respublica

A bath towel Tweet storm

A fun alternative to political tweets. A New York Post writer, Yashar Ali, tweeted yesterday, "As a couple you should own as a minimum: 10 bath sheets, 10 bath towels, 10 hand towels, 20 wash cloths." 

He was answering this question: "hello fellow adults. my gf and i have a question... what is the correct amount of towels to own? i said 10 and she looked at me like i was crazy. we have zero frame of reference on the appropriate amount of towels in a household of two."

This set off all kinds of jokesters. But when I first read this I wondered just what bath sheets are. I must not have been the only one because pretty soon Yashar responded: "For those asking what a bath sheet is, here’s a handy chart."

We've never had a bath sheet, the closest may have been a beach towel. Honestly, I don't think I'm tall enough to do a decent job of folding a long bath sheet.

One woman wrote: "Controversial opinion: I don't think anyone needs to own any bath towels. Just buy all bath sheets. Bath towels are just mean tricks skinny people play on fat people."

Then this: "Also a really nice thing to do if you have the time or have someone to help is to iron your towels. Yes, iron your towels. You’ll enjoy the difference. I will not regret this tweet so go ahead with your ratio."

I've never ironed our towels, I'd be curious as to what the difference would be, but not going to do it.

 

This tweet made me laugh. The original tweet was from the New York Post which stated, "Experts unveil plans to overhaul the world's diet."

Then came the retweet with this comment from Jon Gabriel: "World unveils plans to ignore experts."

Love it.

This is the church you go to if...

This is an interesting Twitter thread in which readers were asked to put up a photo of unusual church architecture and explain what would make you go there. The pictures are interesting. But most of the responses weren't funny as they should have been. Some actually make no sense. However, this entry did make me laugh.

"This is the church you go to if you were a cool Lutheran in the seventies and never got over it."

Like that will happen

Twitter announced they plan to remove the "like" tool which gives readers the opportunity to "like" a tweet, a move they believe will improve the quality of debate on the social network.

I fail to see how this will improve any of the vindictiveness on many Twitter postings and for the most part, many of the likes are for cute dog posts.

We've lost our sense of common decency

I've been bothered by the practice of people using the comment areas of social media, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, news sites, whatever, to write the most vile thing that comes into their heads. This is true in secular politics, food reviews, crime stories, etc.  Today this tendency is out for everyone to see after the train carrying republican members of congress to a retreat, crashed into a trash truck which was in the middle of a set of tracks. The comments make me sick. You can disagree on politics but this kind of thing is beyond the pale. For example from Twitter:

"An AMTRAK train carrying Republican members of congress has hit a dump truck near Charlottesville: Hazmat workers on the scene are reportedly having trouble discerning which garbage is more hazardous — Republicans or the trash from the truck."

"Author and self-proclaimed CNN “talking head” Jonathan Tasini took to Twitter on Wednesday to declare that “God is working hard today to clean up the stink” because a “train full of Goopers” slammed into a dump truck moments after news broke that GOP lawmakers were in a collision that resulted in at least one death."

"Darn. The wicked spared."

There were many more.  Some have been taken down, but the internet is forever and others do take screen shots. The worst part is this is not unusual. For some reason people think they can say anything, rip anyone, call others names while on their phone or computer and it's ok. Because you think differently from me, I can lash out in any despicable way I want.

We're living in out of control times.

 

 

Watch This

One of the more heart-stopping Twitter feeds is the Darwin Award, @AwardsDarwin. This guy finds images and short videos of people doing things you cannot believe. Also funny signage. Many must have been taken by average people and found by Darwin. So many things that happen just defy common sense and give you that old, "oh no" feeling. Take a look at his feed and see.

Here's one of his tweets which should remain on the top of the page.

Hey Y'all watch this! pretty much describes the people Darwin has posted.

Cornbread

I love this Tweet from Justice Don Willett.

He said, "When you're tired of cornbread shaped like Colorado or Wyoming.

Cornbread

I love this Tweet from Justice Don Willett.

He said, "When you're tired of cornbread shaped like Colorado or Wyoming.

We just want to be angry

Thanks to social media or maybe just thanks to the way our political and social culture has changed the way we process information, we've become a country of people who thrive on the adrenaline rush that getting angry brings. We seem to love getting mad and jumping on Twitter or Facebook and adding our angry comments to something or someone we disagree with.

A case in point is a man who Tweets under the name of Sean Spicier. This is a rather brilliant takeover of the president's press secretary, Sean Spicer. The fake guy even has a photo of the real Spicer on his Twitter page. But what the fake man does is put up outrageous tweets which gives readers who don't like the administration a reason to believe this is all real. So many have fallen for this Spicier and their comments are a real window to how we are these days.

A real public person on Twitter will have a blue checkmark by their names and this Spicier does not but it does not stop those who want to believe this is the real Spicer.

Here is one example

 

 

Frustrating newspaper links

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's Morning Joe program tweeted his frustration with Wall Street Journal stories the paper links on Twitter.

"Hey @WSJ, I"d love to tweet more of your articles but every time I try to do so from Twitter, it demands I log in and doesn't accept my password."

I've found a similar issue with that paper and some others. They use Twitter to put up stories they believe people will want to read and yet when the link is clicked the page in question clouds over so that it is unreadable. Then comes the message to subscribe to read. It seems to me that if you think a story is worth tweeting, it should be readable. If not, then don't bother. I've come to ignore any links to Wall Street Journal articles even those I'd really like to read. And, we get that paper delivered to our house every single day.

They really need to rethink how they use social media.