Author Archives: Mike

Unknown's avatar

About Mike

Journalist, writer, world traveler

My So-Called [Facebook] Friends

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Mike

Author and poet Maya Angelou, no longer a friend

 

I got rid of more than 200 of my Facebook “friends” this week.

My methodical slash and burn took almost a full day to complete. But the end result? Facebook now feels right.

I had been thinking for months about purging my friends list. But when I started the process Tuesday and ended well after midnight Wednesday, I had no idea it would take as much time and effort. I also never imagined so many would meet my newly sharpened ax. I started with 520 friends on my list, cut 223 and as of this writing was left with 297 Facebook friends who, with just two exceptions, I personally know.

Over the years, I had approved friend requests from people I knew little or nothing about. These requests had come from friend of friends, fellow journalists, former colleagues, purported family members from every corner of the world, and plain strangers. By allowing all manner of individuals to join in my Facebook circle, my Facebook wall became a rather impersonal and even unsettling place of random comments, lewd postings and unnecessary swearing. The people occupying my private-public space on the Internet were a band of individuals I had never met, friends who hardly offered so much as a “hello, how are you?” in months and in some cases years, and people who I wouldn’t normally have anything to do with in real life. Crudity juxtaposed with nudity.

Of course not everyone I unfriended was a troglodyte. Among them, there are some of the coolest people and journalism professionals I have ever met. But I am already connected to most of them through LinkedIn, and that’s where I think our relationship belongs – on that site largely dedicated to professional networking. My plan is to make Facebook a place for family and longtime friends with a sprinkle of professional relationships. And above all, it will be composed of people I have actually met.
For far too long my Facebook page has been a band of either perennially silent types just taking up space or prolific posters plastering my wall with nonsense or requests to join them in the latest kill-time games. No matter, it was high time to scrub the wall clean and start anew.

So now when I log in to Facebook, I immediately see and feel there’s a difference. I instantly recognize names and faces and we have conversations and share thoughts and ideas and important information about each other’s lives. I’m not constantly asking “who is this?” I know who it is – all 297 of them are truly friends who would not allow a birthday to go by without a heartfelt “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”, as happened this week. But the best part is that my real friends aren’t getting lost in the mess of people I hardly know or don’t know at all.
Going through my list of friends on Facebook to decide who should stay and who should go was not a simple process. First of all, Facebook doesn’t offer bulk removal of friends. It would have been nice if in one or two clicks, dozens of  “friends” could be instantly dropped from the list. Instead, removal has to be done one painstaking man or woman at a time. And of course, with just about every deletion I paused to consider if they warranted deletion. In the process I was surprised by just how many people I had approved who were just lurking in the shadows. Among them, sadly, I counted three friends – really good friends – who were long dead, which begs the question, does Facebook even know how many dead people make up part of its closing in on 1 billion subscribers? At least one of my dear friends has been dead for a three years. I never bothered to delete him from my list of friends. I thought his profile would be eventually removed by his family or Facebook itself. His page is still up, a sort of tribute to his memory.
My new criteria for approving Facebook friend request is simple: I must know you personally. That means we’ve met face to face, either recently or you are a blast from my past. Of course, family I know to be family gets an instant in. No longer will I accept a friend request solely on the basis that we have the same last name. Who would have thought that the surname Ottey would turn out to be so popular! I had so many Otteys on my Facebook friends roster, it might as well had been the more common Smith.
By the way, a word to those I unfriended: It’s not personal. You are actually in good company. With you, I let go some instantly recognizable names, meaning some folks of national and international stature. Among them, author and poet Maya Angelou. Nothing against Ms. Angelou, just that she and I are not friends in the truest sense of the word. Yes, I met her and interviewed her at least three times in my career as a journalist, and she was every bit inspiring. She’s one of my heroes, in fact. I admire her. But again, we’re not friends. She approved my Facebook friend request almost soon after I sent it to her, and a couple of times I dropped in on her page to post birthday wishes on her wall, but we did not communicate directly on Facebook at all. I added her to my Mike Tends To Travel Facebook group, and unlike some other so-called friends, she remained in the group and continues to be a part of the group to this day. For that I publicly thank her and hope she is enjoying my travel stories, photos and discussions in the group. But I had to treat Ms. Angelou and other celebs and pseudo-celebs I counted among my list of friends with the same even hand. I didn’t come to this decision lightly. She was the 223rd person I unfriended – the very last. I know, some of you all will label me crazy for unfriending Maya Angelou. But she won’t miss me – she has more than 4,000 friends on her list. And by the way, that’s her personal Facebook page, not a fan page that every Tom, Dick and Harry can join.
Yet, her Facebook page seems to have been hijacked by spammers. I noticed people slapping ads for resort vacations and other products on her Facebook wall, and no recent postings from her, which leads me to believe she has hardly spent any time recently on Facebook.
I expect my friends list to grow again, but it will grow at a much slower pace than previously as I travel the world, and only with people whom I’ve met. It will be really exciting to have an ever-increasing collection of friends from around the world on Facebook, in much the same way my couchsurfing.org page is composed entirely of people I’ve met. I look forward to my new harmonious Facebook. And as for the rest of you who still want to be a part of my journey via Facebook, there is Facebook’s new subscribe option. That’s available to all. And we don’t even really have to be personal friends 🙂
Related articles
Categories: asides | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday To Me!

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Mike

Today is my birthday. It’s the first of at least two more I will mark outside the United States. This one I am spending in Calama, Chile. In which country will I find myself in when the other birthdays hit, I don’t know. Could be Moscow or Mumbai. Could be Bangkok or South Africa. Could be the Middle East. No matter, wherever I am, I hope to be surrounded by a bunch of local people simply having a good time, as I have done in Chile. It was really a fantastic birthday and I thank all my Chilean and expat friends who made it happen.

With you….

….still

on a journey….

Friends surprised me with this birthday cake in Chile. It was chocolaty delicious!

Related articles
Categories: posts | Leave a comment

Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Mike
Richard Nixon meets Leonid Brezhnev June 19, 1...

Richard Nixon and his adversary Leonid Brezhnev. Chile lost in the translation?

Chileans have their own 9/11.  For many Chileans, September 11, 1973 will be the date that forever will live in infamy. Theirs happened 38 years ago, a full 28 years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States that shook the world to its core and today overshadows anything that happened on that day, including on Chilean soil. But to Chileans, their own 9/11 is one huge sad chapter in their history, and one that continues to cause much pain almost 40 years after.

On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a bloody military coup. Dozens of people were killed that day, but thousands died in the days, months and years that followed. The dictatorship proved more harmful and certainly more deadly to Chilean society than  anything Allende’s duly elected government had done.  Growing dissatisfaction at home with Allende’s socialist policies, lagging economic conditions, and cozy relationship with communist Cuba led to the coup. But external forces as well played a key role in Allende’s overthrow and the installation of the military dictatorship. In the midst of a Cold War and an arms race with the Soviet Union, the United States worried that the Soviets would gain yet another foothold in Latin America.

U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered the Central Intelligence Agencyto step up operations in Chile to hasten the removal of Allende, who as part of his socialist agenda had nationalized companies – including the mining industry – partly or wholly in the hands of American and other foreign interests. American companies, such as ITT Corp., also spent millions trying to derail Allende.

Los Desaparecidos

 ITT was a majority owner of the Chilean telephone company and openly worried that Allende would nationalize it as well. That would mean millions in losses for the U.S.-based corporate giant. So internal and external forces worked hand in hand to topple Allende. And so a ruthless dictatorship came to be. The human rights violations are immeasurable.

Every year, Chileans observe the somber anniversary with calls for justice for the men and women collectively known as los desaparecidos – the vanished. Over the course of the 17-year dictatorship, thousands of these individuals were executed, murdered, tortured and made to disappear. They were often picked up at their homes or place of work and never seen or heard from again. Some were buried in unmarked graves in the desert.
In Calama, where I currently live here in Chile, I was walking in the center of town when I came across a display and a group of women known as the Women of Calama. These are women whose husbands, sons, fathers were executed by the military regime or made to disappear. One of the women, a black and white photo of her father pinned to her chest, took the time to tell me about the display and the reason for it.

Reading...remembering

She said that on October 19, 1973, just over a month into the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 26 men from Calama were rounded up – her father included – and were never heard from again. Some were executed while the whereabouts of others was never again known.  The Women of Calama each year call for justice for the individuals whose lives were cut short by the military dictatorship led by Pinochet. Annually in the center of Calama they display the photos of the men and items that tell their stories, such as family photographs, documents and news articles.


On the day I saw the moving display, hundreds of Chileans gathered around to see it. Children learn about the events of 1973 and beyond in Chilean schools, she said, so there’s little chance of Chile’s youths not knowing that part of their country’s history. Still, the Women of Calama dust off the displays each year in October as a way to remember those killed.

The woman told me that the wheels of justice move extremely slowly in Chile and many who took part in the murders and torture of innocents are yet to be brought to justice.  She said some of the accused are old and make all sorts of claims of senility to avoid prosecution.

Some say Chileans don’t like Americans for the United States’ part in bringing the dictatorship to power. I can’t say that I blame them, if that’s indeed the case. But in my three months in Chile, I have not seen any evidence of that. If anything, I’ve been shown nothing but kindness once Chileans learn I’m American.

Certainly, the United States wanted Allende gone. But Chileans also wanted his ouster. Those two forces obviously didn’t know that a military dictatorship that would go around conducting assassinations even beyond its borders would assume control. Herein lies the lesson for the United States and others backing the overthrow of longtime leaders in places such as the Arab world : Be careful what you wish for.

Milton Alfredo – executed October 19, 1973

Related articles
Categories: asides | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.