Free Speech for All, Even on the Internet?

While I was offline, there were more developments stemming from the violence in Charlottesville, VA. I already talked about the planned protests by white supremacists, but I plan on talking about more of the details in the coming days. But one caveat of this discussion involves free speech, which I will discuss now.

I was made aware of this issue because of an article on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website. As the writers of this article point out, the actions of the services involved set an alarming precedent.

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What Happened?

The Daily Stormer, the Neo-Nazi website which was used to help organize the event in Charlottesville, became embroiled in a controversy involving freedom of speech.

Sometime after the attack in Charlottesville, the writers at that site insulted Heather Heyer, the woman who died when she was run over in Charlottesville in a heartless, disgusting article.

Days after that article, The website was essentially taken from the open Internet by GoDaddy and Google. GoDaddy, a domain hosting service, kicked the Daily Stormer off its service and Google cancelled the website’s Internet registration.

This move forced the Daily Stormer to move to the Dark Web. The managers of the website took to twitter on Tuesday, August 15, to tell their followers how they could access the website after the takedown.

Famous Sayings: #76 — ‘Sweep Her off Her Feet’

August 25, 2017

Carol wishes someone would come and sweep her off her feet.

Yesterday, I looked at the expression “flying by the seat of your pants.” Today, I will look at another phrase which metaphorically suggests that someone’s feet are off the ground.

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What Does It Mean When Someone Is Swept off Their Feet?

To be swept off one’s feet can mean several things, but it depends on what is being discussed. In short, it means someone is falling in love, finding something or someone attractive, or something or someone has captured (another) person’s imagination.

Famous Sayings: #75 — ‘Flying by the Seat of Your Pants’

August 24, 2017

I can tell you’re flying by the seat of your pants.

Douglass “Wrong Way” Corrigan might not have been “flying by the seat of his pants” when he flew from Brooklyn, NY to Dublin, Ireland in 1938. Cropped image from SDASM Archives (San Diego Air and Space Museum) via Flickr.

Note: Okay. I missed one installment of my Famous Sayings last week because of the move. In order to make up, I’d thought I’d give my readers a twofer.

This is a Thursday installment and there will be one tomorrow.

I chose this saying today because I made a sudden change to the schedule and chose a different saying than the one I had originally chosen for the previous week. Is this an example of my flying by the seat of my pants? Not exactly, although there might be more examples with this blog.

Blaming the Complainers: Why Do We Do This?

“You need to stop complaining!” I beg to differ …

Why do we sometimes lash out at complainers?

Every now and then, I complain. Airing my grievances makes me feel a little better about certain situations because it helps me clear my head. When I know how I feel about something, why I feel that way, and I am able to express those feelings, I can then take a step back and reassess the situation. It’s certainly better than bottling up my feelings and letting the negativity fester.

I know I’m not the only person who sees it this way.

Sometimes, I have to deal with rude, judgmental people. These people pretty much act like I, or others, don’t have any right to complain about certain things. At times, these people even seek to blame the people who are complaining, even without full knowledge of the situation.

That really ticks me off, especially when I or another person who is making a complaint has a valid reason. For instance, they could be living with a messy, irresponsible roommate or they could be working for a mean, inconsiderate, slave-driving boss. Regardless of what others may think of those situations, it may be hard for the person with grievances to immediately do something about it.

But the complainer haters don’t care. They treat other people’s complaints like petty little annoyances, even when they were butting in anyway.

To be honest:

I am annoyed when people just complain but offer no solutions.

And people who complain yet expect others to fix the mess are trifling.

Then there are people who need to get some things off their chest.

When someone brushes this person off, the dismissive person is hastily handling a problem they might not have been asked to deal with in the first place.

News Roundup (August 14, 2017)

Hello, readers! If this is my only News Roundup of this month, I’m going to make it count. This time, I have worked on 10 important stories from this month I wanted to discuss, plus a commentary.

News Roundup (for the Rest of July and Some of June 2017)

Hello, readers! This week, I will do something different for this News Roundup. I want so badly to catch up to some important news I missed from June and July, so I will post this today.

Tomorrow, I will do my best to post some news for this month before I go on a hiatus. If I can’t do all the stories I found, I will at least cover 4-7 stories I find important, including Shkreli’s sentencing and the recent violence in Charlottesville, VA.

Famous Sayings: #74 — ‘When Life Gives You Lemons…’

August 11, 2017

When life gives you lemons, make some lemonade.

Believe it or not, I first heard this phrase in the form of a song. And that song was part of a parody on an old comedy show on Fox. If you’ve ever heard of The Edge, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The skit in question involved Julie Brown (not “Downtown” Julie Brown, but another former MTV personality of Just Say Julie fame), Jill Talley, and Jennifer Aniston. They were playing the ladies in the trio Wilson-Phillips and making fun of the song heard in the video below.

In the parody, Aniston played Chynna Philips, Talley played Wendy Wilson, and Brown played Carnie Wilson.

Anyway, I have been familiar with this phrase ever since, but I have never used it myself. It has come up every now and then and I decide to use it today because it has a dual purpose: Not only does the message pertain to recent events but lemonade is kind of synonymous with summer.

My Computer Is a Piece of Crap

My computer (it’s not the one in the picture) really sucks right now.

I am thisclose to taking a sledgehammer to my computer.

Today, I tried to run a backup on the stupid thing, but all attempts were unsuccessful. Twice, this stupid mix of plastic, metal, and silicone shut itself down due to overheating. Both times, the backup stopped itself, forcing me to try again.

After the third or fourth failed attempt, I lost my temper and threw my external hard drive across the room. (It’s a small, portable one. I guess it still works, but it sucks, too.)

Not only was this backup taking 5ever to get 60% done, but my stinkin’ computer now acts like it can’t do more than one stinkin’ task before it overheats.

I really hate this thing and there’s so much I want and need to do online.

I really need a new one, so bad. (But I can’t afford one right now.)

ARGGGGHHH!!!!

By the way, Firefox still sucks for me, as well.

Revisiting an Old Naruto Post: Is It About Feminism?

In 2015, I started this blog with the intention of reposting some old stuff, expanding on it, and adding more new content. And one of the topics I wanted to address in particular was the topic of sexism in the Naruto manga. My last post in the series, “It’s Not About Feminism,” was one of the most important posts I wanted to make.

In that post, I took some old thoughts and expanded on them. Overall, I wanted to voice my frustration with certain people in the Naruto fandom who always reacted harshly to the topic of how the women in the manga were treated. Specifically, if baffled me why people would get angry at the question; even more, I was baffled by people who got angry at the question and then proceeded to justify it by their disgusting behavior.

This year, someone responded to the post I had written and gave me a few things to talk about. Among the things this other blogger said was that this series was about feminism given of the type of literary analysis I was doing. I was in fact looking at a finished series through the lens of gender portrayal and Kishimoto Masashi’s own views and experiences had influenced how he presented female characters. So, when I said the series was “not about feminism,” I was ultimately undercutting my most important points.

Now, I will not go back and edit the post (outside grammatical and spelling errors, if I find them), but I want to clarify some things in this post.

Famous Sayings: #73 — ‘I Get a Kick Out of …’

August 4, 2017

I get a kick out of playing video games.

Some people get a kick out of playing kickball. I know I did when I was a kid. Image from Steven Depolo via Flickr. Some rights reserved.

I decided to go with this idiom because it’s positive an a little fun. Little did I know that the origin was kind of staring me in the face — but not really.

Anyway, it’s easy to surmise that the meaning of “I get a kick out of [someone or something]” means that the person speaking is enjoying their time. Either they enjoy being around another person, most likely a paramour, or they enjoy doing what they’re doing.

But the first use of this phrase came in the form of a love song.