Friends

My best friend from childhood lived in the house behind mine, diagonally. A quick run through our back yards and we were together. 

My best friend from high school lived about two miles from my house, as driven in my car – okay, my mother's car. Closer as the crow flies, but neither of us were crows, so we drove or had to be driven. 

My young adult friends were neighbors or coworkers. Close at one part of the day or another. 

In 1996, we got our second computer and it had a modem. I was not very computer savvy, but I did have AOL and could finally send and receive e-mail and met many nice people in chat rooms. My community of friends now spanned the globe. 

This new phenomenon, friends you have never met, isn't really entirely new. In ages past, there was something called "pen pals" and people who had never met would write long letters to each other with weeks or months or even years passing between correspondence. They knew they were separated by distances too great to travel, but they still wrote.

Some were established in school days as a teacher's project and kept going. Some were people interested in some topic and writing to others who were like minded, some famous and some not. Some of these pen pal letters blossomed into more. Elizabeth Barrett met Robert Browning this way. 

Beginning in 1996, my insular world became global. I could instantaneously communicate with people on every continent. It was amazing. You can't imagine the speed of a 2400 baud modem as compared to the Pony Express.

With this new method of communication came a new set of problems. For me, a word person, one of them was what in the hell do I call these people? They aren't acquaintances since I've never met them. In fact, one could have walked past me at any time and I wouldn't have known. They weren't friends for I hardly knew them. I mean, how much of what we say online is the honest, to goodness, all out truth. 

I never told about the stupid things I did. I never confessed to being less than the picture I wanted to paint. This realm was a world where I could remake myself in my own image. I wouldn't be petty or mean spirited. I wouldn't be a klutz or graceless. I would deliver the perfect bon mot or riposte in each verbal dual. Who would know any different? And how many other people were going to reveal their flaws and so why should I? So, how well did any of know each other. That's not real and it's not friends. 

That's what I told myself.

But I've been online for over a decade now. I'm a little more comfortable calling my long standing … I still don't know what to call them, really. We write back and forth. We celebrate and commiserate. We share successes and console over failures. 

And now, I not only have e-mail, I'm involved in forums where people are dear to me. I know so much about so many of my friends, but not how they look. They could still walk right past me and I wouldn't know them. But when something happens, it is real. Cyber is the way we converse, but cyber isn't where my heart lies. 

I still care about people and there are real people on the other end of the electron stream. Many of them I have come to know. I'm still talking to people I first met in an AOL chat room over a decade ago. I'm closer to my online friends than I am with old neighbors from places where I used to live. I still e-mail with them, but not as frequently. Unless I have no e-mail address, then it's once a year Christmas letters. 

But I still feel funny. Some of my best friends, some of the people I run toward to share my happy moments, reach toward for consolation in sad times, and offer a virtual shoulder to when times are tough for them … these people are "virtual" in the world of electronics. But they are real in my heart. 

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas. What happens online remains with me cherished and tended. My friends. Yes, they are my friends. 

Sied, I've know your first name for a long time, but you are sied to me and always will be. Dear friend, I miss you already. Though we never met, we talked on the phone a couple times and we were … what? Internet Idiots? Cyber Sidekicks? Network Ninnies? Friends. Coworkers. Supporters. Cheerleaders. Always just a click away.

Sleep well. Your friends are still rooting for you. 

Too Many Outlets?

I have been writing. Really.

I signed up for a 31 days to a better blog and then opted to start a whole different blog in a whole different place to see how that went. I can write without a problem. My problem lies in the marketing aspect of my writing.

I have been writing my Little Bits of History for about three and a half years now. They were published, in an abbreviated form at RGQ for a little more than three years. But I hit a roadblock. It wasn't so much writer's block as a sense of failure or maybe just disappointment.

I have had my essays looked at by a real book publisher at a writer's seminar. She said they were a great idea, but she was a fiction editor and had no idea where to tell me to look for a publisher. She gave me names, I looked, they weren't the right venue either. I'm not even now sure of the right venue. As I said, I'm a writer, not a marketer.

But, with the 31 days thing, I needed something to do for 31 days. I have all these already written essays on my computer. My first year's essays are not quite up to my current standard. I have learned many things in the threes plus years of actually writing day in and day out. I believe my newer essays are better than my older ones.

So I decided to polish up my old essays. I use what's there, but give them a little extra and get them more in line with my current standards. Then I posted them in a Word Press blog. According to my 31 days thing, I needed to market. No matter how brilliant one's writing, it is useless without the reader.

I belong to two different writing forums (and a history forum and a trivia forum). Well, I'm signed up a third writing forum, but am inactive there. It's just way too large. In the writing forums, I posted links to my history essays at Word Press. 

A couple of exciting things have since happened. One of my writing forums is run by a fellow Carolinian and he directed me to Examiner.com. They are now allowing me to publish my essays there. Only this one lets me do some other spiffy things. I get to be paid, for one thing. Not much and it would be more if I got more hits.

However, each day it tells me how many hits my page got, how many are average for my city outlet, and how many are average for my topic area. I'm consistently higher than the average. So thanks to any and all who are clicking on my writing. Readers are just great.

Dave is also a member of one of my writing forums. He has recently published an e-booklet on blogging. He included my Little Bits of History as one of his examples on writing a blog. Thanks so much, Dave. 

But that got me to thinking. I've been writing. Really. I have daily historical essays put up on two different sites and they are completely different topics. But I've been so busy with writing, buffing things up, finding links, finding pictures I'm permitted to use, getting everything posted, updating links at other sites, and all the myriad details – I've neglected to write here.

So, here is this.
Here is Little Bits of History.
Here is Examiner.com. 

Reading for Understanding

We all live in the same world together. Some of us, regardless of what anyone says, are smarter than average and some are sadly dumber than average. This has little to do with basic intelligence, but a lot to do with our understanding of how the world works.

In the US we all get to go to school for free, if we choose, up to the 12^th grade. Some schools are better than other. Some schools are better funded, some have a better clientele, some have better staff, some have better surroundings.

Schools today are doing way too much socializing. They have to because the parents are not properly teaching their children things they have to know to get along in the world. So the teacher has to explain the word "no" means "no" and isn't contingent upon the whine level of the frustrated soul who simply wants to hoard all the blocks and not share with the group.

Sharing is important in the world at large. We don't usually have to share something as meaningless as blocks, but we share space, the roads, our community, our tax dollars, etc. We all have to know how to deal with frustration and the world telling us "no" all dang day long.

You don't think the world does this? When is the last time you drove anywhere? Did you only have green lights? I hate to have to stop. I think it would be really cool if every traffic signal was green for me. But I stop at each red light because if we all disobeyed the traffic lights, none of us could drive. We have been socialized.

So schools are teaching too many kids what "no" means because they haven't yet learned this by the age of five. This is cutting into important time available to teach.

We need this teaching because we need to know stuff. We need the back story or we can't understand what in the world anyone is talking about currently. Educated people pull up for reference the history they have learned for current events. When someone says "Sistine Chapel" they aren't thinking some small backwoods church, but envisioning the huge, elaborately decorated cathedral in Rome. We don't need to go into the whole back story, we can talk about whatever current event is taking place.

When parents are told to read to their children and they shrug it off, they are teaching their children. They are teaching them bad things, but they are teaching them nonetheless. There are so many excuses why they can't read to their kids. The reasons are 1. too busy, 2. too lazy, or 3. illiterate themselves.

Here is a plan for the illiterate parents. Our schools have done a great job in teaching students to decode words. Most people in the US who can't read are not illiterate, but functionally illiterate. They can read the words, but they can't make any sense out of them. That is because they don't have the back story. Writing, like speaking, means you start somewhere and it is usually in the middle of the story. If someone doesn't pull up the entire mental picture of the Sistine Chapel, the following story will not make any sense. We need the back story.

If you have a limited vocabulary and a limited understanding and aren't sure how to go about reading with your children, here is how to help everyone. Public libraries as well as school libraries have two distinct sections. There is a fiction section and there is "fact" section. The fact books are sorted by numbers on the spine. This is the Dewey Decimal System. Each number represents subject matter.

Within each number are smaller numbers. I remember 636 as being pets or animals. So a 636.01 book is about a specific animal. These books are written at various comprehension levels. Some are written for primary grades, some are written for middle school understanding levels, some are written for adults. If the parents read the beginning books to their children, not only will the children learn, but so will the adults.

Beginning books have a smaller, more limited vocabulary. They explain what the words mean. Many give pronunciation guides for difficult words. They tell the back story. If you begin with these easiest books and work your way up through more difficult books, everyone benefits. Everyone.

The child benefits, the parent or caretaker benefits, the schools benefit, and society benefits. Both the child and adult will increase their understanding of the back story. Both the child and adult will improve their literacy rating. And most important, the child will learn that reading is a skill to be savored.

Everyone can move a little further to the right on that curve of who is smart and who isn't. Knowing the back story gives you an edge and lets you learn more, read better, and improves your chances in this scary world.

And if at all possible, learn what the word "no" means. 

Prolific Spending

I will admit right up front, I do not think of President Obama as The Savior or even a prince. I think he is an ill-equipped man facing an impossible job. I don't know if anyone was properly equipped for this disaster, but a junior senator was not it.

So, what have our tax dollars been spent on this past week? Mr. Most Biggest Spender of the Senate has remained true to his past and helped us with our economy this week.

First there was the Swine Flu Pandemic to deal with. This media event was brought to you by inaccurate media hype and frightened people in the streets clamoring for safety. The idiots in charge have gone so far as to appease the media circus by actually wiping out the disease with a stroke of a pen. The World Health Organization stopped Swine Flu by naming it Influenza A H1N1 because that is much easier to deal with.

The media continue to call it Swine Flu because no one is going to continually write out that Influenza A H1N1 crap. Too much shift key involved. And, no one would know what you were talking about or the local idiot on the street would think there was a second killer flu out to decimate the over crowded planet.

At least the WHO is now showing Influenza A H1N1 updates when searching for Swine Flu updates. They aren't top on the list and the most recent thing looks like it is from last month, but they are parsing now.

More people have died of not the Swine Flu since the pandemic was announced than have died of this horrific killer. The media is now pointing out that many well people are flooding hospital emergency rooms because they have been scared half to death by the media telling them we are all going to die of Swine Flu and these silly people believed what they read or heard.

What has our Savior done? Well according to the press, "President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funding, but it's unlikely that money would trickle down to local agencies."

Okay, what was this supposed to be for? Well, we needed to stockpile Tamiflu and Relenza. Apparently the evil drug manufacturers who prey on the unsuspecting public at all times trying like hell to just make an extra buck off the ill and infirm, were too stupid to see this money making bonanza. The government needed to waste $1.5 billion in some effort to … what? Did the drug manufacturers need to be forced to produce a hot selling item? This has never happened before.

What else was in the news this week? Chrysler went belly up. Well, they filed Chapter 11. This is after Chrysler Financial got a $1.5 billion bailout in January. This week, they got just a measly, pitiful $500,000 but it's not sure how that is going to really work, since they just filed that whole chapter thing. There is also a couple hundred million, okay, $280,130,000 set aside to cover Chrysler warranties. This doesn't count the billions of dollars also given to the other car makers. This is just Chrysler's share of my money.

I think I am supposed to feel bad for the CEO of Chrysler who will be leaving without any golden parachute. Pity. Mr. Nardelli left Home Depot after earning $32 million his last year and with a $210 million golden parachute. I sure hope he doesn’t end up on welfare now that he is going to have to not get millions of dollars for failing. He, like Lee Iacocca, took only a nominal salary while at Chrysler. He, unlike Iacocca, failed.

The UAW is, of course, distraught. Their bargaining power has just weakened with the forced closing (for at least two months) of Chrysler manufacturing plants. And this, right after they didn't ask for more money. So Obama, the UAW, and Chrysler all lied to the little guy who apparently hadn't noticed that no one is buying cars and so there is no real need to make any more right now, thank you very much. Go home now.

Those individual citizens who over extended themselves after President Clinton changed the laws on lending aren't given the same backing. Their bad choices lead to their own downfall. I just hope all the people who have had their homes taken away from them will get back on their feet and start being able to share the tax burden. Big Government needs their input.