This blog occasionally publishes non-political stuff on the weekends.
The other day, my ladyfriend received a text message from a former roommate: "It's Christmas. I've been thinking a lot about you, and hunting"
Needless to say, this text upset my ladyfriend a great deal. "What the hell did she mean by that?" she kept asking me.
"Stop it," I said. "Let's do this old school. Call her voice. Direct confrontation."
This suggestion seemed bizarre. Nowadays, people just don't talk on the phone: It's too intimate. In the age of the ubiquitous text message, people don't actually get vocal until after they've slept together a few times, and maybe not even then. If you were born after 1985, you probably would have no problem texting a message like "I'm pregnant and I think the child is yours."
Nevertheless, I knew that the quickest way to resolve the problem was to do things the old-fashioned way. So I called up the former roommate.
She informed me that the text was accidentally sent before completion. She meant to say "...and hunting for Christmas lights."
(That was a seasonal tradition: We'd all get in the car and drive around southern California looking for the most elaborate Christmas light displays. If you are ever in the area, check out Burbank, Toluca Lake and North Hollywood, because many Hollywood technicians live in that area, and they love to put on a show. Try to be there when the Christmas Truck shows up. Very surreal.)
The misfired message from that former roommate -- who is a very sweet lady, and not someone I expected to turn into the next Zodiac killer -- led me to think about the fragile nature of digital communications.
Here is a more disturbing example: Lately I've been working on a project that requires me to draw pictures of a young girl growing up in the 19th century. (This girl.) Problem: I don't have anyone to model for me -- and even if I did, I'd be terrified to ask. So I've been looking up reference photos on Google Images.
Search terms have included such phrases as "Young girl face profile" "Two young girls sleeping" "Young girl in old fashioned nightgown" "Child looking up" "Toddler reaching out" and so forth.
Naturally, my thoughts have turned to a certain cluster of buildings in Fort Meade, less than twenty miles away. The people within these buildings make sure that we Never Search Anonymously.
Do you think that my searches have raised any alarm bells? Is there any way to explain myself to the unseen personages who might be peering over my shoulder?
Perhaps every third search could include some background information. Example: "I'm looking for reference photos of little girls because I'm illustrating a book about the childhood of a saint. Seriously. That's all. It's really very innocent. There is no need to have a couple of guys in a white van do surveillance on my home."
It's sad that we now live in a country in which everyone accepts the fact that Big Brother judges us during every second of our online existences.
Maybe this is a political post after all.
8 comments:
They don't care if you're a paedophile, if you really want their attention search "NSA bomb chemicals" or something like that. And for the lads in a certain round building in Cheltenham, that was just an example. And those videos from the Syrian civil war I was watching, just for educational purposes. And this beard, not a muslim beard. So now you can get back to failing to spot terrorists.
Yes, there are times when one might be searching for something for a creative purpose and it can sound suspicious.
I would suggest calling the local library and speaking to a local librarian. Even if they are CIA or FBI at least you get the chance to fill in the purpose.
Money is what we need to live but drop this and ask on the site for $$$.
“Do you think that my searches have raised any alarm bells? Is there any way to explain myself to the unseen personages who might be peering over my shoulder?”
About two winters ago, Mr. C., I spent some time using the internet resources through a local library. I was gathering information about missing children around the world and got side-tracked into researching child abuse cases involving satanic rituals. One evening I misplaced a memory stick that was not password protected, and of course in the spirit of complete openness I asked a desk-clerk if anyone had recently turned in a memory stick that had a substantial number of files on it involving cases of missing children who were victims of satanic ritual abuse. I should have rehearsed my delivery; the young lady looked at me in a frozen stare. I then gave her my business card and explained in more genteel terms that my research was purely academic. She was not impressed.
Currently, I am doing some research into the Jimmy Savile scandal in Great Britain and all the interrelated cases involving pedophiles, sexual abuse, satanic cults, M16 traitors and a buffet of other delicious bedtime reading subjects, so I expect that if someone is looking over my shoulder, well, at least they won’t be bored.
*****
“Lately I've been working on a project that requires me to draw pictures of a young girl growing up in the 19th century.”
You have computer-graphic art skills, so why not take a stock image copy of Syrian Girl, alter it to comply with copyright codes and give her some advanced attributes. I know she has run against your intellectual grain, and mine as well, but I keep forgiving her. I have read that the Chinese are close to doing an excellent clone of humans ( not that they need more people ) but I can see a market demand for cloned copies of Syrian Girl. All we need is a sample of her DNA. I offer a restricted apology to your female readers if they feel offended by my sexist inferences, and offer in my defense the words of Jack Nicholson in the movie Terms of Endearment: "You do bring out the devil in me, Aurora." :) j
yeah historical research, a likely story
yeah historical research, a likely story
posted by gary : 9:34 PM
:)))
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31062904
Diplomat Sir Peter Hayman 'engaged in sexual perversion'
• 30 January 2015
• From the section UK
• Sir Peter Hayman was a British diplomat who served as High Commissioner to Canada
• A top British diplomat engaged in "sexual perversion" in the 1960s and was vulnerable to blackmail by foreign powers, previously secret papers say.
• Sir Peter Hayman kept "explicit records of his sexual activities and fantasies", a file from the 1980s said.
• Some fantasies related to children, but had not been acted on, a Cabinet Office briefing to then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said.
• Hayman, who served as High Commissioner to Canada, died in 1992.
• Hayman, who also worked for MI6 and has often been described as an intelligence services "operative", was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, the security briefing said.
The file contains "lines to take" for government officials when asked questions by the media about Hayman's 1978 arrest.
One of these was that there had been "no cover-up".
'Unnatural sexual proclivities'
BBC home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds said that while much of what was contained in the file had been widely reported in the 1980s, the fact that it had been made public was significant.
*****
No cover-up in Cainada, hey; surely the Cainadian records must be available by now. :) j
You're scaring me.
Of course, my search history also includes terms like "19th century mill" "old waterwheel" "chateau fort Lourdes" "Haute-Pyrenees" and "19th century peasant costume." Perhaps these terms will provide some context, thereby insuring that no-one mistakes me for this Peter Hayman fellow.
The gun-control hysteria will motivate a massive internet data-mining effort to uncover people with undiagnosed mental disorders (who have not committed any crimes) so these people may be flagged for investigation for a potential no-guns list.
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