Slowing Down

I have to slow down on this blog.

I've barely been able to keep up with my one-blog-post-per-day regimen lately, and quite frankly, a lot of personal stuff is catching up with me.  I hope to continue writing on my blog once day for the rest of this month, but starting in April, I will likely post less often.

Back soon.

September Slowdown

I can't take it . . .

This month, September 2017, has been a real bummer for me.  Not just the hurricanes that have persistently threatened this area, but also because of other things.  I've been having trouble concentrating on things at home and getting things done, and I've had a hard time at one of my jobs.  I've had to deal with a lot of personal problems and even when things turn out alright, they haven't stayed that way for long.  What has stayed around for long is a growing anxiety about, well, everything.

I've also been spending more time on the computer than I'd like, and not just assembling my blogs day by day.  Attempts to curb my online time haven't worked out, and I've been spending less time doing the other things I like to do.  I feel grumpy, tired, frustrated and general ticked off.

And I'm sick and tried of trying to get a handle on typos.

So I think I'll be posting less for the rest of this month.  And even though Hurricane Maria isn't going to hit the New York area, meaning that I don't have to worry about going offline against my will, I may not post much of anything here for awhile going into early October.  I'm just worn out trying to keep this blog up when so many things are going on in and outside of my personal life.

So you'll be seeing less of me here for awhile, at least for a week or so.  My Music Video Of the Week feature will continue as scheduled, and I'll still have more posts on my beautiful-women picture blog - already set up in advance and ready to go - this week and in the month ahead.  But as far as up-to-the-minute blogging on issues of the day or on whatever else happens to be on my mind in this space . . . not so much.  

This past Thursday marked the fifteenth anniversary of this blog.  Don't be surprised if one day I decide to pack it up and quit before I do it for another fifteen years.

No Fake News Here!

This past Sunday I saw a report on "60 Minutes" on fake news and the sites that promote it.  Scott Pelley showed how fake-news sites proliferate across the Internet and how they're designed to get the attention of ideologically charged audiences by using fake Twitter accounts known as "bots" to spread them as far and wide as possible.  They have people on the left and right believing the worst about each other's political opponents - I'll grant that not everything reported about Donald Trump is true - and that's pretty much how that story about a Washington pizzeria that was reported to have been the center of a child sex-slave operation run by Hillary Clinton got started.  That, of course, led to a person who believed the worst about Hillary going there and shooting up the place.

One of those "fake news" purveyors, Mike Cernovich, defended his work in an interview with Pelley, saying that his information about the Clinton campaign and the Democratic left (which, remember, are not one and the same) is a counterpoint to the official line from the Democratic Party, his "facts" based on his own "reporting" - like having a doctor Hillary has never met examine her based on a clip of her showing signs of fatigue (from an illness) and attributing it to Parkinson's disease.

Well, you won't find any fake news here.  Because, apart from a piece on a Swedish Christmas fair that I reported on here because I had no other place to publish it, I don't report news stories on this blog, and I have made it clear that this blog is not meant to be a news source.  It's just social and cultural commentary, essays about personal experiences, and the occasional book or record review.  And my blog "Pictures of Beautiful  Women" is just that and nothing else.

You know, the world would be a whole lot better if those of us who write blogs without any news value remembered that we are just reporting opinions and hearsay without presenting them as the facts.  I merely comment on what I've heard, and if it sounds fishy or fake, I either say so or refuse to even dignify the story with commentary. Look, the Internet is meant to spread free speech, but free speech is a responsibility that has to be taken more seriously.  I am responsible for saying that what you read on this blog is not the gospel, just me mouthing off about whatever happens to be on my mind.

That's why this blog is called "Miscellaneous Musings."