret we pause and consider the fictional world of Downton Abbey. And then, we consider the fictional world we imagined when we were younger. Then… Life Happens. Jane Austen had it half right. Life begins when you are a young and dewy eyed bride or groom. And happily ever after’s are found in the fairy tales of young children. But for most of us, Life is what you make of it, and at times, you must turn the Lemons into Lemonade!

 

For Retiring Baby Boomers: Life is what you make of it...

 

For Baby Boomers, it’s that time. There are so many friends and family members retiring soon. It’s such a finality. The boss I have loved working with for the past ten years will be gone soon.

What’ll I do? When you …

Are far away..

& I am Blue…

What’ll I do?

 

As my mother told me many years ago, “All of Life is about change.”  And I would add that it’s about how we adapt to change, really. I started my working life when computers were as big as a car. Now we run programs on micro-chips the size of a fingernail.

 

I was born in the fifties during the Cold War.  Back then, we were afraid of nuclear annihilation.  Now, we are living with terrorists who threaten to take us back to the Dark Ages. We are faced with the phantom fear of beheadings and torture. The irony is that technology has become so advanced and we still look back at fears that haunted us in the Middle Ages.

 In spite of this, we have seen incredible breakthroughs in science and technology. The Golden Age of Information Technology has arrived. We are braced for many more wonderful discoveries in the 21^st Century. It’s like standing at the peephole of King Tut’s Tomb. What do we see? Wonderful Things! Many more advancements in medicine and in future technology that will enhance the way we live our everyday lives are in store.

 And still, we tend to be a bit sad to see things change. As McLuhan said:

 “When faced with a new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future. Suburbia lives imaginatively in ‘Bonanza-land.”

 

I have long suspected that retirement would open up this Brave New World for Baby Boomers. Those of us who feel that there is life, a vital and productive life to be found on the far side of fifty, should feel energized and re-vitalized about this Golden Age we have landed in. And that’s why the gift of Retirement and Old Age may be a Blessing or a Curse. Old saws still apply.

 

Life is what you make of it. So Viva Retirement and Bring it On! We Baby Boomers have survived so much, and so we will look forward to all that the future holds in store.

 

Diary of a Low Tech Girl

In Part 1, I've been writing about some of my frustrations as a "Low-Tech Girl, living in a High-Tech World." In Part 2, I've continued the theme of living with low-tech skills by sharing some notes that I've accumulated through the years while trying to learn more about Marketing and Search Engines and Data sharing and other elusive topics. Here's some diary excerpts from a low-tech girl:

Dear Diary: I learned a little bit more about link building today. You are going to have to just suck up and look quite obvious and needy as you are grasping at the straws of relevancy when you build your links.

 
Dear Diary: Metadata was a fun new word. It’s like a baby with one of those mobiles you attach…look at the pretty things spinning around! What are they?
 

Dear Diary: Back links are links that…what the hell? Who cares what they are called!?

 

Dear Diary: Platform & Branding are two new words that I have decided to ignore as a writer. They seem to be made up for those impotent people (Remember the joke about the pimp who went to the doctor and came back with new platform shoes and fancy clothes?

 

Joke:

 What did the Doctor tell you?

Pimp: He said I was “Impotent”…..Lots of impotent people will tell you about Platform & Branding.

 Dear Diary: SEO means Search Engine Optimization but is sounds way better when you just say SEO because it’s like the Seinfeld episode called “The Dealership” where Jerry gets Putty (Elaine’s car salesman boyfriend) to confess about the real reason for the Sealant under-coat for the new car

 Jerry: You don’t really do anything to the car, do you?

Putty: (confesses with a laugh): “We don’t even know what it is!”

 SEO is like that…. LOL-We don’t really know what it is!

 Dear Diary:

 

·         Hyperlinks sounds like a made-up word from a Star Trek geek.

·         Content Curation is manna from heaven for writers. Because instead of coming up with ideas, you just scroll down and troll through the archives to pull someone’s blog post and then just pretend you are back in college writing a paper and it’s due tomorrow. You summarize the work and change the title and submit it with fingers crossed, hoping for at least a B Minus.

·         Google Penalites sounds like something from Fantasy Football or the like.

·         Dear Diary: Marketing means just about anything these days. Lots of jobs for kids fresh out of college revolve around some form of Marketing…whatever.

·         Dear Diary: After going through my web design course and my in-bound marketing course I have a new password: Ihaveaheadache…oh yeah, I forgot. There has to be a number plus an extra key…How about; Ihaveaheadache#1000!?

·         Dear Diary: Every day, tech gives me a headache. People who wrote for a living used to simply sit and write with a pen and paper. Then typewriters came along, and it’s been downhill from there. Changing the ribbons and figuring out the margins and then the page setup on a typewriter was bad enough.

        Now we do nothing but worry about the process. And the writing classes are hilarious, because people older than myself (I’m a Baby Boomer) think that we are doomed as a society.

     Young people don’t understand what the fuss is about. And Baby Boomers are stuck somewhere in the middle. We Boomers are old enough to remember life when computers filled a room and the blinking DOS cursor was all that was known about computing.

     Now, we have to know the “process” and writing is secondary. There is data about the amount of time a person will actually read the content on the page. We scan a page and leave after about eight seconds. McCluhan was right-The Blurb is the word.

·         Dear Diary: Now all of our Titles are analyzed, and you have to hook the audience right away! The speaker in our Marketing for Writers Workshop says with a straight face,

       “ Number 1 on the List to sell your work is a Good Looking Cover."  Then he gets down to Number 5 or 6 on the list. That would be… "Good content! “

·         Right? I’m not kidding, this was part of a workshop I attended, and I was the only one laughing. Jane Austen, where are you when we need you?

 

Dear Diary: I am taking the day off and taking a lesson from that sweet looking older lady who was caught in the photo of a crowd of phones, with people around her taking selfies, while she simply watched and took it all in as she just enjoyed the moment. I might just take a walk-and enjoy the day. And leave the phone behind!