Why I Chose... Florida

Okay, so I didn't have much of a say in it. My immediate family just migrated there.

When I was a very young kid, my mother applied successfully for my sister and me both to become naturalized British Citizens, a status at least I still have to this day. It was a prelude to probably moving to England. Meanwhile, my dad had other ideas.

His father and stepmother both lived in Florida, and that's where he wanted to go. So, that's where we went.

Florida, I adore, though, at least Fort Lauderdale. Miami, not so much. Miami Beach, I like.

I like Florida for its raininess. I like that it's breezy enough that I don't have to use the air conditioning much during the summer like I do here in Georgia. And it doesn't have the ghastly pollen season, either.

I like that there's actually a walking culture both in the suburbs and cities, and that in city-adjacent neighborhoods (or even the city where I'd grown up) one can walk places and not have to have much concern about someone drunkenly mowing you down because the "sidewalk" is literally a part of the road with a solid line dividing the two.

I'd had, relatively, better dating prospects there, or at least people seemed to like me better. But then I was still in my 20's, too, so that helped.

Being a Man

I've been thinking the last few days about the word "man", and how I've been reticent to use it when taking about myself. Sex-wise, I'm a male. Gender-wise, I suppose that's the only time I may use the word "man" since it's clinical: "I'm a cisgender man." It may be because I use cisgender with it.

Otherwise, I'm a guy. I very rarely call myself a man, and O wonder why that is.

Is it a lifetime thus far of seeing images of what Western society sees as a man and somehow not feeling I'm up to that level? Is it because I tend to be very non-committal in language because there's "always something that could undo it". I tend to be rather careful with absolutes, and I suppose I may view "man" as absolute. It's rigid. It's hard.

"Guy", that's flexible enough. It evokes some sense of softness that I definitely do have.

And I suppose, Daniel Jackson, you have your answer.

The World

The world is the United States president saying one thing, then another, then another thing. It makes only some people ridiculously happy because they get to speak about it incessantly.

The world is vehicles that become murder weapons throughout Europe… because why not?

The world is political figures constantly trying to one-up each other just to say they're better, even though when they die they'll all become dust.

The world is businesses that try to innovate even when they've reached maximum saturation. It's only because they feel they must always expand.

The world is taking advantage of debt, reselling it, gouging on interest, passing it around, and forgetting about it via bankruptcy.

People wonder when I hesitate to acknowledge others' thoughts that human beings are the pinnacle of creation.

Things That Leave Me Aghast

So, I saw this on my Facebook feed today…

All I could do was shake my head. Yes, I'm not an immense fan of his because of sometimes the way he reacts to others. I'd accepted on the day the results came out that he'd become the United States president and that, among other things, one should pray for him and the country like any other leader, and that he makes good decisions.

This, like some things that some would characterize he's said, is childish. It serves nothing more than to, as the poster of the video link put it, troll him. Trolling serve no purpose other than to antagonize; it is senseless antagonism.

Senseless antagonism is mindlessly calling him "The Cheeto" or "His Orangeness". And people who'd called President Obama or Hillary Clinton, or anyone else anything, or referred to them as anything other than their names or official titles (and not said them with disdain, even though they have the right to do so) does nothing to solve the ever-growing list of problems this world has.

To Post or Not?

So, I was reading a few Fox News articles that grabbed my attention, and meant to post them to my Flipboard… except for some interesting verbiage…

Now, the first was via the Apple News app, and then the second was the view from Safari. The only notable difference was that in Apple News, the ads were for, basically, Fox News products that had Apple syndication (an Apple Podcasts-based podcast, for instance). The web page view in Safari had a notable amount of "sponsored" ads, but they seemed to consolidate them at the article's end primarily. The Fox News app, though, seemed to split them up, and there was no apparent sign of the verbiage (which I took to mean one can share it elsewhere).

The answer may lie in Terms and Conditions… or as they put it, Terms of Use. I suppose that links are fine. It's when the actual content goes anywhere else, that's when one cannot do anything. It's interesting, though, that it includes archiving an article. One cannot archive a copy of an article at all according to the Terms of Use (so things like shenanigans that may occur within an article that they decide to delete and "web activists" who have copies of it to debate the shenanigans might be in the wrong).

Terms of Use/Terms and Conditions are fun… 😑