TEN YEARS OF CHICKEN SCRATCH

It was ten years ago today that I started this blog, Evil Chicken Scratch – or simply, Chicken Scratch.  I came to the name by combining two things, my codename/nickname, Evil Chicken and an allusion to writing or script that only chickens or people who called themselves writers could understand.  I wanted a place where I could gush about books and movies and excellent cups of coffee.  And I built one!  I have always wanted Chicken Scratch to be an oasis – a happy place to visit. 

While it should go without saying that I hope this is still the case, in recent years a bit of slacktivism has crept into the electronic pages of this blog right in between the fan-boy gushing and documented adventures.  Chicken Scratch has become, at times, someplace to voice dissension, to question - a place to bounce ideas off of and think.  Chicken Scratch has evolved over time to appreciate both the discord and the rhyme.

During the past ten years there have been triumphs such as, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2010/04/surrounded-by-stories-surreal-and.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/11/project-thanksgiving.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2011/12/level-up-entertainment-farpoint-toys.html, and this, the No Shave November Crossover Event of 2013: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2013/11/no-shave-november-facial-hair-challenge_30.html.  This was for cancer research and it was a crossover blog between Cybertrout & Evil Chicken.  Cybertrout is a friend and, for that matter, one of the finest bloggers I know [for a good time, see: https://cybertrout.wordpress.com/; no, really, it’s a good time]. 

And there were tragedies and the remembrances of them: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/08/robin-williams.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2013/01/normal-0-one-of-brightest-minds-of-his.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-dark-night.html, and http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2007/09/911-six-years-hence.html

And then there’s the Doggerel, Adoxography, & Slacktivism.  As it says right up front at the top of this blog – what you will find here is one part Doggerel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerel, another part Adoxography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoxography , and a sprinkle of slacktivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism for good measure.

After ten years’ time, I can further illustrate what my header means…

Doggerel: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2005/01/library-dues.html,  http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2006/04/whats-in-name.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2013/09/rest-in-peace-spiderman.html.  Just the right amount of wrong.

Adoxography: http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/03/neil-gaiman-is-coming-to-rowan.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-comic-book-project.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-first-glimpse-of-star-wars-episode.html.  Geek blood runs through my veins. 

Slacktivism: or http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2013/06/whistleblowing-prophecies-of-dark-knight.html, http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2014/07/tell-fcc-your-feelings-about-net.html, or http://evilchickenscratch.blogspot.com/2013/07/happy-fourth-of-july.html.  These stories moved me enough to say something about them.

Sure, I may have ended up on a few government watch lists due to the “added slacktivism” but, hey, did you really want to hear about the SOPA/PIPA, the NSA monitoring, the FCC’ shenanigans, and Edward Snowden out on the streets?  I think not!  Besides, who isn’t on a watch list these days?

Of course, one’s man discord is another's rhyme.  Also, there is a lot of evidence to support the idea that trivial things are truly not that trivial at all.  As for slacktivism; ideas, words, and pictures are dangerous things.  They should be.  They should both comfort and make you uncomfortable.  The journalist Finley Peter Dunne in the character of Mr. Dooley said, “My business is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  Yes, Dunne said it.  Yes, I paraphrased it.  He was right about this point.  Dunne would have made a wonderful blogger.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention YOU.  Thank you for following along on this long, strange, trip, Gentle Reader.  Let’s see what the next ten years bring.  Let us enjoy the ride, celebrate the adventures that are around us all the time, and share the joy of discovery.  It is a dangerous and wonderful world.  Let us explore it together.  Let us fall in love with stories.  Let us read, let us write, let us dance, and let us be dangerous.

Sincerely,

Evil Chicken

The Incredible Shrinking World

Gentle reader, I am a hack.  I am a guy with a keyboard, word processor and a blog and I’m not afraid to use them.  That being said, here is a revelation that has been on my mind for a while now; not to alarm you but the world is shrinking.  That’s right, you heard me; the world is shrinking. 

Case in point, a couple of years ago I published a blog about some atrocities that were being committed in certain country in Africa.  I mentioned some of the torture and genocide that is endured by the people there on a daily basis as one regime painfully transitions into another.  Well, it turns out I actually had some readers from Africa (yes, from that certain country) check out my blog. 

Pause for a moment and consider that.  I am no one special.  I’m just a blogger from South Jersey who wrote a blog about an injustice all the way on the other side of the earth.

“So yeah, but did it change anything?”

No, probably not; but the meat of the matter is that THEY now know that I know and, further, if I know than other people must as well. 

That is the power of a shrinking world.

We see it everywhere, really.  There have always been technological leaps forward that changed society and culture that make us more global in mind, body and spirit.  The telephone, the car, the television, the computer, the internet, our 3G & 4G connections, and now our social media.  I literally have “friends” all over the world.  I have connected with family and school mates from days of yore and I have only used my mouse, keyboard and trusty internet connection to do so.  In a few pressed keys and clicks of my mouse I can notify the world of just about anything I put my mind to – good, bad or ugly.  I try to keep things light here at Chicken Scratch but I can’t vouch for the next blog over.  Just like in the physical world.

Blogging, Facebook, and Twitter are on the front lines of where things happen these days and, by the looks of things, will be on those front lines (in one incarnation or another) far into the future.  The basic premise, however, remains the same – someone expresses an idea and shares it.  It is therefore not truly a revolutionary problem but an evolutionary one.  People have been getting into trouble for ideas since Eve took that bite from the fruit from that tree.  They are dangerous things.  People begin to think with ideas.  Then people make plans on how to make things better or how to make things worse.  They begin to question.  They begin to seek answers.  People in power and authority often do not like what ideas can inspire – things such as hope, independence, freedom – when you get right down to it an educated and actively thinking populous can be a very dangerous thing.  People will go to war for ideas.  They will be tortured, subjugated, oppressed, endure hardships, and persevere for an idea.  During the most recent revolutions in Egypt and Libya social media and internet access were the first things to go.  Google continues to have problems in places where facts or information or ideas are subject to official state sanction.  Even here, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have those who want to purge ideas and crush them so they never have a chance to blossom and grow.  I am pleased to say that currently, to the best of my limited knowledge, the United States is still a place where one can reap the benefits of having a free press and the freedom of speech.    

“May the wings of liberty never lose a feather.” – Kurt Russell’s, ‘Jack Burton’ said from Big Trouble in Little China.  

These days a free press also means a free internet.  People will say, “Print is dead”.  I just don’t buy that.  Yes, the vehicle of delivery of the written word may change but there has never been a better time for a self-publishing blogger to take up their keyboard and put one word in front of the next.  The big boys – the newspapers and magazine companies are still in the process of adapting to the new world order.  They will; it’s only a matter of time. 

“What is that supposed to mean, Evil Chicken?”

It means that when I want up to the moment scoops on news, weather, or anything that may catch my fancy, I’ll do a quick Twitter search to see what the people on the ground have to say during an event – as it happens instead of waiting until the next morning to read all about it in the newspaper.  Social media is instantaneous electronic journalism from primary sources right there – on the ground. 

The instantaneous nature of the new media, blogging and/or electronic journalism scares a lot of people but at the end of the day it’s just another tool in your toolbox for filtering and disseminating information.  As with any tool there are those who know how to use them, those who don’t and those who have some sort of vague nebulous idea of what it could do but instead of reading the instruction manual immediately brand the tool as dangerous.  These are the same people who attend book burnings and complain about how everything that does not unfold as they know it should.  Xenophobes that pine for an idealistic past that they themselves never really lived in but want to make the rest of the known world adhere too. 

“You know… morons.” Gene Wilder’s, ‘Jim’ said in Blazing Saddles.  

And this is the breakdown; those who use the tools, those who don’t and those who are too scared to use them.  Whether you like it or not social media is here to stay.  You can try to take a communication tool away but putting that genie back in the bottle is proving to be more tricky than many governments would like it to be (i.e. the former regimes of Egypt & Libya).  Social media helps give people a voice.  What people do with that voice has always proven to be user driven.  Here’s to vocal harmony.  The world has changed; it has shrunk, incredibly so.  There really is no going back and, as for this hack with a keyboard, a word processor and a blog, I wouldn’t want to.

I don’t believe I’m alone.   



ADDITIONAL NOTE: This morning (the morning after the above monstrosity) I woke up and read a great blog from "Alt Text" at WIRED.  This is a brilliant little blog about Facebook, Google and Twitter called, "Facebook, Google Battle for Hearts and Minds of Jerks" by Lore Sjöberg. Check it out for yourself here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/09/alt-text-facebook-google/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Expatriation and Blogging ‘Round the World

It is no great secret; I am a Jimmy Buffett fan. Listening to his music for any length of time and one gets the urge to move to warmer climates and expatriate to places that are full of characters and character. Gentle Reader, I must be honest with you, expatriation has been on my mind as of late. I have been bitten by the bug that transfers the longing for the Gypsy lifestyle. As Keith Richards sang on one of my absolute favorite Rolling Stones songs from the “Some Girls” album (yes, that’s right, I said ALBUM), “I Will Walk Before They Make Me Run.” Tom Waits exemplifies the concept of life on the road (I’m listening to him now on YouTube).

Let’s face it, there is just something romantic about the open road. Anything is possible there, anything goes. This is a great country to, “go on the bum”, so to speak but there are other wonderful possible options that have been slipping into my daydreams as of late including but not limited to; British Columbia, Key West, Southern Utah, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the South of France, Ireland, Italy – these are all spots that I could see transplanting my family and myself.

“But WHY, Evil Chicken?” you may ask. “Why would you wish to do such a thing?”

Well therein lies a very good question which I shall answer partially. Why not? It is no great revelation that life is entirely too short. I know that the good Lord is on the thrown but still it is important to make hay while the sun shines. So I dream. I dream of places far off away from the cares of life in the great Garden State. I have always dreamt of making some sort of a difference but just who is to say that that difference could not be made somewhere so very, very far away from here?

Hmm… Somehow I find this appealing.

Perhaps I should consider some of the nations that some of the readers of this blog call home? There are not many of us but we are mighty, Gentle Readers. Let’s look at where you are from to feed my dreams of expatriation… Number 1 (according to my widget) is the U.S. of A. Most of the readers here are from my homeland. That’s not too surprising since I am an American and, dare I say, proud of that distinction. Number 2 is Canada. Oh Canada, I could easily see myself settling down in your bosom. Number 3 is the United Kingdom. Yes. You and I would have a time, wouldn’t we? Number 4 is Unknown. Unknown? I suppose that the Unknown are the Gentle Readers who have, for whatever reason, have had to hide their location. I’m ok with that; truth be told, I’m a little envious. Know that I am pleased and glad to have you here. Number 5 is Spain; Number 6 is France – welcome my brethren know that I would expatriate to either of your boarders. Number 7 is Taiwan. Number 8 is Mexico, number 9 is Turkey and number 10 is Germany. 11 is New Zealand, 12 Finland, and 13 Hong Kong. You are all dispersed over this great blue marble, Gentle Readers. I’m just thankful to have you here for a brief moment in time; a moment when you decided to kick back, relax and listen to the non-sense that you will find here most of the time.

Wherever you call home, Gentle Reader, thank you for stopping by. Who is to say, perhaps one day we will be neighbors? Rest assured I will be dreaming of it and one never knows.

Do one?

This Truly is One of the Best Jobs in the World

Times are tough. It’s hard to find good work that you can really throw yourself into. That’s why I’m thinking about applying for this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/lifestyleaustraliatourismoffbeat.

Yeah… let’s see here… Six months of adventuring on the Great Barrier Reef and blogging about it for about a hundred grand American? The question begs to be answered, “Where would one apply for such a position?” The answer can be found at the end of this reprinted article from Yahoo.

Australia offers ‘Best Job in World’ on paradise island.

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian state has launched a global search for candidates for "the best job in the world" -- earning a top salary for lazing around a beautiful tropical island for six months.
The job pays 150,000 Australian dollars (105,000 US dollars) and includes free airfares from the successful applicant's home country to Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland's state government announced on Tuesday.

In return, the "island caretaker" will be expected to stroll the white sands, soak up the sun, snorkel the reef, "maybe clean the pool" -- and report to a global audience via weekly blogs, photo diaries and video updates.

The winner, who will stay rent-free in a multi-million dollar three-bedroom beach home complete with plunge pool and golf buggy, must be an excellent communicator and be able to speak and write English.

"They'll also have to talk to media from time to time about what they're doing so they can't be too shy and they'll have to love the sea, the sun, the outdoors," said acting state Premier Paul Lucas.
"The fact that they will be paid to explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel and generally live the Queensland lifestyle makes this undoubtedly the best job in the world."
Lucas said the campaign was part of a drive to protect the state's 18 billion Australian dollar a year tourism industry during the tough economic climate caused by the global financial meltdown.
While the campaign has elements of some reality television shows, a candidate's looks will not be a prime requirement, Tourism Queensland chief executive Anthony Hayes told AFP.
"No, I don't think beautiful is what we want, I think charismatic is what we want," he said. "The reality is we are looking for a fantastic communicator.
"What we want this person to do is travel throughout the Great Barrier Reef and just try every experience, every adventure they can find and report back via blogs and video to tell the world why Queensland is a great place to come for a holiday."
Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said some people might question whether it was risky to let an unknown person become an unofficial tourism spokesperson for the state.
"I think the biggest risk will be that the successful candidate won't want to go home at the end of the six months," she said.
"This is a legitimate job which is open to anyone and everyone."
Applications are open until February 22. Eleven shortlisted candidates will be flown to Hamilton Island in early May for the final selection process and the six month contract will commence on July 1.

Job-seekers can apply on Islandreefjob.com.

So there you have it Gentle Reader, a decent job opportunity. When I first went to the provided link the site was down. My guess is that potential employees are swamping their servers. Check back to throw your hat in the ring. I know that I would if the yoke of employment and the responsibilities thereof didn’t already encumber me. If you are chosen I promise to read your blog while I throw a shrimp on the bar-be and to voraciously live vicariously through you.