Government of the numbers, by the numbers, for the numbers

This play on President Lincoln's phrase about government of the people, by the people, and for the people can be illustrated from this Tuesday late morning photo outside of the offices for the secretary of state in rural Michigan, formerly a retail outlet in a 1970s-era indoor shopping mall that went out of business and has been leased for this organ of state record-keeping and fee collection since the late 1980s or so in this location. Around that time the functions of voter registration were merged with motor vehicle administration (the so-called motor-voter law) in order to keep a person's address up to date for both purposes.

"no photos or electronic recording allowed inside" the door sign says, 3/2019

There is a self-serve kiosk in the foreground for some routine transactions, but updating a driver's license photo, transferring the title of property, and other tasks must be done in person. Many times the business can be handled via the online portal or with the postal service, too. The sign near the floor at bottom left in large letters says that once per week there are evening hours available for those who are unable to come during ordinary business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Inside the office are three rows of 8 or 10 chairs so that a person can take a number from the dispenser at the doorway and keep track of how many customers are waiting ahead of one's own turn. There is a ceiling mounted video display that alternates between announcements of services offered, new state requirements, weather, sports, and news headlines. For people who did not bring their own reading material or who are content to stare at their phone screens, this ceiling mounted screen seems to occupy their attention.

Seldom is the administration of motor vehicles in the news headlines, although voting rights regularly crops up due to the extreme manipulation of voting precinct boundaries (Gerrymandering). There are also ongoing efforts to make vote-by-mail and deployed armed-forces voting more convenient and secure. On balance, however, most residents with voting eligibility and those who operate some form of motorized vehicle do seem content with the system of keeping records in order, up-to-date, and paying no more or no less than they owe. Perhaps the bureaucratic organism of 100 or 200 years ago would be amazed at the present standard of practice, thanks to telecommunication and vast record-keeping, searching, and interpreting data.

Largest neighborhood association in the city of Grand Rapids - Pancakes

The annual community pancake breakfast was organized by the Creston Neighborhood Association, CNA, covering almost 2 miles east-west by 2 miles north-south, a couple of miles north of the city's downtown center. Volunteers collected $7 per adult unless that household pays the annual $25 membership fee, in which case there was no cost for the breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, blueberry and plain pancakes, french toast, and beverages (water, apple or orange juice, coffee).

This video clip was soon after the 9:30 a.m. brief presentations were made to introduce the exhibitors at the edges of the large dining hall in the lower level of the Second Congregational Church, the venue hosting the event. Things started at 8:30 and went on for about 3 hours. Table covers were paper and boxes of crayons encouraged children and everyone else to doodle directly on the table tops.

In the age of Internet, fragmented lives and overscheduled children in multiple activities, it is heartening to see people get out of their speeding cars and away from their ubiquitous portable electronic devices to meet one another face to face, exchange small talk, and find out about opportunities to get involved in a few of the common interests in keeping the area safe and satisfying. This is a pretty good glimpse of Civil Society in 2019 in West Michigan, although the neighborhood email bulletin board is a living tissue that contributes an important layer to community sense of place and problem solving. It has many viewers and posters who ask or answer questions for newcomers and old-timers.

Exhibitors included the county solid waste and recycling program, the medical services for uninsured and underinsured residents, fire-fighters and a uniformed policeman, the low-income housing agency, the neighborhood association itself, among others. As the biggest of the city's neighborhood associations perhaps it also is among the most vigorous in supporting and encouraging innovations and business successes. There were breakfasters of all ages around the tables, so it looked to be a success for volunteers and visitors.

Polluting the public discourse - "Don't Pee in the Pool"

After naively supposing that the myriad of fragmented arenas for discussion online in Facebook would go well for everybody, it has become clear that abuse is easy and harmful. For a few people it is a source of entertainment or heady facsimile of (fake) power, too. Witness the genocide of Rohinga Muslims near the Myanmar - Bangladesh border state; witness the student to student bullying in many countries via FB and the several other prominent forms of social media.

At present there is a built-in way for people who are offended themselves, or who foresee harm to others they care about, to flag a posted message or article so that the human reviewers at Facebook can scrutinize the instance. This screenshot shows the most frequent types of offense to flag.

pop-up menu item available for any given Facebook posting: reader warns FB team

Stepping back to an analytic viewpoint, this typology is a kind of mirror that reflects the historical moment that our societies occupy during times of change in the environment and our relationship to the ecosystem and to each other; indeed each person's relationship to the sense of self also may be subjected to changing foundational assumptions and scope of imagination for dreaming a future self.

NUDITY is an invasion of private/intimate/bodily space.
VIOLENCE is an excess that also concentrates on a body; ditto SUICIDE or SELF-INJURY.
HARASSMENT can be words or deeds, again a body-centric infringement of boundaries.
HATE SPEECH and TERRORISM may differ in degree, but have a family resemblance; pertaining to individual persons/bodies, but also with a mass or communal scale of consequence, too.
FALSE NEWS has some commonalities to HATE SPEECH, but normally is less personally specific.
SPAM and UNAUTHORIZED SALES have a falseness about them, too.

In the most abstract sense, all of these types of violation consist of breaking boundaries that separate and define one person or group or truth from another. Perhaps this stems directly from the catch-phrase for the ever greater connection of people, ideas, records, and locations through the Internet, "Information Wants to be Free." However, by providing answers to any search engine for the Internet, no matter how poorly formed the question or statement, the searcher is given a facsimile of expert knowledge, mastery, or confidence that they have solved a problem, simple or complex, with the touch of a few thumb-buttons on a portable screen or a keyboard or voice dictation. When all information is reduced to a uniform sameness, the distinction of reliability or accountability is ignored in the rush to arrive at an answer. The knowledge landscape is collapsed from 3 or 4 dimensions into just a flat 2-dimensional world, making all answers look and sound the same.

By this logic of sameness that makes information the same thing as knowledge, or its long-distilled form of wisdom, then the traditional boundaries between bodies of knowledge, experts, and institutions gradually erode. This typology of Facebook offenses therefore presents itself as each infraction flares up. Thankfully there are people who refuse to accept the normalization and bland sameness to make all things (falsely) equivalent to each other - truth as just another alternative to the other imagined or hallucinatory realities in a person's mind.

From another standpoint, in the eyes of a person never part of the Internet Age, these warning types perhaps seem odd, or as something belonging to shared propriety, community standards, and their customary Common Sense. Since everyone knows these boundaries, there is no reason for breaking them and no cause for offense. So Facebook has brought forth many things, both good and bad. This set of Feedback Flags is a rich country problem; it only belongs to societies riven with the social media juggernauts.

Camouflage blight - taking the theme in too many directions

cellphone to capture indoor tropical garden scene, dressed in warm camouflage

The most common color scheme for camouflage on the clothing racks for discount shoppers is the temperate forest palette: browns and greens. But sometimes there is all-pink, as in this photo, or a wintry scheme of whites and grays. The other color palette that comes to mind is the one in shades of blue. The same pattern of color blocks is reproduced, no matter the overall color scheme, though. It appears on overclothing like coats, insulated snow pants, hats, gloves, boots. It appears on shirts and pants. It appears on undershirts and underpants and socks. But when did this proliferation of fashion begin and how come the popularity is sustained?

One way to speculate is to consider the long wars of S.W. Asia, mainly Iraq and before that Afghanistan. Even though a relatively small fraction of the US citizens and resident aliens have enlisted in the all-volunteer military services, the circles of family and friends extends pretty far. So maybe one theory for this piece of the popular culture pie has to do with some kind of passive support for those in uniform now and before; sort of like fans of sporting teams who dress in the colors or merchandise of the team.

Looking from another point of view at the widespread wearing of the camouflage pattern on newborn babies to retirees,  maybe another connection to the field of meanings has to do with the functional nature of all things military; a no-nonsense approach to complexities and frivolities. By sticking with camo. themed backpacks, toys or playing cards, the person is expressing at least two messages - (1) ignoring bothersome considerations of fashion, propriety, status symbols, and (2) identifying with the all-action, results-oriented way that military operations are executed.

Related to this functional interpretation is the earlier expansion of denim jeans, shirts, jackets, backpacks and so forth in the late 1960s onward. Blue jeans - new or worn in/worn out - was the anti-"dressed up" clothing. Originally these durable textiles were limited to manual labor settings, but during the protest years and times of social change many people who were not manual laborers also expressed resistance to white shirts and polyester pants by putting on jeans in more and more settings. Gradually the dress code at public schools began to allow jeans that were not soiled or damaged to be worn; later the fashion for 'distressed' clothing pushed those boundaries further. In summary, at a time when social standards, aspirations, and expectations are changing, one way to reduce the confusion and lack of clarity is to reach for symbols that are functional and not tied to fashion. In the 1960s and 1970s that was blue jeans. At the turn of the 21st century that seems to be camouflage.