Yesterday I was "tagged" on Facebook. I just started a Facebook page about six weeks ago and it is a mixed blessing. Every one of these variants of Web 2.0 involves a little bit of time commitment, yet I see why some people like Facebook... If you are going to hang out in a social network, you might as well hang where some of your real friends are.A week or two ago I think I was tagged by someone else, but didn't know what it meant... but yesterday John Heino tagged me and I sort of got it. You write 25 random things about yourself, then share this list with 25 "friends" on Facebook. Yes, it is a lot like a chain letter, but I like the exercise better because it is more free form. There are some of those email chains that ask you all these questions. You are locked in by someone else's design. I like coloring outside the lines, so this feels much more natural to me.
Here's my list, then. And if you want to post a random list about you in the comments... or somewhere else on the Internet, have at it. And if I am lucky, maybe I'll also figure out how to tag a few people on Facebook, too.
25 Random Things About Ed Newman
1. My internet “handle” since 1994 has been “ennyman” which was a variant of my initials (e.n.) blended with the concept of Everyman from French Revolution, which fascinated me when I was in junior high school.
2. I also liked the Alamo in junior high school and built a model of the Alamo for Mr. Capetta’s seventh grade social studies class.
3. I am currently reading a book called Polk, who was president of the U.S. during the Mexican War. He was the second president from Tennessee.
4. My favorite president was U. S. Grant. Mark Twain published his memoirs, which I was reading in the hallway when my wife Susie was in labor the day my son was being born. I have read the Memoirs of U.S. Grant twice and the fifty dollar bill is my favorite. I have several other books on Grant and recommend Grant Win the War to any Civil War buff, especially Grant fans.
5. I’ve been tagged a couple times already but didn’t know what it meant. Without resorting to a 2 x 4 across the side of the head, John Heino explained it better, hence I am following through this time.
6. I have published more than 250 articles and 600 blog entries and 535 Tweets as of Feb 2, 09. (You can follow me on Twitter at ennyman3)
7. My original website looked like this: http://www.enewman.biz/ and was created in 1994-95 using Adobe Pagemill and some html I taught myself from a book, which is handy to this day.
8. I like learning new things. I tried podcasting when it first started, started a blog to learn what it was about.
9. I was one credit short of being an art major in college. Got a B.G.S. instead.
10. My grandmother encouraged my mom to enroll me in art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art when I was about five or so. She told me I never scribbled when I was a toddler but was fascinated by tracing things through the paper and stuff like that.
11. Having an art background has helped my career. I am currently Director of Advertising at AMSOIL INC. in Superior Wisconsin. Some samples of my work can be seen here: http://www.amsoil.com/adslicks.aspx
12. I moved to New Jersey when I was twelve.
13. I went to college at Ohio University in Athens, 1970-74
14. In 1976 I came to Minnesota to go to Bible school at Bethany Fellowship where I met my wife Susie.
15. Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch, pero hablo Espanol un poco mas.
16. I’ve been a Mac guy since 1987, but had to learn how to use PCs at the office, so you might say I am ambidextrous, if you catch my drift.
17. My ties rack is an antler which is fastened to the side of a shelf in my home office. In a white shirt business suit culture the tie is your one means of making a statement. Use it.
18. I own about thirty Dylan albums and CDs and have quite a few books about Dylan including his Chronicles, Volume 1, which I have read twice.
19. I have been listening to audio books for nearly ten years whenever I am in the car and have probably listened to hundred of them…
20. I like reading favorite books or stories over and over again. I used to do this in second grade and both the librarian and my teacher commented on it. Favorite books, favorite music, favorite movies… their like good friends that you never get tired of.
21. Today was Groundhog Day, and Groundhog Day is also one of my favorite films along with Educating Rita, Truman Show and Paths of Glory.
22. Life is amazing. If you’re bored with life, the fault lies within.
23. When it comes to politics I like to read both sides of issues in an effort to develop my own perspective. I strongly dislike being told what to think or how to think about it.
24. I agree with Francis Schaeffer’s first sentence of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? When he wrote, “Cultures can be judged in many ways, but eventually every nation in every age must be judged by this test: How did it treat people?”
25. The Twin Towers came down on my 49th birthday. It was not my best birthday.
2. I also liked the Alamo in junior high school and built a model of the Alamo for Mr. Capetta’s seventh grade social studies class.
3. I am currently reading a book called Polk, who was president of the U.S. during the Mexican War. He was the second president from Tennessee.
4. My favorite president was U. S. Grant. Mark Twain published his memoirs, which I was reading in the hallway when my wife Susie was in labor the day my son was being born. I have read the Memoirs of U.S. Grant twice and the fifty dollar bill is my favorite. I have several other books on Grant and recommend Grant Win the War to any Civil War buff, especially Grant fans.
5. I’ve been tagged a couple times already but didn’t know what it meant. Without resorting to a 2 x 4 across the side of the head, John Heino explained it better, hence I am following through this time.
6. I have published more than 250 articles and 600 blog entries and 535 Tweets as of Feb 2, 09. (You can follow me on Twitter at ennyman3)
7. My original website looked like this: http://www.enewman.biz/ and was created in 1994-95 using Adobe Pagemill and some html I taught myself from a book, which is handy to this day.
8. I like learning new things. I tried podcasting when it first started, started a blog to learn what it was about.
9. I was one credit short of being an art major in college. Got a B.G.S. instead.10. My grandmother encouraged my mom to enroll me in art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art when I was about five or so. She told me I never scribbled when I was a toddler but was fascinated by tracing things through the paper and stuff like that.
11. Having an art background has helped my career. I am currently Director of Advertising at AMSOIL INC. in Superior Wisconsin. Some samples of my work can be seen here: http://www.amsoil.com/adslicks.aspx
12. I moved to New Jersey when I was twelve.
13. I went to college at Ohio University in Athens, 1970-74
14. In 1976 I came to Minnesota to go to Bible school at Bethany Fellowship where I met my wife Susie.
15. Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch, pero hablo Espanol un poco mas.
16. I’ve been a Mac guy since 1987, but had to learn how to use PCs at the office, so you might say I am ambidextrous, if you catch my drift.
17. My ties rack is an antler which is fastened to the side of a shelf in my home office. In a white shirt business suit culture the tie is your one means of making a statement. Use it.
18. I own about thirty Dylan albums and CDs and have quite a few books about Dylan including his Chronicles, Volume 1, which I have read twice.
19. I have been listening to audio books for nearly ten years whenever I am in the car and have probably listened to hundred of them…
20. I like reading favorite books or stories over and over again. I used to do this in second grade and both the librarian and my teacher commented on it. Favorite books, favorite music, favorite movies… their like good friends that you never get tired of.
21. Today was Groundhog Day, and Groundhog Day is also one of my favorite films along with Educating Rita, Truman Show and Paths of Glory.
22. Life is amazing. If you’re bored with life, the fault lies within.
23. When it comes to politics I like to read both sides of issues in an effort to develop my own perspective. I strongly dislike being told what to think or how to think about it.
24. I agree with Francis Schaeffer’s first sentence of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? When he wrote, “Cultures can be judged in many ways, but eventually every nation in every age must be judged by this test: How did it treat people?”
25. The Twin Towers came down on my 49th birthday. It was not my best birthday.
2 comments:
>>>>>>>23. When it comes to politics I like to read both sides of issues in an effort to develop my own perspective. I strongly dislike being told what to think or how to think about it.
In my opinion, there are more than two sides to every issue.
I like to read as many sides as I can find time for.
If I happen to notice an obvious factual error in a source, many times I take the time to point out the error to the writer/publisher.
If my letter, email, or post gets disappeared instead of answered, I get the strong impression that that source is telling me what to think, and is conniving, besides.
I strongly dislike it too.
Also, I've noticed that by reading liberal blogs such as ThinkProgress, I DO get many sides of the issues, as liberal blogs have a liberal posting policy. Any time TP quotes Rush Limpbaugh or other right winger, for example, they give you a link to the entire audio or video they're referring to, so you can listen, and judge for yourself.
National Review doesn't do that.
TP even has a "troll" in their comments section, who posts as "J.Davis". He's hoping for the South to Rise Again.
He's obviously racist, real right-wing conservative, and is just totally against government services. He says they're socialistic, and I think he hates them almost as bad as he hates Abe Lincoln.
When other TP posters asked "J.Davis" if he USES government services, he refused to answer, of course, kind of like John McCain and Sarah Palin would have done ... (IF the so-called "liberal press" would have ever gotten up the nerve to ASK them that question, that is).
This refusal to answer is typical, and it's the same experience I received from National Review's website when I pointed out an obvious error in one of their articles.
They didn't answer my letter, nor did they post my letter for anyone else to answer. They ONLY print one side of any issue, and allow no free give-and-take. Yet they claim to represent "freedom".
The newspapers here in Laos are criticized for being government-run, and censored. Well, last year, City Hall in Vientiane decided to outlaw all 3-wheeled motorized vehicles ("tuk-tuks" or "samlors") sometime during 2009. City Hall says they impede traffic and cause accidents.
The Vientiane Times has a Letter To The Editor section, and man! were the samlor drivers angry. One guy said that he thought the government was supposed to be creating jobs, instead of taking them away. They'd BETTER give him another job, to replace what he's doing now. A woman said that she liked the samlors because they can get into her narrow lane of a road, to deliver he vegetables to market -- but, oh, well, she'll just push her stuff out to the main road in a push-cart from now on, and hope she won't impede traffic or cause accidents. A European woman living in Vientiane wrote in to say that tuk-tuks are the very thing that make Vientiane BE Vientiane.
Another time, the Vientiane Times printed an article pointing out that many of the traffic police here don't have the documents for their own motorbikes that they're fining other people for not having.
Another time they printed an article about this traffic light in Vientiane that hadn't been working for months. They described with great glee, the local comments that were shouted at the scene, when a new crew showed up to try to get that light working again.
People even talk back to the traffic police, here, and don't get arrested or tasered for it.
That's why I'm here, instead of there. I don't like being told, with no free give-and-take. I got tired of living in a police-state.
I agree that there are many sides on issues. I have often said that truth is like the eye of a fly where we need to dialogue and hear all the different points of view on a thing in order to get a complete picture (fly eye has many faces seeing different directions.)
Generally, the media or political parties do try to narrow things down to a couple sides on issues. You are either for or against Nafta, or abortion or doctor assisted suicide. But reality can be oversimplified, too.
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