The Electron Pencil

Killshot

Re-posting a social media comment by my friend, Col. John Tilford, retired from both the US Marines and the US Army and who served in Vietnam and Afghanistan. He’s responding to President Gag’s call for teachers to be armed and for those who agree to do it to get bonuses. Take it away, Colonel:

Arm teachers? As the NCOs and officers are the first picked off in combat, so would the teachers be the first in schools, leaving the children without adult direction.

And now, following the highly-publicized remarks from Trump, the teachers will be the first targeted whether they “carry” or not. Because Trump suggested they should, the killers will assume they might.

▼

Big Links

Here’s the link to yesterday Big Talk with attorney, civic volunteer, deacon-in-training, and WFIU Soul Kitchen deejay Brother William Morris.

And, in case you missed it yesterday, here’s the link to my profile of him for my regular column, Big Mike’s B-town, in the Limestone Post.

▼

He Said It

Billy Graham is dead. Looks like the Jews are gonna continue having a stranglehold on this holy land and nobody’ll be there to stop them.

▼

Stepping Up In Class?

Tossing around a format idea these days. I have a Medium account. Medium is a big semi-subscription platform for writers, thought leaders, pontificators, cogitators, and other such undesirables.

Here’s what I might do: I may start doing all my thoughtful posting on Medium and reserve this space for links to those posts as well as updates on what I’m doing in terms of other online writing and my radio work.

I’ve noticed a number of loyal Pencillistas have Medium accounts. Now, quite of few of their accounts may be freebies, meaning they only get three free reads of me per month. To get unlimited access to Medium writers you subscribe to, you have to pay $50 a year for a premium account. And don’t think that dough goes into my pocket, because it doesn’t. It’s paid directly to, and remains in the grubby hands of the Medium tsars.

The benefit to me is a huge new market of potential clickers. My posts on Medium would be sorted and SEO’d via tags and categories, as opposed to the poster’s name. So, something I write on, say, the category of women would receive equal weight as one written on the same topic by Roxanne Gay (to whom I subscribe) or I could write about that goof in the Oval Office and get the same opportunity for eyes that Sheila Seuss Kennedy would when she writes about him. It’s a democratic platform in that sense.

In any case, like a lot of other social media platforms, posts earn crowd approval. Not Likes like Facebook but Claps. Someone could dig the bejesus out of one of my pieces and give me two dozen claps. If a lot of people give a ton-load of Claps, the clapped author gets paid a pro-rated amount.

I hate to sound mercenary, but, hell, I’ve been giving this stuff away for free for going on ten years now. I co-founded The Third City in the fall of 2008 and then started up this communications colossus in spring, 2012. Except for a brief burst when I posted a sporadically recurring payment button herein last fall, I’ve been clacking my fingers to the bone for no pay for all these years. That really sorta bugs me.

I haven’t made up my mind yet. There are a few more people I need to talk to about this, people whose opinions I trust. And — you know what? — I trust your opinion, too. Call me at 773.332.4666, email me at glabagogo@gmail.com, or comment on this page. Let me know what you think of this crazy idea. Believe me, I’ll listen.

▲