Tag: Facebook

Banned Again

I just received another message from Facebook saying my account has been suspended for fifteen more days due to “unusual activity.” When I sent an email to a friend with a copy of their message, the email itself was rejected by his server because the subject title “banned from Facebook” aroused suspicion. This latest stint in Facebook prison began when they uncovered a picture I’d posted a few years ago, showing Hitler feeding a squirrel. Something weird is going on.

The most contentious thing I remember doing was sharing a post about Israeli abuse of Palestinians. Might that be at the bottom of all this? I have friends who routinely share pornographic videos on links Facebook, with no problem. But Hitler feeding a squirrel, well that’s just pushing the envelope a little too hard.

If Facebook doesn’t want my business I guess I should look for another social media site, except this whole wasting time online things has gotten old. Like most of us, I have no idea how much time I have left on this planet, but I don’t want to waste it posting funny pictures and clamoring for approval. I’ve already made contact with everyone I ever knew, and they know I’m living in Thailand, retired, and obviously wrestling with too much free time.

TRANSFORMATION AT LAST!

 

 

When I was in Dubai, we were befriended by an Emirati couple who tried their best to convert us to Islam. I thought that was odd, not knowing that any religion other than Christianity in its various forms and Mormonism, which sometimes claims to be Christian, did such a thing. Just like Christians, Muslims believe that they gain a higher status in heaven by finding converts to their faith. Buddhism certainly doesn’t try to make converts. They don’t want to save you soul from damnation, they just want you to stop hurting yourself in this life.

The central premise of Christianity seems rather strange the older I get. God had us torture and kill his only son so we could be reconciled to him after our first ancestors disobeyed him. Any way you rephrase that it sill doesn’t ring true or make much sense.

All the forms that twisted story took over the last two thousand years make even less sense. Unbaptized babies languishing in limbo, purgatory avoided through indulgences earned and bought, miraculous interventions by saints, bodies of the especially holy who have escaped corruption after death, the Rapture, the Mark of the Beast, the Battle of Armageddon, exorcisms, rosaries, holy medals, holy water, scapulars…the list goes on and on.

I’m sure if I’d listened to my Emirati friends I could have found out the quirks of their religion, but such details bore and depress me. I take no delight in the prosaic inventions of frightened minds.

Maybe the hall-of-mirrors effect of the social media artificially compounding my beliefs by exposing me to Facebook “friends” and their opinions has make me think more of us agree than is actually the case, but I really do have the feeling that people are getting ready to throw off such primitive notions and the prejudices that accompany them. Jingoism, nationalism, racism, even sexism may be posed for a hasty exit. Maybe Donald Trump is the last buffoon to act out on a world stage and his obvious limitations will suddenly cause most people to come to these realizations at about the same time.

 

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Maybe Insane

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We are each the gatekeepers of our psyches, while the Internet is a vast soup of pictures, facts, lies, opinions, promotions, stories, attempts at critical thinking, and faux profundity, that flows by as fast as you can scroll. If you let it all in, you’ll become exhausted and maybe insane. So you have to make choices.

People who post pictures of aborted fetuses or tortured animals are the first ones I block. Then I go after people who post the same thing over and over. Fat guy and his wife at dinner. OK, I tried to be nice and “like” the first couple of times, but now I can’t do it anymore. Likewise the dog sprawled on the couch or bed. If that’s all you’ve got going on in your life, then keep it to yourself.

Unfortunately, I am most impressionable early in the morning when I am least critical. I share lots of ugly political posts about Donny Bonespurs the Pumpkin Spice Hitler and then have to go back and delete most of them. I don’t want my social media legacy to involve him in any way.

I try to post links on Facebook to my blogs, but they never result in any traffic going that way. Facebook has figured out how to block links to other sites without letting the poster know that’s what’s happening. They want you to create a Facebook page, then pay them to advertise it. If you try to get around that, by linking to Youtube or a WordPress blog, it will simply appear to be an active link, but it’s not.

Have Uncle Stupid Record Your Message

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BOYS AND GIRLS, LISTEN UP!
Have the crazy old coot wish someone you love a Happy Birthday, or congratulate someone on an anniversary or special occasion…he’ll perform a personalized greeting in a one minute video. The more information you give him, the more meaningful the final product will be.
The MP4 video will be sent to whatever email address you provide. Within 24 hours of receiving your $30 payment via pay pal, to danieljosephcoffey@hotmail.com and Uncle Stupid will record a personalized video and send it off!
Think of how  this will raise your status among friends and family!  Be the first on your block to have a personalized video of Uncle Stupid saying all the things you wish you could have said, if you’d been demented and spoke with a fake Russian accent.

My Tummy Hurts

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When I have an upset stomach, I don’t sleep well. My dreams are troubled, and the conundrums I’m wrestling with in dreamworld aren’t as easily understood or deciphered as a simple upset stomach. Likewise, in my waking hours I am constantly trying to blame or fix whatever I think is troubling me, but there I may also be way off base. The cause of my dissatisfaction may be hidden, or not what I think it is.

 

When I’m happy or content, I don’t waste a lot of energy wondering why, but when I’m not, then I start inventing complex scenarios. Sometimes it seems like YouTube is awash in people who are convinced that whatever they’re experiencing is somebody else’s fault. If only the Illuminati hadn’t started World War II and the Rothschild banks weren’t in charge of our political system, then I might stand a chance at being happy. But since they are, I’m doomed. We’re all doomed.

 

Seems like everyone with an online presence has got at least an upset stomach that’s causing them to dwell on the negative.

 

The problem with poo-pooing all conspiracy theories is that some of them are right on the money. One has to make great leaps of faith to believe even part of the 9/11 Commission report. The official explanation for what happened that day reads like a highly implausible tale invented on the spot by a madman.

 

We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Convenient how Lee Harvey Oswald, the supposed lone gunman in the Kennedy assassination, was gunned down only hours after his capture. Not much time there for a proper interview. There have been so many obvious false-flag events that have been unmasked after having served their purpose to justify invasions of sovereign states that it would almost take more effort to prove the reasons we bomb those weak enough to be bombed are real than not. Experience tells us we should assume we’re dealing with subterfuge unless proven otherwise.

 

But everybody likes to think that they’re sane and the people who they find most annoying are nincompoops. I like to post 9/11 conspiracy posts on Facebook, and then am amused by people who respond with “I’m so sick of reading this nonsense…” Then don’t read it, my man. Nobody’s forcing you to read my posts, much less comment on them. I suppose you’re either better informed or saner than I am. By all means, show me another picture of your cat. After all, this isn’t the nightly news. It’s Facebook.