They used to call me Tamarind.
Now they holler “Turmeric!”
And ever since, the taste of t’s
Only serves to make me sick.
I miss those days of cloudless skies
When we lived upon the moon.
Where we’d jump and linger for a while,
Where no sounds echoed, neither sheep’s nor loon’s.
My love, where you are not
All else is dark and cold
All is toward an ice-ringed end
My love, I hide my eyes and cheeks
Behind a borrowed shawl
Behind your borrowed name
My love, I never told another
Because it was an interupted dream
Because I could never prove a thing
My love, did we really exist
Side by side, the lonely ocean
Side by side, the empty sky
My love, all
My love, behind
My love, because
My love, my love, my love
You tasted of the bluest salt
Your every word a floral form
We were so lucky to bear witness
To one another’s tears
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https://thecorrespondent.com?ref=1172fdf5
Russian meddling, data sharing, hate speech — the social network faced one scandal after another. This is how Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg responded.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html
You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook. You can leave Facebook.
They rehearse the wedding details
In the middle of the arts fair.
Someone’s selling handmade pipes
While the groomsmen stand in line.
The wedding planner wrings and wrangles
And a jewelry-maker works a deal.
Many random people block the bride
Unsure of where and if they fit.
I’m watching all this with my poem.
A half-full beer within arm’s reach.
Random people weave around me.
No one’s sure if this is it.
I told my son
About your dirt road
And how we’d drive too fast
Just to kick up dust behind us
Like a demon’s sandy sneeze.
I told him about the graveyard
Across the rocky road
And the long-abandoned church
With its broken stained-glass windows.
I told him about the dull lights
And the squalling caterwauls
Late nights on your back porch.
I told him what we found there
Among the crooked, sun-sprayed tombstones.
I told him all these little things and more.
He responded with a shiver, “Oh, Daddy! Daddy, why?”
— Read on www.scarletleafreview.com/short-stories8/category/craig-m-workman
Some solid, short fiction for your Monday by Kansas City’s own, Craig M. Workman.
A week ago, I dropped Facebook/Instagram. (I booted my Twitter account over the summer.) I feel nice about this. I have enjoyed many parts of social media, but have zero trust regarding the companies themselves and, generally speaking, feel that social media has done more harm to society than good, in aggregate. I try to be a responsible consumer in other areas of my life and feel that responsibility should extend to social media.
Next is to try to disentangle from Google, which seems Herculean and isn’t technically social media but is an technosystem powered by the same society-warping ethos. These actions aren’t based upon a fear of technology. I’m a technologist by trade. These actions are ones people should take in order to affect a change – social media companies don’t have to operate the way they currently do. They can be a force for good in the world (and oftentimes, great movements begin with social media only to get subverted by opposition forces using downward-dragging emotional tactics which social media favors for purposes of end user engagement.) Only we can force social media companies to do better in the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/30/new-dark-age-by-james-bridle-review-technology-and-the-end-of-the-future
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/books/review/jaron-lanier-ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now.html
https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/facebook-data-breach-2018-victims-cybersecurity.html
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951914/google-plus-data-breach-exposed-user-profile-information-privacy-not-disclosed
https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/10/15/2135254/most-americans-cant-tell-the-difference-between-a-social-media-bot-and-a-human-study-finds
http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/10/28/the-mona-lisa-doesnt-tweet/
Take care with your time and your attention. They are precious and finite.
A rational person, or collective of persons, should live as though human-caused climate change exists and seek to reverse human-caused climate change. If human-caused climate change does not actually exist, such a person, or collective of persons, will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, convenience, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by the perpetuation of the species) and avoid infinite losses (extinction).
August 22, 2018
It’s too hot to sit with the dead today
so I float above them,
hanging on for dear life to the strings
of a bunch of many-colored balloons.
Up high, where the air is much cooler,
the oxygen less dense.
The vacuum of space waits hidden above me;
a black, gaping maw poised to chomp.
Death above, death below, dying in between,
one hand gripping balloon strings,
the other trying to choke down a mustard-soaked sardine sandwich.
In the distance, beyond the curve of the earth,
a thing so monumental its name cannot fit into a human ear.
In the distance, all lived pasts and livable futures.
There may be a mustard stain on my crisp, white shirt
but I’m afraid to look.
Perhaps the dead have asked me to stay away today.
It’s probably not so hot outside after all.
