In both reading and writing, I’ve been neglecting blogs and RSS in favor of Twitter and, to a much lesser degree, Facebook. I’ll try to find the right balance but you folks that don’t post anything anywhere, change that.
There are friends of yours that want to connect with you, that are interested in what you’re interested in, and these tools are an unprecedented means of, not just personal broadcasting/publishing, but connecting and communicating and fellowship.
Just thought I’d get that off my chest.
“Can’t we English-speakers just agree upon a gender-neutral pronoun?” attorney Paul Easton recently Twittered. “Tired of PC grammar gymnastics.” Easton isn’t alone. There have been at least 18 recent tweets about the fact that English has no grammatically correct substitutes for words like “he,” “him,” and “his” that do not have a gender implied. Consider the sentence “Everyone loves his mother.” The word “his” may be seen as both sexist and inaccurate, but replacing it with “his or her” seems cumbersome, and “their” is grammatically incorrect.”
On Twitter, is it ‘he or she’ or ‘they’ or ‘ip’? - CNN.com
I agree that this is a problem. Can’t we just fix this by agreeing that “their” should be acceptable grammar? Everyone uses it this way already.
On a cool, personal note, this article quotes a friend:
While everyone knows that “men at work” means “people working,” studies have shown that gendered words do make a difference in how we perceive things, said Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, assistant professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University.
“If you ask children to draw ‘cavemen,’ they do draw cave men,” she said.
(via jeffmiller)
Actually, this is Texas Congressman John Culberson on Thomas Jefferson on Twitter. He posted this in a long series ON Twitter (which he says he won’t do again but I’m glad he did) so it’s broken up but I’ve cleaned it up some while maintaining links to the original posts.
johnculberson:
[M]y long term goal - a real time totally transparent federal/state/local gov’t where We the People see & hear all [1]. My true goal w social media is to realize Thomas Jefferson’s dream - this will take several tweets to quote it all but I hope you read it: [2] Today w new media We the People can achieve Mr. Jefferson’s lifelong dream for America. He explains in his ltr to Jos Cabell, Jan. 24, 1816: [3]
“…the way to have good & safe gov’t, is to divide it among the many..until it ends in the administration of every man’s farm by himself… [4] Let national gov’t be entrusted w defense & foreign & fed relations, State gov’ts w civil law, police, & admin of what concerns the State [5] …the counties w local concerns, & each ward direct interests within itself…until it ends in the admin of every man’s farm by himself. [6] [T]he secret [to true freedom] will be found in making [each American] the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent [7]. Where everyman is a sharer in the direction of his ward republic, or of some of the higher ones, & FEELS THAT HE IS A PARTICIPANT… [emph added] [8] …in the gov’t of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who [9] will not be a member of some of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his chest sooner than his power. [10] be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte….fortify us against the degeneracy of our gov’t & the concentration of all its powers…” [11]”
No matter what your politics are - I hope you follow me here bcz we share a passion to be a “participator in the gov’t of [our] affairs…” [12] And bcz you share my passion to make gov’t truly transparent & elected officials totally accountable bcz we know exactly what they r doing [13].
This is why none of the old media skeptics or lib critics of my Twitters faze me - old media will soon be absorbed like San Fran Chron was [14]. I am a totally committed Jeffersonian & I am absolutely convinced new media opens the door for every American to achieve true freedom TJ saw [15]. Only now w new media can every Amer “feel that he is a participator in the gov’t of affairs EVERY DAY [so he will never let] his power b wrested fr him” [16].
These core principles & goals that Th Jefferson dreamed about for Americans are my core principles & this is why I am so passionate about new media [17]. I hope you read his letter to Joseph Cabell: here is the key part: http://tinyurl.com/d426hz [18] I have already typed far more than I intended - Good night all! [19]
I’ve been pondering this post for a few days but now it’s official. Now that Martha Stewart has joined Twitter, if you haven’t secured your username yet, you better hurry up and grab it. It’s going to spread and even if you don’t want to use it now there will come a time that you do want to and if you haven’t gotten your name already it will be gone. There’s been a dramatic increase in the buzz and adoption of Twitter just in the last few weeks (based on my own anecdotal observations).
It’s already been happening with Facebook and I think the same thing is going to happen with Google but that’s a little farther out (but when it happens it will happen fast so you should go ahead and grab a Gmail account too—those are already hard to find a good name for but put some time into picking one you can live with—I’m not kidding—for the rest of your life).
“Very important to pass budget ASAP - legislature tired, spent nights here, but we’re still 1 vote short.”
schwarzenegger
Cool to see Schwarzenegger starting to actually use Twitter. He (his staff) pretty much just live-blogged his press conference.
Via 
