People voting against their own interest . . .

People voting against their own best interest . . .

This is a legitimate concern and something that everyone should be talking about and trying to figure out. It doesn't seem sane. I would even argue that it is not sane, unless it's in the rare case where voting against my own best interest is, in fact, in the interest of the greater good - e.g. I haven't driven in some neighborhoods in years but I realize that many (maybe most) people do drive in those neighborhoods daily, so I will give up ordering a pizza once a week and contribute the pizza money to higher taxes to keep the roads in those neighborhoods in good repair. 

But it doesn't make sense for women to vote for politicians who want to pay them less than males doing the same job and who want to control their reproductive choices and who protect pussy grabbers and attempted rapists, or for minorities to vote for racists, or for people who say they love the United States of America to vote for fascists who want to destroy the government, or for people who are hungry and cold and sick to vote for Republicans who want to deprive them of livable wages, food, heat, and healthcare. None of that makes sense. None of that seems sane. 

Even more baffling than people who vote for Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can, though, are the people who bitch about them and do the exact same thing when they support media, groups, and businesses that funnel money to those Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can. They use their time/money to vote against their own best interest, too. And they look like hypocrites (because they are) when they criticize the other side for things that they also do.

Let's all vote - in elections and in every day life with our time and money and words - to protect our best interests. 

Study in Trolls

David Corn posted a link to Tonya Riley's article in Mother Jones

How Bots Are Hijacking the Political Conversation Just Before the Election

40 percent of “MAGA” tweets came from automated accounts.

I had recently experienced something that stuck with me enough that I had a screenshot and outline waiting in case I got around to writing about it. I just finished it up because I wanted it to be my response to his tweet. Here it is - how we can all do something about the problem that Tonya Riley addresses in her article:



An interesting thing happened on Twitter. The sad news is that it's a pattern I identified about fourteen years ago and can see from a mile away now.  Yet, no matter how many times I point it out, most people don't seem to notice or believe it matters enough to watch for and report it.

Hillary tweeted, someone responded, and I replied to him. Here it is:

I checked in after my tweet had received about 90 likes, about 30 of them from people who didn't notice that I was mocking 3YearLetterman and *liked* my comment because they thought it was directed at Hillary. Most of those 30 had fewer than 100 (some fewer than 10) followers and most of them hadn't tweeted or liked a tweet in at least six months. Some had no visible Twitter activity in years.

My guess is that most of the 30 are connected - either the same person with multiple accounts or a trolling group.

I watched one woman on a site that no long exists for a couple of years. She would post a lie, or an insult, and immediately have a flock of *likes* on that lie or insult, from people that never did anything other than *like* her lies and insults and tell her how right and wonderful she was. I baited her at times, just to watch because it was obvious and hilarious, and I could imagine her signing in and out of her multiple accounts to like herself. But, when Barack Obama was running for President the first time, and she suddenly had young, black friends who spoke in what was obviously this old white woman trying to sound young and black, it angered me. Her young, black friends started out being pro Obama and collected some Obama supporters as followers. And then suddenly they all discovered horrible things about him that nobody but them knew. And all of her other imaginary friends liked their lies about Barack Obama and added a few of their own.

When a bunch of people have a bunch of trolls, and follow each other around they can make it look like people who spread lies (Trump, Sanders, etc) have a lot of followers who believe those lies. It spreads exponentially, like a wildfire. I see it on Twitter a lot, and sometimes on the accounts of Facebook friends who post public. They disrupt every chance they get, take conversations off topic, and create misconceptions.

Hope everyone will watch for them, call them out, and block them.

Forget the Silver Lining

This feels weird since I published the book Rena's Silver Lining, a novel that focused on finding silver linings. 

BUT, although I'm relieved that all was not lost in the 2018 midterm elections, I'm not going to silently watch people sugarcoat the fact that this country is still--and will be for a long time--in the hands of fascists, or that we are living with people who vote for fascists, traitors, liars, and cheats who incite violence and foster inequality. 

I won't be comfortable with people talking today, when we still haven't counted all of the votes that were cast for yesterday's election, about the next election. And when we know that many people stood in lines for hours, and some people had to leave after standing in line because they didn't get to vote and either couldn't stand any longer or had to leave to get to work, or to pick up a child from school, or because they needed to use the bathroom or take medication . . . And we know many were turned away because they had been removed from registration or their names didn't match or they had moved. We know people were gerrymandered out of their votes, there were districts with electronic voting machines and no electricity, humidity mysteriously caused ballots in some districts to not feed through the machines . . .  We KNOW we did not have a fair election and haven't had for decades. 

Don't even talk about the next election until we have done something to secure our elections. I believe that means we must do away with electronics. Everyone should vote on paper ballots that will be hand-counted by humans who are moderated, with no election results released or discussed by media until after every vote has been counted and the results validated by moderators. (Moderators who are not Russians.)

These things are NOT OKAY, and can't be hidden behind silver linings. They must be kept out in the open, addressed, and fought with the same rabid focus people had on the blue wave. 

Elections aren't a game that ends on Election Night.

And if people are seriously interested in speaking the language that Republicans hear, we need to not spend a cent on anything that isn't a bare necessity. $$ is their language.  2016 should have been the real war on Christmas, when we shut everything down until that election was thoroughly investigated. Since it didn't happen then, 2018 would be a good time to start. NO SPENDING until we have answers and our government is cleared of politicians who are under investigation. 

Cloned Facebook Accounts and Why This Matters

First, this rule should apply to everything you do on Facebook or anywhere else: 

If the message tells you what to do, the person who created it thinks you are stupid and gullible. Don't prove them right. Do not press here, find 'share with all your friends' and share with all your friends. Do not 'type amen'. Do not be intimidated by 'only 2% of my friends have the heart to do this and I think I know who you are'. Do not see a name or brand and automatically share because you've see all of your friends sharing stuff from that name or brand and you want to be like or impress all of those friends because, believe me (and I'll explain below) your friends might very well be doing more damage than good. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, accounts are being cloned. And it matters. This problem was widespread last election cycle and here we are, nearing another election, and it's happening again. This time, the people who do this are aware that some people (like ME) spent many hours of our time last election cycle warning people. We're on to them. So, we know they are observant enough to see how many people are more willing to FOLLOW THEM than they are to LISTEN TO US and created this scam to keep people who might have listened to us when we alert them that someone has cloned their account, or that the second friend request they just received from someone who is already their friend is a clone.

And it appears to be working. I see friends posting a status saying, "If you get a second friend request from me, accept it because I'm so great I need to be duplicated," or "What's the big deal?" or, "I'm too cool to be interested in this stuff." Fortunately, most of the people I've seen doing that are not politically involved. However, their decision to not be involved could hurt them in the long run, same as not bothering to care about politics or to vote is hurting them, and everyone else, in the long run. 

Hopefully, when your real friends do receive a second friend request from what appears to be you, they will contact you - by phone, text, or message - and, in their own words instead of what is obviously a form-letter type communication that tells you to alert all of your friends that they too have been cloned, and ask if you sent that request. When I reported the at least a hundred cloned accounts to Facebook in the past, they asked me to provide a link to the real friend's account and to notify that friend. Facebook, responsibly, would not remove the duplicate account until the real friend verified to them that they had not created a second account for some reason. 

The cloners are trying to get your friends list. What I was experiencing, since I am politically active and was moderating a number of election connected groups, was people from the opposition trying to get into closed political groups. Once in, they gradually start posting negative things about the candidate/group - planting negative seeds and/or posting misinformation or links to dishonest articles. This is one of the slier, less obvious components of the "fake news" problem. But it probably isn't always political. People who want your friends list for any reason can see how easily this works and do the same.

Sometimes -- enough times to scare anyone who studies gullibility and thoughtless sharing -- they managed to worm their way into moderating groups and then stole the groups. They blocked the person who created/owned the group, removed moderator status from the real moderators, and had complete control. So, there's a group with the name Democrat/Democratic (or a candidate)  in the title, taken over by people who only mean to destroy it/them. 

THIS MATTERS. Even if you think you don't care that your account has been cloned, someone might be doing this in your name and image.
The irony here is that I started warning people about cloned accounts during the last election cycle. I explained what was happening, why it was happening, and the danger of not paying attention. And I reported, on my Facebook page and in my groups, that I had reported to Facebook as well as personally to each of my friends when I received friend requests from the accounts cloned to look like them. That happened at least a hundred times. And notifying my friends, going back and forth to explain to each what was happening if they didn't already know because they don't read what I post, as well as reporting to Facebook one hundred times - takes some time. I warned, on my page and in multiple groups, at least 600 friends and tens of thousands of people. Again, this time, as soon as the scam message started hitting my inbox,I warned more than 600 people on my page. And, again, very few people read or cared if they did read, my message. So, I've had to type messages on dozens of their statuses that show incomplete or no understanding of the problem even though I spent my time explaining. 

This disregard for warnings is exactly why we have scammers and fake news and misinformation  - and the end result is that our country is dying. 

This is not a Facebook cloning problem. This is a rote sharing/following problem. Brands are doing the same. MoveOn, Other 98%, Occupy Democrats (this one makes my brain and heart hurt more than any other because the occupy movement was not a group of people who loved Wall Street - it was about destroying Wall Street, so it couldn't be more obvious) . . . They flood the internet with things that everyone will agree with - kitties are cute, sunshine is nice, we hate when toilets overflow, etc. Share if you agree. And everyone mindlessly shares, because, well, it's important for all of their friends to know that they, too, like kitties and sunshine but hate feces on their floors. Then, as elections approach, the messages get more political. And in the final, important time, they get subliminally more controlling. The biggest, most damaging example, was the 'vote blue no matter who' meme that some of these groups started circulating during the Democratic Party primary for the 2016 race. Knowing that the Sanders camp had signed a Bernie or Bust pledge that stated they would hand the election to Republicans to, their words, teach the Democratic Party a lesson, this meme subliminally made many people believe that a vote for Sanders might be safer. This is disgustingly manipulative and dangerous. And many people who should have known better continued to share that meme instead of sharing the - VOTE HILLARY because she's more qualified. (Obviously, I'm using this example because it's the one that means most to me. Insert anything you care about and imagine this happening.) Every time you share their brands, you are helping them reach more people, and their brand get into the 'rote sharing' rotation, which could hurt your cause in the end. 

I said somewhere way up there that I'd bring this back to friends doing more damage than good. Today, two days AFTER Kavanaugh was confirmed, some of my friends are sharing 'this is how we think certain Senators might vote' articles. Because their friends shared it today, or because the headline didn't clue them in that this is what the article was about and they didn't even read the article. 

Roots of Good Ole Boys Club

 Often, because I am a detective and sociologist at heart, I read things on Facebook threads that belong to my friends and trace the issue all the way back to its roots. I seldom hesitate to jump in with what I believe is a relevant rant, anecdote, sidetrack, contemplation, devil's advocate position, or personal experience. I just did that because I dislike (intensely) the involved individual who would be the catalyst for this trip back to roots. I think the topic is extremely relevant and the spiraling back to roots is something that we, as a society, should take on. 

The 'good ole boys' club didn't just appear one day. It was created when weaker people -- usually females but not always -- allowed people who were in a position to hold something over them, to use them. 

Allowed. The weaker chose protecting their lives, their jobs, their marriages, their reputations, their pride, their fear, their desire to have the most friends or the fewest enemies or to be in the popular crowd - something - over standing up to or denying their users and abusers.

In the example that prompted this status, a male who defends Kavanaugh, and in subliminal terms that maybe he doesn't even recognize, slaughters Kavanaugh's victim, and screams between the lines that he was a nerdy unpopular guy who only wishes he could have been able to attend drunken parties where it was okay to attempt to rape girls. Other men in the conversation attempt to walk around this with kindness and intelligence and I wanted to talk about the elephant in the room. 

But, even though I believe the friend who started this conversation - a male - by saying he believes the victim and it's time for men to talk about it, the usually fearless me didn't want to offer myself as the screeching female who 'deserved' to be shut down. Possibly because I would have felt the need to go for blood. And my friend didn't want a bloody Facebook page. 

In conversations like this, a particular memory with my daughter always comes to mind. She, her abusive boyfriend, and I were all on my bed. He was trying to impress me and have me talk her down from some argument they were having over him being angry because a guy on the street looked at her. Poor fool didn't have a clue that there was a woman like me alive, and that instead of being flattered by jealousy, we would turn him loose. He only confirmed what I already believed I knew - her sudden change in appearance from cover girl to dowdy was to keep him from punishing her because other men noticed her. 

My daughter said he had over-reacted in the situation he was discussing because she didn't even look back. And then he hung himself. He went on to explain to her that it's never innocent, and that ALL MEN want sex with every beautiful woman they see, and that ALL MEN always go off the deep end and want to fight if another man smiles at THEIR WOMAN. And a bunch of ignorant shit like that. ALL MEN. 

I let the fool talk as long as he wanted to talk. And then I smiled at my daughter and asked if she understood what he had just told her. She started to defend herself. And he smiled like he had won. 

But I stopped her, and pointed out that he had just told her that he wants to have sex with every beautiful woman he sees. And that he will always go off the deep end and want to fight every man she talks to or who even looks at her. And, all men look at her so she wouldn't be able to go anywhere in peace. 

That ALL MEN narrative should have hung ALL MEN centuries ago. Instead, many women nurtured and propagated it. There's a twist, though. All men are not like that. But, many women believe what they've heard about ALL MEN, and are out to hurt ALL MEN, making the world not quite as safe as it should be for the ones who are not like the ALL MEN men. 

We've created a huge mess by not addressing the spills along the way. 

I saw a man I respect for many reasons make a huge mistake yesterday by tweeting something about how we must believe every woman every time. NOOOOOOOOO! That's the same as ALL MEN. It ruins everything. We should listen to every one every time but not automatically believe or not believe every person of any gender just because. I know women who lie in just about every sentence. I know women who live lies. 

Everyone should be heard. And what we derive from what we hear should be based on evidence when available, character consistencies, history, plausibility, motive, actions, intensity (an attempted rape versus he accidentally brushed my ass in a photo shoot), honesty in other aspects of the person's life . . . 

And what we do with that information after we've heard it should depend greatly on the danger that person presents to society, or to particular individuals. That guy who followed me into a closet at work forty years ago and tried to kiss me caused me no harm, physically or emotionally, and is no harm to anyone today. I don't need to out him now because it's a fad. Telling my experience without mentioning his name, to help a younger girl understand how to deal with a situation like that is a good thing. An attempted rape while holding his hand over my mouth would be quite another story. A rape would be an even worse story. All three situations reflect a character defect. The attempted kiss was wrong because he was a married man. I think if he had been a dangerous man, he probably wouldn't have started with leaning in like he was going to kiss me. 

Rape and attempted rape are violent acts that go to the core of a horrible character and I don't believe that kind of character changes. We need to elevate those stories and remove all power from the perpetrators, especially when the person who is not remembering doing them has been caught on national television lying about other things in a job interview for a position that gives him tremendous power over all of us.

My Terrible Experience(s) With Avail Vapor and PockeX

You and Samir Vaughn aren't connected on Facebook

Store manager at AVAIL Vapor,

Wed 11:10am

Hey Sandy,

It’s Bain up at Avail. I couldn’t find you in the system to reach out but felt it necessary because I hate that you have had a terrible experience. Give me a call at the store and let’s get something figured out for you so I can get to the bottom of why you are unhappy. My reviews are 5 stars across the board so the fact you left a 2 with a less than favorable review means we didn’t take care of you fully and I would like the opportunity to do so.

5027854885-store number

I look forward to hearing from you and getting your feedback.

Thu 11:34am

You accepted Samir's request.

Fri 12:29pm

I haven't been able to catch you in the store yet so thought I would message you my story. Then, you can call me when it fits your schedule.[store employee told me this guy was on vacation]

I came into the store one day and purchased a kit (Aspire) - a small, inexpensive vaping pen kit. I loved it so much that I came back the next week to buy a second because I like to have two. Two different employees.

When it was time to buy my second box of replacement coils, a third employee told me the store didn't carry them anymore and wrote the name of place on the internet that I might find them (discountvapors.com) on a card and gave it to me. I checked and didn't find what I needed so I drove to the Avail location on Bardstown Road, where I purchased their last box and was told that I was having trouble because the line was discontinued.

So, I had two new kits that were not going to be of any use to me when that box of coils was gone. I was not happy. So, I returned to your store to ask why no one had bothered to tell me that this was being discontinued when I bought those two. Of course, the employees were polite and apologetic but that didn't solve my problem or make me happy.

Finally, when I said I would never return to buy anything else from Avail, someone convinced me to buy the PockeX that was on sale. Reluctantly, I did. And, because I'm a sucker, I guess, I returned a week later to purchase a second one so I'd have a spare.

Within weeks, the first one started to leak. I returned to the store with it and the employee working that day looked at it and pressed the two ends together and said sometimes they get separated a little and it should be fine. It wasn't and the second started leaking and by then I had oily spots on several articles of clothing from leaks.

I returned again. This employee looked, said no cracks (I knew that, neither had been dropped) so they must need rings/gaskets. Only you don't carry the rings/gaskets. But I might be able to find them online. I looked at the Avail website and no rings there, either.

Now, one of the two doesn't charge anymore. I can't find a way to replace batteries, even if batteries were available on the website.

I'm not at all happy.

Employees are polite, but that doesn't make up for poor products and company policies.

My phone number is 742-6749 if you need more information.

Sandy I am off today and tomorrow. Would it be ok for me to call you on Sunday or would you rather Monday? I will be in the store both days on Sunday until about 4 and then on Monday until 6. I understand you have had a less than ideal run so my biggest concern is making sure we figure out what can be done to ensure you are taken care of properly. I in no way want any of my customers to feel they are experiencing a 2 star worth of treatment ever. That is not the way I want my store to be. I have worked very hard in efforts to ensure all my customers are treated at the highest level and I want just that for you.

As you can see, I took time out of my day to hopefully fix this error we have come across in your happiness because I genuinely care about my customers and their experiences in my particular store.

We will make this right!

Thank you. Sunday or Monday will be fine.

10:11am

Sunday and Monday passed with no call. I found the perfect solution though: https://altsmoke.com/

💚Ten People Who Have Helped My Career💚

Thanks, Stephanie, for mentioning me in your ten, and making me want to do this, too. 

     Family starting with my parents who taught me to love reading and writing, and who used valued grammar and spelling every day of my life, giving me the foundation I needed when I decided to write. My mother, for listening to me ramble about my dreams, encouraging me always, and reading and praising (although that wasn’t always what I needed most) everything I did. She did point out grammatical and spelling errors, though, even if she didn’t critique me in other ways. Briana Morgan, who read every word of every book and, as a teen, was an enormous help in every way possible. Her grammar, punctuation, spelling, AND ability to find inconsistencies or flaws in time or story lines was unbelievably helpful and impressive for her age and education level. I credit the adults in her life as well as the Jefferson County Public School system. My sister-in-law, Teresa Fancher, who diligently scoured the later books for typos and errors and helped me prepare for self-publishing – and who always encouraged me in everything I did. And the grandchildren, daughters, grandparents, parents, cousins . . . who gave me so much to write about.

     Alyce Skelton for being one of the best writing instructors I’ve known, and who opened my eyes to characterization by asking me what Opal had for breakfast.

    The Alchemy Writing Group (twenty people from Australia, Canada, and the US) who boosted my self-confidence and courage by approving my membership and critiquing word-by-word at least four complete novels as well as bits and pieces of others. And who trusted me to do the same with their work. I will treasure these people forever and never forget some of the stories I read in that group of writers who I hope have since decided to self-publish their literary works that traditional publishers passed over in favor of cookie-cutter, dumbed-down, predictable, less worthy work.

     Jessica Mathis who was both politically astute and educated enough to actually ‘get’ my satire and helped me with a great review and blurb and cover, even though the publisher didn’t use them.

     The Husbands Group (particularly, Susan Desantis and Rebecca Somerhouser) who helped me find my political voice and start enjoying non-fiction, during the days when people read more than a couple of words written across the top of a photo.

     Ugh. That leads to me having to thank a few people that I hate – George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell. I was approached to write on a named blog when someone saw my Bush writing. At first, I wanted to decline because I didn’t want writing to feel like a job, but they agreed to allow me to write what I wanted, when I wanted, with no deadlines or pressure. It was fun while it lasted but the site ended in the big ‘scrub’ of all things anti-Bush, and I ended up on the no-fly list. And, then, there’s the McConnell blog of my letters and his responses. I’m not sure anyone appreciated my McConnell letters as much as I did but that’s okay. I flatter myself and take great pleasure in knowing that I did write letters that demonstrated exactly how much McConnell’s decisions matter in the every day life of the world of people he affected (and still affects, even though I gave up trying when he won his last election). The site still gets hits from around the world daily. Not large numbers of hits, but people are still googling that monster and ending up on my site.

   The men in my life – Doug, Davy, Adolfo, Jess, Terry, Kerry, Alan – who inspired poems, personal essays, love, anger, revelations – enough that, without the brain aneurysm, I probably could have continued to write forever just on what I got from them. Adolfo gets a special mention for giving me permission to write about him. I didn’t need it, but I asked for it because I knew at least one of his friends watched what I wrote and might identify him. I talked to him about my fear that my perception would not always be the same as his and I didn’t want to embarrass, hurt, or anger him in any way. He told me to write anything I wanted, without that fear, and that I could even use his name if I wanted. That felt like a huge gift to me.

     The readers who contacted me to thank me or to say that I had changed their lives. There weren’t many but the few who did made it all feel so worthwhile.

     Music and all the people who made the music that entertained, inspired, and saved me.

     And, last but certainly not least, Debbie Staples. She worked as an editor on AOL and contacted me after seeing a writing submission I had posted. My post stopped midsentence because there was a word limit, to tell you how inexperienced I was. She sent me a message saying she wanted to see the whole story. I told her it didn’t exist yet. I had just started writing. And she stuck with me for a year, reading and critiquing bit by bit as I wrote my first novel. When I was finished, I patted myself on the back, felt like a winner, and stuck it in a drawer. She begged me to shop it out and find a publisher, but I didn’t think that was necessary. I had written the book and I felt complete. A year or so later, she contacted me again to tell me she was starting her own publishing company and wanted my book to be the first she published. She did and published three more after that. Debbie was a pioneer of ebooks. I didn’t believe people would ever want to read on a screen and insisted I wanted paperback. She found a POD company and made that happen for me. I will always love Debbie Staples of SynergEbooks for believing in me.

        

       Bonus #11 - Gather friends.