Category: Society

Society by Joe WilcoxJan 7, 20067:46 pm

Where Kids Fly Safe Online?

I simply couldn’t find time to blog this week, on my personal site. Busy week at the office, with the Consumer Electronics Show—and I didn’t even attend! I feel for my boss, who traveled to Las Vegas and soon goes onto San Francisco for Macworld.

My first catchup post is followup to my two posts, “What Kids Reveal Online” and “Minimizing Kids’ Online Risks“. Jan. 16, 2006, Business Week has a story about new online social network, Yfly.com, which opens on February 1. Apparently, Jessica Simpson’s soon-to-be ex-spouse Nick Lachey is behind the venture, which seeks to provide teens a safe place to socialize online.

Living by Joe WilcoxDec 30, 200511:00 pm

Minimizing Kids' Online Risks

As the parent of an 11 year-old that is active online, I’m concerned about the risks she might encounter there. I also realize that my daughter is fairly insulated from many dangers, because of simple rules she willingly agrees to follow. Risks remain, as they would anywhere, walking along Capitol Hill at night, driving fast on the highway, or climbing a ladder to change a light bulb. Living is about taking risks. But taking unnecessary online risks, particularly when there are predators online hunting teenagers, is another matter. Adult content websites such as hdpornvideo are widely available and accessible all over the internet, but should only be viewed by those of us that are fully mature enough to understand what they represent.

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 29, 200511:00 am

What Kids Reveal Online

Yesterday, a friend asked me to check out her eldest daughter’s Xanga site, to look for privacy or security problems. The teenager hadn’t posted anything compromising her identity. But her friends were another matter. Many of the teenagers revealed quite a bit of personal information, such as IM handles, that could be misused by predators.

Living by Joe WilcoxDec 28, 20056:29 am

Matchmaking Marketing

I am fascinated by marketing and how it is filtered through culture. This morning, I clicked through to a news story from Express India, for which RSS feed I subscribe. A banner ad for Indian matrimonial site Shaadi.com piqued my interest, because of its emphasis on matchmaking. There are similar services in the U.S., but they—even match.com—focus on dating or personal ads.

Shaadi.com’s marketing pitch is about finding the right match, utilizing the company’s eMatchmaker technology. The service’s focus isn’t about dating, but I would be shocked if the technology turned out to be dramatically different from other “singles” services.

Living by Joe WilcoxDec 26, 20055:35 pm

Global Village

As a Cusper, I share some Baby Boomer values, although I shun most of them. However, I am drawn to some of the Boomer idealism, granted with pragmatic bent. And I’m still pretty idealistic, even in my, uh hum, forties.

The World Wide Web appealed to me because of my idealism, and the belief that the vast communications network would empower the masses.

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 22, 200510:10 am

Who Really Did Steal Christmas from Lonaconing?

I’ve got some advice for Idea Grove, make your weblog more usable. It’s unclear when posts are made, other than the month, and the only RSS feeds I can see are for services. Hello! Earth to Idea Grove, if your goal is through your Media Orchard weblog “to cultivate fresh thinking about the media, marketing and public relations”, a little easier communications would go along way. I did get the feed, but I should have been able to easily subscribe without signing up for a RSS service.

OK, griping aside, now is the real topic of this post. Media Orchard has a great take on Lonaconing, Md.’s lightless Christmas. Local power company and Verizon pulled the plug on the town’s Christmas lights, which, in the past, strung from the companies’ polls. Townspeople responded by putting a giant Grinch nearby the local Verizon office with sign, ”Who really did steal Christmas from Lonaconing?”

Politics by Joe WilcoxDec 18, 20059:45 am

I Don't See the Justification

Yesterday’s SouthCoastToday.com story about a student’s investigation by the Department of Homeland Security is breath stopping. Apparently, the “senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called The Little Red Book“. I have to admit that Mao’s communist manifesto wouldn’t be on my reading list, but like this kid I probably would want it for research on a college paper about communism.

Cold War is over, right? The war on terror is against Muslim extremists. Right? Last I checked, Muslim extremism doesn’t have much in common with atheistic communism. So why is a kid filling out a university library book request on communism, “leaving his name, address, phone number, and Social Security number” getting “visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security?” And I have to ask: The Feds are monitoring library book requests now?

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 11, 20055:07 pm

CBC Makes History

It is amazing the way the Web can be a great tool for history. The CBC—that’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—has a video clip of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Bed-In, June 8, 1969. The video features […]

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 8, 200510:50 pm

Remembering Lennon

December 8, 1980, I was volunteer fundraising in New York City. I beat the street until late and beat to bed around midnight. I lived in a group house a few blocks south of Columbia University on the Upper West Side.

I crawled out of bed around 8:30 a.m. on the 9th, a Tuesday. I recall bouncing down the stairs, laughing as I moved along. In those days, I was skinny and bushy blonde and always bubbling optimism. To a fault. I drove people nuts with my energy and enthusiasm.

Living by Joe WilcoxDec 2, 20058:07 pm

The Right Choice

My wife hauls me off to church every Sunday (and that’s not a bad thing). I teach Sunday school, which gets me out of the service. But last week, older kids organized a scavenger hunt for fourth through sixth graders (I teach the middleschoolers), so I had opportunity to sit in the service. Lucky, too.

The pastor announced she would step down at the end of December. After two-and-a-half years, she felt it was time to make room for new blood and a new way of doing things. I thought: “This is how it’s supposed to be”.

Aspiration by Joe WilcoxNov 22, 20057:40 pm

My Favorite Poem

Ladies, please substitute woman where appropriate.

I’m sure Rudyard wouldn’t mind.

Living by Joe WilcoxNov 20, 20056:29 am

Why Be a Statistic?

For no particular reason, I looked at the Weddings page in today’s New York Times and all the happy faces there. Then I wondered how many of these marriages, sadly, would eventually end in bitter divorce. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the divorce rate is about half the marriage rate per 1,000 people.

As a teen, I read the humorous, sci-fi parody, Where Were You Last Pluterday?, by Paul Van Herck. For the main character, marriage was easy. But divorce was a complicated and expensive affair—and he had good reason!