Information Wars: Power or Danger

 

I got a frantic phone call from College Boy while he was at work the other afternoon. 

"Mom," he said, "quick, can you get onto FB and delete my account?"

Delete his account? "Why?" I asked him. "Please, I can't talk, I'm at work and I need it deleted."

"Just tell me, are you safe?" "Yes," he told me. "And have you done something wrong, are you in trouble?" "No," he assured me, "I just don't want any pictures of me on social media. I'll talk to you later."

Let me just take a step back here and say this:

Information is power.

And information is dangerous.

In this country, we have blurred those lines, and every day I see another frightening situation that proves my point.

Many states have decided that in order to have a book approved for their schools' curriculum, history, our country's past, must either be denied or rewritten. Politicians are using their power to deny students information. I wrote about this in my post Woke Up, about how I believe that blocking information from students, squashing critical thinking, will ultimately be to the detriment of our future. If we are going to have breakthroughs, in all industries, information, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all needs to be disseminated. Information, in the form of educating honestly, is power.

And power over information is dangerous.

When it comes to information itself being dangerous, I've talked about this before, we are tracked, spied on, made marketing targets without any ability to limit the personal information collected. It is not only creepy, but an affront to our ability to feel safe, to feel that our identity is safe, to feel that we can even discuss family issues with our children via phone or text. How can I feel that my identity is safe when companies I've never heard of send me birthday wishes? They know my name, my address, my email, my birth date. I am impotent, naked, unable to control what strangers know about me.

What I put out there myself, like on this blog, the recipes I share, the stories I share, that is, and should be my choice.

Strawberry Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

But the rest of it, the personal information I do not put out for public consumption, should be controlled by me. Only me. 

More than that, a dangerous step further than that, is that not only do marketers have access to our personal information, but they don't just market us personally based on it. They are reckless with it, sell it, put it out there for others to find.

I did get into my son's FB account and deleted it for him. And then I waited anxiously for him to come over and explain why he wanted pictures of himself off of social media.

Besides a day job, College Boy engages in his first love, music. He buys and sells albums. I'll often hear old jazz or blues coming from his room, but the rare and limited edition records he buys and sells are mostly Hip Hop and Rap. He's extremely well informed on the history of the genre, and is engaged in the community, on Discord and other social media platforms where they share information, availability, purchases and sales. He'll stay up late, wake up early, sometimes even set me up on a laptop when there's going to be a limited edition drop.

Recently, he'd been able to buy a rare bundle, which he shared with his groups. In one group, some people offered College Boy a very lot of money to rip (copy) the album for them. He refused, it's not only illegal, but unfair to the artist.

One guy was very, very angry. When my son heard of a business that had a copy, he reached out to this guy. He didn't know if it would be for sale or not, but he wanted to just mention it. The guy responded by telling College Boy to "piss off." When College Boy said he was just trying to help, the guy's response was rude, borderline threatening. The guy then immediately changed his profile picture.

To a picture of my house.

I don't know how dangerous this guy may or may not be. I do know that he was able to go onto Google and find a picture of our home. And use it as a veiled threat.

Information can be power. And Information can be danger. We as a society need to identify which is which. But when it comes to personal information we, as citizens, should have a voice in setting the parameters for ourselves. We must have the right to protect our own privacy. And in some cases, even possibly ensure our own safety.

Strawberry Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (makes about 3 dz large cookies):
1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 strawberries, hulled and chopped

6 strawberry cream cookies, chopped

2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

*Cream the butter, margarine, and both sugars. Once smooth, beat in the eggs.

*Starting on the lowest speed until incorporated, beat in the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

*Press the chopped strawberries between paper towels to remove some of the moisture.

*Mix in the cookie pieces, dark chocolate chips, and strawberries into the dough. 

*Drop the dough, by rounded tablespoons, onto the baking sheets. Leave lots of room, they spread.

*Bake for 12 - 13 minutes, until browned, then leave on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes before removing them to cool completely.

Woke Up

 

You're familiar, I'm sure, with the saying "you don't know what you don't know." Well, I'm proof. It's actually kind of embarrassing to admit it, but I didn't know. The simple truth of a family in which I was a member, one of the inner circle, nestled and nurtured in its cocoon.

But I didn't know. And in some ways, the truth set me free. Opened my eyes.

I was maybe 5 years old. Relatives were over for a cookout, and while the adults were in the house doing adult things, I playing outside our house with Susan. Susan lived across the street, she knew a lot of my extended family, as I did hers.

At some point, the front door opened and Susan looked over.

Susan: Hi, Mrs. P.

Me: Mrs. P? 

Susan: Yeah, your grandmother's at the front door.

Me: That's not my grandmother, that's Aunt Rose.

Susan: Are they twins?

Me (laughing): No, they're it twins, they don't look anything alike.

Later in the day:

Me: Mom, this is funny, guess what Susan said.

Mom: What?
Me: She thought Nana and Aunt Rose were twins.

Mom: Honey, they are.

My grandmother and one of her sisters were twins. Identical twins. Who knew?

Apparently, everyone but 5 year old me. 

In retrospect, I understand why no one actually thought to sit me down, make a point of providing that information. 

Although many people (I learned) couldn't tell them apart, they looked completely different to me, my perspective based on having grown up with them, both viewed and seen as individuals.

Within my tribe, we saw them as different. From the outside looking in, they looked exactly the same. 

Family is one thing of course, our very first subculture, but as we grow there are many others with which we choose to identify. And when enmeshed, insulated in those groups, we run the risk of forgetting that there are other perspectives than those in which we've found comfort. Ones, even if we reject, we are better for just knowing. A reminder that we need each other to see the whole picture.

Our country, at this pivotal point in our existence, is moving in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, a lot of power is in the hands of those (like, most prominently, DeSantis in Florida) who do not want us to see the whole picture. Those who are actively working to force us all to be and think and feel the same. Their same. They use their power to dictate what the whole picture can be, are manipulating access to anything outside of the lines they've drawn.

Banning books, health care, even discussion of what makes us different, rewriting our history, our access to information, our health care. One of whom (yes, DeSantis), in his march toward authoritarianism, towards creating us all in his own image, has taken to punishing companies, shipping off human beings, taking over curriculums.

They, those who see diversity and thought as a detriment to their personal vision, have named the movement to maintain our freedoms as "woke." They mock woke, use the term as an insult to bully anyone not willing to give in to their vision. 

  

When, in reality, "woke", unfettered access to information, free thought, celebration of and growth through diversity, is pragmatic, constructive, propitious to our growth as a society. 

It's not an exaggeration to say that our very existence could in the balance. It is nurtured and nourished minds that solve problems, not just in society, but on earth. Our food sources, flour, fruits, it can all be in jeopardy. 

Braided Blueberry Bread

 

If we are to grow, have the tools to meet challenges, to adapt, to thrive, we, as individuals and as a society, need to woke up.

Braided Blueberry Bread         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 (1#) loaf frozen bread dough

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1 TBSP cookie butter (speculoos)

1 TBSP brown sugar

3 TBSP blueberry preserves

2 TBSP melted butter

Directions:

*Wrap the frozen dough in a piece of greased plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or for about 6 hours).

*Mix together the cream cheese, cookie butter, brown sugar, and blueberry preserves. Set aside.

*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

*Roll the dough on a floured surface to about a 16 X 9 rectangle. Cut into 3 strips, 16 inches long by 3 inches wide, and spread the cream cheese mixture down the center of each strip to about an inch of the top and bottom, and to about 1/4 an inch of each side.

*Roll one long side of each strip over the filling, then do the same with the other side, forming 3 ropes. Gently pinch the edges. Move the strips to the prepared baking sheet, side by side.

*Squeeze the top 1 inch of the strips together and fold under. Loosely braid the strips then squeeze the bottoms together and fold under like you did at the top.

*Grease a large piece of plastic wrap and cover the braid loosely. Set aside for 4 hours to rise.

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the plastic wrap, gently brush the melted butter over the top of the braid. Bake for 30 minutes. 

 

Hybrid Philosophy: Word Counters

Counting my words again. 

Today my fellow Word Counters and I are sharing our monthly group post. Each month one group member picks  a number between 12 and 50. All participating bloggers are then challenged to write something (or a few somethings, as the case may be) using that exact number of words. Today we all share what we came up with. 

 This month's number is 43. 
It was chosen by Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings.

As I've been doing in these Word Counters posts, I've chosen a theme and am using my word count multiple times in keeping with the theme. This month I've chosen the theme Hybrid Philosophy, I'm dipping my toe in the waters of Karma, Existentialism, Nature vs Nurture, and more. All inspired by a bag. . .

~ Inspiration can come from the strangest, most random places. Like a bag you walk out of the store with, carrying your holiday cards. I had walked out of the card store without ever really looking at the bag they'd given me. Who does?

~ I placed my purchases on the kitchen counter, took off and hung up my coat, started emptying the grocery bags, putting things away, and as the counter started to clear, there it was, staring me in the face, a message. It was this:

 

 

 

~ Although I can thank the card company for grabbing my attention and getting me thinking now, the message, of course, is not theirs. Sartre is credited with the theory of existentialism. He believed that our actions are what make us who we are.

 

~ I'm not someone who fully believes in karma, that what you put out there comes back to you. If only it were that easy! But that boomerang theory isn't backed up by facts. If true, nothing bad would ever happen to kind people.

 

~ I'm not talking about recipes going wrong, burning the roast, the cookies falling apart. It isn't the little things, it's the major life changes, heartbreaks. They happen to all of us, no one is immune, no matter how good or kind we are.

 

Peppermint Stuffed Cookies

~ I remember, while suffering the brutal ups and downs of infertility, finally being pregnant, then losing the baby. I went into surgery reading a book called "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." They do. They're not karma, not because they are deserved.

 

~ And don't forget nature vs nurture, you have to add that into the mix too. I believe in both. We are most definitely born with some inherent traits. And our upbringing has to impact how we grow and develop. We don't control either.

 

~ We start with our nature add the nurture provided, and a sprinkling of karma, the rest is up to us. We learn from our choices or not, giving us the power. Being a good person isn't for a reward. It is the reward.

Here are links to the other Word Counters posts:

On the Border 

Messymimi’s Meanderings 

Peppermint Stuffed Cookies

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients: 

4 oz candy canes or starlight mints

1 cup canned vanilla frosting

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

50 vanilla wafer cookies

3 oz candy melts, white, red, or a mixture of both

 

Directions:
*Finely crush the mints.

*Mix the frosting with the peppermint extract and half of the crushed candy.

*Lay out half of the vanilla wafer cookies, flat side up, and pipe about 1 TBSP frosting onto each. Sandwich pressing the flat side of the remaining 25 cookies onto the top.

*Melt the candy melts according to package directions. Dip half of each cookie into the melted topping and immediately sprinkle with the remaining crushed mints.

*Place onto parchment paper and allow to set completely.