The news this week is hurting my head. A Chinese cyber attack compromising the personal data of four million federal workers? What will the Chinese do with all that information? They’re an ocean away. Could they be planning to steal all our Facebook accounts?
Meanwhile, Facebook has come out with “Facebook Lite” designed for those parts of the world where the Internet can’t handle much data. The Lite version won’t send as much information as the full body version. This is a sweet reminder that the word “information” does not include “important” or “meaningful.”
Facebook only has to look at mainstream media in America to get ideas for how to reduce information flow to nearly zero. Case in point: A CNN headline this morning asks why fish are falling from the sky in Alaska. There’s a scary picture with the article — the fish raining down are ugly blood-sucking lampreys. Eventually, the reporter tells you the best answer ventured so far is that seagulls dropped the fish. Oh, and there had been only four of them, at the time of the story’s writing. In America today, precisely four lampreys found on sidewalks and in parking lots is “raining lampreys.”
With all this information passing around, it’s no wonder there’s so much interest in Caitlyn Jenner’s public debut on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Even here at the offices of Real Change, where most of the small talk is about what City Hall is up to, rising rents, what the police did this time and where do I find a doctor who’ll look at this for less than the price of an arm, there’s been a surprising amount of interest in Caitlyn’s cover picture.
Nobody seems to be seeing what I see in that cover, probably because, as always, the mainstream media is presenting the news with a slant that diverts attention from what is really important, so that they can get away with delivering as little information as possible.
What I see is another 65-year-old on the cover of Vanity Fair. We Baby Boomers truly rule.
Not only is Caitlyn herself almost exactly my age, so is Annie Leibovitz, the photographer.
Are we going to stop this with Boomers, or will we next have Betty White or Abe Vigoda on the cover of Vanity Fair? I hope they don’t start taking subjects from graves.
Boomers have long led the way, opening up new social possibilities for later generations to come. We have been societal pioneers. For example, we were the first generation to be characterized by mass media as a single, one-minded, pot-smoking, LSD-taking hippie blob. Thanks to us, every new generation since has been successfully portrayed as just one or two people and all of their clones.
Because we Boomers were born in too great numbers, we are blamed for compelling Congress to delay our own Social Security retirement ages, and those of all who follow us. You’d think our parents would be blamed for that, having had us, but no. I guess it’s our fault for not culling ourselves sufficiently.
If I had my way, I would never have been part of a baby boom. All my life, there have always been too many people of my age. But I’ve never been willing to do my part in reducing our numbers. You could call me selfish, that way.
In the media, the story of my life and that of all people roughly my age has been, “they’re all alike.” As soon as anyone knows your age they think they know your tastes in music, television, movies and many even think they know your politics. (We get confused with Tom Hayden a lot, who was born before 1940.)
Now that it’s raining Republican 65-year-old transsexual athletes, maybe someone will start to notice we aren’t all the same, finally.
If not, then we will all have to be stereotyped as Republican transsexual athletes. Oh well.