So apparently Twitter is about to turn all wallstreet on us and this means that they will be the new insidious threat to our online privacy, because they have this enhanced tracking power built into their platform that will allow really, really targeted ads to be sent to people across their multiple devices. Or so sez Mother Jones. This has different people in a flutter because it will be even worse than what facebook or google does.
I don't worry a lot about this. I mean, I stay informed and I regularly go into my FB settings to make sure as many "private" tick boxes are ticked. But I'm not exactly cowering in fear. Why?
Because judging from the hilarious offers and ads that pop up on FB and during my internet browsing, the Internets have no clue at all as to what I want and what I might buy.
Examples: while reading an atheist blog, I get ads offering me to meet Christian singles. I read American liberal political blogs, and ads for donating to the Republican party appear in the banner. The BBC News website streams commercials for Jaguar Canada to me (not in the market for a car, let alone a Jaguar). I could list more, but you get the big picture. Not only are the ads not within my sphere of interests, but they are often at the polar opposite of my tastes and leanings and with the content of the website I am visiting.
This is not the result of me making extraordinary efforts to hide from data collectors. My cookies are enabled and I have very basic firewall and anti-virus thingies on my 'puter. I shop online occasionally.
But I think I stay off of the radars and confound the ad-generators mostly because I used this seemingly antiquated and apparently little known approach to using the Internet. It's called "discretion" (she says as she posts a very public blog...). No, I'm not trying to be ironic.
I am relatively discreet when it comes to my internet use, especially with the social network platforms. Here's what I don't do that I think has helped me feel that my privacy is a little more private than other internet users:
1) No third-party app access to my FB account. I play Bejeweled Blitz and Candy Crush and whatnot. I do not use Game Center nor do I allow these games to access my FB profile. What I play and what my score was last night is nobody else's business (and I don't fucking give a flying fuck about your score or your fake farm animal either). But more importantly, I don't think my FB account and FB 'friends' are Game Center's, Apple's or any game-maker's business. So, no, I won't use the Birthday App on FB either, no matter how many times I am invited to do so.
2) No 'Liking' of companies on FB nor any mention of them on Twitter. Ever. I really do not like a capitalist profit-seeker enough to give that entity access to my information or 'friends'. The less they know about me, the better. (One exception: I 'liked' Oreo's page when they issued the rainbow Oreo picture in support of equal rights.)
3) I have accounts on FB, Twitter and Pinterest but use them discreetly. I don't link those accounts together so that these guys can gang up on me and I am mostly a lurker on these platforms. I avoid oversharing and I do not allow my smart phone to automatically announce to the world that I'm at this mall or that airport. I do not allow my phone to geotag my pictures. I don't post pictures of the food I'm having at the restaurant. I don't post pictures during my vacation as an advertisement for burglars to come break into my house. See, I just don't think any of those things are :
a) crucial for me to share nor crucial for anyone to know
2) anyone's business
iii) especially a third-party capitalist's business
4) I don't leave my email address to retailers at the cash when they ask me for it. I do not accept the 3 thousand credit card offers that the cashiers or junkmailers offer me. I have very few fidelity cards and will most likely get rid of some that I do have because I never use the points and all I get out of the deal is more spam in my inbox.
5) I log out of Twitter and FB on my smartphone and tablet when I am out and about and rarely (if ever) use their Apps. I use both on my browser and make sure to log out when I'm done.
And so I don't really worry all too much about being tracked or targeted by retailers and social networks who want to sell my info to said retailers because without being obsessive about it, I limit access to those types of people when it comes to me and my accounts.
Am I totally safe and anonymous and hack-proof? Not by a long shot. But I think my refusal to blindly link accounts and platforms together and to announce every detail about myself online has already proven to me that the trackers have a hard time tracking me. Because, c'mon, christian singles for a married atheist on an atheist blog? You can't get more off-base than that!
So if you find that the banners and pop-ups and FB ads are eerily accurate and pertinent to your habits and preferences, it's only because you let them find out all that stuff about you, in the end.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
The Charter
I've done a fair amount of reading about this stupid Charter o' Values that the Marois government is using as a wedge issue to drive the next election (reading this tripe is how I fall asleep at night) and there's a thought that keeps occurring to me that I haven't really seen expressed, which can be summarized as follows:
Freedom.
Allow me to expand on the point.
One current of thought flowing through this whole debate comes from some women and their supporters who have emigrated to Canada from places like Tunisia and Algeria. I have nothing but humble respect for all immigrant people who uproot themselves and start all over again in a foreign country; however some of these particular women have been in the media expressing their support for the ban on head scarves for government workers because (they say) the head scarf was used in their countries of origin as a tool and symbol of domination and the subjugation of women by (radical Muslim) men.
Do I agree that these women should never have been forced to wear a scarf? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Because Freedom.
And now, these women and many others want to speak for women's rights/equality by... telling other women what they shouldn't wear. Because... not Freedom???
Are there Muslim men out there who force their wives and daughters to wear the scarf (and worse) against their will? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But that doesn't give the right to any other woman, government or organization to step into the role of the abusive Muslim man and replace his edict with another. It certainly doesn't give anybody the right to tell a woman who chose to wear the damn thing (of whom there are many) to take it off, either. A feminist who tells that woman to take off her scarf is as bad as any Muslim who tells her to put it on.
Because Freedom dictates that in this country, those women have the right to walk away from their asshole husbands and wear whatever the fuck they want. They have the right to wear a scarf in fucking peace and not have a desperate gang of seperatists ostracize them. Because Freedom is why they came here: to live their own personal pursuits of happyness in peace, which they felt they could not do in the countries they fled. The homes they left behind. The Freedom was worth it. Which is why they are mostly all HELLNO about the Charter. And why, as an atheist who lives by the idea of the separation of church and state, I am against this bogus charter thing as well.
And why if you truly left a dictatorship in the name of freedom, you cannot possibly be in favor of creating oppression here. If freedom means both the neo-nazi and the humanist have the right to speak, it must also mean that I can wear a paisley snot-rag on my head while the Muslim woman wears her scarf.
And so while I'm at it, let me offer the same answer to the nitwits who argue that if I were to go to a 'Muslim country' I would have to adopt their laws/customs and put a piece of scarf on my head, and so this gives Quebecers the "right" to force Muslim women to "conform" to "our values" and remove it once they hit Quebec soil.
Once again : because Freedom, you dumbasses! Those countries aren't free. This one is. Get it? We don't do that here and that what makes us so awesome.
And if going to those countries and being forced to wear a headscarf is so offensive to you, why would you use the same tactic that offends you so much in others???
Freedom.
Allow me to expand on the point.
One current of thought flowing through this whole debate comes from some women and their supporters who have emigrated to Canada from places like Tunisia and Algeria. I have nothing but humble respect for all immigrant people who uproot themselves and start all over again in a foreign country; however some of these particular women have been in the media expressing their support for the ban on head scarves for government workers because (they say) the head scarf was used in their countries of origin as a tool and symbol of domination and the subjugation of women by (radical Muslim) men.
Do I agree that these women should never have been forced to wear a scarf? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Because Freedom.
And now, these women and many others want to speak for women's rights/equality by... telling other women what they shouldn't wear. Because... not Freedom???
Are there Muslim men out there who force their wives and daughters to wear the scarf (and worse) against their will? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But that doesn't give the right to any other woman, government or organization to step into the role of the abusive Muslim man and replace his edict with another. It certainly doesn't give anybody the right to tell a woman who chose to wear the damn thing (of whom there are many) to take it off, either. A feminist who tells that woman to take off her scarf is as bad as any Muslim who tells her to put it on.
Because Freedom dictates that in this country, those women have the right to walk away from their asshole husbands and wear whatever the fuck they want. They have the right to wear a scarf in fucking peace and not have a desperate gang of seperatists ostracize them. Because Freedom is why they came here: to live their own personal pursuits of happyness in peace, which they felt they could not do in the countries they fled. The homes they left behind. The Freedom was worth it. Which is why they are mostly all HELLNO about the Charter. And why, as an atheist who lives by the idea of the separation of church and state, I am against this bogus charter thing as well.
And why if you truly left a dictatorship in the name of freedom, you cannot possibly be in favor of creating oppression here. If freedom means both the neo-nazi and the humanist have the right to speak, it must also mean that I can wear a paisley snot-rag on my head while the Muslim woman wears her scarf.
And so while I'm at it, let me offer the same answer to the nitwits who argue that if I were to go to a 'Muslim country' I would have to adopt their laws/customs and put a piece of scarf on my head, and so this gives Quebecers the "right" to force Muslim women to "conform" to "our values" and remove it once they hit Quebec soil.
Once again : because Freedom, you dumbasses! Those countries aren't free. This one is. Get it? We don't do that here and that what makes us so awesome.
And if going to those countries and being forced to wear a headscarf is so offensive to you, why would you use the same tactic that offends you so much in others???
"Do you work?"
I follow a few irreverent motherbloggers from Chicago who, I shit you not, swear more than I do. They are Baby Sideburns and People I Want to Punch in the Throat, as well I Just Want to Pee Alone.
Baby Sideburns has a blog up this morning that re-hashes the notion of what a stay-at-home mom would be paid, should she perform her duties with pay. You can read it here.
Now, I do not think that I should be paid to be at home with my child. I do think we should get some hella good tax breaks and whatnot, but not necessary a paycheck. There's a point I do agree with, and it is the following:
"Do you work?" I know, I know, a common complaint, I'm not the first and I'm not the last, but this is a standard question asked by just about everyone. It comes right after the, "So, what do you do?" standard new-meeting-interview question. The "do you work?" riposte always comes right after the statement, "I help my husband with his home-based business and am at home with my kid, and I am heavily involved as an official in an amateur sport." This answer just isn't enough for people; they just need more than that because society has taught them that the SAHM (stay at home mom) is not enough, not a contributor, not a moverandashaker - they aren't satisfied with this image and therefore neither should I. There's an soupçon of 'is that all?' that spreads across their faces and tones that inevitably comes with the added spices of total incomprehension, some disgust, and quite frankly, total, utter disinterest. The sign I see stretched across their foreheads reads BORING and NOTWORTHMYTIME. The standard follow-up 'do you work' is often presented more as a second chance to redeem myself, as though one could not possibly just stay at home with a child and be happy and/or interesting. The more insensitive and brash worker drones actually ask the question with a different phrasing : they say, "But... you work, right?". Of course, I don't really encourage further conversation with the brainwashed automatons by issuing my standard answer, to whit: "No, the TV watches my kid while the cabana boy serves me margaritas by the pool all day long." But quite frankly, most of these people don't hear the answer because their chins are already turning to the next person, someone who is actually interesting and not a waste of time to talk to.
I understand this attitude from some men. I can also understand this to a certain extent coming from women who don't have children. Until some people actually work with children or have some of their own, they imagine being at home with a child being this bliss-filled life of book clubs, pleasurable shopping and scrap-booking - or whatever other shit I have no time for and no interest in - because caring for kids is easy : you feed 'em, you supply them toys and DVDs and you're set. No alarm clocks, no commute, no traffic, no boss... You read your book-club novel on a park bench while your child plays blissfully on the playground. (Disclaimer : as a former educator, I always referred to SAHMs as women who do not work outside the home.)
I don't forgive women who treat me this way when they have children. Because these women should know better, they should know that there's no peaceful sitting on park benches with a pre-schooler when nobody else is at the park on a weekday and even if there were, he needs you to intervene in a very hands-on manner because he doesn't want to share the slide with anyone and screams at them to get off, and needs you to tell him that sand is not for throwing, and needs you to check his pants 40 times in an hour because you're in the middle of potty-traning and there is no bathroom at the playground (which he would refuse to use anyway)... See, I get that the childless professsional doesn't get that, but not other mothers.
Other mothers should know better. Other mothers should know that while you are in the presence and responsible for a baby, toddler or preschooler, that child is the boss. Not in the sense that the child orders you around and whatnot (not in my house anyway), but in the sense that your entire schedule, your entire day, revolves around this persons needs. If your Little Person (LP) is going on his next snack or meal, all other plans go out the window and you have to stop and eat. Period. If the LP needs a nap, you are not dashing to the drug store that afternoon. If your LP needs a nap and refuses to do so, you are SoL on pretty much EVERYTHING you needed to do that day, because the day is now devoted to taking care of a crabby, loud, floppy, teary, unmotivated and unreasonable shit-and-spit machine that does stuff like insist they cling onto you on the couch to watch Cars for the three thousandth time, but insists on keeping his hand on your face because he's decided that you aren't allowed to watch the movie and you must look at the wall. Nor are you allowed to speak, comment, sneeze or go put a load of clothes into the machine. So you sit there, getting nothing done except get more tears and snot on your shirt because you inadvertently glanced at the TV and set off the LP all over again...
Oh, you could choose not to do any of these things and insist on making your LP conform to your schedule, but you quickly learn that only person you punish by doing this is yourself. And you turn yourself into one of those annoying, whiny parents who complain that you have whiny, annoying children that you 'can't take anywhere'. See, I can take my child anywhere, as long as I've otherwise respected his needs and schedule... But I digress...
Yeah, other mothers should know better. They should know better through the sigh of relief they let out once the door of the daycare closes behind them in the morning and through the brace-for-impact breath of air they take before stepping inside to pick them up at night. They should know that when they get a report of a "bad day" and a bag full of vomity clothes that had they been at home, THEY would have dealt with the vomit puddle, the tears, the change of clothes, the laundry - everything from start to finish, which is what a SAHM does. No respite. No union breaks. No window-shopping on your lunch hour and picking up a new shirt for that thing you're invited to on the weekend. No stopping at the drug store (alone and unfettered) on your way to or from the daycare. No sitting at your desk with a coffee while you quietly check your email. No lunch at that new Thai place around the corner. No adult conversations with other parents, trading tips or recipes. No special donut day for somebody's birthday. While you are doing all of that, I am absolutely not having a grand ol' time with Manuel the Cabana Boy. And you know it.
Now, I understand that you don't want to hear the minute details of how I got my LP to sit on a potty and consistently produce pee all last week. I know better, I won't do that to you. I also understand that some people avoid the subject of my being at home with my LP because they would love to be able to it too, and can't, and therefore avoid the subject.
And I already listed the wonderful 'no' list in my life (no commute, no traffic, no worrying about being late) and so I don't want to harp on comparing my daily life to that of a work-outside-the-home mom (I do refuse to use the term 'working mom' however). This post is all about how people lack respect, and I won't make my point by implying I don't respect the WOtH moms - I respect them so much that I don't know how they do it.
The point here is that I don't get the same respect back. And all this is illustrated by a single exchange I had a few weeks ago.
In the course of my volunteer work, I've been on a federation committee for a few years - and often felt like a committee of 1 person until this year, when they asked a second official to be part of the committee as well. Yay! Some qualified help! Especially appreciated for the yearly training seminar that I have been planning, organizing, powerpointing for and presented alone almost every year.
Almost a month before the seminar, I contact this new committee member to see if she can do a part of the training. She says she'll think about it and concoct an activity.
Two weeks out, I still don't have any details or anything resembling a plan.
One week before, I prompt again and get told that it will be a short, 15-minute activity. So I pick up the slack, plan another activity to complete the training and the schedule.
I wait until Tuesday to hand in and distribute the final schedule. I work until late at night both Tuesday and Wednesday to complete everything (you remember how it's impossible to get something like that done while the LP is awake, right)? So it's all about midnight powerpoint sessions (after I edit that letter hubby needs to send first thing tomorrow, you know, the kind of stuff that keeps money in the account and food on the table...)
Thursday afternoon, 24 hours before the seminar starts, I get somewhat giddy email saying that the 15-minute activity will now be more like 45, because the person really gets carried away once she gets started, haha, I hope that's ok!
Well, no it's not OK, because you basically are unreliable and wasted my precious (sleep) time, and have now messed up my fucking plan and schedule. But all this is not the completely insulting and annoying part.
The insulting part is when I call another mom/official to kvetch about the total lack of respect for the seminar, my time and my efforts, this other WOtH mom tells me the following:
"I know it's annoying, but cut her some slack and accommodate her like you always end up doing with everyone, because you rock. And after all, she has a job."
And that, folks, sums up my entire point. It's okay if another mom shits all over my time and effort because she has a "job". I have to respect her, but in return, I basically get dismissed.
Do I work? Yeah, I fucking work and am on-duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (compounded by the hubby's home-based consulting business - and if you think that means he's home and therefore helping me with the kid, well... I may have another blog post for you real soon...).
I don't want to be paid for any of this.
But a little goddam respect for my fucking time and efforts would certainly be appreciated.
Baby Sideburns has a blog up this morning that re-hashes the notion of what a stay-at-home mom would be paid, should she perform her duties with pay. You can read it here.
Now, I do not think that I should be paid to be at home with my child. I do think we should get some hella good tax breaks and whatnot, but not necessary a paycheck. There's a point I do agree with, and it is the following:
"Do you work?" I know, I know, a common complaint, I'm not the first and I'm not the last, but this is a standard question asked by just about everyone. It comes right after the, "So, what do you do?" standard new-meeting-interview question. The "do you work?" riposte always comes right after the statement, "I help my husband with his home-based business and am at home with my kid, and I am heavily involved as an official in an amateur sport." This answer just isn't enough for people; they just need more than that because society has taught them that the SAHM (stay at home mom) is not enough, not a contributor, not a moverandashaker - they aren't satisfied with this image and therefore neither should I. There's an soupçon of 'is that all?' that spreads across their faces and tones that inevitably comes with the added spices of total incomprehension, some disgust, and quite frankly, total, utter disinterest. The sign I see stretched across their foreheads reads BORING and NOTWORTHMYTIME. The standard follow-up 'do you work' is often presented more as a second chance to redeem myself, as though one could not possibly just stay at home with a child and be happy and/or interesting. The more insensitive and brash worker drones actually ask the question with a different phrasing : they say, "But... you work, right?". Of course, I don't really encourage further conversation with the brainwashed automatons by issuing my standard answer, to whit: "No, the TV watches my kid while the cabana boy serves me margaritas by the pool all day long." But quite frankly, most of these people don't hear the answer because their chins are already turning to the next person, someone who is actually interesting and not a waste of time to talk to.
I understand this attitude from some men. I can also understand this to a certain extent coming from women who don't have children. Until some people actually work with children or have some of their own, they imagine being at home with a child being this bliss-filled life of book clubs, pleasurable shopping and scrap-booking - or whatever other shit I have no time for and no interest in - because caring for kids is easy : you feed 'em, you supply them toys and DVDs and you're set. No alarm clocks, no commute, no traffic, no boss... You read your book-club novel on a park bench while your child plays blissfully on the playground. (Disclaimer : as a former educator, I always referred to SAHMs as women who do not work outside the home.)
I don't forgive women who treat me this way when they have children. Because these women should know better, they should know that there's no peaceful sitting on park benches with a pre-schooler when nobody else is at the park on a weekday and even if there were, he needs you to intervene in a very hands-on manner because he doesn't want to share the slide with anyone and screams at them to get off, and needs you to tell him that sand is not for throwing, and needs you to check his pants 40 times in an hour because you're in the middle of potty-traning and there is no bathroom at the playground (which he would refuse to use anyway)... See, I get that the childless professsional doesn't get that, but not other mothers.
Other mothers should know better. Other mothers should know that while you are in the presence and responsible for a baby, toddler or preschooler, that child is the boss. Not in the sense that the child orders you around and whatnot (not in my house anyway), but in the sense that your entire schedule, your entire day, revolves around this persons needs. If your Little Person (LP) is going on his next snack or meal, all other plans go out the window and you have to stop and eat. Period. If the LP needs a nap, you are not dashing to the drug store that afternoon. If your LP needs a nap and refuses to do so, you are SoL on pretty much EVERYTHING you needed to do that day, because the day is now devoted to taking care of a crabby, loud, floppy, teary, unmotivated and unreasonable shit-and-spit machine that does stuff like insist they cling onto you on the couch to watch Cars for the three thousandth time, but insists on keeping his hand on your face because he's decided that you aren't allowed to watch the movie and you must look at the wall. Nor are you allowed to speak, comment, sneeze or go put a load of clothes into the machine. So you sit there, getting nothing done except get more tears and snot on your shirt because you inadvertently glanced at the TV and set off the LP all over again...
Oh, you could choose not to do any of these things and insist on making your LP conform to your schedule, but you quickly learn that only person you punish by doing this is yourself. And you turn yourself into one of those annoying, whiny parents who complain that you have whiny, annoying children that you 'can't take anywhere'. See, I can take my child anywhere, as long as I've otherwise respected his needs and schedule... But I digress...
Yeah, other mothers should know better. They should know better through the sigh of relief they let out once the door of the daycare closes behind them in the morning and through the brace-for-impact breath of air they take before stepping inside to pick them up at night. They should know that when they get a report of a "bad day" and a bag full of vomity clothes that had they been at home, THEY would have dealt with the vomit puddle, the tears, the change of clothes, the laundry - everything from start to finish, which is what a SAHM does. No respite. No union breaks. No window-shopping on your lunch hour and picking up a new shirt for that thing you're invited to on the weekend. No stopping at the drug store (alone and unfettered) on your way to or from the daycare. No sitting at your desk with a coffee while you quietly check your email. No lunch at that new Thai place around the corner. No adult conversations with other parents, trading tips or recipes. No special donut day for somebody's birthday. While you are doing all of that, I am absolutely not having a grand ol' time with Manuel the Cabana Boy. And you know it.
Now, I understand that you don't want to hear the minute details of how I got my LP to sit on a potty and consistently produce pee all last week. I know better, I won't do that to you. I also understand that some people avoid the subject of my being at home with my LP because they would love to be able to it too, and can't, and therefore avoid the subject.
And I already listed the wonderful 'no' list in my life (no commute, no traffic, no worrying about being late) and so I don't want to harp on comparing my daily life to that of a work-outside-the-home mom (I do refuse to use the term 'working mom' however). This post is all about how people lack respect, and I won't make my point by implying I don't respect the WOtH moms - I respect them so much that I don't know how they do it.
The point here is that I don't get the same respect back. And all this is illustrated by a single exchange I had a few weeks ago.
In the course of my volunteer work, I've been on a federation committee for a few years - and often felt like a committee of 1 person until this year, when they asked a second official to be part of the committee as well. Yay! Some qualified help! Especially appreciated for the yearly training seminar that I have been planning, organizing, powerpointing for and presented alone almost every year.
Almost a month before the seminar, I contact this new committee member to see if she can do a part of the training. She says she'll think about it and concoct an activity.
Two weeks out, I still don't have any details or anything resembling a plan.
One week before, I prompt again and get told that it will be a short, 15-minute activity. So I pick up the slack, plan another activity to complete the training and the schedule.
I wait until Tuesday to hand in and distribute the final schedule. I work until late at night both Tuesday and Wednesday to complete everything (you remember how it's impossible to get something like that done while the LP is awake, right)? So it's all about midnight powerpoint sessions (after I edit that letter hubby needs to send first thing tomorrow, you know, the kind of stuff that keeps money in the account and food on the table...)
Thursday afternoon, 24 hours before the seminar starts, I get somewhat giddy email saying that the 15-minute activity will now be more like 45, because the person really gets carried away once she gets started, haha, I hope that's ok!
Well, no it's not OK, because you basically are unreliable and wasted my precious (sleep) time, and have now messed up my fucking plan and schedule. But all this is not the completely insulting and annoying part.
The insulting part is when I call another mom/official to kvetch about the total lack of respect for the seminar, my time and my efforts, this other WOtH mom tells me the following:
"I know it's annoying, but cut her some slack and accommodate her like you always end up doing with everyone, because you rock. And after all, she has a job."
And that, folks, sums up my entire point. It's okay if another mom shits all over my time and effort because she has a "job". I have to respect her, but in return, I basically get dismissed.
Do I work? Yeah, I fucking work and am on-duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (compounded by the hubby's home-based consulting business - and if you think that means he's home and therefore helping me with the kid, well... I may have another blog post for you real soon...).
I don't want to be paid for any of this.
But a little goddam respect for my fucking time and efforts would certainly be appreciated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)