The other day, I used my World’s First Digital Finger to tap the “Reply” button to an instant message from my best friend. I have about 10 000 friends, actually, but only around 1 273 qualify for “best” status. This one was complaining about the weather. “When it rains, it pours,” he said. I replied, “I like that – I go out in it, because to feel – to really feel – is a rare thing, these days.” Of course, when I go out to really feel the rain, I’m wearing my Polar Perfect Protection jacket, but I manage to really feel wet, all the same. My best friend – sorry, I can’t remember his name just now – was worried about global warming. “Everything in its own time,” I told him. “Don’t like the weather? Wait a while.” He wasn’t real happy with that answer. “My world class weather station software tells me that the times, they are a-changin'” was his quip.”The more things change, the more they stay the same,” I replied.
Tag: Memes
Talking About My Generation
Greetings, earthlings.
I am a baby-boomer. There are more of us in the world than any of the rest of you generations X, Y, Z, Me, You, Millenial, whatever.
We were a progressive generation that changed the world. We created the sexual revolution, we fuelled the American Civil Rights movement, we invented rock festivals. Hell, we invented rock (actually we didn’t, it was Black blues groups in the 40’s who did that, but we take all the credit).
We created the sixties and seventies.
We had the summer of love.
We tried all kinds of soft drugs, and a few hard ones, and praised their ability to change our spiritual perspectives.
With or without drugs, we opened our minds to Asian philosophies and spiritual practices, and discovered that without them, we probably really couldn’t have quantum physics.
We discovered ecology (it was always there, just most people hadn’t noticed before)
Above all, we were free, free, free.
Continue reading “Talking About My Generation”Lost in the Meme Field of Good and Evil
For most of the last seven years, France has had a meme called Florence Cassez. Mlle. Cassez has spent all of those seven years behind bars in a Mexican prison. She was arrested for kidnapping, along with her boyfriend, a known Mexican gangster. Her arrest was filmed by Mexican television. The entire country, terrorized as it is by drug wars and gangs, both imported from Colombia where the climate is not so comfortable any more, and home grown, watched as a foreign criminal was brought to justice by the Federales.
Mlle. Cassez, even during her arrest, said, “Yo no sabia” – “I didn’t know.” She consistently claimed her innocence, and her defenders asserted that her only crime was poor choice in partners and gullibility. The case became a cause célebre in both countries, and almost immediately became politicized, with Mexican and French presidents digging in – the one insisting on her guilt, the other on her innocence. The Mexican press was universally cruel to her, while the French press had practically acquitted her, so wildly enthusiastic were they for her cause.
Several times, the Mexican courts, right up to the Supreme Court, were asked to rule on questions of irregularity in her arrest, tainted evidence, etc. All to no avail. All appeals lost.
Florence Cassez became a true meme, spreading like wildfire and becoming symbolic in at least two countries, pushing in opposing and incompatible directions in each case.
Rant of a Humanist Nerd 