EXTRA: America squirms in hopes there’s some truth to Trump tweet

President Donald J. Trump felt compelled to use his Twitter account Tuesday to inform us he thinks the partisan sides in Congress eventually will reach agreement on something resembling a health care plan for the nation.

Of course, his talk of Democrats and Republicans “eventually coming together” on the issue is so vague that I can’t say it offers any sense of relief to people who actually relied on the Affordable Care Act in recent years to be able to have something resembling health insurance.

IT ALSO DOESN’T help assure people that Trump seems more concerned that the Affordable Care Act itself is undermined in ways that will prevent it from being able to succeed. Although I’m sure the unease his actions are causing isn’t much of a concern to Trump – he probably figures we didn’t vote for him anyway.

As one of the people who relied upon the program’s assistance to be able to cover a health care plan, the whole situation makes me uncertain just what my status is.

And it’s also put me in the situation that I’m sure many hundreds of thousands of people across Illinois will now share – don’t get sick!

So here’s my New Year’s resolution to act in ways to promote good health. Not only for my physical well-being, but because my wallet could wind up feeling more ill than my body.

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How free are we to say on social media how absurd we think we all are?

It seems that President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has made heavy use of a personal Twitter account to spread word of his thoughts (which I doubt consist of anything more than 140 characters at a time), is selective of who is permitted to read him.

Recent news reports tell of people who cannot read anything posted by the account of @realDonaldTrump because he has chosen to ban then.

THIS DOES NOT seem to be an uncommon notion. I have a Facebook friend who likes to use his account to post political missives (usually along the lines of how misunderstood Trump is) who recently declared that people can’t comment on his page unless they “friend” him and how he reserves the right to delete anything he considers irrelevant to his issues.

Personally, I think that amounts to people putting way too much time and effort into their social media accounts. Or perhaps they really believe they should be taken all that seriously. Although I also understand that my friend probably has many idiots who have nothing better to do than post obscenity-laced diatribes on his site telling him how wrong he is!

I have always had a rather loose attitude toward people responding to me when I write something – largely because I have always realized that people have the right to be wrong.

I feel pity for those who don’t realize the innate sensibilities of the stances I take when I write various commentaries. Either that, or I figure I already had my say on an issue by writing the initial commentary.

WHEN IT COMES to responses published on this site, the only things I delete are those from people who insist on using profanity. I can handle the fact that 100 percent of the populace does not agree with me. I just don’t need to contribute to the spread of obscene language.

Which means I kind of feel sorry for those people who feel a need to control the level of debate they are subjected to while taking actions that are meant to provoke a reaction. What’s the fun in writing thoughtful commentary if all you’re seeking is people who agree with you?

If anything, I’m curious to see what becomes of the Twitter missives sent out by Trump – which, by the way, was the focus of a Saturday Night Live sketch this past weekend – once he gets access to the presidential account.

As in the one now used by Barack Obama and his aides to send out messages to his supporters. Will knowing that his thoughts will now be archived for posterity cause Trump to tone down his level of nastiness?

OR IS HE going to resist using the official presidential Twitter account and try to use his own personal one; on the grounds that he wants more control over the process.

Which would be very similar to the line of logic that Hillary Clinton used as secretary of state in insisting on having a personal Internet server to handle the e-mail messages she sent instead of merely using the official federal government amenities.

Ironic if Trump wound insist on committing an act very similar in intent to the one that he repeatedly claimed during the campaign that she deserved incarceration for.

In my own case, I have Facebook (www.facebook.com/gregory.tejeda) and Twitter (@tejeda_gregory) accounts – although I don’t really do as much as many people do with either. I see them as serving a self-promotional purpose – usually to make people aware of the thoughts that are being published at this weblog. Which is why I let people say what they want – I’m amazed they bothered to post at all.

IN FACT, THE Twitter account has only been in existence for not quite two months, and I have fewer than 20 people “following” me. Largely because I see the medium as so limiting that it’s not worth much of my time.

Which makes me wonder about what kind of public official have we, the people, truly elected. A twit who Tweets? And one who thinks he can restrict with the whim of a couple of computer keystrokes who is allowed to read his thoughts. Most of which are insipid enough that I haven’t bothered to want to be among the “millions” of people who follow his account.

I’d like to think I have better things to do with my time and read him. I wish more people felt the same way, and not just about Trump.

“Social” media, by-and-large, is for use by people whose social skills are so lacking that I doubt we’d ever want to encounter them in person.

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Facebook for fluff, not the news?

One of the things I did awhile back was set up this weblog so that every single commentary I post here winds up on my Facebook page.

I suspect that for many of the people who have bothered to “friend” me on Facebook, it has nothing to do with them thinking of me as a real human being. It is more that a piece of copy I wrote caught their eye – and friend-ing me is an easy way to see if I come up with something else they consider relevant or interesting, or perhaps just downright silly and stupid!

WHICH IS WHAT I have always considered Facebook to be about – allowing people to indulge themselves in the trivialities of life.

Is Rocco cute enuogh to top Selena Gomez?

Particularly those that can be passed about from "friend" to "friend." I'm pretty sure a thoughtful commentary on my part about the politically partisan nonsense being spewed by public officials in Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday will be less regarded than if I were to post a picture of the dog my father and step-mother now care for.

The story of Rocco, I’m sure, would be more interesting to the Facebook kind of people than anything more legitimate.

It is why I’m not terribly shocked by the announcement Facebook officials made on Wednesday to say they’re making changes in the programs that determine what exactly makes it into the “News Feeds” that wind up on peoples’ personal pages.

THE EMPHASIS IS going to be placed on stuff that people choose to share with each other. The stuff that larger companies, including many newsgathering organizations that think the key to readership is Facebook, will be downplayed.

On a certain level, I get it.

 

Selena tops Rauner/Madigan ...

Facebook was originally created by college students as a social network one step up from the idea of passing messages along to each other via a particular computer’s network.

It wasn’t really meant for larger companies to use as a way of distributing their messages – or in the case of newsgathering organizations as an alternative way of disseminating their product.

I DON’T DOUBT that the most hard-core of Facebook users (the kind of people who are miserable if they’re not on some sort of device that gives them their access) are probably cheering at the thought that all the “boring” stuff will get less priority.

 

... any day of the week!

More cute, fuzzy pictures of kittens or pictures of our stupid cousin Johnny and the time he was foolish enough to stick a pickle up his nose – only to find that it got stuck (and that’s just a hypothetical, my cousin Johnny never actually did that – although he has his own share of silly moments he’d rather not share).

I know in my case, one of the most popular things I posted recently on Facebook was timed for Father’s Day; as in a decades-old photograph of my father with my brother and I.

Which actually fit in with all the other paternal pictures that people felt compelled to pass about a week ago – and will probably stash away for another year until Father’s Day returns.

STASHED AWAY BECAUSE they’re now rendered obsolete by the stories about singer Selena Gomez wearing a denim bikini in pictures on her Instagram account. There’s a reason they call these things “social media;” they’re not about anything significant – just titillating!

So I can’t quite get all worked up like some people are about how Facebook is supposedly undermining the free flow of information that people might need in order to live better-informed lives. That was never their purpose.

Just like anybody who seriously watches “The Daily Show” for news and information is worthy of any ridicule we throw their way – that program is about entertainment and generating a laugh at the expense of those in public life.

And perhaps at anybody who seriously thinks they can rely on their Facebook “News Feed” to give them the “News!”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: How many people got their snoozefest, so to speak, at the reports about how newspapers across Illinois ran editorials Wednesday lambasting all state government officials for the fact that we’re about to begin Fiscal Year Two without a balanced budget for the state? Yeah, Selena’s gams were much more intriguing.