Longer answer: Twitter still has a freshness to it that Facebook a while back when it because a Zynga gaming society. Not everyone who owns a computer is on it, but there are a good chunk of people who are. I can use it from my iPhone just as easily as I can from a desktop machine, and it’s pretty damned easy to make new friends without having to feel like you’re exposing your deepest darkest secrets like your pictures from a 6th grade class trip. There really isn’t the “commitment” involved that Facebook forces on you; you can follow someone who seems cool solely for that reason and never interact with them, and the same goes in return.

Basically, Twitter is a giant chat room where you control who you want to hear.

But if you want a specific example of why I love Twitter, a little story. I follow Alyssa Milano on Twitter (@Alyssa_Milano) as it’s just something you do when you’ve had a crush on someone for two and a half decades. Anyway, Alyssa (who is an avid Tweeter) had some concern that her account had been hacked because her account had posted a message she didn’t post herself:

So… Just found a rt that I didn’t send. If you see anything suspicious coming from my account, please let me know.

“rt” here stands for “retweet”, which is the quick and simple way to take a message someone has posted and send it to your followers while giving credit to the person who originally posted the message. It used to be simple — you clicked the “retweet” button and the message was sent from your account with a “RT” in front and the person’s Twitter handle and their message. Like much of Twitter, it was meant to be short and simple — putting a “D” in front of a person’s Twitter handle sent them a private message for example — but it became easy to manipulate. People could “edit” the quote before retweeting it, so there was no stopping someone from forging a retweet to imply that someone else could say whatever the forger wanted. Twitter would later change the “retweet” system to keep people from editing the tweets, but the old system still works.

Anyway, I read that and see that Alyssa’s already changed her password and without having seen the retweet that has Alyssa concerned, my first thought is the forged retweet. Did she see someone forging a retweet and just think quick “hey, I didn’t write that tweet — did someone hack my account?” So I send her a message, trying to be funny, and figuring that she’s not going to see it (Alyssa’s got over 960k followers). It’s probably the same type of message that I would have sent to one of my friends:

@Alyssa_Milano are you sure it wasn’t a forge? It’s easy to forge a retweet. RT @Alyssa_Milano: I love @MrWorkrate because he’s hot.

Obviously she never said that (well, obviously kind of reflects a little negatively on me) but it was meant to be funny. I laughed. Then I went on with my day. Three minutes later, this pops onto my timeline:

@MrWorkrate Hahaha! No… They used the button…

Alyssa Milano — Alyssa Milano with a Twitter following larger than the population of Detroit — Alyssa Milano whom I’ve had a crush on since I was 12 years old — talked to me. Not only that, but she laughed at something I said. It was one of the highlights of my geek life. It doesn’t compare to real-life stuff like getting married and kids and all that, but from an online perspective few things (if any) have topped that.

And that’s one of the real reasons I love Twitter — it’s that everyone is operating at the same level. Celebrities, politicians, adult film stars, IT geeks, crazed shut-ins… they’re all there, and they all can be heard if you want to listen. There are a decent amount of celebrities on Twitter, and while many of them elect to use it as a sort of blog (not following anyone, no interaction) and have some intern or assistant actually running it, there are a few (like Alyssa) who use it just like everyone else and remind you that they’re still people just like you.

And sometimes they talk to you. And it makes your day.

It was easy as a Yankee fan growing up with the New York tabloids to hate George Steinbrenner. Even as a grade schooler, I was critical of moves that the Yankees made, such as allowing Reggie Jackson to leave as a free agent, and later the departures of Rich “Goose” Gossage (via free agency) and Graig Nettles (via trade, allegedly as a result of negative comments Nettles made about Steinbrenner in his memoir). But it was his actions towards Dave Winfield that made me despise the man.

Winfield and Steinbrenner always seem to have some kind of friction, which I never understood as a grade schooler. To me, Dave Winfield was the ideal player; talented and athletic, but humble and friendly. Steinbrenner clashed with Winfield though, going so far as to hire Howard Spira to dig up dirt on Winfield to tarnish his image. Winfield would eventually be traded (for Mike Witt of all people) and would give several more productive seasons (and receive a World Series ring in return in 1992), while Steinbrenner would be banned for life* from baseball for his dealings with Spira.

When I got older though, I realized why Steinbrenner acted this way (well, some of it) and learned to appreciate what he did for the Yankees more. The time away from baseball did the Yankees a world of good; Steinbrenner’s departure opened the door for Gene Michael to build the team as general manager without interference from Steinbrenner. Michael was a baseball guy — an excellent scout and judge of talent. Michael and later Bob Watson would build what would become the “Yankee Dynasty”, drafting and signing players such as Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Bernie Williams, and trading for players like Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neill and Scott Brosius. That — not the buying of free agents — is what made the Yankees a dominant team in the 90s. When Steinbrenner was reinstated after a few years, he took a less “hands-on” approach — allowing professional baseball people like Michael and Watson do what they did best — while at the same time keeping the high expectations in place that had been there before. From 1987 to 1990, the Yankees changed managers five times, almost always as a direct result of Steinbrenner. In the twenty years since, the Yankees have only changed managers three times.

As someone who went to a lot of Yankees games during that time, I can tell you that late 80s/early 90s Yankee teams that were some of the worst in Yankee history were a direct result of Steinbrenner’s actions. I can also say that the two rings the Yankees brought home in 1977 and 1978 and the late 90s dynasty likely wouldn’t have happened without him either. When Steinbrenner’s group purchased the Yankees in 1973, the Yankees were a second-tier franchise, struggling to make a .500 record and playing in a crumbling stadium. In three years, the Yankees were back in the World Series.

It’s easy to criticize the Yankees spending, but it’s also easy to forget how easily Steinbrenner could have maintained a “regular” payroll and pocketed the rest of the money. Steinbrenner spent profits to make his product better. Isn’t that what you want from an owner?

You’ll be missed, Mr. Steinbrenner.

Anyway, the NPR piece started in a 10th grade classroom and got a few sound bites from the teacher, who said she first read it in college (what?) and fell in love with it. Then they interview one of the 10th graders and ask her about the book. She replied back in that way that all kids in grade through high school do, with that essay-prepared answer using part of the question in the answer. What got me was that the girl (and I’m paraphrasing here) said that she learned that people shouldn’t be treated differently because of the color of their skin.

I’m sorry. You learned that? Just then?

Assuming the school was not stuck in an alternate universe stuck in 1961, I’ll guess that the girl misspoke; she didn’t learn that people shouldn’t be treated differently because of race, but instead she discovered that in the past people were treated differently — to extremes — because of the color of their skin. To say that she learned about equal treatment for races implies that this is new information for her, which would be kind of sad some 55 years after the Rosa Parks incident and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

I blame education more than anything else for the response. From grade school on you are taught to answer questions using “complete sentences”, which means you’re to restate the question in your answer. For example, if you’re asked:

What is your favorite color?

you answer:

My favorite color is [color].

This leads to clearer writing; however between this and essays where students have to dump almost the entire essay question into an opening paragraph in order to get proper credit, we’re left with too much thought put into the structure, and not enough into the message. So by 10th grade, when this poor girl is being interviewed by the news and has a microphone or recorder put in front of her face — likely after having been prepped weeks beforehand with practice questions and with her teacher within earshot — she ends up regurgitating the answer she gave on the radio, more concerned with using a complete sentence than with giving an answer that didn’t make her sound like a converted bigot.

I always hated “complete sentences”, mainly because I hated writing by hand (remember — I’ve been a computer geek for a while) but also because I found it wasteful and impractical. People don’t talk like that. I litter this blog post (and pretty much all of my writing) with contractions not to save a handful of keystrokes but because that’s how I speak, and how most of the people around me speak. I’m told when I write people who read it hear it in their head in my voice, which I think is cool. I think that’s how writing should be — messages that the author would tell you themselves if they met you in person.

I know teachers — especially English teachers — have a tough job. Schedules of high school students are packed so tight with classes, necessary extra-curricular activities, and time spent with friends (and sometimes even family) that the thought of being able to sit and read several hundred pages of literature — some of it hundreds of years old — is inconceivable, even if they wanted to. Between that and a constantly evolving language, English teachers can’t rely on the syllabus they drew up even five years ago. It’s going to be tough, but at some point, you have to meet somewhere in the middle between a paragraph and a half before answering a question and “LOL OMG ROFL KTNXBI!”

So English teachers of America, I beg of you — encourage coherent writing, not specific structure. Few things discourage a young writer more than writing a clear and coherent paper with a strong argument only to have points taken off or to have it thrown back in their face because it didn’t fit into an antiquated formulaic structure.

When I started to write this, I had more detail in mind, but getting sidetracked into updating WordPress and a few other things the inspiration has simmered. I’m going to try to sleep now — if it doesn’t work, I’ll go into more detail.

In an effort to keep the series running, the second installment of the “Adult’s Guide to Preschool TV” is up on PopBunker. I hit on the Disney Channel on this one (specifically “Playhouse Disney”, as Disney labels its Preschool shows.)

I had a little less fun writing this one than I did on the Nick Jr. one. I don’t know if I was just more inspired on the Nick Jr. piece, or if it was because I was getting back into writing in the first one and the second one just seemed “necessary”, but it just kind of left me with an “I’m finished” feeling instead of being pleased. Maybe I’ll get some good feedback on it and I’ll feel a little better.

Third installment will come around eventually, but I might try a differently themed article for my next PopBunker post, just so I don’t feel locked in. Figure that with the preschool series I can only go in two directions — PBS Kids stuff (most of which is pretty good and not that easy to make fun of) or picking various programs that I haven’t mentioned in an effort to wrap it up. The latter is more likely, since there are some ripe targets out there (one of which probably deserves its own post) and it works better to wrap up the series.

So check it out or something.

So apparently Alex Rodriguez has a torn labrum in his hip, which will either put him out for 10 weeks (according to his brother), 4 months (if the Yankees feel he needs surgery), or not at all (the initial approach the Yanks are taking.)

admission that he took steroids

probably

So once again, could be worse.

WINNER: Orioles, but for the wrong reasons.

[silence]

WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?