Anti-Social media?

Today's Tids Issue 3,762

For Gathering in Peace:

Most august media around this time have annual reviews of the best and worst and most and least. Frankly I can’t remember what I wrote in this year’s approximately 260 issues of your favorite morning mess. I guess it’s because I’m always thinking about tomorrow. You can’t live off of old successes, or regain the thrills of the smiles and thumping heartbeats of yesterday, any more than you can hope that dreams will come true just because they looked really cool when you had them. Every day is potentially a great new adventure and you just have to wake up with the intent to enjoy the hell out of it! If it doesn’t quite work out, I just stick my head in the sand and dream.

I’ll be honest with you. I think New Year’s Eve is the most underwhelming, overrated event of the year. And to make it worse they have messed up the New Year’s Day bowl games too. When everything becomes all about money like almost big events of yore have, it is a sad revelation that America is not a as great as it used to be.

Most people who knead the dough buy a lottery ticket.

61 shot, 11 killed in Chicago over Christmas, Christmas for crissake!. If there was one thing I could do in my life, it would be to find a way to bring peace to these rabid neighborhoods found in cities throughout a great country. How can it be, I ask myself? It is about money, but how could it be when so much money has been spent. The problem so deep like a cancer that can never be killed. Yet, the problem while most intense and defined in ravaged neighborhoods maybe broader than that. There are just too many other isolated incidents where respect for human life seems like hating of the past. What is changing minds so intensely that basic understanding of others is not simply declining, but has become a call to anger and aggression? “61 shot” is just the most egregious manifestation. What is silently growing within is the question?

“There’s a Greylag in East Providence!” Say what! This is the call that brought people from all corners of the country to spots overlooking the upper Narragansett Bay…looking for a Goose. (One guy driving by these new invading hordes thought it was him – he was a man of Algonquin heritage whose tribal name was “Goose”.) He joined in the excitement anyhow after learning that the prize was this Greylag Goose, and one of the rarest sightings in the world of USA birders! And it was spotted here, up the road. So, when people gather together with burning tenacity, sometimes it’s just to congregate quietly together and inhale the beauty of nature… and say aaaaah…well I’ll be damned!

The Question:

Who was Elizabeth Jordan Carr and what is she doing today? Bonus: Who wrote Watership Down?

The Headlines:

--Pending Home Sales Fall In November; Delta Cancels $4 Billion 18 Dreamliner Order With Boeing; Stocks Lower As Dollar rises Oil Falls.

--Mighty Storm Fortis Baring Down On New England; Nor’easter Expected To Be Fierce With Most Snow Inland.

--WH Denies That Kerry Plotted With Palestinians Before UN Vote; Kery Delivering Speech Calling For Two Nation Solution.

--US Led Coalition Destroys Last Functioning Bridge In Mosul; Considered Huge Defeat For ISIS.

--Mall Disruptions Continue For Second Day; 200 Descending On Philly Mall Organized On Snapchat.

--Trump Tweets: Offers Israel Support Ahead Of Kerry Mid-East Speech; Accuses Obama Of Putting Roadblocks To Smooth Transition.

--US Appeals Court Says US Agencies Should Have Done More To Recover Her Missing Emails.

--Tributes Praising Carrie Fisher for her Wit.

--George Michael Estate Huge.

--Series Of Earthquakes Hit Cal/Nev Border

Social Media shows it‘s nasty side again in a succession of Mall violence rampages. What goes with juveniles who think it is fun to disrupt the lives of people shopping and business owners trying to earn a buck. Who initiated these social media calls for wanton destruction and looting? I hear of wars, and I shrug knowing that they have been with us since the beginning of time. But, I don’t get kids and young adults living together destroying each other is things. Is a new kind of fun? Is there a message? Are they tired of virtual destruction and killings on computer games and they want to test true reality? I used to things like spontaneous mob violence happened elsewhere, not here in Civilized America.

It appears that 400,000 Americans have retired outside of America. That is a jump of 17% between 20101 and 2015. The main reason seems to be, as in most cases of anything, financially based, Pope with Social Security as a main element of income find it much more reasonable in places like Mexico and Central America. But, the places most frequently chosen are Canada, Japan, Germany and the UK. There are lower costs in some aspects of living they say, but they like the adventure most. “Rosetta Stone” likes it too.

You are not alone, Department:

The latest thing we humans have to worry about is that “Alexa is always listening.”

The new Speaker of the House for Maine’s State legislature is a Rhode Island Native. I think that beautiful state is in trouble.

The Obama admin did a lot for Black celebrities, but for the inner cities it appears, not so much.

You gotta feel good about living in an area that can still report news like “…owner operated an illegal stump dump off Skunk Hill Road.” Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it.

The Answer:

Elizabeth Jordan Carr was America’s first “test tube” baby, the result of doctors Howard and Georgeanna Seegar Jons’ work on in-vitro fertilization at The Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk. Elizabeth, now married to David Comeau, had a child naturally in 2010. Elizabeth has had a very successful career in Journalism beginning with Central Maine Newspapers (Portland Magazine named her one of Maines most intriguing People) and then to The Boston Globe. Bonus: Richard Adams who wrote this children’s classic, died yesterday.

Tomorrow, The Tids staff will have fully awakened from the Holiday doldrums and will have the column zinging again! Be prepared.

Oops, I made an error. The previous Tids you received a few hours earlier should have been dated 12/27