And the Costs just keep on coming

My last podcast was about bullying, mostly, and about the cost of doing
the right thing. I've had plenty of experience of bullying. A bit less
of doing the right thing, I suppose.

As it turns out, my stressful evening the other night is still costing me.
I'm now having nightmares about bullying. Very realistic dream. Sad to
say, all that experience gives me dreams of very high quality - if you
want to call it that.

I woke up in the middle of the night, with all those memories roaring in
my head. The voices of my dream just wouldn't stop talking. No, this
isn't a "voices in my head" scenario. Just my heart beating a million
times a minute in a room that was way too quiet and too dark, and me still
not quite awake. But it wasn't a pleasant feeling.

People like me who have lived through bullying sometimes describe the
effects as PTSD -- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not as like PTSD, but
as PTSD. I'm not an expert on such things, but I wouldn't entirely rule
it out. It's not a feeling that goes away. And you learn to avoid
getting hurt again, either by hitting first, or by fading into the
background, and not trusting anybody entirely, either way.

Ugly business. And I have my new, large friend to thank for that. It
isn't easy to forgive for that. But I still feel like I ought to. But
I'm not so sure I will. Maybe.

By the way, I in my show about bullying, I used a song entitled "Terrified," by The Raventones and or TR Kelley. As it turns out, unknown to me, the song is part of a larger work. About bullying. Go figure.

Now what do I do?

I'm reminded of the end of the old Robert Redford movie, "The Candidate."
Redford's character goes from an idealistic but not too articulate civil
rights lawyer, to an articulate but not too idealistic candidate. At the
end he's elected (hope I didn't spoil it for you), and then he asks, "Now
what do I do?" And none of the campaign pros who got him elected answer.
The election's over, their job is done, now it's up to him.

I was just thinking, having put up a post a while back about being a
candidate for City Council in Ann Arbor MI's 4th Ward, even though I don't
live anywhere near there and haven't for years, what would happen if a
bunch of folks put me down as a write-in candidate? I probably would be
ineligible. Probably. But suppose I got the majority and was "elected,"
more or less.

Then what do I do? Pack my bags and move back to Ann Arbor?

Not gonna happen. But be careful what you wish for, sometimes you get it.

All my Sins Remembered

Just got a comment on my blog, to a post I did a long while back, about
when I ran for Ann Arbor City Council maybe 10 years ago.

I did respond to the comment, and that's a whole 'nother thread. But what
struck me is how ironic it is that people assume that what they say on the
Internet is entirely anonymous, just because there's so much Stuff on the
Internet, surely no one will find that one thing they wish they hadn't
said.

Not so much.

I don't regret what I said, and I don't feel differently about what I
said. But I will point out that on a recent podcast, I pointed out
repeatedly to my co-host that everyone would know what she said, and I
don't doubt that happened. In any case, there is no security through
obscurity. There is only security through security.

Funny, though, how many people think they're perfectly fine, because after
all, who's going to pay attention to what _I_ say...

Nope, not so much.

--
grizzlysgrowls at gmail dot com
Podcast: <http://grizzly.libsyn.com>
Promo: <http://media.libsyn.com/media/grizzly/grizprom.mp3>
Blog: <http://grizzlysgrowls.blogspot.com>
The Life and Times of a Minor Local Celebrity

Sosthenes Behn and the New at&t

Ma Bell's zombie clone, currently known as at&t, why, I dunno, has decided
they can freely suppress any content on their network that "tends to" say
anything negative about them.

The little cockroach-sized version, the modern Ma Bell, also feels that
"net neutrality" is unnecessary and a bad idea. They seem to think it'd
be a bad thing if service providers can't supress the speech of those they
don't like, and/or can't demand extra money for free speech and access to
free speech. And I never once mentioned Google.

Wonderful how free enterprise has improved the quality of dialog in the
American Experiment and the worldwide experiment in the freedom of man.
This company brings back memories of Sosthenes Behn, who used to be the
the leader of ITT, the lovechild of Bell Telephone and the Third Reich.
Wikipedia doesn't have much, but here's the link:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosthenes_Behn> There's more, but you need
to see if Google will let you find it.

Fascinating stuff. The "new at&t" and their behavior reminds me of ITT.
Note that ITT is -not- the same as the old AT&T, which is why there's no &
in the name. There's a lot of history in there, much of it deeply and
profoundly scary.

And this is the company that wants to decide what the users of the
Interweb ought to be able to do, especially when they're talking about
at&t.

Not ITT, not AT&T, but at&t. Something completely different. Some entity
without the long-running monopolistic history of a company like AT&T and
the Bell Telephone Company. I'm talking about a completely different
company, and naturally I wouldn't want to accuse the new at&t as compared
to the old AT&T of something someone else is guilty of.

Only things they're doing themselves.

The lovely thing about math, you can do the math yourselves, and come up
with the same results, and come to the same conclusions. Or different
results, and different conclusiions.

You do the math.

--
grizzlysgrowls at gmail dot com
Netcast: <http://grizzly.libsyn.com>
Promo: <http://media.libsyn.com/media/grizzly/grizprom.mp3>
Blog: <http://grizzlysgrowls.blogspot.com>
The Life and Times of a Minor Local Celebrity

Good news, bad news, good news, bad news, and so on

A friend of mine changed jobs, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

She's a very pretty lady, and I've known her for a little while, working
together. Younger than me chronologically, but has a range of life
experience beyond my comprehension. Interesting to listen to her, talking
about her life. Recently, she went back to her old career.

Exotic dancer.

So hey, I hadda go look, and yes, she looks every bit as good nekkid as
I'd thought. I've seen exotic dancers before, never was a problem. But
another part of me is uncomfortable seeing a lady I know from elsewhere,
dancing nekkid. I respond to her the way guys to respond to pretty,
nekkid young women, but I feel a little uncomfortable feeling that way
about someone I sorta know from elsewhere.

Note the use of the word "nekkid" here probably demonstrates some of my
discomfort -- "nekkid" isn't the same thing as "naked." I wonder if that
doesn't describe it well. I see her as a dancer, and she's "nekkid," and
hey, I'm fine with that. Then I recognize my friend, all of a sudden,
she's "naked" in public in front of Gawd 'n' everybody and there I am
watching, and that makes me uncomfortable.

Don't know what I'm supposed to feel about that. It's her choice, her
life -- lots better money than where I work -- and she says it makes her
happy. And if it makes her happy, it can't be that bad, right?

OOPSIE!

Tried to replace my "gonna post someday soon" podcast post with my newest
(and really rather bad) show. Didn't work. New shownotes, old show.
Took it down.

I'm going to either (a) recompile the MP3, or (b) scrap the old show and
put up a new one.

In any case, sorry about alla that. Won't happen again, for at least a
few days.

--
grizzly at grizzly dot podzone dot org
Podcast: <http://grizzly.libsyn.com>
Promo: <http://media.libsyn.com/media/grizzly/grizprom.mp3>
Blog: <grizzlysgrowls.blogspot.com>
The Life and Times of a Minor Local Celebrity