I’m not a Luddite but I detest several hardware/software thingies. GPS, for one. Autofill in my writing applications, for another. Social media half the time — which is appropriate because I detest humanity half the time.
And even though I’ve finally joined the Dark Side by chucking my trusty old flip phone a few months ago, I still abhor the smartphone. This AM I was watching the guy in the car behind me as we waited to make the left turn onto Grimes Lane from Walnut Street. He was peering intently at something in his lap, not at all paying attention to the road, the traffic lights, or me. Now, there were two things he could have been looking at: 1) his junk, which seems a tad fetishistic if not criminal, and 2) his smartphone. I’m gonna go with his smartphone.
The left turn arrow came on and I dashed. I kept looking into my rearview mirror to see when he’d wake from his device coma and, by the time I had to turn onto Madison St., he still hadn’t made the turn.
I’ll only forgive him for two possible reasons: 1) he’s the fire chief and he’s monitoring the progress of the biggest conflagration ever to hit this town, and 2) he’s the commander of an air attack wing and he’s just been notified that China has launched its intercontinental missiles at us.
I won’t be forgiving him.
By the way, tying together a couple of aforementioned hatreds of mine, I notice people are still taking pictures of their food in restaurants and posting them on Facebook which, I admit, is the preserve of the squarest, most dad/aunt among our species. I didn’t understand why people posted pix of their omelettes fifteen years ago when I first, begrudgingly, signed up for Zuckerberg’s data-mining machine. But, jeez people, you’re under no obligation to be ultra-hip but you at least have to know that dish pix are as out as leisure suits.
C’mon People!
That all said, I took some pix of actual human beings at Friday’s evening’s Indiana Society for Professional Journalists awards banquet. My two beloved Bloomington media outlets — WFHB and Limestone Post — as both do every year — walked out of the place lugging armfuls of awards and citations. (Me included, for my story last year on Monroe Lake’s 60th anniversary celebration.)
I did my photography using — you guessed it — my smartphone. This, of course, doesn’t mean no visual record of the fete would have existed pre-smartphone. Swear to god, I used to carry around in my pocket a digital camera. It worked perfectly well and was, in fact, even smaller than my smartphone. But, honestly, had I whipped out that relic, half the crowd of several hundred in attendance would have gasped. The other half would have clunked me over the head with their smartphones.
I understand that when something’s out, it’s out.
Anyway, here’s me with Limestone Post publisher Ron Eid and with WFHB news director and assistant news director, Kade Young and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider:
I saw my friend Adria Nassim across the banquet hall and so was unable to get to her in time but I’m thrilled for her winning a citation for Column Writing. She pens a regular essay on living with autism for Bloom magazine. (Her column used to be in the Herald-Times but once our town’s daily paper was acquired by a faceless, soulless media conglomerate, her monthly mid-two-figures salary was deemed excessive.) Here’s her official awards ceremony portrait:
I seem to recall being in the Limestone Post official portrait but I’ll be damned if I know where to access it. And, really, I’m too lazy to raise a finger to find it.
All this is preamble to point out that this Saturday just past was World Press Freedom Day. With Li’l Duce, the God-King, hell-bent on turning this holy land’s news media into his own personal handjob machine, fighting for press independence and freedom is as important today as it’s ever been in America, and that includes war times when censorship was tolerated for the sake of saving soldiers’ lives.
Go here for a select list of protest rallies scheduled over the next few days and weeks. If you’re not out demonstrating against the failed businessman/wannabe Boss of Everything and his enabling, supplicating, bootlicking minions like the satanic Stephen Miller or the aspiring capo JD Vance, you’re as good as giving them the free ticket to dictatorship they crave.
