Posters on my Wall: A Liberal's Agenda on Facebook

I'm a liberal and I have an agenda.

Ok, I don't really have an "agenda." But I have a lot of opinions on what's right and wrong and I read a lot. When I find an article that I like on the Internet, I like to put it up on my Facebook wall where I can easily find it and where other people who might be interested can see it and read it too. Because to me, one of the values of social networking, is being able to share with my friends and see the things they'd like to share with me. Sometimes I just post stuff because I see it on a site, don't have time to read it, and want to remember to go back later.

Since I'm a liberal, and might I say that I'm probably more liberal than many, a lot of the articles I post have (surprise!) a liberal bent. I believe in unions, collective bargaining, and workers rights. I'm pro-choice and feminist. I’m sex positive and pro-sex education. I don't go to church but if I did I'd be Unitarian, although I only half jokingly refer to myself as pagan. I am a supporter of public schools and teachers and I believe our educational system is failing our kids not because of "bad teachers," but because lawmakers are trying (and failing) to legislate learning. I vote Democrat. I support small farms and local businesses and I recycle. I think gay people should be able to get married and sick people should be able to smoke pot. I feel that health insurance is a right, not a privilege, and addiction is a disease, not a choice. (And by the way, I'm not interested in taking your guns away. I like to shoot and I'm good at it.)

I like to read about all of those subjects, along with art, science, Apple, literature, LOL cats, religion, philosophy, food, dysfunction, crime, and lists from the editors at Cracked.com and product descriptions from the geniuses at Woot! and ThinkGeek, along with a million other semi-relevant topics. I’m diverse that way and a lot of what I find interesting makes it to my facebook wall in the form of a shared link. Sometimes my shares get people talking, and sometimes they just serve as markers of something that caught my attention for a few stay minutes of the day. I like to think that my facebook wall serves as a sort of time capsule of my interests over time.

The problem with my more political postings, however, is that not all of my friends are liberal. Some are pretty middle of the road and some are conservative either in economics, social issues, or both. Most of the time, things stay pretty civil. Friends are friends for a reason, and politics and religion, while they can bind, can also sever relationships, so I try and balance presenting the issues I care about with the feelings of the people I like. I'm not usually offended by conservative friends. The problem is that it seems when I post anything of a political content, people seem to feel the need to argue politics. I don't mind an occasional exchange of ideas as long as things stay civil. I realize other people have opinions that differ from mine and I respect that. Sometimes I'm interested hearing their ideas on things and sometimes I'm not. I'll carry a discussion so far, but if it turns into an argument, I'll just agree to disagree.

Because I don't want to argue politics, some people have implied that I shouldn't post about it either. I'm not sure I follow that logic. The reason I don't like to argue politics is that I won't be changing my mind. I feel the way I do about most issues not because I'm "towing the party line," but because I've thought them through, researched them, and/or experienced them myself. It's not often that I change my mind on a particular topic, although when I have in the past, it's certainly wasn't because I was badgered into doing so. I'm also not posting about politics to bait anyone, or "stir things up." Everyone has had different experiences and, hopefully, formed their own opinions accordingly. I'm always happy to explain why I feel a certain way about something, but I find arguing politics exhausting and pointless. Will I talk politics? Yes, usually I will. I enjoy talking with other liberals, just as history buffs like talking to other history buffs and musicians like talking music. I also enjoy talking with some of my conservative friends because there are issues that we see eye to eye on and it's interesting to find out where people's values and experiences have led them because we all come by these things in different ways.

I look at it this way; Facebook is kind of like a big house that we all live in together. There are common areas and private areas. My profile is my private area, my room. Posts are like posters we put on the walls of our rooms. I can put whatever posters on my wall that I want. I promise not to put my posters on your wall, unless I know you'll like them too. If you're my friend, you're invited into my space but I don't need you to tell me I have bad taste in posters. If you don't want to look at them, you can simply not enter my room by blocking posts by me from reaching your news feed. If you feel really strongly, you can just unfriend me. Or you can be tolerant, as I promise to be of you. If you start posting about how you hate Jews/gays/Mexicans/Muslims/Lolcats, and they should all be lined up and shot, chances are I'm going to unfriend you because I find intolerance and ignorance deeply offensive. I won't unfriend you based on the fact that we vote for different candidates or we don't agree on issues like abortion or economic policy.

I won't unfriend you, but I probably won't take the bait either. I hope you understand.

FBC: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

FBC: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

You knew I was going to blog about cats eventually, right? After all, they do dominate the Internet. Many of you probably recognize the suave looking dude at the top of this post from his frequent appearances on Facebook. His name is Boo, or as he is known to his many fans, FBC. Most of the time that stands for Fat Black Cat. Sometimes, depending on what he's been up to, it might stand for something else.

I've had a lot of cats over the years, and even now I have four, but Boo has attained a level of celebrity, modest though it may be, that the others have simply never achieved. I attribute this to his coming of age during the Facebook generation as well as to him being the most poorly behaved of any of my current or previous pets. I often vent about his antics to my friends who seem to get a perverse enjoyment out of the fact that he's not their cat. For all of his fans who have asked for more, this is for you. His story is short, sweet and peppered with kitty indiscretions. He's asked me to write it for him because his fingers are too short to effectively use the keyboard, although he often tries.

I was working at a small elementary school in the very small town of Marne, MI, during the middle of July 2006. A co-worker and I were standing near the entryway of the school and the building was closed up as tight as an old school building can get. We stood there talking for quite some time, who knows about what, until I couldn't ignore the irritating sound I kept hearing in the background anymore. I am sensitive to noise and this particular noise was quite grating. My co-worker thought it sounded like a cat but I said no, I thought it was a bird. It sounded just like the noise blue jays will sometimes make to scare away an animal they feel is threatening their nest. I know that noise well as there was a nest of blue jays outside a house I once rented and they made their opposition to my occupying a neighboring space painfully clear each time I came in or out of the house. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I flung the front door of the school open expecting to scare away an angry blue jay. Instead, to my surprise and to the delight of my co-worker who got to say, "I told you so," a little puff of black fur came running out from underneath a bush, "yelling" all the way. If you know me at all, you know that I instantly swooped down upon the kitten, squeeing with the adorableness of it all and brought it right into the building with me. 

When I say little, I mean this was a kitten that could be held in one hand. He was tiny! I closed him up in the office where he amused himself by constantly relocating to wherever he thought one of my feet was about to be, crying loudly and biting my toes with his tiny little needle teeth. I took him home with me that day, thinking if I didn't find his owners I would take him to the Humane Society. I did look for his owners but I soon found out from some neighbors of the school that there had been a litter of black kittens roaming the town. There had been a fair in Marne the previous week and it appeared as though the kittens may have been left behind. Predictably, I kept finding excuses not to take him to the Humane Society. About two weeks after I'd found him, I finally gave up and named him. A friend suggested Boo because he looked like a "Halloween cat" and since I'd just watched To Kill A Mockingbird on TV the night before, and his personality was shaping up to be somewhat... well, "special," it stuck.

Unfortunately, no actual baby pictures of FBC exist, but this picture is 

representative of the "alien" phase he went through as a teenager.

Note the over-sized ears. He grew into them. Sort of.

Five years later my toothy little black furball weighs 19 pounds and holds court on my Facebook page as well as my couch. He's not so tiny anymore, but he sure is "special." He answers to either Boo, Boober, or FBC. He was also known, for a brief period, as Barack O-Boo-ma, but his interest in politics waned and he's never held public office.

FBC is a naughty cat, although I like to describe him as having a lot of personality. He's a Bombay, loud funny voice and all. The first time I took him tot he vet they laughed at him for his big ears and long rat tail. When the vet was done laughing she said "well... that will be good for balance. Maybe he'll grow into it." FBC loves to play fetch almost as much as he loves playing with ponytail elastics, which he stores in his food dish when not in use. He sharpens his claws on my sofa, fishes Q-tips out of the garbage, starts almost every cat-on-cat fight in the house, and is terrified of vacuum cleaners (even ones with no motors) and of storms. If it even rains hard, he hides under some furniture or runs to the basement. He's scared to death of plastic grocery bags. But he loves to bird watch, sometimes forgets his tongue is out and has a little whistle in his purr. His fur is sleek and tight to his body. Water rolls right off him like he's a seal.

On second thought, maybe there's a reason he's 

scared of those plastic grocery bags...

You may be seeing more of FBC here from time to time. Although we are at the beginning of thunderstorm season here in Michigan and with all the thunder last night, he made himself pretty scarce. He did manage to quell his terror and put in an appearance while I was eating dinner. For now, however, FBC and I will wish you good day and return to our regularly scheduled blogging. 

As FBC would say... "Peace, Bitches!"

Tales from the Dark Side

Now that I've spent a significant amount of time extolling the virtues of Facebook, I've got another point to discuss. A somewhat darker point of view if you'll indulge me. Because I feel that for all the ways that Facebook can strengthen relationships, it can also tear them apart.

When I refer to relationships, I am not speaking just of romantic relationships but friendships and familial relationships as well. By now, even if we don't know someone personally who has had Facebook affect one of their relationships in a negative way, we've at least read about it. We've also seen horror stories of child neglect. I would argue that some of these stories are in the extreme. People who neglect their children for the Internet would probably neglect them in some other way if the Internet/Facebook wasn't available. People who cheat on a spouse might very well cheat with someone they didn't meet on Facebook. What should be sobering, however, is the thought that although we may not be endangering the physical well-being of our friends and families, we may be engaging in behaviors that damage our emotional connections to them.

I'm single with no kids at home. I don't feel particularly guilty about sitting by myself on the couch at night and engaging others via Facebook for hours on end. (Although sometimes my cats make desperate bids for attention.) What I do sometimes wonder is if in doing so, I am wasting time I should be using to develop relationships with the people around me. Not just the people I know, but people I should be meeting. But I'm an introvert. I don't play a sport and the idea doesn't really appeal to me. I don't attend church, school or have a particular hobby, like scrap-booking or playing the guitar which might put me in touch with other people. All my hobbies are pretty individualized, like reading, cooking and gardening. Could I join a reading group, take a cooking class or join some sort of local gardening group? Probably. But I don't, partly because Facebook gives me an out. Why put myself "out there" when I can sit at home on my couch where I feel safe and talk to people I already know, even if my knowledge of them is superficial and I may never see them in person again?

This isn't to say I don't value the relationships that Facebook has brought me. I've met some wonderful people online who I would have probably never encountered otherwise. They enrich my life on a daily basis and for that I am grateful. I've deepened other relationships which has been amazing, too. What I find missing is the ability to sit on my couch in the evening with another warm body across the room. I miss another voice, the easiness of being in the physical presence of someone who knows me well. I wonder how many people, like me, sit on their couch each night and communicate with others via Facebook while their kids play on their own and their spouse sits in silence on the other side of the room, absorbed in television, or perhaps on Facebook as well. Recognize yourself? I thought so.

I'm guilty as well. I have a Blackberry. An iPod Touch. I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Blogger, etc... I am never not connected. How many times have I checked my Blackberry during dinner? Answered a text? Checked my Facebook? Plenty of times and often to the irritation of the person dining with me. How many times have I sat and waited impatiently for a dining partner to do the same? More times than I can count. We live in the most connected time the world has ever seen. Almost any information is immediately and constantly at our fingertips and we have more ability than ever to influence and manipulate that information through sites such as Digg, Facebook and Wikipedia. We are marketed and advertised to constantly and we're learning to market and advertise ourselves, as if our personal preferences and habits are products of some sort.

I've been thinking lately that I need to make an effort to put down the phone, turn off the computer and reconnect. I've been thinking that I might start asking people to do that when they're with me as well.
I've been the person on the other side of the room being ignored in favor of the person on the other end of the computer. Sometimes it's ok but most of the time, it's not much fun. Although it's helped me develop and further some relationships, Facebook has also hurt several of my relationships. One or two of them have been damaged and/or changed irreparably. One friendship has ended for good.

I want to embrace social media and, for the most part, I do. But I have to remind myself of a few things from time to time:

1. There are some things about me that no one needs to know about. Things that are private. 
2. It's easy to get caught up in other people's drama, but you don't always know the whole story.
3. The people in the room with me deserve my attention as much if not more than the ones on screen.
4. Besides being supportive, offering my expertise/opinion and trying to make them laugh, there's not much I can do about other people's troubles. 
5. People can pretend, online, to be someone they're not. Maybe not on purpose, and sometimes even people you may have met. Unless you know them very, very well, keep in mind that things and people online aren't always what they appear. 

When you think about it, these are pretty good rules to follow offline as well.

I love Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare is fun and blogging serves its purpose. They're all useful tools not to mention addicting and enjoyable. But they can be trouble if we let them. I want to manage my social connections, not allow them to run my life. So this weekend, in addition to spending time with my friends on Facebook, I'll be spending time with friends and family offline as well. All the way offline! And I challenge you to do the same. 

The Amazing and Heartwarming Power of Social Media, Part 2

In my last post I talked about how great Facebook has been for me in terms of having a built-in support system. In this post I want to talk about a couple instances of Facebook bringing people together and reminding me of what I believe is the basic goodness of humanity. Which is something that, if you read the news, you may have doubts about. I know that from time to time I sure do.

In December of 2010, shortly before Christmas, I lost a dear friend named Alie. Although I knew Alie in Real Life, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. We were separated by distance, circumstance and for about the last year, by the confines of her illness. Even when she was well, Alie wasn't a social butterfly. In fact, she was a bit of a recluse. Because of Facebook, I was able to get to know her much better than I would have if I'd had to depend on infrequent visits. Even more old-fashioned methods of communication wouldn't have worked for us. Although Alie was a talented artist and a great friend, she wasn't much of a writer and she hated talking on the phone. But Alie loved the Internet. Here she was able to move past her social anxieties and her physical limitations and socialize with lots of people who played the same online games and shared her interests in Pokemon, cartoons and Japanese toys. Through Facebook and other message boards and websites, lots of people were able to get to know Alie and many of them- including some of my Facebook friends- came to love her for her gentle personality, and empathetic, generous nature.

After Alie passed away, there were no services for her and those of us who knew her felt we'd had no closure. Alie was an artist. She worked with children because she understood them and the things that were important to them. She loved little bits and pieces of interesting things that other people had discarded and much of her art was based around found objects and drawings of sweet, cartoonish dogs. She also spent many of what she considered the best years of her life living in the city of Detroit. Alie loved the city and found beauty in its decay. I wanted to honor Alie in some way and after doing a little poking around on the internet I found an organization that I think Alie would have loved, called Arts & Scraps. It's in Detroit and they recycle cast-off industrial materials as art supplies for under-served kids. Through the Causes application on Facebook I was able to set up a Holiday Wish in memory of Alie and asked people to donate $10 or what they felt they could afford. My friends and I, most of whom had never met Alie, raised $195 to benefit Arts & Scraps. I was touched that people would donate and I know Alie would have been as well.

Thanks to social networking, I was able to honor my friend in a way that would benefit someone else. Thanks to my friends and Alie's, ninety-eight children will take home a bag stuffed with art supplies. Ninety-eight children will receive the power to create, to potentially discover a talent or a hobby that could change their lives. Not a bad legacy.

Add to this the over 43,000 people on Facebook who have turned out to Pray for Baby Miranda and I get a pretty warm and fuzzy feeling. Baby Miranda is the child of an elementary school classmate of mine, Chad Cole. I haven't seen Chad since probably 6th grade, nor can I say I've really thought about him much since then although I remember him as being a nice kid. We weren't particularly friends and he disappeared to go to another school at some point, I'm not sure when.

I happened to be in my hometown of Jackson, MI this weekend and heard about a car accident I might not have known about otherwise. Snow was coming down fast and it was windy. The roads slicked up in no time and a crash occurred on I-94, near the Dearing Road exit. The news of a fatality from the accident traveled quickly- Sara, the 35-year-old wife of my former classmate who was expecting their first child on February 23, was declared dead on arrival at Allegiance Hospital. For a while it looked like there was one positive. Doctors were able to deliver Baby Miranda alive. Because of the trauma Sara had received to her uterus in the accident, however, Baby Miranda had been without oxygen for too long and she was born with no brain activity. Doctors gave her until Tuesday evening and so Chad and his family were able to spend some time with their new family member. Sadly, Miranda Cole never developed any signs of brain activity and she was removed from life support Tuesday evening. In the meantime, Chad continued to update what had been the blog tracking their pregnancy, Our Little Secret. It's heartbreaking stuff, for sure.

And yet... in the midst of this tragedy, someone started a Facebook group inviting people to pray for Baby Miranda. And the numbers started climbing. Now I'm not a particularly religious person and I'm not usually much for prayer groups. I respect it, it's just not my thing. But I know how important it is to feel supported. And I can't imagine the grief this newly widowed man, who I remember as a child, has yet to face. Sara and Miranda are at peace, but for the third member of their family, life must go on. Chad's situation echoes that endured by a dear friend of mine, quite a few years back. Life goes on, but it's never really the same. The miracle here is that over 43,000 people from all over the world, stand in support of this man and his family. There will surely be moments ahead of him where even the love and support of 43,000 strangers, family members and friends won't feel like enough. But in the end, faith and the joined hands of a community of strangers supporting him may just begin to seem like enough again and spring will come and the sun will shine again.

For me, Baby Miranda helps put things in perspective. I may still feel panicky and a little lost. But my personal losses are minimal and fleeting. It's a reminder that whether it's a group of 10 or 43,000, people are still basically good and kind. That if you're lucky, just when you feel the most alone, there are people who you didn't expect to be there, lifting you up.

The Amazing and Heartwarming Power of Social Media, Part 1

We hear a lot of negatives about social media in the news. If the studies and experts are to be believed, Facebook is tearing at the very fabric of our society. It seems like every day in the news, there are stories of marriages breaking up, jobs being lost, and even murders which can be traced in some way back to Facebook. Although I do think social networking has the potential to be abused (and if you really think about it, what in life doesn't have the potential for abuse?), I also feel the need to defend Facebook against the media's near constant allegations of evil because my experience has been almost universally positive.

I can't even tell you for sure how long I've been on Facebook. Maybe there's something, somewhere in my account settings, that tells me I've been a "member since" but I don't know where it is and I haven't been motivated to look for it. What I can tell you is that last year, a group of us planned our 20th high school class reunion and we did so for the most part over Facebook. If you had asked me five years ago if I would attend my 20th class reunion, I would have said no. Instead I wound up not only attending, but on the planning committee. Facebook put me in touch with former friends and classmates I'd never expected to see again. Rather than building up my reunion as an anxiety-laced event at which all my weaknesses would be simultaneously exposed to my former classmates, I was able to put things in perspective. I read their statuses. We've all grown up, become more ourselves and none of our lives are perfect. Instead of feeling competitive and possibly inadequate, I felt a kinship with my classmates that allowed me to enjoy the reunion and relish our shared history.

To me, Facebook has been like having the party you've always wanted to have where you invite all your closest friends and they all get along great and it's the most awesome time anyone has ever had. Which is reality would never work. Everyone would stand around uncomfortably and stare at each other and you'd be frantically trying to decide what music you could play that everyone would like or think of a joke that would miraculously break the ice and get all of your best friends to see that they should all be best friends too and everyone would hang out all the time and it would be super fun. Yeah, that would never happen. But the funny thing about Facebook is that sometimes it does. Sometimes my friends friend my other friends and they become friends and everything is super fun. Would those relationships carry over into real life? Who knows? But the one thing I do know is that without Facebook, that would most likely have been a moot question in the first place.

Last year I moved out on my own for the first time after a lifetime of living with other people. Not only did I move out, I moved out into my very own house. Buying a house had been my Big Dream for a long time and was something I'd thought I'd never get to do on my own, so it was a Big Deal for me. And because I was essentially going through the process by myself, it was even more important to me that my Facebook friends were with me, every step of the way, cheering me on. I mean who can argue with round-the-clock, unconditional love and support from a few hundred friends? It was pretty great.

Since I got the house, some not-so-great things have happened. A good friend of mine died too young in December, and most recently I lost my job of the last 12 years. There have been some good things too. I quit smoking and haven't had a cigarette since December 6, 2010. Each of these things has been made more bearable (and sometimes more celebratory), with the encouragement of several hundred friends, scattered all over the world. I don't know if my Facebook friends realize how much they've impacted my life and so I try to do my bit to cheer them on as well. So to all of you who laugh at my jokes, send virtual hugs when things are tough, donate to my causes, tell me how to unclog my bathroom drain, share my outrage over injustice and take the time to make me feel important... thank you. I hope I'm living up to my side of the bargain!