Facebook Jail

I forgot to tell you yesterday, I got put in Facebook jail last week.  Yeah, I did, and it was for a totally stupid reason.  See, my friend had knit a Jayne hat, and posted a photo of her husband modeling it. Naturally, we all started throwing out Firefly quotes in the comments.

Me, I posted this one (skip to 15 seconds in):

The bots on FB flagged it as threatening behavior, despite the fact that before they yanked the comment, it got two heart and one laughy face emojis.  I disagreed with the decision, and they claimed they reviewed it, but I doubt they did.  If you viewed it in context, anyone with half a brain could see it wasn't a threat.  Heck, the people whose status I commented on loved it.  Still, I got tossed into FB jail for 24 hours. I tried to file an appeal with the Oversight Board, but they won't even let me log in.  What good is having an Oversight Board if you can't even bring a case before them, then?  

Meanwhile, the post of Kathy Griffith holding a severed Trump head is perfectly fine.  Go figure. 

I'm getting pretty sick of FB, and have already greatly reduced my presence there.  I wish we'd go back to blogging communities, the way we had before social media took over everyone's lives. Or good, old fashioned letter writing.  I'm still up for pen-pals if anyone is interested. 

In the meantime, I strongly suggest you bookmark my blog if you enjoy reading it.  I know some of you don't even come here unless you see the link in your FB feed...but there is a good chance it might not be there sometime in the future. 

OK, moving right along...

What else is going on in my life?  I'll tell you...I was re-reading yesterday's post, and I totally realized I didn't include a single segue between topics.  It was a bit jarring to jump straight into a new topic, and I'll try to do better connecting things in the future.  

That being said, let's jump straight into a new topic without a segue...

There I was at work, just a working away, when I had to answer nature's call.  The bathroom closest to my work area was closed for cleaning, so I went up to the one by the front breakroom.  Now, those of you with Sheldon Cooper-like memories may recall that a few years ago, someone sat in one of the sinks and broke it.   When I came out of the stall yesterday, I noticed they'd finally fixed it.  By TAPING the pedestal back together.   Don't believe me?  I have proof:

See it?  That's tape.  Someone repaired the porcelain sink with tape.  Eh, at least they tried to fix it.  That's better than they usually do. 

Speaking of doing better, the deacons of my mother's church sent me a letter of condolence, signed by all of them. 

That's more than I got from the church I'm supposedly a member of.  Didn't get a card, or a flower, or a single casserole -- or even my name on the Wednesday night prayer list.  Seriously, if people don't believe the church cares, why would they bother to attend?  

On the other hand, one silver lining of this pandemic is that a lot of churches have ended that horrible greet one another time.  Let's just hope it's a permanent change. 

As for the pandemic, it's hitting Mississippi pretty hard right now.  We have more people hospitalized now than we did at this time last year.  The Health Dept does a good job of getting the numbers out there, and Dr. Dobbs does a video periodically explaining what's going on.  

The politicization of the pandemic may be over, but the pandemic itself is still out there.  The good thing about the Delta variant -- if there can be such a thing -- is that while it's more transmissible, it appears to be less deadly than the original.  This thing may eventually do what SARS and MERS did, and mutate itself out of existence.  Let's hope so.  

And finally, it looks like the Atlantic is starting to wake up again,  

which means Sahara Dust season is almost over!  Woo hoo!  I'll be able to breathe again soon!  I mean, other than my normal allergy breathing troubles, that is.  

One of the meteorologists I follow said it looks like someone spilled Cheetos in the Atlantic.  It's way too early to tell, but it looks like both of them might be headed towards the Gulf.  

I might finally get to light that Jim Cantore candle I bought...