Words Of Wisdom From Big D

Morrey family farm and acreage (1974-2016). The last fire. Paraphrased words of wisdom from Big D. Wise words from Big D from acreage fires and meetings here in my condominium in the loft, over the years:  'Don't settle.', 'North America is too influenced by pop culture.', 'No one does improvisation like Rush.', 'Go digging in the right garden.', 'No one can have true peace outside of knowing the true God and Jesus Christ.', 'You are built like the kingpin.', 'Be careful in taking advice from Focus on the Family as they are pretty fundamentalistic.', 'I would hate to be one of those phony faith-healing, televangelists on judgement day.', 'You have a first-class PhD from Wales and God has a purpose for your life.', 'Don't take advice from those that do not know you that well and do not care about you much.', 'As much as I have a union job and am aware of corporate abuses, I still vote conservative.'

The as of noon today, former extended family home of my legendary friend Big D aka Mr. Bobby Buff. Although I have rightly satirically teased him over the years, he is one of my best and most loyal friends. He also has a wonderful family that was willing to host me and others at their property. I was hosted there since 1989 with kindness and love. Is that supposed to be an effigy of Chuck or something, you know, with his Mennonite Brethren heritage?  Nothing to do with me.

Notice to the far right, a right fist trying to 'Kung Fu', 'Karate' that burning board in half. Again, it was not me, not my style.  

The perhaps from 1974 chair of 'The Don' aka 'Honky Tonk Don', father of Big D. Don 'had a few' and stated that if I did not visit him at his new place, closer to my condominium, he would beat the sh** out of me. I love you too, Don, even though your haircut is from 1955.

That looks pretty violent. A millennial was at work.

Cousin Buff was kind enough to offer to host future family and friend fires. When I initially walked on site in the darkness of night, I am glad his German-Shepherd-Lab did not try to kill me. Food and love was on her mind. I at first had flashbacks to corporate security work and my old buddy and K-9 security officer Duke that is definitely not a team player.

Facebook & Harassment

Google+

As Facebook did not provide a Facebook group site block option, I reported a Facebook group site for harassment and received the reply today below from Facebook. I would have preferred a block site option.

Reporting the site was the reasonable option provided to me by Facebook and I then blocked the individual profiles of those within the group I reasoned were responsible as Administrators.

Cited:

‘Thanks for your feedback 

Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards.

Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the group you reported for harassment and found it doesn't violate our Community Standards. Please let us know if you see anything else that concerns you. 

If you want us to look at something specific in a group, be sure to report the content (ex: photo), not the entire group. 

We want to keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone.’

End Citation:

Thank you, Facebook, for the reply.

This should be a concern to Facebook, however.

A Facebook friend request was made to me. Soon, I could see from the profile that this person was Islamic.

Fair enough, I am Christian and have a Religious Studies and Philosophy PhD; I am willing to be friends with those of other worldviews and one may wish discuss worldview issues with me at some time because of my education, understandably.

This person may be one of the site Administrators, from the reported site in question. But I was then without permission added to this Islamic Facebook group in question and I soon quit the group (that I never willingly joined).

It became clear I was in this group when in the middle of the night, while I was in bed, my mobile phone had alerted me audibly with messages posted from the group in Arabic. I was then soon added again without permission, and quit the group once again. So, I then blocked both persons that appeared to be site Administrators and filed this complaint and report with Facebook.

I would prefer to talk things out with a person or persons when there are disputes on Facebook and online, but I am not going to be persuaded of religious or philosophical views by being forced or coerced onto a website.

Warmest Regards

Russ Murray

Facebook Loosely Defined Acquaintances?

Facebook Loosely Defined Acquaintances?

The new URL for my other blog, my original blog. The URL now more closely matched to blog title.

Blogger offers no redirect function, sadly.

drrnm.blogspot.com

Business Insider January 28 2016

Cited

'In the early '90s, anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed that a human being has the capacity to have up to 150 meaningful relationships. Recently, Dunbar did a study of human interaction on Facebook and found that number to be much lower. We only have 4 real friends, and 14 that care at all. 

Produced by Joe Avella'

End Citations

Philosophically, I have viewed online work and contacts as a means to an end and not an end.

My various Blogger, Google+ and Facebook sites exist primarily for career, ministry and personal reasons, but if I was to make a significant contact online, there would be a significant mutual interest to possibly have offline contact if circumstances allowed.

In other words, hypothetically at least, someone online would be worth potentially contacting offline.

Online social networking for the sake of online social networking in itself has very limited value for myself.

I, of course use online blogging as a media to publicly present my academic work, which includes the potential of public critique.

Social networking sites also provide entertainment and have some educational value.

Via one of my You Tube subscriptions, I was recently watching a very professional online female relationship coach from Europe that stated (paraphrased) home-produced 'selfie' profile photos made a man look like he sits at home all the time with no social life.

She noted that it was better to use a profile photo from a social setting.

On one hand, I can see this reasonable psychology.

My Conwy, Castle photograph with my English friend, Simon, is a very good profile photo for me to use on Facebook, as even though it is a few years old it shows me in a social setting.

And I basically look pretty much the same...thankfully. Slightly older with a little more muscle mass.

On the other hand, frankly, as I have stated in different articles on this site, I am not interested in sharing my social life online in great detail.

I have been to a combination of Europe and the British Isles approximately eight times, including living in England for almost two years, but I have chosen to share very few of my actual photographs.

I have visited the United States several times.

Instead, I share professional photos from sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Trekearth.

Many of these are of Europe.

Intellectually, it should not be concluded I have no interest in visiting Europe or that I have no interest in world travel because I do not share many of my own photos.

In the same way, it should not be concluded that I do not like to attend parties because I do not share many party photos online.

Should I use social events to promote myself for 'loosely defined acquaintances' that are on the fence on whether to contact me in faith, and perhaps get to know me better?

Since most of our online contacts are 'loosely defined acquaintances' there is very little commitment to being a Facebook 'Friend' or Google+ "Friend'.

If someone wants to find out more about me, there are many social media options available as opposed to making deductions about me from the sort of profile photos presented!

I think what can be deduced from social media and my profile photos is that I work a lot and share the occasional 'selfie' taken while I am online.

I listen to sermons from SearchLight Ministries and Pastor Jon Courson, online, and a true thing he states (paraphrased) is that social media sites such as Facebook do not present reality but often show people trying to make their lives look better and more exciting than they are in reality.

They are as phoney as my bodybuilder friend Bobby Buff in the 1990s, as he denied at the time he was showing off his muscles to the women at Columbia Bible College, wearing his angelic white muscle shirts.

Only to finally admit that this was the truth, decades later.

As I have noted theologically, persons are finite and sinful (Ephesians, Romans as examples).

Placing too much trust in limited knowledge, social deductions from social media is a danger of the present times.

Within modern psychology in the context of career job facilitators and corporate headhunters, they stress the need to make personal offline social contacts in all areas of life.

It is acceptable that these offline contacts originate as online ones.

I heard it stated recently (paraphrased) that no matter how good your intellectual arguments are you will not convince someone until you get to their emotions.

There is much truth to that in many cases (although in an academic context less so) and that is a reason for in-person intellectual and emotional, offline contacts in the contexts of career, ministry and personal.

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