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Six Months of Pay to Play: Twitter Stratification and the Verified and the Nots

Today is the wretched April Fool’s Day, but what I’m about to share with you is not a joke — but it may contain the actions of a fool.  For the last six months or so, I’ve been actively seeding and re-feeding our social media presence across all our platforms paying — yes, PAYING — particular attention to the blue bird of San Francisco to try to figure out just what’s happening in the wide world of Tweets when it comes to propagating memes and promoting new ideas.

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Why is Kate Gosselin on Television?

I don’t know anything about Kate Gosselin except the very little bits of herself that she eagerly puts on television for public consumption, and after swallowing her bits without chewing for flavor, I cannot understand the essence of why she is on television and why she has a fan base.  I’ve watched her repeatedly degrade her children and her former husband on television.  I have watched her get pushed and dragged through dance routines on “Dancing with the Stars” as if she were a household cleaning appliance and not a dancer. Is that Kate Gosselin below or the Dyson Ball vacuum?

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Crafting Cognitive Math

How do we learn how much of something makes up something?  We are hardwired to be able to quantify amounts — that tree has more fruit than the other; that river is faster than the one upstream; that basket can hold more corn than that pail — but how is the next step learned between that quantification and the ability to divide, subtract and multiply using cognitive and associate math that even preschoolers can comprehend?

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Spanking Kids Stupid

As a child, I was spanked. I never understood the memeing or the method in spanking — except for a parent to prove to a child they were stronger and meaner. My spanking experience was humiliating and hate-inducing. My momentary stepfather was especially brutal and sadistic in that he required you to pull down your pants and underwear if you did wrong.  He then bent you over and told you to hold your ankles while offering your naked rear — anus always facing him — so he could hit you as hard as he could with a Holiday Inn fly swatter for ten minutes. Crying was not enough to stop him. Time was his only guide. He cannot die soon enough.

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I Do and I am Watching You, Too

In today’s dangerous world, is it enough to just say “I Do” when you take a vow to love and protect your beloved other during a marriage ceremony?  Isn’t it, perhaps, even more romantic to also add under your breath, “…and I’m watching you, too.” at&t thinks so, too, and they now offer a “FamilyMap” service that allows you, for ten dollars a month, to track two phones on your cellular service family plan.  For $15.00USD a month, you can track up to five phones.  Now you can have peace of mind while those around you tremble with paranoia in their new lives under your unblinking Panopticonic gaze — as demonstrated in the image below as I reflectively track myself, creating my own horrifying hallway of mirrors as I wonder if I’m coming or going:

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Autism and Art Therapy

In Delaware, The Center for the Creative Arts, is using using Art Therapy to help Autistic kids.

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Are Food Stamps Making Poor Children Fat?

The Times Leader of Pennsylvania ran an interesting article — citing an unnamed research study — arguing poor children in the urban core are more likely than their richer peers to grow up obese, yet malnourished. 

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