Do You Use Twitter?

I started using Twitter about a couple years ago but at first I couldn’t get used to it because the people I connected with were not on it. I have now found ways to use Twitter that suits my liking.

I heard that Twitter will soon replace Facebook as the favored social media platform. The report said most FB posts were usually less than 140 characters, so the limitation of Twitter was no longer a barrier. I can see the counterargument because Twitter does not have a way to separate the thousands of tweets from strangers and still be effective. I may be wrong about that.

I have a little bit over 400 followers (that’s extremely low) but I only know about 10 of them. I’m not really trying to get a huge following because that’s just more tweets I have to sift through to read something interesting. Yesterday,I commented about my dislike of what Joe Scarborough said on “Morning Joe.” In less than a minute, my iPhone starting alerting me of tweets and emails I was receiving. I received 14 emails in about 30 seconds agreeing with my thoughts and many retweeted my tweet.  That’s the first time that has ever happened, and it was my biggest day as far as new people following me.  It caused my wife to say” what the hell is wrong with your phone.”

I’ve been impressed with Twitter because of its ability to provide the real-time information. For instance, last night I found out who had won the Virginia governor’s race about 3 minutes before Fox News announced it. The other two cable channels provided that information about 20 to 30 minutes later. That’s important if you’re getting sleepy. I was really impressed during the three presidential debates of 2012 by the instant fact checking responses to a candidate’s answer by random tweeters. My wife uses Twitter to keep up with the latest gossip from the TV shows she watches. She just has to keep with her soap stars.

I’m not that knowledgeable about FB but I understand that it’s easy to partition off sections to family, friends and business associates. I haven’t seen where Twitter can do that.

I can see where blogging will lost its luster to Facebook unless you have a huge following. I guess a lot of people would rather discuss their issues with like- minded friends rather than defend them against people they don’t know. That’s where all the friending and unfriending comes in.

Then again, there are those who will use all the different social media formats in their own unique way. They will use Pinterest to get the latest holiday recipe, Facebook to keep up with the relatives and friends, and Twitter to see what the rest of the nation is thinking.

Twitter To The Rescue

I exploded this morning when I heard Joe Scarborough ask Politico’s Mike Allen what was wrong with showing a picture ID before voting. Mike Allen had that scared look on his face because he knew that he was in the middle of a partisan political statement. Joe Scarborough went on a rant saying that liberal columnists have tagged the governors of Texas and North Carolina as racist just for requiring a picture ID. He said that the writers tactically put a white hood over those governors. Mike Allen tried to say that they were other issues, but Joe would have none of it because he wanted someone to tell them what was wrong with a picture ID. His co- host Mika Brzezinski agreed with Joe saying that he had a legitimate complaint.

About 30 minutes passed when the director on the show informed Joe Scarborough that he had received several tweets condemning Joe for misrepresenting the voter ID issue. If Joe Scarborough had read the New York Times article, (and I suspect he did), then he knew he intentionally left out the facts that made this new law controversial. He didn’t mention early voting had been lessened, certain types of picture IDs were no longer accepted, the hardships that came with the new requirements (especially democratic voters) voter fraud is almost non-existent, and most of the fraud comes from mail in ballots(a GOP favorite way of voting) which do not require a voter picture ID. Joe Scarborough sheepishly said perhaps there’s more to this but it doesn’t excuse is the obvious attempt to get away with something that wasn’t true. Some might have called those governors racists; I don’t know, but it’s obvious that they are going after minorities who usually vote for Democrats. I think it’s political because given a chance, the Democrats would gerrymander the districts to their wants but there’s not much else they could do to suppress GOP votes.

Joe Scarborough tried to make the same point about the Texas ban on abortion after 20 weeks not too long ago. He intentionally left out the closing of the Planned Parenthood clinics. That particular morning he was surrounded by Democrats, so he didn’t get away with his tactic of emphasizing what he thought was reasonable and ignoring the real intent of the controversial law.

We are getting closer to the day when using television as a means to instantly spread falsehoods will be difficult because I vision a crawler at the bottom of the screen being used as an instant fact checker.Twitter can serve that purpose but it hasn't been incorporated yet. Then again,the RNC is using Twitter to jam the server with anti-Obamacare articles.


Tomorrow’s blog might be my last for a while because I’m going to have rotator-cuff surgery Wednesday. My left arm will be a sling for six weeks, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ve used voice-recognition software before so not being able to use my left hand for typing shouldn’t be that much of a hindrance. I will probably have to use my iPad, so I won’t have all the tools for desktop publishing, so I’ll limit myself to short blogs. Writing will be therapy because I’m certainly not going to sit around and watch television all day long. If you’ve had rotator-cuff surgery or know someone that has, please share that experience because even though it’s day surgery, I’m not looking forward to the pain and misery afterwards.

I’ve read BigJ’s blog where he agreed with a poster that placed the blame of our education woes entirely on liberals. I’ll probably use that topic as the next subject matter for one of my next blogs. I did a little research into the subject but all I could find was that conservatives don’t like the all- out support liberals give to public education. I did read some blogs at the National Review that blame the liberals for our education downfall, but it all had to do with social issues. I’ll have plenty of time to research this matter.