This is one of those days when the picture has nothing to do with the topics. In fact, I have two subjects that I’d like to discuss.
But first, this is a road on the back side of the Sandia Mountain Range, making it slightly northeast of Albuquerque. Often, search for a PAD meant taking day trips. I enjoyed it. I met some interesting people and ate some real New Mexican food.
Here we go.
Police shootings. While one trial was going on another police shooting occurred in Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The same city. The police department says it was a mistake. The officer meant to tase him rather than shoot and kill him.
There is the case of the active duty U.S. Army lieutenant who was stopped for a minor traffic infraction. He was gassed and handcuffed for no real reason. Later the nastier of the two cops let him go after threatening him if he spoke about it. That is becoming a civil case.
There’s more, but I haven’t read about them except for this. While responding to a complaint of excessive noise two police entered a side yard, rather than ring the doorbell, of the house where the noise was coming from. A twelve week old puppy emerged from the shadows. One cop shot and killed him.
That’s the news as I know it. I’m not going to rant and rave. I’m going to say two things.
If you are so scared while you are performing your job, you need a new safe job. How do you accidentally pull a gun when you are reaching for a taser? Fear. How do you shoot a puppy when he was just defending his turf? Fear.
I can’t really speak to what the cop was thinking when he gassed and handcuffed a soldier except to say the video should what I thought was racist cruelty. The cop didn’t look fearful. He just looked mean. Find another job.
This stuff has gotta stop. Speak out.
Social media. This too, is not a rant. Instead, it’s a discussion of things that have become painfully obvious.
Social media is, for anyone who does business, a necessary evil.
Facebook is like a telephone book. You have to be there. Twitter is useful for local groups like NOLA Twitter or for fast breaking news.
Instagram is important for visual creatives although many posters turn their posts into words.
I don’t see LinkedN or WordPress as social media, at least not in the way I do about the previous three.
What I see in the previous three social media is they lost their helpfulness.
There are way too many fights, mostly of a political nature. Everything becomes political or worthy of being cancelled. Everybody has lost their sense of humor.
Instagram has become derivative and filled with wannabe influencers looking to be seen.
What to do?
I can’t really leave them, but I don’t have to post much.
Facebook and Twitter readers see my pictures because they are distributed from Storyteller.
Whatever I post on Instagram is automatically distributed to Facebook.
I do have to “like” others work on all social media, but I don’t have to comment. After all, “liking” builds your base, not that any of my bases are very large.
In many ways, I’m just going to fade away.
STORYTELLER 
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