Friday, March 21, 2014

Twitter Is Blocked in Turkey

....and the people have flipped a big old electronic bird to the oppressor by simply sliding around that block.  I want to stand up and cheer.  The images I see of people spray-painting the DNS numbers to skate around the government ban over Erdogan's own political posters fill me with the same satisfaction all those portraits of Ataturk flying on red backgrounds and plastered accusingly on the walls opposite the presidential residence did when we were last year.

Turkey is so dear to me after the Ottomans course and the travel that went with it.  The people who live in that wonderful place deserve better than their leader is giving them.  What a tremendously condescending insult to think that he has the right to shut them off from the electronic world.  What a tremendously arrogant stance to pretend he has that kind of power.  I keep thinking we're about to have a "V" moment there, and the results will be shown to us by the Instagram feeds, YouTube videos, and tweets of the people who will rebuild what he's tried to tear down and repress.

I want to applaud Twitter and Google, too, for standing up to a world leader who is trying to hide his own sins by denying his people freedom and access.  He's literally trying to cover not only his own eyes with dirty hands but also the eyes of the whole world like a petulant child who cannot get his way.  It heartens me to see them standing up, providing backdoors and work-arounds instead of folding their hands and waiting passively for someone else to do something.

I'm not much of a revolutionary.  I hate politics passionately.  It just makes me furious when I see such a vibrant nation under the heel of such a massive hubris-filled jackass.  So by all means, let's #occupytwitter since #twitterisblockedinturkey.

The Android Life

A little over a month ago, I decided it was time to upgrade my iPhone.  I had been debating whether or not I might want to change from iOS to Android for a long time, doing research and asking people who had the other platform for insights.  It was the day before my birthday when I finally found the time to walk into my local phone store, and as the tech-laden greeter came up to put my name on the waiting list for service, I still didn't know which phone I would walk out with.

One of the good things about the phone store always being so busy is that it gave me more than enough time to walk around and look at all the different models.  I started with the iPhones.  They were comfortable and familiar.  It looked great, and I knew immediately that it would be pleasant to use.

Then I strolled over to the Androids.

I've been using one of the Galaxy tablets from school to set up activities and hunt for apps my students might be able to use on the big class set, so for the first time, the Android devices felt familiar.  I started looking at the specs on memory and other aspects, and I realized that I could put in large memory card and have three times more space than the iPhone I'd been looking at, and the phone, the SD card, and the Otterbox all together would still be less expensive.

That sort of decided me.  Yes, my iPhones have always been tremendously good to me.  They've done hardcore duty all over the globe without batting even the tiniest eyelash.  Standing in that store, though, I couldn't justify spending more money for what was going to be less phone that I really needed. 

As I picked up the devices, the Android also felt good in my hand.  True, it was much larger than the iPhone resting in my jacket.  I had worries that it would be cumbersome to keep up with, too big to slip into a pants pocket.  The more I held it, though, the more I liked the way it filled my palm, the way the screen size increased because of it.

When my name was finally called and the sales associate finally came to ask me what I wanted, I knew I wanted one of the Samsung Galaxy models.  After a brief conversation with him, I settled on the GS4.  He took it over to the service desk, did that magic that they do, and thirty minutes later, I was headed out into the darkness of a February night with it clipped to my beltloops in a Defender holster.

It seems like a small thing, the addition of a new device to my life, but it has actually had a number of really rather profound changes on me.  The first came when I noticed the preloaded Samsung S-Health step counter widget.  I dragged it onto one of my screens out of curiosity, and slowly, I became more and more interested in watching the numbers go up.  I found myself taking extra trips down to the office and the mail room just to get a little more exercise.  This led to my buying a Fitbit Flex, and now I'm tracking movement and calories, and I've lost six pounds.  

I've also sort of rediscovered what a smartphone is all about.  I had gotten into a tremendous rut, it seems, with my apps and my habits.  I didn't get all the same apps I used to have when I was reloading this new phone, and some of the ones I kept work for me now in a totally different way.  Since Android is intimately welded to Google and since I am such a tremendous user of Google stuff, things I do all the time have become much easier.  

When I walked out of the store that night before my birthday, I admit I still had doubts.  It's hard to believe that now.  I know some people have horrible experiences with Android devices and flee back to iPhone as soon as they are able, but I have to say, I don't think that will be me.  This change has been totally for the better.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Prufrockianism and Other Poetic Clap-Trap

I haven't written in a long time because I haven't been able to bring myself to it.  I think about this space, and I think about the need to put words down to clear out my head, but for reasons I cannot look at clearly except out of the corners of my eyes, I always find other things to occupy my time.

And mostly, I've been happy.  There have been moments, but mostly, I've been trying to be happy and healthy and content.

It doesn't always work that way, though.

The nightmares are back lately.  Maybe it's the change of seasons or the phase of the moon.  I don't know.  I just wake up feeling old and tired, sick and sad.  It doesn't matter if I've slept for eight hours or three.

Tonight, I acutely feel my losses, all of them.  I feel the absence of people I lost or who threw me away.  I feel all the bumps and stones under my feet on this road less traveled, and I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to have taken the other damn one.  I feel the impact of every sling and arrow.

I create horrible, maudlin pastiches of literature, too, apparently....

Leaving all the greats alone, then, I find myself slipping a finger across the glossy screen of my cellphone, and images of Istanbul and Brazil flicker past.  I stop on a view of the Ayasofia at sunset, and I keep feeling like if I could just get there, just hear the call to prayer floating again, I could be okay somehow.  That distance and that certain slant of light could somehow combine into something strong enough to hold all the pieces together.

Would that really soothe this saudade, this painful/beautiful longing in my heart?  I don't know. Maybe it's just an illusion.  The wise say that travel gets us nothing but what we took there with in the first place anyway, don't they?  And maybe tomorrow will be an optimist's dream, filled with peace, progress, and plenty.  Maybe the sun really will come out.  Maybe all the mermaids really will sing.

I keep having those Prufrockian moments, though, and I have to say that I am pretty sure they won't be singing to me.

And now, having danced clumsily through Shakespeare, Brazilian Portuguese, Eliot, Frost, and popular musical theater, I think it's time to face whatever face whatever comes to see me in my dreams tonight has picked out of its prop closet.

Good night.