The Un-power of TIK-TOK

On the eve of the camp horror-show that is Halloween, I am thinking of a different but also pseudo-horror our legislator have taken to sound alarm to.

You might be tempted to divide humanity not by nations, races, genders or whatever else. Instead, think of the TIK TOK app, and do it this way:

 

1.      The billion who love it

2.      The billion who see it as dangerous

3.      The billions who don’t know what it is and why others make such a fuss.

 

Call me old (you wouldn’t be wrong) and put me in the third category. Neither the charm nor the existential calamity of Tik- Tok manage to reach my consciousness.

 

Data sharing? All the tech apps and the companies behind them already do that. This includes this platform, Blogger, owned by Google. It seems no one does it better than Google, and who they sell it to is not an open book.

 

I wonder if this brouhaha isn’t a way of distracting Americans from real issues, only one of them having to do with China as a menace. These issues include but are not exclusive to our right to privacy, which (big news) is long gone.

 

The wild world of the Interwebs and smartphones have changed everything. We gave them this power. Tik-Tok is but a dot in a vast international matrix.

WHEN THE UNIVERSE SENDS A GIFT~~~

 

I accept with gratitude

 

I have been following a blog of a folk artist and her home improvement specialist husband for a few years. These can-do folks also have two glorious cats and a lovely old dog. The pictorial tales of how and what they do to make their already near perfect home become pristinely perfect, is a spot of bright light in what otherwise could be a drab world.

 

Lorraine doesn’t call herself a folk artist, but I could call her nothing else. Her painted-rocks hobby and sometimes business, which she named I’VE GOT ROCKS IN MY HEAD, bespeaks of golden hands and a big heart.

 

One day, out of the blue, I got a text from Lorraine asking for my home address. We only know each other from the blogosphere and she wanted to send me a rock.

 

Why? And why me? I certainly had done nothing to earn it.

 

The gesture made me happy. Perhaps especially because it was unearned.

A few days later, this brilliant hand painted treasure joined my rock collection, made of much more humble painted stones left by the side of the road over the last three years.

During the pandemic, when we were admonished to stay inside and go out only if we had a dog to walk, (I don’t) folks around my neighborhood took to placing painted stones with signs like “take one” for passersby. These were testaments of compassion for the existence forced on us and the wish to connect even if not in person. Sometimes one of the stones touched me in some way and I’d bring it home. But for the most part, I left them there for another who had greater need for a pick-me up.

 

Lorraine’s gift now sits as a glowing tiara over the memories of those lonely walks. They make me feel remembered, touched, and that in the end— connectedness is the real gift.

 

You can see more of Lorraine’s work (as well as other glimpse into her life) here:

https://clamco.blogspot.com/

COOKING and COUNTING CLICKS

 

i.e. “LIKES”

Ever since Blogger figured how to not count bots or any mechanical un-peopled viewers, the viewing counting on my posts went from over a thousand (most of the traffic back then was from Russia and I know no one there) to less than a hundred on most posts. Some posts are fewer than fifty. If you’re reading this, you’re in an exclusive rarified club.

 

 I noticed a curious pattern to the posts that get almost double the clicks. They either contain cat pictures (oh, my 💓) or a recipe. I rarely do the latter, so it’s time, don’t you think? Not that I am motivated by clicks, but I feel like letting the summer leave with a bang.

 

And so I will share my favorite comfort food, which is good warm, (in winter) fabulous cold, (on a day like today) and for the most part is pretty good for you. It requires only one ingredient you’ll have to go hunting for, and trust me—you’ll be happy to have it on hand going forward. The rest are likely already in your refrigerator & pantry.

 

ROSE WATER PUDDING

2 cups whole milk

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/3 cup sugar

¼ cup Rose water (or Orange-blossom water) *

Chopped pistachio meat or Almonds for topping

 

*The Rose water is found in middle eastern food stores, and if you must, Amazon also sells it. It’s wonderful in fruit salad and in rice pudding, and for the cocktail crowd there’s no end to where it adds wistful cheer.

 

On low heat, bring the milk with cornstarch and sugar whisked in to a soft simmer, using a whisk the whole time. The moment it begins to boil, it will also thicken. Take it off the stove and whisk in the rosewater. Fantastic for cold evenings right away. It’s very nice chilled in small bowls and eaten with a spoon, nut meats sprinkled on top.

 

Can’t be simpler, can’t be better. You’re welcome.

FINDING YOUR VOICE

 

The writerly voice is the personality of the narration.

This blog, for example, has its own voice. A touch of angst, a sprinkle of wistfulness, and an evident struggle with preachiness that I don’t always win.

 

Writing fiction is similar in that the narration, even when not in first person, is a person of sorts.

 

I have rarely gone in the lyrical direction, but some pieces just did it anyway. I recall both my critique groups and later my agent’s surprise to get lyrical writing from me. Those pieces write themselves and sing that-a-way.

 

I’ll be honest; the lyrical pieces feel as if they come from some other source. My everyday writing voice has a touch of angsty attempted wit, which I hope isn’t too self-conscious.

 

My experience is that the writerly voice is the same inner voice that talks/tells to self, but more organized as writing must be.

 

In other words, the voice cannot be taught but the organizational aspect can. In fact, that mechanical/organizing craft is something you improve with practice and reading. How your inner voice speaks, however, is innate. All you can do is shape and polish it.

 

Musing on a wistful end of fall day here.

WRITING WITHOUT WOBBLIES {=WWW}

 

Say what?

Alternative title:

Writing without Fear

There’s a lot of fear in the air for those who blog, vlog, post, text, email, or write in any way that is considered “published.”

 

Fear that our words would be flagged as not woke (a.k.a PC) enough.

Fear that years from now our texts will be quoted when we apply for a job.

Fear that if we write about people from our lives, (IRL=in real life) they will be hurt.

Fear that if we write about fictional characters, someone in real life would think it’s them.

Fear that later we’ll cringe at the quality of our old writing.

 

The common thread is FEAR. 😨

 

What to do?

My personal resolution is to write anyway, and tip my virtual hat to the fears. Yup, I know you’re there, but I’m doing it anyway, so there.

 

My greatest fear is that I won’t have anything worth saying. So as long as I think I do, I’m glad of that.

 

I don’t think there’s such a thing as living without fear. Fearlessness is the appearance some convey to others. I bet that inside, the fearless are quaking and then do it anyway.

Digital Life and Death

 

’Tis a truth, which should be universally acknowledged, that life and death on this earth does not parallel life and death in the digital realm. (Apologies to Jane Austen)

 

I have Facebook friends who passed away. Their Facebook pages and timelines still live. I have blogging friends I had followed whose blogs had died, but I happen to know the blog owners are very much alive.

 

Many of my posts on this blog are scheduled ahead. In the event that I leave this earth, posts will continue to appear for a time. The only hint that I’m no longer here would be the complete lack of comments, as I moderate all comments and will no longer be there to do so. (Hint: if you want to check my earthly pulse, just comment 😉)

 

On people search sites I found my parents and other dearly departed people continuing to age. Apparently, these sites, which make their fortunes collecting public data on all of us, can’t bother to scour records of death.

 

Strange worlds we live and die in; two parallel timelines that only partially intersect.

Why Blog?

Fair question, that^.

This is my four-hundred-and fortieth post.

Despite the shrinking blogosphere, and the fact that (other than make-up and erotica themed blogs) blogs don’t sell what we make, I have continued my weekly Tuesday morning posts.

Why?

Because I still like doing it. I hope to always do things in life with this guiding light. Sure, sometimes we have to do somethings we don’t like.

Did I write “sometimes?” ^

I meant you could count on having to do things you don’t like but must do anyway. That’s a given.

But may the day never come when I stop doing something I like because it isn’t awash in likes from others.

Turns out, I like meeting you who visit here. Hope you come again.

The Heroism of Getting Along

Okay, I’ll put it right here. My heroes are the get-along people.

Outside of literary fiction, you won’t find them much in stories. But in real life, they are the ones who don’t scream and shout, (these days mostly online) or “unfriend” or cut off family as they imagine this is what taking a stand sounds like.

To me, such a stand, while some find it glamorous and most think heroic, often amounts to spite and vilification. A rather lazy thing.

Real heroes don’t forget that people are complex. They love real diversity, as in folks who don’t think or act as they do. They love them because variety is what the creator intended.
{And as an aside, maybe especially those who don't think there is a creator might admit they'd be bored stiff without the magnificent assortment that is our species.}

Real heroes don’t dream of kudos from the tribe. They’re okay with not having a tribe.

We’re about to re-enter that fractious zone called national elections, and what incivility we’ve fostered is about to get wilder. I hope I can remind myself of the above, and try to be that kind of hero.

But I may have to take some breaks from the online world. I won’t leave it; that’s not heroic IMO. Just take breaks now and then to remember my values so I can recharge and come back to living with, and listening to, differences.

I re-quote my grandma’s Yiddish saying: If everyone pulled in the same direction, the world would tip over.

She was not the most tolerant person. But she did leave me this gem. Just sayin’.

Galileo and the Scientific Truth

On this date, February 26, in the year of our Lord 1616, Galileo Galilei was formerly banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

Now, I am not anti-Catholic (emphatically not) or anti-religious. The church had its reasons, with worry that challenging this dogma would lead to questioning all dogmas, an unstoppable process. Indeed, history showed this fear to be justified, and the loss of dogmatic faith that had already begun then, continues to this day. The church had reasons to fear that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, an expression so vivid I’m using it despite it being a cliché.

The thing is, four centuries later and a formal reversal of this ban by the church itself, we still ban thinking that we fear will lead to abuses of the social fabric and result in hurtful conduct. Only now, it is happening in the name of freethinking.

We haven’t changed. We’re still terrified of our own species propensity to abuse one another, and in the name of protecting us from ourselves we fire/take-down/ban/shun uncomfortable ideas.

I know real tolerance and considered debate when I see it. We’re not there yet.

Saluting the brave Galileos out there. You give humanity some hope.

Social Media Stress and the Take Down

Apparently, that’s a thing. And it’s not funny.

Social Media Stress, not to be confused with Social Media Phobia, is what happens when you live your real life on social media. It causes some to compare their lives unfavorably to the glowing images streaming through the feed.

But there is a darker more noxious aspect to this stress--     The Take Down.

And so I watched one Facebook friend whom I know in real life disappear from the virtual space because of a barrage of attack-comments, something I later learned is called a “take down” campaign. This particular friendly acquaintance shared many family events and relatives' successful milestones on social media. Something in the life of one of her nearest has rubbed someone wrong, very wrong. Then came the attack dogs, mostly under pseudonyms, and now none of us can see her anymore.

The stress was too much.

The Scarlet Letter, a book taught in English lit classes to the young as a cautionary tale of a society gone hysterically wrong, has had the opposite effect. Young’uns have taken to social media to shame and hang a label when politics or social stance or even a less than thoughtful comment somewhere don’t align with their own. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850’s novel lives on, not as a record of what we don’t do anymore, but as blueprint of how it was done back then before we had better tools.

I’m sad. Especially when the shamers carry the flag of diversity and inclusion. I guess tolerance does not apply to people who don’t think like them. I once knew a vegetarian who said he was ready to kill people who ate meat. No kidding. Totalitarian Liberals fall under the same flag, and with them, we’re all taken down.

This is my plea for real diversity: race, religion, identity, sexual preference, and varied political affiliation. All are welcome in my life.

And if I ever am called on such on social media, I hope I can manage the stress. Probably not. But then, you wouldn’t know because I will cease to be here.

How to Popularize a Blog

Ahm...Not

As one whose blog is not the talk of the town, I am an authority on how not to have a blog that gets attention.

When I began blogging, it was at the urging of the small publisher who contracted my book. I had been following a few blogs, but not faithfully. One of my literate friends huffed that writers who blog are giving away their pearls for free, and another writing friend said it gobbled up precious real writing time. So I dipped my toes in with hesitation and little hope that I could do it right.

I looked at blogs that had many followers, and three things stuck out: they either were –
A. Constantly updated resources of useful information
B. Vociferously political bordering on the trolling side
C. Or they were enormously entertaining.

The resource-rich blogs are still staples of the blogosphere, and require work and dedication, as well as passion for the field they serve as resources for. I had to face that, for me, that sort of time and effort is reserved for writing fiction. What is left at the end of the day is all for family and friends.

A couple of examples of excellent resource blogs:

 the amazing Jane Freidman’s, about the business and the craft of writing —

https://www.janefriedman.com/blog/

And Evelyn Christensen’s, (technically not a blog but a website though a periodical E-zine makes it almost a blog,) about writing for the educational market—

http://www.evelynchristensen.com/markets.html 

[It helps, and gives the blog some gravitas, if the aggregator/editor is an authority in the field. Be it Tech-support, Make-up, travelling or writing.]

The political sorts of blogs are not only unsuitable for me, (I am hopelessly centrist there) but I personally have the impediment of becoming nauseous in their vicinity. This is why I won’t give examples of such, though I doubt you need it.

So that left the enormously entertaining, and there I continue to try with occasional success, (minus the “enormously”) which is where my modest weekly strolls have found me.

The thing is, I have found it pleasant and worthwhile, and that’s the best part of doing anything. That’s a variation of “doing it right,” which is right for me right now.

Remember to DO THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY*

*Note to self

Blogs are dying. Lack of visitors has made many bloggers become former bloggers.Not only this blog, but other personal blogs.  


The survivors are specific aggregators of useful information (think make-up tips, relationship advice, celebrity gossip, none of which I happen to be a user)—these blogs, when well done and their authors work hard at gathering followers, are doing well.

But not the sort of blog I so reluctantly launched seven years and three-hundred and fifty plus posts ago.

There are times I wonder if I should continue, or let it sit inactivated but not deleted, like so many still on my Reading List. There they sit and stare like the Egyptian Sphinges (plural of Sphinx) by the pyramids of Giza.

Only these mysterious beings get plenty of visitors who come daily to return their frozen gaze. Maybe the analogy isn’t the right one.

Some months ago, one of the personal blogs I really like and follow had the author state that one of her mood lifters is remembering to do things that make her happy, like writing in her not-much visited blog.

I, for one, am glad she does. But the key was that it makes her happy.

Works for me. So I’m still here.

Facebook Falsehoods

Just got another one. “A Facebook friend wants you to like...”

Facebook, in addition to being the unwitting conduit of fake news and falsehoods of other kinds, has been an affordable advertising tool for some and a connectivity tool for many. I always understood my data, such as Facebook thinks it has, is how they are able to provide this tool without a monthly charge.

The only controls explicitly given are the privacy layers that only innocent friends and colleagues (who are not hackers) are effectively blocked from causally seeing. Hackers see all, and Facebook certainly does. That’s okay with me. Everything on my timeline is fully public. This is how I use Facebook, as an ad.

Thus, most of my Facebook friends are not personal connections, but colleagues.

I’ve written before to say that on my social media pages (which very much includes this blog) I tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But I never considered telling the whole truth because many things of me and mine are private.

Which brings me to this pesky habit of some who think it is fine form to ask others to like this or that.

I like what I like, truthfully. All my likes are my own. If I didn’t “like,” it may be because I missed the post. I don’t spend many hours scrolling or I would have time for little else. But when I get one of those requests to like, it is an automatic forgetaboutit.

You may not think so, but it has a whiff of falsehood. Something related to paid reviews, which are malodorous to say the least. Actually, they stink.

Because, to me, even my Facebook public face can’t be a fake. If I liked yours, know that I really liked yours.

Favorite bit of Advice...

“Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.”

(Lev Grossman)

Yes, that.^

Including my advice. Including my advice to consider Lev Grossman’s advice. Seriously.

One of the tell-telling signs of an insecure professional is how they treat professional advice. They will typically heed it blindly, with reverence, swaying in contradictory breezes this way and that. Or they will reject advice willy-nilly.

Once a certain competence sets in, these extremes fade into the gray zone. Advice considered, not treated as holy writ, and then accepted/modified/rejected.

Lev Grossman is a writer and critic at the top of his game. His simple advice, to “not take too seriously,” is an efficient articulation of that gray zone. It isn’t a NO, it isn’t a YES, and it modifies the word “seriously” with a nifty qualifier.

I listen, consider, and move on. I wholeheartedly applaud you for doing the same with anything I ever wrote, or will write, in this blog.

MY PRIVACY POLICY

MY PRIVACY POLICY

Or--- This Place is NOT a Site of Commerce

In late May, a writing friend wrote in a panicked state and asked if she should close her personal blog because of the new EU rules that went into full enforcement May 25.

I’ve never heard of the  EU GDPR compliancy regulations. 

                  

So I took a crash course. Bottom line is that it doesn’t apply to blogs like mine, where I sell noting. Blogger (a Google product) may sell your data and certainly mine, but I have never made a cent, nor intend to monetize this blog.

Check this here, if you are worried:

“Does GDPR apply to me?

It applies to you if you process personal information AND are processing it as part of an enterprise. Article 4(18) defines enterprise as ‘a natural or legal person engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form, including partnerships or associations regularly engaged in an economic activity’. So basically, it seems that if you aren’t making any money through your blog you are ok. If you are making any money, then you need to read on… ”

From  https://www.nomipalony.com/gdpr-for-bloggers/

 I think these privacy protections may even help some who are worried about the selling of our data. But I’m not even sure about that.

This blog and my website are not monetized by me. In fact, my website is not monetized by anyone directly as it is not a “free” product to me.

Yes, I do know that if it’s “free,” we are the product. So I’m the product, not the merchant.

I add that I do use Statcounter for both my blog and website. Statcounter claims to be GDPR compliant. I personally cannot be sure who they share what data with, but I do not ever get anything identifying any individual IP address, nor sell such.

But let it be stated here that if you wish to unsubscribe because of concerns regarding your data, or avoid ever looking at my website, I will be sad but it is a personal choice, and it is your choice.

Call the preceding sentence my "privacy policy compliance," and a repeat that I don't sell anything, most especially my valued precious readers. Not now, not ever.

I write  about what I am doing and thinking, and if you buy my book(s) you pay someone who may or may not pay me indirectly. But data mining is not part of what I get or do. Same for my worried colleague.

Hey, I’m lucky if I get your attention for five minutes, and I’m grateful you care.

In addition, I have taken the steps to secure my website with encryption (SSL certificate) and both this Blogger blog and my personal website are now https compliant, something techies have been urging for a while.  I do care to be a good citizen of the Internet world, because I care not only for myself, but for anyone who interacts with me.

Be not afraid, people. Not everything is out to get us. The Internet is fraught with possibilities for abuse, but so many benefit, too.

May 22nd in History

I stay away from politics on the Internet, because I have found that is makes good people behave and talk like bad people. Sometimes very bad people.

If you have followed any of my posts for any length of time, you know my fascination with “this day in history.” Lots of things happened on May 22^nd, this date in history. But the most interesting will bring out the venom of the politicos.

May 22^nd 1799, Napoleon declared Jerusalem for the Jews. Anyone who knows anything knows that it is central to the Jewish ancestral tradition in a way it is to no other tradition. But, whoa, don’t start me on that one.

May 22^nd 1942 The Steel Workers Organizing Committee disbands, and a new trade union, the United Steelworkers, is formed. Looky here; unions were both the best thing and what built the American middle class, or a cancer on our country— depending how your politics navigates your mind. Please don’t start.

May 22^nd 2015, Ireland declared Gay Marriage legal by popular vote. I like that this was done by popular vote and not by judicial decree, because legal marriage is a “communal acknowledgement” of status rather than a personal feeling. But, please, don’t start me on that one. (Well, I was the one who started— so woe on me.)

So here are some I hope we can celebrate together without bringing out the trolls and poisons that hatch in the mud:

760 14th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

1819 1st steam propelled vessel to cross Atlantic (Savannah leaves Ga)

1842 Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns in New York State when they stumble upon a large gaping hole in the ground

^All on May 22^nd.

But I saved my favorite for last:

                 May 22^nd, 1849 Abraham Lincoln receives a patent (only US President to do so) for a device to lift a boat over shoals and obstructions..

Oh, I forgot. There are some who are still mad about Lincoln. I’ll celebrate anyway.

Go VIRAL

How can you make your blog/tweets/Instagram/site/whatever catch on?

As one who has never had a post take over the Internet by storm, (or as they call it, go viral, which sounds ominously sickening) I can’t speak from experience. I’m an observer, just like you.

I find there are three kinds of posts that sometimes (but statistically rarely) catch massive attention.

The first are inspirational yes-we-can and never-give-up and the-best-is-yet-to-come sort of posts. When written with passion and conviction, (and especially from experience) they are needed and wanted and— let’s face it— like water on parched earth. I save, disseminate, and re-read these.

The second are the things-are-so-hard-right-now and I-could-use-your-support for-the-challenges-I’m/my friend/someone I know-is- facing and feeling-overwhelmed sorts of posts. If the story is told well and from a place that feels authentic, our empathetic nature just gravitates to disseminate these and try to enlist help.

The third sorts that catch attention are the mysterious, impossible to explain. At least I can’t. These are the nonsensical-peculiar and can-you-please watch-this-because-it-is-intriguing/amusing/or I don’t know what and what-the----?!?

Example of such is here.

The third kind of viral posts exemplify why no one can reliably plan an economy, or predict the future, or answer the ultimate matter of why we are here with complete accuracy.

And these third viral kinds of posts are the most interesting to me. Even though most are strangely inane, I continue to marvel at what our species will deem worth our while.

VOICES FROM BEYOND...

...or, in this case— BEYOND THE FIREWALL L

One of the many perils of the internet, like the rest of life’s realms, are the fakers, thieves, hackers, and spammers.

About six weeks ago they sort of crossed a boundary, at least for me. Someone hacked into my father’s Facebook page and “friend-requested” myself, my kids, and no doubt others.

My father’s been gone from this world for eight years.

All righty, then. No real harm done. But I. Didn’t. Like. That.

DD sent me an amused screenshot of the request. DS sent a somewhat alarmed question about it. Otherwise, no progeny was harmed in that ill-intentioned maneuver. But it got me thinking about the too many fake “friend requests” I’ve been fielding for the last few years.

You know they are fakers when you have nothing in common professionally; you don’t know them; the photo is generic and often meant to get through your otherwise discerning eyes.

I’ve had plenty of such from “young men serving our country in Iraq.” You want to be thankful for service to our country, no?

And then the handsome middle-aged men looking lovely with some island vacation spot in the background. Looking for a special friendship, honey-babe? Never mind that I’m married and wouldn’t think of it, but if I were, I’d prefer real people ;)  

Because my first name may gender-confuse some of these hacking engines, I’ve gotten a smattering of scantily clad deep cleavaged young females with their tongues sticking out in what some imagine is unbridled lust, who mysteriously need a friend and don’t have any. Anyone will do, I guess.

But now they have to resurrect a dead relative?

So if you think this is just an annoyance and maybe mildly funny, let me suggest it is less banal than that. These are attempts to get into your contacts and have access to what your friends post under the privacy layer of “can be seen by friends of friends.” Everything I do on Facebook (save personal chats on messenger) is completely public. There is nothing they can get from my posts that they won’t see even if we are not friends. Mine is an Author Page, not a private friendship page. But some of my Facebook friends do use layered privacy settings.

If you have been tempted to accept any and all, please consider protecting your friends and deleting these malicious requests.

Back to the Great Beyond, I still want to hear from my father in heaven. But I know he wouldn’t ---EVER—do it on Facebook.

Daylight Savings/Standard Time & Website Statistics

It happened again. The time was changed on us. Today, Sunday, we were shoved back onto Standard Time. This reminded me of a post from five years ago. Let me explain.

When you have a website, you can get statistics on how many page loads there were on any given day. You can even see the general geographic places these “clicks” are coming from. It’s a free service, and if you want to pay more, (I don’t) there are sophisticated versions of it.

On Blogger this is automatically part of the site and easy to see if you click on the word Stats on your blogger panel on the left. You can set it up never to count your own clicks to your blog (I did) and get a more accurate idea.

This blog’s posts usual click numbers are modest by any standard. They range in a low couple of hundreds, with occasional posts not even reaching three digits. Some of the hits are real readers (like you) and some are random search engines that look for keywords.

I’m delighted that anyone visits. Bless you.

But there was one outlier early on among my posts. It was this one, on Daylight Savings Time. It’s not a great post, nor very informative. But it had a few thousand hits, well above the usual for my site. Looking at the origins of the hits, Blogger’s Stats said that many were from Russia.

At the time, this did not mean much to me. I assumed Russian search engines were combing the Internet for certain key words. So what? Surely, they are not interested in Daylight Savings Time, and most definitely not in my kvetchy rant about it.

The whole subject of Russian hacking has taken a completely new meaning now. My time-disturbed brain is wondering... Hey, Russians, will it happen again? C’mon down and look. For your convenience, I’ll even use Google Translate: Летнее время*

*Daylight Savings time in Russian, I hope.

I doubt it, because these Internet-combing algorithms must have long concluded this blog is useless for their purposes. But if I knew for sure, I would tell you.

And yes, I’m in the throws of adjusting to the time change, Kvetch-kvetch.

SPAM= Unwelcome Spiced Ham

Remember when Spam stood for canned meat of unclear origins?

Euphemistically named for “spiced Ham,” (it wasn’t exactly, but those who liked it preferred not to delve further) it was salty, greasy, meaty, and oddly satisfying to all but gourmet palates.

In the Internet age, SPAM became something almost completely different. It is unsolicited commercial Email. Only the “unclear origins” retained the connection to that potted thing-a-ma-food.

Beginning last spring, I noticed more and more comments on this blog that were not from readers. I moderate comments specifically to weed out SPAM. I have rarely gotten comments that were cantankerous, and welcome those. So long as they are from genuine readers, c'mon in. I’m not afraid of disagreements.

As the counterfeit comments come into my comment-moderation sphere, I mark them as SPAM faster than I can read them to the end. Sometimes the comments contain links. I don’t click on the links, so I can’t report if they involve relatively benign selling of somethings we don’t need, or dreaded viruses. Sometime they may be attempts to get entrance to the site, with no visible links.

In the past, the texts of the comments were riddled with very poor not-quite English. The sort only Google Translate could have come up with. They did painstakingly (I assume) refer to the specific post, but they did so incoherently. Those always contained links.

This summer brought a new flavor of Spam. The ones coming in in the last few months have two things in common. Invariably they come from Anonymous and they are to a post that is old. I mean, a few years old. Key words must have been caught by the casted nets and fished out by the swarming hacking machines. The comment’s text says nothing about the post, but congratulates me on such an excellent blog, promising to follow my “informative posts” from now on.

Frankly, my “excellent blog” is not very informative. (Gee, Mirka. You really can’t take a compliment, can you?)

Just as I was typing here, one of those marvels showed up . Here is most of it, for your amusement:

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I can't imagine who would click on this clown's link for "school composition assist to". If anyone ever did, maybe they deserve such polished assistance. (It must work better in Polish, come to think of it.)

Yes, I have activated Spam filters. A few of them. I also mark every comment that I know isn’t from you, real readers, and send it to the great trash bin on the Ethernet. Lots of garbage floating up there, no doubt.

We do what we can to shore up the wall against these cans, and will continue to do it.
What do you do about Internet trash?