Autumn in the North Cemetery.

Sixty miles west of Boston, Massachusetts there is the small New England town of Sturbridge. Located at the junction of I-90 (The Mass Pike), and I-84 it has become known as the "Crossroads of New England". The town was first settled over 300 years ago, and like other small New England towns it has grown just enough over the years to be in a difficult place today. How do we embrace the future without forgetting how we got to our present? How do we attract the right kind of growth, and maintain who we are? And, what about our culture out here in Central Massachusetts?



These pages will cause one to think about how to protect what we have, our future direction, and how to move on in the very best way.


Those thoughts, and other ramblings, will hopefully inspire more thought, conversation, action, and occasionally a smile...

...seems to be working so far

Monday, March 23, 2009

FB Me

A couple of months ago I went on Facebook out of curiosity. My daughter has a place there, and well, I was curious. Should have known she would have made it private for "friends" only. Oh well, snooping parents aren't exactly friends. While I was there, I of course had to sign up in order to search for others I may know on the site.

I found my brother, his wife and kids, my sister, and a couple of friends that came to mind, and then I found my father.

My father is 75 years old.

What the ...?

Seems that everyone is in need of sharing exactly what they are doing at any particular moment, and everyone else is desperate to know what everyone else is doing at the same moment.

When did we become so open? Heck, we've always been nosey, but sharing the most inane things about ourselves has become very important to millions of people. Besides Facebook, and My Space, there are other sites that offer this instantaneous gratification, Twitter is one of them. Twitter is also used by a lot of major news organizations to stay in touch with its viewers, and to receive news tips as well. Mostly text uploaded from mobile devices, Twitter informs all those that follow you exactly what you are doing at any given moment.

Wally is standing in line at the supermarket.

Wally just changed his socks.

Wally is feeding the cats..again.

Twitter doesn't publish these things without you, you have to upload the text, which brings me to my next question, who cares? Are we so starved for news that we need to know exactly what anyone else is doing at any given moment? Are we using our voyeurism to compare our lives with the lives of others?

I have no clue, but it is a phenomena though, and for the moment, it is here to stay. At last count there were 85 bajillion people on Facebook. Big numbers, lots of advertising dollars and money to be made there.

Well, that's something you won't find here, advertising. Not even subliminal advertising. Buy Shaw's Brand That would be manipulative, and that's Applebee's for Dinner Tonight! something that even with today's high tech life styles, I wouldn't ever be tempted to do. Shop Wal*Mart.
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