Questionable Interior Design

Picture a beachside condo: mere feet from high tide's sapphire waters, it is separated from the deep by a stripe of white sand, foam-crested waves lapping onto it with a soothing swishing sound. Birds cry as they fly by, fish occasionally breach the ocean's surface, and cottony clouds drift by lazily in the expansive heavens. Relaxing in the living room after a long day with a wall-sized window through which to view it all, doesn't it make for a beautiful feeling? Nature's awe-inspiring wonder makes one feel at peace and assures that even in the midst of chaos and unpredictability, the world is indeed a wonderful place.

Now picture the window: it is shaded by a black velvet overhang on top, draped on a three-inch thick brass rod by large, chrome rings. The rod hangs slightly askew, the left side a few inches lower than the other due to a combination of bad planning and shoddy materials - the shafts of the nails and screws meant to hold the bracket are clearly visible as gravity has proved the stronger force. On either side hang sheer curtains of divergent colors: the left is striped in varying shades of blue with golden stitching forming an irregular, inconsistent pattern, as though hand-sewn by an apprentice tailor at 3am after a night at the bar. The right curtain is a spectrum, ranging from the deepest crimson to a pale pink; it has the same erratic, unintelligible stitching patterns crisscrossing through its mostly-opaque panel as its comrade on the opposite side.

Behind the thin curtains on both sides, tenuously suspended by a length of sagging fishing line, hang two thick, brown blankets. Though presumably meant as blackout curtains, their density is insufficient to completely block out the outside light, as they give a slight glow when hit by the sun. When drawn with the main curtains, the combined bulk and color bunch up together and turn the slightly-transparent curtains a stomach-turning shade of vomit when drawn together and combined with the outside light.

The media coverage of the Tucson shooting of Congresswoman Giffords is this window. The reprehensible partisan blame-game and name-calling has shielded from view the real, inspiring story. The major talking points have revolved around who is ideologically at fault:

"Obviously the right's lax stance on gun control laws are to blame here - how else would a lunatic have gotten ahold of a weapon?"

"No, of course not - if gun laws weren't so tight to begin with, another responsibly-armed citizen might have stopped the gunman with a 50-cent bullet and saved the taxpayers a lot of money."

"You're both wrong - it's obviously Sarah Palin's fault. Her violent rhetoric and blood libel against the left planted the idea."

"B . . . but . . . Obama! Death panels!"

"I blame Bush! Assault weapons!"

Look, my point is this: out of all the current events that either side could have picked to politicize, this tragedy is probably the most inappropriate one possible. The negativity and vitriol being slung back and forth in our major media outlets is nothing short of appalling. Yes, the event is unspeakably tragic - many people lost their lives and even more were hurt, but exchanging accusations and insults as to who is at fault will do absolutely nothing to remedy the issue. The man at fault has been arrested and his motives are as yet unknown. The fault lies with him - Jared Loughner - not with the left's politics nor the right's. Let us lay blame on the perpetrator and leave the rest to the judicial system without demonizing any outside forces, regardless of the tact or logic they may or may not possess.

Therefore, why not pull the curtains back - or better yet, take them out of the picture altogether? The magnificent view through the window is Congresswoman Giffords' recovery - despite being shot in the head, her progress has been nothing short of miraculous. She will be transferred to a rehab facility in Texas very soon, and her doctors seem optimistic about her chances (Link).

Is it too much too ask for someone with the appropriate stroke within the media to take the high road on this one and ignore those who insist upon trudging through negativity's gutter? We, the public, deserve better, and more importantly, Congresswoman Giffords and the rest of the victims deserve better.

Facebook Facepalm

I discovered today that Facebook has a new security feature in place that kicks in when you log in from an unknown computer. Cool enough, I say - my bank has the same feature in place, and given the rampant rise of identity theft and the abuse of other people's personal information in this ever-more-technological day and age, I think that it's a good step overall. The last thing I want, after all, is for someone with a tiny social circle and a large bank of spare time to send out funny kitty video viruses and Viagra ads through my Facebook profile.

Interesting side note: for some reason, my phone knows that the "V" in "Viagra" is supposed to be capitalized and corrected me when I failed to do so. I'm not entirely sure what that says about what Apple thinks of its user base given that they clearly thought to include that in the iOS autocorrection data bank. Perhaps they expect me to start talking to my reflection in building windows or to buy a classic muscle car.

In any case, Facebook did not seem to think things all the way through when they designed their system and their methods of accountholder identification. The first step is a bot-thwarting "Captcha," wherein you identify a pair of words in an image to ascertain your humanity, as opposed to a spam-machine. I'm not entirely sure how the technology works, but it generates random words into an image that a computer program supposedly cannot read, thereby preventing spammers from creating dummy accounts by the truckload and flooding our Walls with flotsam. If you're still not sure what they are, they usually look like this:


Sometimes they look like this:


And sometimes they look like this:


Googling "CAPTCHA fail" brings other amusing examples.

The second step in the re-Facebooking process is a multiple choice option of email/text verification, security questions, or a Facebook original: Identify Your Friends. This last option brings up a few friends' profile pictures and asks that you identify them out of six choices. Easy enough, right - if you're really you, you should know who [insert your name here]'s friends are. All would be fine and dandy were it not for a few annoying Facebook trends with which you, dear reader, may be familiar or even guilty of participation.

When I logged in via a work computer today, this is what I was presented with:


For the sake of reiteration, Facebook is asking me to identify which of my friends these are. Based on their profile pictures.

::Ahem::

Why So Serious?

I initially tried to express my thoughts on this into a Facebook status update, but I found myself too verbose. Facebook wouldn't take it, but I want to make sure to post it:

I am absolutely in awe of The Daily Show's writing staff after having watched the opening segment on Monday's episode. In the wake of Saturday's senseless tragedy in Tucson, theirs was a stunning and well-spoken response to both the tragedy and the shameless finger-pointing from punditry that has emerged. The ridiculous amount of partisan hackery and attempts by one side to blame the other for the actions of a near-certifiable nutcase have been nothing short of sickening and so far, The Daily Show and Colbert Report have been the only ones to refuse to engage in such lunacy.

What does it say when a comedy network is left to be the voice of reason in mass media? What happened to integrity and civility in journalism and politics? I am glad someone fills that role, but it seems absurd that the duty of calling for sanity and decorum be left to the programs whose original - and yet, still continuing - mission is to ridicule, mock, and satirize.

When the jester can no longer mock, something is surely amiss in the kingdom.