Iya Banji

From whence we came

The kind of life my parents served me created a radically different history and story from the one they had experienced. More fundamentally, what defined their childhood from the little village where they made their first friends to the unforgettable memories that they have rarely shared separates us even further.

Though I have some fond memories of visiting our hometown and meeting with cousins, grandparents, and distant relations, I find none of the affinity for the place as one parent does, and another so thoroughly reviles. I have no such identity with the place except in the compulsion and diktat of my forebears; I was last there about forty years ago.

Significantly, these people who once came out of that town and travelled the world as it was their oyster and, in the process, became successful professionals of every sort, have returned to this place to retire enjoying the good fortune of old age and the misery of watching peers and juniors pass away around them.

Balls on the road

One memory best told in our dialect of Ìjẹ̀bú, in which I have the most laughable proficiency, if any at all, finds its best delivery in my faulting but unmistakable recollection.

My mother was driving from Lagos to Ijesha-Ijebu with my aunt, who was my dad’s immediate younger sibling. She was known to us through the name of her first son, and it was evidently disrespectful of us all, because he is the first and eldest of all our maternal and paternal cousins.

As we passed from Ikenne towards Ilishan, on the home straight to Ijesha-Ijebu, the spare tyre in the undercarriage at the back of the Peugeot 504 she was driving detached and fell onto the road. Someone called in Ìjẹ̀bú that the testicles had fallen. “Wóró ẹ̀ ti jábọ́ o.”

We stopped and I went to pick up the tyre, rolled it up to the car and fixed it back to the undercarriage, securing it properly with the clip. My mum and aunt were out of the car, watching that everything was done properly. As I finished, my aunt quipped in Ìjẹ̀bú, “Well, the person of whom it has been said their testicles have fallen, now has them tied back up in the sack.” “Ọni rán fọ wóró ẹ̀ jábọ́, nà tí so padà yẹ̀n.”

In tribute and sympathy

This remains one of the lasting memories of my aunt, her great sense of humour delivered dead pan with such seriousness, yet you could not fail to get the joke, which by happenstance was also the spelling of her name, meaning who we care for together, she was no joke, by any stretch of the imagination.

A hardworking, strong, purposeful woman and a purveyor of wholesale foodstuffs, she was kind-hearted, lovely, approachable, and ever so considerate. Definitely, one of the best of my father’s siblings. She was the female leader of the Muslims of our hometown.

I learnt Monday afternoon that she had passed on, and she was interred according to Islamic rites on Sunday. Better to rewrite the feelings expressed here, unfortunate as it seems, each person has their individual issues and perspective of things, that might never be that well understood.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. (Al-Quran 2:156) “Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return.”

Thought Picnic: Some thoughts far from home

Away and away

After over two decades of voluntary absence by reason of a youthful disillusionment, some unresolved conflicts, the unspecified dread of authority and unwarranted intrusion one begins to have some consideration.

Nostalgia has never really been an emotion that has found a safe harbour in ones thinking, however there is a need to do certain things for which the passage of time brings the possibility of things that may not be retrievable if they occur before action is taken.

Not being one of great means if any means at all there are no options to exercise to fulfil that desire as at yet.

Adrift and aloof

Absence has not made the heart grow fonder, it has only created a greater sense of indifference in some instances and resentment in others, most of the time it is one of diminishing affinity to the ones that once mattered but maybe just not enough.

Lives have drifted apart too much, the thinking too divergent to find consonance and many decisions tend towards conflict than agreement because of differences that probably will never be properly understood outside of what and where they are.

In the circumstances, there is every possibility that the younger will not outlast the older, for beyond going astray, he might well be lost and dangerously difficult to find.

Again to arrive

Home is in many different places, of where people are and where the nativity was, but the roots are hardly fast in the ground, they have become a thing of the mind, a convenience of comfort where one might want to be.

To return is incubating, the thoughts are forming, the dreams are aligning, the possibility is looming, and a place one once knew might well be seen again soon. Preparation starts with the mind.

Opinion: Overruling Extremist Opposition to Expert Medical Opinion

The Blood Transfusion Debate Again

Almost six years ago, I could not find the words to describe and condemn the needless death of someone by reason of extreme religious beliefs where a simple medical procedure would have saved life, avoided sorrow and provided essential parental and matrimonial succour to the children and the husband of the victim. [AkinBlog]

Then a 22-year old having given birth to twins had lost so much blood that she needed a transfusion but because she was a Jehovah’s Witness, she and her husband refused treatment that could have saved her life, she exsanguinated.

Against Expert Medical Opinion

Recently, this issue of religious belief attempting to override good medical practice came to the courts in Northern Ireland where a judge decided that a man with severe learning abilities had the right by reason of not being able to understand the consequences of adhering to a belief system that could endanger his life to be protected by the state. [CourtsNI]

He was to undergo a number of dental surgery proceedings that had outcomes that might require the use of blood products that Jehovah’s Witnesses proscribe, particularly, blood transfusions – in my 2007 blog, I did suggest that it was pragmatic to obtain blood transfusions from a patient’s bloodline.

Personal Consent is Fundamental

Crucial to this decision was that, he “is not capable of consenting to his own medical treatment” due to “a history of global developmental delay of unknown aetiology”, his mother was seeking the right to decide on his behalf positing that, he “seems to enjoy attending church and has positive social contact as a result”, thereby, he is as much bound by the belief systems she espouses to be accorded the strictures that constitute the dogma of the sect. [Wikipedia]

The judge, based his views on the ECHR suggesting ‘At least two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were relevant, the judge noted: the second, which guarantees the right to life, and the third, which outlaws "inhuman and degrading" treatment. But legal precedents indicated that a treatment aimed at preserving life could not be considered cruel.’ [Economist]

Anachronisms of Ancient Thought in Modern Times

Now, whilst a religious sect might have scriptural basis for whatever belief systems they espouse, as the Economist notes, “transfusion for medical reasons did not exist in Biblical times; this is one of the many difficulties that arise when codes of ethics that were devised for life in the pre-modern desert are applied to the 21st century.”

I could not have put that better in determining the reasonableness of context, application and perspective necessary for a common-sense decisions today.

The conflict between treatment necessary to preserve life and the religious freedom to determine whether to take such treatment should not exist if the person concerned is able to comprehend and use the information under medical guidance to appreciate the consequences of their decision.

Incapacity Defaults to Medical Opinion

That is usually catered for in an Advance Health Care Directive also known as a living will which “is a set of written instructions that a person gives that specify what actions should be taken for their health, if they are no longer able to make decisions due to illness or incapacity.” [Wikipedia]

However, this requires the person be full aware and capable of making the decisions in the directive prior to incapacity. Where the directive is challenged, it there is precedent where the judge has denied the execution of the Power of Attorney, requiring the patient be able to decide for themselves, failing which the law will side with expert medical opinion. [RTE]

An Uneasy Compromise

I am wont to believe that the Jehovah’s Witnesses exhibit an unsavoury kind of religious fundamentalism and extremism based on teachings and new interpretation of Scripture dating back only to 1870, even if they aver that they are “a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity.” [Wikipedia]

Much as I will like a situation where religious beliefs do not overcome reasonable medical intervention, the Economist ends their piece with this – “a consensus is emerging that people of more-or-less sound mind can, if they so choose, put their lives at risk by refusing certain treatments; but they cannot impose that risk on dependants who for one reason or another cannot decide for themselves.”

It is an uneasy compromise but the decision not to follow medical advice or extricate oneself from procedure by reason of conscience must be made by the individual concerned and should never be transferred to someone else.

Childhood: Learning to cope away from home

Sent away

As I was reaching the age of 10, having lived with my parents literally all my life apart from times when I was cared for by nannies when we were in England, they were thinking of where I would go to secondary school.

We lived in the North of Nigeria but they concentrated on trying to get me admitted into a secondary school in South-West Nigeria where my parents were from.

All down South and nowhere else

In fact, I cannot remember any instance where I was entered for any common entrance examinations or admission lists for any of the good secondary schools in Kaduna or Jos where we had lived for about 5 years.

Instead, I was taken out of school in January and put on a plane first to Ibadan where besides taking exams and one hair-raising incident where the driver of the vehicle I was in with 3 distant cousins left the steering wheel to me as we almost teetered over the edge of a ravine, only providence changed that course of history as I came into the most experience of sexual abuse in the week that I was there.

Liberties taken and voice lost

I returned home a bit tongue-tied, I had received many gifts but could not account for how I had given some away to ward off abuse which my parents took as evidence of me being a wastrel currying favour off people by being overly generous – how I should have spoken up but for the fear and loathing of my experiences.

Two weeks later, I was on a plane again to Lagos where I spent over four months out of school shunted between relations, grandparents and my cousins as common entrance examinations were scheduled throughout Lagos and Ogun States revealing stark contrasts between arithmetic that we did up north and mathematics that was the mainstay down south, I never knew the concept of negative numbers until then, it was an aunt studying Electrical Engineering at University of Lagos who helped me there.

Choices made from limited options

I probably attended 10 examinations in all completely away from the routine of school and the comforts of home that I had known all my life, it laid the foundations for what was to come when I had choices, I refused to go to one that shared its grounds with a cemetery, I had been sensitised to terrifying fear, in the ensuing months, something I never had before I went away.

Eventually I had one chosen and preparations for boarding school began – school uniform instructions poorly stated, a metal portmanteau, a machete/cutlass that was useless of the purpose it was intended for – cutting grass, it was heavy, blunt and probably it would have been better in the hands of a lumberjack than a scrawny tall 10-year old – they knew no better.

It was hell, just without the fire

I cannot elicit to any detail what informed my parents about this idea of sending me away apart from wanting to probably toughen me up and give me the opportunity to meet more of my close and distant relations as well as give me the environment to learn Yoruba.

Soon after I arrived at boarding school the process of toughening did toughen me as we found ways to compensate for the sadism and abuse that passed for discipline and corporal punishment sanctioned by the system of hierarchies of seniors and teachers – they all got away with it, our parents none the wiser apart from being assured that their kids were getting a comprehensive education for life ahead.

If I did have my own children, it is unlikely I would have acquiesced to this barbaric regime of treating children like stubborn mules that needed to be forced to respond and react to coercion imposed by inflicting pain – that is another story to be told.

Social Engineering: Crooks preying on our parents

A menacing problem

I think this is becoming an emergency in Nigeria and it requires we begin to focus on the menace of unconscionable, unscrupulous and merciless confidence tricksters preying on the vulnerable sectors of our society.

Last year, somebody called my mother informing her of my being in trouble abroad and convincingly persuaded her to part with some money. Having tricked her the first time, they applied more pressure at which time she chatted to my siblings who were able to break her out of the spell she had fallen under and stop the criminal activity.

Using my blog, I tried to create a storm and though we never apprehended the nasty piece of work, the bank at least got involved enough for about 3 weeks trying to get hold of the person who for the pressure and bad publicity that had gone out regarding his identity was forced to go to ground.

My mother’s situation was not an exception, the fact is our once strong, able parents are now older and less agile in terms of things in their daily lives, there are people out there ready to create situations of distress, panic, anxiety or fear and by doing so getting our now vulnerable and sometimes lonely parents to part with their life’s savings.

Abductions and hypnoses

I heard today of another case where a fine and wonderful lady in her 70s had gone to withdraw some cash from a bank and as she left the bank, she was accosted by persons who abducted her and took her to some place she can no more recollect.

It is very possible she was hypnotised because she gave them the money she had withdrawn and then she was dropped off at home where the next day under some sort of influence she returned to the bank to withdraw 5 times what she withdrew before and handed it over to the gang.

At the end of the second day, she apparently came to and informed her daughter of what had happened but swore her daughter to secrecy about informing other siblings. Meanwhile the gang was trying again to get her to withdraw more money for them and thankfully to no avail.

Tackling the issue

At first one has to be thankful that she came to no physical harm but the mental anguish and scars of such an encounter will no doubt be more lasting. She is not as chatty as she used to be and she rarely leave her home; this is a lady who has travelled the world has been fiercely independent apart from the fact that she had been widowed for over 3 decades.

I do not think the case of my mother and that of this amazing lady are unique, I have the feeling it is happening a lot but the victims are not talking or telling anyone for the embarrassment, the shame or the realisation that they are a lot more vulnerable than they are ready to let on.

Banks must profile

Banks are usually the centres of this corrupt enterprise because that is where the money is with people being cajoled, blackmail, shaken-down or rustled. They need to be aware that people are targeting their customers usually gaining information about accounts or other pertinent details that will not draw suspicion to criminal activity preying on the vulnerability of the elderly.

Besides, I think banks have a greater duty of care and concern towards these vulnerable sections of society and it is important that they adopt measures that are sympathetic and cognisant of withdrawal patterns of these people – such as alerts to successive withdrawals of large sums of money, facilitation of wired transfers rather than the handling of large sums of cash and advising that senior citizens for their good be better accompanied to and from the banks.

They need to create better profiles of their customers of a certain age, install triggers to alert to unusual activity and have better levels of customer care and challenge/response scenarios to help their customers safeguard their wealth especially when things are somewhat out of the person’s control.

Any other ideas you might have towards helping our parents evade these crooks will be welcome and please post them as comments.

Thank you.

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Thought Picnic: The genius of Facebook

Facing the past happily

I was chatting to a friend I last saw over two decades ago, he was one of my best friends when we were in secondary school.

The fact is for all the keenness of my memory about so many events of my past one aspect gives me concern, that of names. I have had too many instances where I have mismatched surnames and cannot for all the familiarity I had with the same people remember that essential piece of information.

Obviously, when the name showed up as a Facebook invitation, there was instant recognition with the mental slap on the head as how I could ever forgotten ever.

Everyone is a friend or a fan

However, for all the negative uses of Facebook, when I got chatting to my friend he highlighted something about the Facebook service that should have us in gratitude to whoever thought us the idea and implemented it.

Now, I have many friends on Facebook because the basic concept of interaction is Friendship and that is between people, when dealing with an organisation, institution or some personality as a public figure their profiles offer a different mode of interaction which allows you to click on the Like button.

In essence, you befriend people you know or seek to establish some relationship with and like things, objects or people you are fans of.

This is the air travel of interaction

Before Facebook there were few services that offered the means for re-establishing contact with long lost friends, you wondered where they were, what they did, how they have changed and so on; they were memories – sometimes keen, sometimes faint but we were in terms helpless and just let time run its course.

I am on many networks and have registered on alumni management sites but none have come close to the kind of social interaction that Facebook offers to rediscover and reacquaint yourself with your past; memorably nice or downright rotten.

You do have to filter your reconnections; I refuse to allow my curiosity to know to drive me back into the arms of the dreadful nightmares of the past, they are best left latent maybe even forgotten and never rekindled, no, not for a second.

Facing a broader spectrum of your history

So, as I have written before, Facebook has brought me in contact with family and relations, some so extended and the first time I met then was on Facebook. In my 40s I am making new contact with people I went to school with in the 70s and early 80s, it is surreal.

Such opportunities never existed except at alumni reunions but with the world being an ever smaller place and people travelling even further afield than before the opportunities for live meetings are more diminished.

You make a friend on Facebook and literally all the gaps get filled at an instant depending on the information shared and people share as much information to what is primarily their circle of current and close circle of friends which gets cascaded out to others who are acquaintances and long lost contacts who have become Facebook friends.

So, what Facebook has done for the rekindling of relationships is phenomenal despite the misgivings of many, it brings you back into the broad spectrum of all the people, issues and circumstances that have defined your experiences and history; crowding them into your present and forging and future that would be interesting to control, if you can.

Facebook is no joke

Looking beyond the technology and vehicle of social networking there is something greater at play; what you choose to do with those re-established relationships is left to you and how you handle those you have never had but now have to opportunity to tend, grow and foster might well define who you might become.

For all the figures, ratings and daily interactions that range from trivia to downright serious, Facebook in its concept is a work of genius and its ultimate uses have probably not yet been imagined by those who started this amazing experiment.

If there is anything you can take from this realisation, it is that Facebook is no joke, you constantly have to ask yourself about what you share, what is private, who you are willing to meet, what you are ready to relive, if you should curb your enthusiasm and whether you really can handle what Facebook brings back to you.

Nigeria: Giving your relations a heads-up on scammers

Protocols of contact

It is necessary to send a cautionary note to the many of us separated from our close relations by time and distance that certain unscrupulous middlemen might be tempted to take advantage of that situation to misrepresent our situations to our close relations and by doing so deceive, defraud or scam them.

There have been a number of instances where certain confidence tricksters have contacted relations with tall tales about believable but made-up circumstances drawing close relations into confidence.

It is important that we establish the protocols of contact and communication with our relations that they are not unduly taken advantage of.

Eliminate surprises

In my case, I have decided that I will neither use couriers or messengers to convey goods, services or messages to my relations without first informing them that such an arrangement has been made.

In essence, do not surprise them such that cold calls and surprise packages or messages will allow them to drop their guard when confidence tricksters come in to play.

Never send strangers to your relations, if you do, ensure that you and that stranger have at the point of initiating that messaging activity talk to the specific relations you expect them to contact beforehand.

Maybe you should establish code words or passwords that need to be verified before strangers are given an audience, these culprits can have obtained your details from all sorts of sources and use that to convince your people – the absence of the secret password will put paid to that criminal enterprise.

In other words, adapt the money transfer verification protocols for your purposes.

Always for their net gain

In many cases, your relations are the receivers; you should never make arrangements that have your relations having to pay up for any goods, services or messages you have initiated, they should gain a net profit and not a loss by reason of poor coordination.

Ensure, your relations know your real circumstances in terms of status, needs, means and concerns, this should ensure no one is able to plant strange stories about you to gain unwarranted confidence.

It is important that they know that when they are contacted by strangers to part with anything your relations should at least contact you, failing which they should contact at least two of your siblings, close friends or known associates before they act to part with anything which should be done only in company and never blindly.

Share the information

If the contacts ask that none of the information they have offered or shared be discussed with others, immediately suspect foul play and ensure that the widest possible network of people are engaged – if the report is that you are in trouble, you need concerted efforts of help not isolated sources of uncoordinated activity.

It is difficult to properly codify a proper warning chart of things to make your relations aware of, but it is most important for them to be fully apprised, properly informed, rarely surprised and in complete control of any communication channel that is opened on your behalf with the support of everyone else who genuinely has your concerns to heart – those people can never be those strangers, no matter how good their intentions at the onset presaging the opportunity to take advantage of your kith and kin.

Thought Picnic: It is happening on Facebook

It is happening on Facebook

There is a discussion happening on Facebook that you have to be a part of, in fact, there are many discussions that do not appear on blogs, on Twitter or in the news but it is wholesome, interesting and engaging.

I joined Facebook just over a year ago after years of taking the media reviews of it being fickle, feckless and hardly rewarding.

More so, we are told it is inherently evil, every missing person, abused person or unfortunate victim of crimes, some as heinous as rape or murder appears to have some Facebook assailant.

You manage your Facebook

The problem is really not Facebook, you can have as many friends as you want on Facebook; a good many you will know from all walks of life and others would just latch onto you, however, you can clearly choose what you want to share and with whom, primarily by making lists and managing permissions to your content by lists.

Very personal and private information should only be shared with those you know, in fact, the people you really know probably have other means of contacting you and it is best to use those channels than Facebook messaging.

If you properly compartmentalise the wealth of information you share on Facebook, distinguishing between the groups of people you meet just as you do not get too familiar with strange and unfamiliar people in real life, you should be generally safe.

You manage your Facebook, do not let it manage you, you have the right to click Cancel, click No, click Ignore, click Later, you do not have to click OK, Proceed, Accept, Allow – DO NOT feel compelled to do anything and do not let your curiosity get the better of you; you can wait until you have acquired more knowledge about a setting or situation before proceeding – a simple Google search could give you a general risk profile of the option.

Boxing your friends

The groups you can manage range from parents – these might include other relations with whom certain levels of openness have not been established; relations – these might be cousins and many others removed who you have grown to know through the relationships established through your parents.

Friends – you probably want to separate your current friends from those you have long lost contact with and these might well be different from another group or supposed friends; ex-schoolmates – ranging from those you met in primary school who would be quite different from those you met in secondary school and ultimately different from those you met in college or university.

Each set of friends probably know different things about you and you either want them to collide or you manage their access to your details.

There are levels of granularity of access to information that Facebook offers from who can see what like your birthday and age, who can send you messages, you can update your statuses, where you want to get notifications from and so on.

Acquaintances may be fans not friends

You do have to take your time to put the people in your life in the right context of relationship they have with you, you will probably be uncomfortable with people you barely know being all too familiar with you and that brings us to another group of Facebook befrienders – acquaintances – people you hardly know but have networked themselves to you through other contacts; if in doubt, ignore them, if you must do due diligence, ask one of your other closer friends about them.

You can also acquire friends through their interest in what you have been saying on Facebook and since it is difficult to make the distinction of those being fans rather than your friends, they are probably the ones you do not want to share your photo albums with and other intimate information you have shared on Facebook.

Keep true but manage it

Facebook has a tendency to draw out all your interests, likes and peeves than create relationships borne of those choices, just remember that everything you put in Facebook becomes a reference data point for analysis and suggestion – in most cases; you probably do not want to put those things online.

Obviously, you do not want to be an Internet schizophrenic, you want to maintain one true identity about yourself based on fact and truth or else you are left with the unmanageable portfolio of lies told to different people at different times with the impossibility of keeping track of who have been give what information and when.

Think about if you are being extrovert, an exhibitionist or a subject for voyeurism; think about why you are sharing what you are sharing and with whom; think about retaining a bit of mystery about yourself – think about the situation where your history is in the mouth and words of others completely out of your control, think about the need to be a bit reserved and exercising some discretion and Facebook could be great fun rather than a tragedy waiting to happen.

Get on Facebook but you do not have to join the bandwagon or be part of the crowd, make it unique and culture it well.

Facebook: From figleaf privacy to fully dressed discretion

More Facebook about-face

Many of my friends and readers of my blogs would have read a number of postings about my experiences with Facebook.

There is no doubt that Facebook serves some purpose, I now have connections that date back to primary school about 40 years ago, a good number of secondary school friends are back in my social circle and I am also in contact with close and distant relations along with different acquaintances from all walks of my life.

In that way, Facebook provides a rich social networking experience, the problem arises when having put in all the information that creates the conditions for making, renewing or reestablishing connections you find that you have minimal control over who get access to that information.

Your privates are exposed

Facebook is a sponge for every detail of your life and everything you inadvertently put in can become global knowledge beyond your relations and friends to potential employers, detractors or worse.

Facebook itself is not known to have exemplary ethical conduct in the management of the privacy of its patrons, the company is in flux trying to determine who all this information from over 400 million accounts can be commercialised and monetarised without us having a say over what get push to us by our details or as a result of our relationship.

AllFacebook.com recently posted an article on how the default privacy settings had changed on Facebook between 2005 and April 2010 – I winced at how exposed I had become, it was like an involuntary strip-tease as you clothes were ripped off till I was left with the postscript of a tweet I posted – You only have a fig-leaf for your privates.

The animation of that graphics were originally published by Matt McKeon with the title - The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook – He includes information on how the data was sampled and the comments that follow do help one understand what might be at stake.

Rapidly evolving rules

What is driving the quest for more privacy and sometimes the exodus from Facebook is that the Terms of Service and rules are changing rapidly in favour of the company just exposing more and more of our information in the name of helping more social interaction – nothing could be further from the truth about that.

Personally, I have been actively locking down areas of information that I have put on Facebook just because I do not have much control over where all that information might end up.

Now, for those who are not as technically savvy or understanding of the finer details of privacy, secrecy and confidentiality – if you may know, these words are not synonyms, they mean completely different things, but you have to secure your privacy, manage your secrecy and definitely do not trust strangers with information you feel should be confidential – the underlying question being who can you trust with detail about what you like, what you do and what you’ll rather not share.

How to …

Jason Perlow, a writer for ZDNet; a technical magazine offers some advice in a video which can be very helpful in Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video) – some of his suggestions take it to the extreme with the assumption that only friends that already know you are your default contacts, but you need to leave in enough information to distinguish you in some way to old friends like schools and other basic historical information.

You need something to network with but be smart about what you leave in, what you take out and in a more granular setting create lists of most trusted friends and give them more access whilst closing access to others.

Let us use Facebook for what we have intended for it to help us do, link up with friends and family and thwart attempt by the behemoth to convert our precious relationships into filthy lucre.

One piece of advices you should take away from this is to check your profile every month to see that it is still as watertight as you want it to be as Facebook shape-shifts around your privacy. Use Facebook but do not let it use you unethically and unfairly.

Sources

[1] INFOGRAPHIC: The History Of Facebook’s Default Privacy Settings

[2] The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

[3] Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video) | ZDNet

On Facebook, they are not easily found

There not to be seen

I was chatting to my sister this afternoon and was informed that many of my siblings and cousins were on Facebook; that ultimate global connector to a life you once lived and allowed to drift away with the encumbrance of other events and issues.

Having the smarts to ask, I wondered if everyone was there with their common names, somehow we had certain names as children but those names seem to have changed from the nicknames to fully spelt out names in some instances and in others the spelling was just not the commonly accepted arrangement of letters.

As it happened none of the names were exactly what I would call low hanging fruit, easy to pluck with a basic search – I tried every permutation except for the probably obvious and they were still lost in the Facebook quagmire.

CSI Facebook

In the end, it took the search for a cousin with a deduction about a possible birth-date and a scan of the Facebook Wall to find the first connection and from there I was exposed to new realities of people I once knew quite well.

There is this common view of meeting long lost relatives where one surmises having passed by a close relation and having treated that person as a common stranger.

With uncommon identities on Facebook that risk was almost too self-evident if one were to be utterly, utterly cross to the point of using rather unfriendly expression with a stranger who just happens to be your close relation because the interaction does not reveal what should be the obvious.

English, but not as I know it

I have asked myself if I was ready for Facebook [1] but even more I wonder if I am even readier for an expression of English that would give me headaches – writing in SMS-speak and it basically leaves a purist and “oldie” as I completely flummoxed.

I once had my mother help convert the text message of a sibling to something I could digest, this time, because mum is not yet on Facebook, I would either have to learn or be left behind in the wake of communication that is far above my head.

What my conservative mien would call sloppy is entirely acceptable to another generation of writers but I really do pray that this is not what ends up on formal communication as in examinations or reports.

This is really no more facing the book, the book is being thrown in your face and he who has eyes had better begin to read and write – as for me, let’s just say this is the prequel to Die Hard VI.

Source

[1] Are you ready for Facebook? [akin.blog-city.com]