I Thought I Knew Stuff...

 So, I learned a lot today.

Strangely, it was about stuff that I thought I knew a fair amount about. I have in my stack of stuff somewhere a photocopy of a page from an old history textbook that had a graphic on the trans-Atlantic slave trade which clearly showed that by far the US received the fewest slaves... the Caribbean and S America being the biggest recipients of human lives. I know that the primary reason this is true is because slaveholders in the US were poorer and couldn't afford to treat their slaves as disposable, the way the non-US ones did: "oh, 300 died today from the heat? Increase the order for the next shipment!" as though they were chickens, not humans. Now, don't get me wrong, being a slave in America sucked, because being a slave sucks, but like today, it's better to be poor in the US than to be poor in pretty much anywhere else in the world. The famous economist and writer Walter Williams took a lot of flack for his assertion that the horrible evil of slavery meant that generations of black people escaped an early death in Africa, which is a good thing, if you are alive now in this country. If not for slavery, your bloodline wouldn't exist, your ancestors would have died poor in Africa. You understand his point, right? 

So, a guy I follow on Twitter, Leonydus Johnson, had a similar line of thought today:

Now, of course the discussion is rich, with people misinterpreting his point, which is why he added the "ultimate point" of course, but one person posted a link to an article about the messy history of free blacks owning slaves. in response to Joe's assertion there and someone asking for a source.

It's a very thorough article and a well-sourced one. I learned a lot. My point after all that is to say that the old proverb that history is written by the victors isn't quite right, is it? Modern "historians" (I'm looking at you 1619) seem to have left out this very important and messy part of our history. 

One, that the actual amount of slave owners was pretty small.

Two, that that number included free blacks.

Three, that no, they weren't just buying family members to protect them

Four, they did pretty well financially (despite the "systemic institutionalized racism" that supposedly plagues us to this very day).

Is any of this taught via the lens of CRT? Does Mrs White Fragility even know this, or X Kendi whatever? Indeed, does any high school US History have this in the curriculum?

Probably not, because it's messy. It obscures the depiction of white = slave owners = bad, even though it was an extreme minority of people in this country. I would challenge his assertion actually to say that any of us, white or black, are MORE likely to be descended from a slave than an owner!

Keep learning people.

On a sidenote, if a free black slave-owning business man (and his children) could become that successful in South Carolina including during the Civil War, staunchly supporting the Confederacy, even, what changed between now and then? I often think of how Harlem was during the 40s and 50s compared to the 70s thru today? What changed? I'll give you one guess....

Too Much Of Me Online?

I was thinking over the weekend, as I was pondering car stuff that my kid and I have been up to (check his posse's channel and instagram and his car's instagram) that I should create a 'gram for my car. That way I can separate the car stuff from the other stuff.

Here's the thing: that would be 5 instagram accounts. FIVE!

I can barely keep up with the 4 I already have. Yes, I already have FOUR.

My personal, first (July 20, 2011), most posted on and longest lasting babyshots_dpt

This re-ignited my love of photography, and the necessity to crop and edit (with the filters) was crucial to re-develop my eye. My largest presence online, actually, and as you can see, that's not saying much.

Next (November 3, 2018) came the companion to my other blog OGLNAWLFB as I really got down to business with losing all the weight I'd gathered. I post on there more than I write on the blog because it's easier (and who has the time for all of this? See below for more thoughts).

I finally decided to create a website, after many years of thinking about it. Between the talent work I do and just wanting to own my presence/name online. After playing around on Squarespace and Wix, I went with Squarespace and had a deal for the first year. That led to a companion instagram account as of February 5, 2019.

Lastly, starting last summer (2019) I started vlogging on Youtube after a casual comment from my youngest. I've had a youtube channel for years, but it seemed that a surburban dad vlog wasn't a thing, so I started that and created a companion instagram for THAT as well... LOL Mostly, frankly, to pitch the merch I created on Teespring to go along with it. (actually, 2 Teespring sites)

As you can see, I've invested time and energy into this already, and another one just for my car would be a bit of a stretch! I do have some content though, and it would, as I said, separate that car stuff from the rest of the online "me." (note: I'll probably just use the Cincinnati Dad account, as it's most associated with the YouTube channel, but keep reading anyway, ok?)

That's the next point, of course: what about this online me?

There's this, almost the oldest online thing I've been involved in. I've been on Facebook (Oct 2008) slightly longer, My first post here was March 9, 2009. Twitter (April 2009) came next. I joined both Facebook and Twitter because my job essentially made me (my work FB may have been slightly older that the above date, I deleted that account when I got downsized there).

I just had the horrible thought that I shouldn't be putting all this info out here, but it's all out there anyway...

I started my second blog on Jan 14th 2013 when I decided I was fat and wanted to do something about it. That didn't really happen until 2018! LOL. Like I said above, instagram is easier to post to, especially that there hasn't been an iphone app for Blogger for years (so frustrating).

Let's not forget About Me. It has links to most of the above, plus my Tumblr (since August of 2013 as a place to post non-instagram iphone pics, and which I branded to go along with this blog) and Flickr. I signed up on About.me (in search of a cheap/free website alternative) August 5 2011!

The funny thing is that I've been secretive about all of these, with the exception of maybe Pinterest (because you had to be invinted and share and all that crap) and Twenty20, which is in my personal Instagram bio for all to see (in hopes they might buy and image). I have an Alamy account for stock photos as well as some photos on Adobe Stock.

But I haven't told anyone about pretty much any of these. There are some accidental discoveries, you know, as instagram recommends my other accounts to friends because we are already connected via my main personal one. I've had this blog as my "website" in my FB profile for years, but as far as I know that hasn't led to any hits.... Why? What's the point of having all these places online and not sharing? That's easy, fear of being judged, mostly by family! LOL I mean, it's sad, but the ones I should expect the most support from are the ones I feel confident would subject me to the most ridicule. That's a damn shame, isn't it?

Oh well, this was a bit of fun for me collecting all these links so they'd be in one place. I'll think I'll take that convertible for a drive....

.
.
.
.

If you got this far, I am on my second go round trying to make some extra cash as an Amazon Associate and so far NO SALES so I may get rejected AGAIN. Click a link below and buy something, ok?  THANKS!!!

My favorite tea, drink with me! https://amzn.to/2UPGbPn Amazon affiliate links for stuff I use: Boya Lapel Mic: https://amzn.to/38OlRCO Gorillapod 3k: https://amzn.to/2T2b0OZ XT1: https://amzn.to/2vRXBkI XM1(with XC16-50): https://amzn.to/2T6nTY7 XF 35mm WR: https://amzn.to/2PbhRnW XC50-230: https://amzn.to/3bVBbzj Soft Bag Inserts (makes any bag a camera bag): https://amzn.to/3bW2CJw

Idiocracy

I have a moderately diverse Twitter stream. I don't follow a gazillion accounts so I can keep it manageable (like my Instagram), but I have some smart people that are libs and some smart people that are cons (and libertarians) because #facts.

I have a Disney guy in there that has decided to come out as a Trump-hater, but because I like his Disney posts, I ignore the dumb political stuff. He "liked" this post from a crazy socialist running for office in Virginia:

This was actually my 5th reply. You see, you should be more like Dave, remember? One way to be more like me is to doubt what you read and see.

For example, I saw a tweet about how Google employee emails revealed that they conspired to help Hillary in the last election. Looking at the (conservative) source, I'm like "nah, I'm going to wait to see if this is actually true" as opposed to the additional FBI texts story that says they conspired to leak bad intel to make Trump look bad, where I'm like, "yup, I buy that."

So, when I say this enticing image had been liked into my twitterfeed, I thought, "waitaminutetherefella. We spend a ton on that stuff. Other twitterers pointed out that this was an old Soviet editorial cartoon, which is interesting (and referred to in another tweet I tweeted), but I immediately started Googling to find some numbers to compare $$ spent on "War" (or as we call it, Defense) and the other poor empty tables.

Funny enough, coming from a small-time Twit like me, my posts got very little traction (the most had 55 hits), but here they are:

So, relatively politely showing the guys totally wrong, and idiots like and retweet the original post with abandon. Argh. Well, I just looked and he tweeted that he muted to conversation because it got retweeted so much. Way to stay stupid, dude. I was tempted to reply to that tweet, but I'm done here.

Twitter Is Sensitive And Haz Feelingz

Well, here’s an interesting lesson in Twitter dynamics.

I am a nobody on Twitter, really. I follow and am followed by a small number of people. I’ve tweeted a lot, sure, but it’s just me yelling in the wind (much like on this blog).

Until last night’s Bengals-Steelers Monday Night Football game. **update, Shazier looks to be improving nicely.**

I decided to quickly tweet when I wasn’t surprised by Ryan Shazier getting hurt when he led with his helmet on a tackle, because he has a clear history of doing that, and grabbed a video of the hit on Giovanni Bernard in 2015 that actually caused a rule change, actually called the Ryan Shazier rule (they even had a graphic prepared and talked about it (and the Carson Palmer and Hines Ward rules) on the broadcast in the second half). This was as the incident was developing, so I made sure to include in my tweet that I hoped he wasn’t severely injured on the play:

*typo alert, “hit” was typed to be “he” but #fatfingers

I also made sure NOT to #shazier, but apparently it doesn't matter if you are searching for keywords (so why hashtag anymore?)

So, you can already see that a few (lol) people “liked” the tweet, but more people didn’t. 44 fine folks chose to comment, a pittance in most twitter lives, but more comments by far than any tweet I’ve ever tweeted (out of 10.7K)

BTW, the link is just spam, it’s to a Aliexpress hoverboard for sale.

Here are the ones twitter labeled as offensive:

Bonus points to the last guy for correct use of “you’re." I even "liked" a couple of the tweets to show I was a good sport.

I reported a lot of the abusive tweets, but all the emails I got from Twitter seemed to agree that none were bad enough for action. Oh well.

I know way too much about twitter and humans to engage any of these folks other than “liking” a few of the tweets. Twitters emails agreed with that plan. LOL

I should point out that pretty much all of the commenters are similarly low-impact tweeters like myself. One guy had over 1000 followers but has only tweeted about that many times, so this is all small potatoes.

It is, however, my potato field, and I really didn’t enjoy getting talked about like this. I mean, I’m over it, but I’m also surprised by how many people actually clicked on my profile to find personal things to insult me over.

I get it, but I’d still like to explain to some of them that I’ve said the same-ish thing about Burfict: keep leading with your head and your career will be cut short, dumbass. That I’m actually a nice guy. At least I'm honest enough to admit that as much as I hate Hines Ward, I'd have wanted him on my team.

Whatever. 

The thing is, the empathetic me that is upset I upset people is also inside the guy that believes what I said was harsh but correct. Shazier has made a career out of these types of hits, and its likely cumulative damage that tweaked (still hoping that’s all it is) his back last night. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the Steelers’ Burfict, you know what I mean? He hits hard, on the edge or just over it, and he's the emotional leader of the defense. Both team's defense suffered when these guys left the game. Well, the Steelers fans love him more that we love Burfict, but there are other reasons for that. I’ve talked/tweeted about these tackles in general, how one team changed the way they tackle (more rugby style) and how successful that’s been (that article actually contrasted them with the Bengals, to my chagrin). 

So, sure, sorry I said “Aw” at the start of the tweet, but pointing out a player’s habitual hitting style after he got hurt using it and providing video evidence of what I pointed out, nope, not sorry for that.

I did click on some of the commenter’s profiles and I find one guy that’s a die-hard Buckeye fan (Shazier played for Ohio State) (oh, and this is a shitty thing to do, dick, trying to get me unfollowed)

also whined about a very reasonable tweet essentially saying the same thing:

Seriously, dude. Grow up.

Speaking of that, the only other one I feel like pointing out is this kind soul in a young guy:

Personal insults? Check. Assumptions based on profile pic? Check. Best part is his profile is all Jesus-y:

He’s a kid, I’ll leave it at that. He did retweet JuJu’s hit on Burfict, so there’s that. #onlybadwhenithappenstoyourteam I guess.

I guess I’ve dipped my toe into the muck. It’s yucky.

Trump Is In Their Brains

So, this gets retweeted or liked into my twitter stream:

He gave a very reasonable answer, that he was a little busy to be bothered with Twitter in light of the bombing.

My response was this:

That's the thing, isn't it? The media is obsessed with Trump and has been for some time. As they say, he's living in their head, rent-free. It's why he won the primaries against better conservatives and Republicans.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know they had no choice but to cover him and his, uhm, antics during the campaign, because they had to as he was running for President. See how smart he was? Free coverage because the media had no choice but to cover him. They couldn't ignore him, as critics wished they would (which would work with, say, Westboro Baptist, to make them go away), because that would be negligent as he already was news worthy. Brilliant manipulation on his part.

BTW, if you aren't aware of Scott Adams' ongoing dissection of the rhetorical and persuasion tools that the Trump Team has been using, you're missing an education on what's been going on. I don't even agree with him on all his points, but he isn't a Trump fan or defender (as the folks who hate Trump are painting him), and he is seeing the manipulation for what it is. (of course, this could be me in a moment of confirmation bias because I also thing Trump is playing the media like a fiddle).

Back to the point (and there is one).

I have long held the belief that when we've experienced something, we tend to adopt that (or those, if it's plural) experience into our lens, our perspective through which we interact with the world. A simple example of this bias I think about is the old red car metaphor. It's not just red cars, per se, it's the familiarity bias and observational selection bias working in tandem to make you think that "now that I have a red car, I see them every where. There must be more red cars being made then before." Nope, you're just paying attention to them. Indeed, what we attend to creates our reality.

Another version is the sudden appearance of pregnant women everywhere when your wife becomes pregnant. (hint: they were already there). A more serious example I think about is racism. If you are black in America, you have experienced it, and that makes you see it everywhere, even in situations where it isn't present.

All of this is to say that Trump as so successfully implanted himself into the minds of his detractors that they can't refrain from checking his Twitter feed, because, well, they have to because he's already newsworthy because he's the US President. Note: I don't follow him on twitter. I don't have to (or want to), mostly because he gets retweeted into my timeline so much. Argh.

So, we have "Trump-Glasses" wearing idiots like the reporter that thought that (because the lens/perspective through which he or she sees everything is smeared with Trump) asking the London Mayor his thoughts on a Trump tweet was a reasonable, worthy, or necessary question.

I have written and talked about my Trump thoughts, feelings, and impressions. I don't like the guy, but I have enjoyed how he has played the press, driven the leftists insane (literally, in some cases), and shone a light on our electoral processes like the primary system and electoral college. I think he's a progressive and crony capitalist at heart and that scares me. But what really scares me is the way his detractors and enemies (which includes the majority of our media types) have become so consumed by their hatred/fear/disgust that they are literally blind to their own obsession with him and things like his tweets that it's literally all they appear to think about.

I think he should keep tweeting, seriously. It's how he talks to his base without the media filter, and I guess that's why they can't help report on it, to try to control it, to shape his message like they would if they were the quote-conduit. If would serve them better to ignore the tweets and not make them into news stories, frankly, but I'm not giving them that good piece of advice. It's too much fun watching them lose their minds.

A List of Tips To Generate Traffic to Your Blog

Spinning your wheels?


Well, there are a gazillion bloggers making money telling people how to make money blogging, most of which tell you to blog about how to make money blogging...

This one has some good nuggets in here, in addition to suggesting you blog about blogging to Insanely Increase Your Blog Traffic.

the first 25:


1. Create lists.
2. Write a tutorial.
3. Give away your very best content and some.
4. Be current – write about tomorrow today.
5. Don’t write about your cats, dogs, boyfriends, kids.
6. Be timeless – write a post that will remain current for years.
7. Write with “everybody is entitled to my opinion” attitude.
8. Write about your kids.
9. Write about other bloggers’ best posts.
10. Make your own “best of the best” list.
11. Become an expert in your niche.
12. Break news.
13. Make news.
14. Write short, laconic posts.
15. Do interviews with the “cream of the crop”.
16. Use polls, giveaways, and other eye candy.
17. Write long, conclusive posts.
18. Answer your comments.
19. Answer your email.
20. Write about pros and cons of an issue.
21. Write on a controversial topic and close comments.
22. Make readers depend on you by sharing your expertise generously.
23. Write about blogging.
24. Blog about writing.
25. Take an alternate position.

I have to tell you, many of the items in the list are totally new to me, since I only do this for fun and have never attempted to monetize this thing. I see no reason to remain so silly about it, so I just may sign up for Adsense and try to become an affiliate for a couple of music sites and some catalogues I like!

Thanks to Ana Hoffman at Traffic Generation Cafe for creating this list!

Welcome, public!

Ok, I have all of 8 Twitter followers, 9 maybe (it's 8: #9 dumped me), at least three I don't actually know (but that's how Twitter works, natch) and if you are one that has wandered over here, Welcome!

You are the first eyes other than mine to see this, it's been something of an outlet for me, a little blogging therapy? Not really. It's just that I don't have such a high opinion of myself that I think any(or every)body needs (or wants) to know what my feeble mind is producing!

So. Read. Write. I'm here for you :)

Blogs,bloggin, blogger, twit, tweet, twitter

I have the greatest thing to say! Don't you all want to hear it? I have to tell you what I just did/thought/ate/drank/said/read!!!!!!!!!!

and the funny thing is, no one will read this cause I haven't told anyone I'm doing it. I had a conversation today about blogs, twitter, facebook, etc., and it was rightly pointed out that it's amazingly egomaniacal (my words) to think that anyone cares about what you (or, in this instance, I) have to say about anything. Although I totally get that and agree, it is a part of that creative impulse that so many now are tapping into in a written way, maybe the way diaries and letters used to fulfill. For me, it's about the desire to write that I've always ignored for lack of effort, mostly: now it's so easy, why not?

This would be more satisfying if it were public, but I admit I'm too aware of the self-aggrandizing nature of this medium to not be embarrassed that I'm doing it.

That makes me double-weird, I think.

Tweeting

Yes, I'm all a Twitter! I joined to follow my Talent Agency and got sucked in, just like that black hole Facebook.

Ok, ABC seems to be all over the CIA stuff even if nobody seems to care that our national security is being compromised. Props to ABC.

Liked a song I heard at the end of Private Practice last night (I was reading, mostly, while the lovely and talented Mrs. watched) and I think it was Carry The Weight by Denison Witmer but I'm not sure yet. Nope. When She's Near by Fiction Family

It's a beautiful day in Cincinnati, Ohio. Life is good. Still looking for additional income streams, and I know that this blog isn't one of them. We shall see, we shall see.