Note to Google Plus Users: You're Screwed

Here's a message on the blogger control panel:

Following the announcement of Google+ API deprecation scheduled for March 2019, a number of changes will be made to Blogger’s Google+ integration on 4 February 2019.

Google+ widgets: Support for the “+1 Button”, “Google+ Followers” and “Google+ Badge” widgets in Layout will no longer be available. All instances of these widgets will be removed from your blog.

+1 buttons: The +1/G+ buttons and Google+ share links below blog posts and in the navigation bar will be removed.

Please note that if you have a custom template that includes Google+ features, you may need to update your template. Please contact your template supplier for advice.

Google+ Comments: Support for Google+ comments will be turned down, and all blogs using Google+ comments will be reverted back to using Blogger comments. Unfortunately, comments posted as Google+ comments cannot be migrated to Blogger and will no longer appear on your blog.

Not chuckling. "First they came for the Google+ users and I did not speak out because I did not use Google+...." I had mentioned nearly nine years ago that I was thinking about migrating, and I'm thinking about it again. But since I have trouble posting a new post even when I practically promise that I will, don't hold your breath. I would like to, though.

Of course I'm not really talking about speaking out. I am talking about getting out.

Facebook Presence for Est Quod Est

Everything I've been doing online over the last year has been done on Facebook. And when I say everything, I mean upwards of 90%. Facebook is easy to interface with and it has become sort of a "one-stop shop" for people with limited time to catch-up on every level of news.

So now I decided to create a Facebook presence for Est Quod Est. Here is the address: https://www.facebook.com/Pauli1967 I'm going to link posts there, but I'm not planning to add any "extra" content, at least not right now. Everything there will redirect readers to the blog. It's really just a cross posting exercise. So if you aren't on Facebook, don't rush out and get an account for the sake of reading this wonderful blog.

In fact, I have thought about not linking to absolutely every post we do here to force people to spend time on the blog. For example, this post is not linked on the FB page. I am also considering linking to older EQE posts on Facebook since I feel that a lot of my Facebook friends would enjoy reading some of our observations on the blog.

I encourage people to get Facebook accounts even if they feel like they are "allergic" to social media. I have one friend who refuses to refuses to get one and, sometimes, I feel like I know more about what his kids are up to than he does. (Note: this is probably untrue....) But there are dangers involved with social media, and you can read about them all the time. So I understand the hesitation some have—it's warranted. Like anything powerful, misuse can be disastrous. For instance. But humans have been crippling themselves by livin' out loud for long ages before the arrival of social media.

Inspiration?

Has this blog been the inspiration for great artwork? or even mediocre artwork? I have no idea. However there is a painting by some artist named James Shipton with the title Est Quod Est. Funny. Here's a safe-for-work detail; go to the link to check out the "full monty".

Personally I would have named this painting KMWA. But that's just me.

Other possibilities for titles would include Back View of Some Chick Dropping Trou or, seeing that she has her hair in a bun, Bun and Buns. The title Est Quod Est gives absolutely no description of what this picture is about. And that could be said of the blog Est Quod Est as well.

Weekend Warrior

This is just a notification that I'll probably be mostly a "weekend warrior" on the blogging front for the foreseeable future. I have made a major change in my "day-job" employment which should be an improvement in the long-term, but the adjustment period will most definitely see a drop in posting. My mates might pick up the slack, who knows. We may be headed toward a heavy news season on our favorite topic. April showers supposedly bring May flowers, right?

Musings on a "Third Way"

Allow me to relate a small part of my weekend musings here. I recently received a short yet hysterical email which tacitly accused me of using a pseudonym so as to conceal my identity. But as I've said before, Pauli isn't a pseudonym; it's a nickname. Most people here know my surname and generally where I live. These things are not hard to figure out if you read enough of the blog and follow the links, and I often send emails to readers—and sometime would-be readers—which reveal my actual name. I'm really not worried about people discovering it.

Some bloggers who are in the habit of using their full name are a bit obsessed with those who choose not too. They'll talk about how pseudonymity encourages excessive carelessness and insensitivity when expressing opinions due to an immunity from any consequences. Others advocate the importance of pseudonyms, and how they facilitate free speech which is otherwise gagged for fear of repercussions. The false dichotomy that some of these bloggers perpetuate is that you're either boldly announcing in neon your name, address, what parish you belong to, how many kids you have and pets you own, etc. or you are living a double-life, hiding behind a wall of deception and hurling bombs from the pseudonymous online bunker you've constructed.

A third way avoids both the neon and the bunker. You could call it the "nickname way" if you feel you must call it something. This way of presenting your ideas is probably not available to someone who writes for a major media company or is a published author. If you are already a public figure when you start a blog, and you don't have an established moniker, then you might be perceived as using a pseudonym unless you use your real name. And you'll probably be expected to identify yourself anyway, being a public figure.

Here's the thing: most of us aren't public figures or columnists and we'd rather not have the trouble that goes with that. If you get interviewed by the local rag because you found a lost puppy does that make you a public figure? No. If you speak up at the town council meeting about bad zoning decisions does that make you a public figure? No. If you witness a crime and give a recorded testimony to the police does that make you a public figure? No. Then why should running a free online newsletter, AKA a blog, give you all the responsibilities and burdens of being a public figure? It doesn't, and if you think it does, you might want to check your ego, man. Or woman.

None of this is to say that I'd be necessarily against someone going ahead and going the anonymous/pseudonymous route. That may be harder than people realize, as we know from recent blog history. Like I've said before, there's enough info within the pages of my blog to "out" me for who I am. Just be aware of this fact: nobody cares.

And here's another interested point to consider. The most pseudonymous commenters on my blog, people like The Man from K Street and our own blogger Pikkumatti, are some of the best commenters on the site, and they never indulge in scurrilous attacks or over-the-top accusations. Likewise for our first-name bloggers and commenters like Keith, Kathleen, Diane and Silicon Valley Steve. These anecdotes agree with the latest statistical findings on this topic, by the way.

In case you missed Mark Shea's comments

I blogged a few days back on Joe Hippolito's FPM piece entitled A Catholic Writer’s Propaganda For Iran. The Catholic writer mentioned is Mark Shea who must have read both Joe's article and my blog post because he showed up in my comment box to exercise his 1st amendment rights which are universally respected here.

In fact, I want to make sure no one missed these comments, so I've reprinted them here. Here's the first one:

And EWTN/NCR has the bulging file of deranged rants from Joe [Hippolito], screaming at them about how the Church is damned by God, JPII is in hell, everybody Joe hates needs to be put to death with extreme prejudice and go to hell, nuking Muslims and Japanese is the will of God, Jesus loves capital punishment and pre-emptive war, the bishops are all going to hell, as well as many of NCR's writes (especially Yr Obdt Svt) and all his other helpful contributions to Catholic political thought over the years. I'm sure they will be on the edge of their seats listening to your appeal that they heed his wisdom. :)

Note the smiley at the end. Kind of a nice touch.

Second: Um, Joe has never had a blog. He parasitically lives off the blogs of others. If, by "doing things to people" you mean "not allowing rude wahoos on my blog" that's true. If you mean I never allow disagreements on my blog, you are either illiterate, stupid, or a liar, Jonathan.

On the other hand, I've never suggested that people who disagree with me should be murdered or prayed for their death and damnation. Joe's done that multiple times with me. Enjoy your bedfellow.

"Enjoy your bedfellow." Should we laugh at this remark? I did when I read it. Even if Mr. Shea does have some claim against Mr. Hippolito we can note something instructive here. He fills his cup of scorn and derision so abundantly that it overflows and we are all invited to take a swig.

Third: I'm not a paragon of virtue. I commit the same sins as you, Kathleen (whose writing is, after all, suffused with mockery, humiliation of others, and epithets). My point is not that I am a paragon of virtue. It is that Joe's hatred of both the Church and me is legendary throughout St. Blog's and that the editors at NCR are not unaware of it, since he has subjected them to it for years. So failure to acknowledge that little detail as Pauli makes the preposterous case for the sobriety of Joe's libel is a non-starter.

OK, I have to respond seriously to the charge that I made a "preposterous case for the sobriety of Joe's libel". Words mean something, words like sobriety and libel, and if Mark doesn't think Joe's article is accurate then he can explain why, providing examples. In fact, I'm sure he has done that on his blog, but I'll let someone else verify that. Nevertheless, libel denotes deliberate untruthfulness, or at least some type of vicious deviation from the facts, neither of which can be seen in Joe's article.

For example, referring to Rick Santorum as a "Murderer for Jesus" or referring to Santorum and Romney as "aspiring war criminals" can both be called vile attacks and distortions by just about anyone in the mainstream of America. Lines describing conservatives as possessing "deathless neoconservative faith in the Immaculate Conception of the State of Israel and its preservation from all sin, both original and actual" can easily be used as evidence for Joe's position that Mark Shea is at best a "curmudgeon who shoots from the hip and fails to understand the implications of his ideas" and at worst a "bigoted fanatic".

Now as far as sobriety goes, that's a judgement call, and I see nothing about the article which resembles a drunken rant. If Joe ranted at another time and another place without sobriety that is not relevant to my point and the point of Joe's article. It's normal and likely that past heated rhetoric may weaken his perceived reliability. But it's also a good idea to take someone's reasoned criticism presented thoughtfully according to its own merits. The only people who belabor every past lapse of an individual would be "rigorism maximumists". Wow, I just came up with that phrase! Am I clever or what?

Fourth: Jonathan (and Pauli):

You are welcome to post. However, you have to obey the rules. You're in my comboxes on my suffrage as guests. Disagreement is fine (as even a cursory read of my comboxes shows). Just be polite and honest.

I wonder what my wife is making for dinner tonight... Dang! tonight's PSR, too... And that flooring guy left a message, hope it's a low quote. Oh, that totally reminds me of something else....

Again, here's a link to his blog.

Fifth: This is Kathleen *R------*, correct?

And you seriously assert that nothing you've had to say about Rod Dreher is mocking, or aimed to humiliate, or chock full of epithets? Not to mention suffused with naked contempt for the guy?

Reeeeeeally?

Well, I suppose we'll just have to disagree about that.

No argument that I'm a terrible witness to the faith. But I'm all I've got and Jesus says to bear witness to him, so I try. Are you saying I shouldn't try? Or are you merely saying that it's worse that I do a bad job of witnessing to the faith than that Joe is actively trying to destroy the Church while urging mass murder.

Curious priorities.

"Joe is actively trying to destroy the Church while urging mass murder." Gee, didn't realize that. Maybe we should rethink our bedfellowship with Joe. I mean that has got to be worse than actively trying to destroy the Church while advocating a local, organic diet.

I'm not going to take a lot of time defending Kathleen because she can do so pretty adequately. I imagine her reading this blog on her smartphone in the checkout line and commenting with her right thumb while the left hand packs the groceries. I do think that she is a fairly normal woman in that if you once called her a "witch queen" she might not have an entirely warm attitude toward you.

I know I mentioned the 1st amendment earlier, so I should add that 2nd amendment rights are also respected on my blog. I'll let people shoot themselves in the foot whenever they are moved to do so. And as many times.

The Truth Will Set You Free

I have a number of new readers here at Est Quod Est. Some no doubt are under some sort of illusion that this is a good blog and that I am a good blogger. Those of you fitting this description should read one of my many feeble attempts at humor Why I am a Bad Blogger from two years ago. You may find it illuminating and slightly funny.

Is this my best comment evah?

Just noticed this one from an old post. Thought it was pretty funny.

Personally, I only grunt when I don't understand. And I only throw spears when I'm running around out in the woods with my friends wearing nothing but loin cloths and war paint.

Have I just about had it with Blogger.com?

I'm going to gave to answer that question Sarah Palin-style with a big "YOU BETCHA!" It was just completely unavailable and there was nothing to indicate why on the status page.

So I've made up my mind to move finally. It looks like I'll be moving to Wordpress soon. I'll be giving everybody lots of advance warning and attempting to make the transition as smooth and transparent as possible.

I make me laugh, part II

Here's a post from about three years ago that made me laugh, so y'all enjoy.

WRT playing the "hater" card

If anyone cared about being factual at all, he or she wouldn't assume that I hate Rod Dreher. There's evidence enough to convince me: positive comments on his blog posts with which I agree and private emails back and forth. If my readers are decent types, they will take this at face value, and I won't have to sift through old internet conversations because unlike some people, I don't have time to do that, providing a play-by-play of who said what.

Thinking someone has some mistaken, stupid ideas or that they are acting badly and then subsequently being vocal about it is not equivalent to hating that person. If this were so, it could be said that I hated all my kids and my mother, for starters. Likewise my mother could be said to hate me; she's the most vocal person about my conversion to Catholicism. But to my point: people who possess any kind of vocabulary should really reconsider before they descend to this juvenile accusation of hatred. Even referring to an argument as a fight amounts to "inflationary language".

So let's all cool off with Victor Borge, shall we?

"Three-faced triple-crosser!", lol

I make me laugh

I was researching my blog's appearance on a search engine result for a phrase which approximates what is referred to in the medical profession as diarrhea when I came across this old post from last summer. So funny—I'm still laughing. I'm sure there's something terribly wrong with laughing at your own jokes; it probably bespeaks some degree of amateurishness. But I did witness John Cleese do it in an interview when he was shown an old clip. On the other hand, Steve Martin supposedly hates his old material...


...so I guess we shouldn't remind him how many more laughs it generated than his new Pink Panther vehicles.

Hello

I think it's great that the blogosphere exists. It's a hobby that you can inflict on other people–I mean that you can share with other people. It's sort of like writing something and then publishing it on the web. Wait–that's exactly what it is... what was I thinkiing?

We bought a new house. Then we moved into it. I thought the buying process was sort of difficult, but it wasn't nearly a hard as moving all our stuff. Hindsight is 20/20, and now I wish that we had just put all the furniture on Craigslist and then bought other stuff from Craig as needed. That's where most of it came from to begin with, or so my wife tells me. We could have given most of the kids' clothes away and by the next week people would have donated everything back. I can't help it that we look like poor people. Well, no, that's not true–I just like getting free clothes from people who only planned to have one or two kids. It's always stuff from places that I've heard are really nice, like Baby Gap, etc.

Back to buying the house. Getting final approval was kind of a bitch. I thought they were going to want urine and stool samples by the time it was over! But they didn't, so the mortgage broker had them mailed back to my old address. I emailed a thank you note to him and added "It's a good thing the weather has been so cold, huh." He merely replied with a link.

The dust is settling here finally. We're happy to be closer to the school where our oldest two go ever since we "gave up" on home-schooling last year, and closer to our parish and of course, SBUX. And moving refreshes your memory with regards to important hierarchies in life, e.g., dryers weigh less than washers, washers weigh less than the piano that your mom who is still alive gave you, etc.

Est Quod Est makes a "Best Of" list

Wow! We made a Best Links of 2009 list with my post Why I am a Bad Blogger.

But I must admit, I just re-read it and it is pretty damn funny.

Effect of the latest Warholian 15

Check out the seismograph readings on Alexa.

"In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Andy Warhol, d. 1987

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes....

I'm going to be making a few changes here at ol' Est Quod Est. First off, I'm going to ditch the "Pile of stuff I've been reading" in the side-bar. If I'm reading something which I feel is worthwhile sharing, I'll just throw it in as a blog post. Anyone who cares will still be able to view to old pile here.

Secondly—and I don't think this is nearly as radical as it might sound to some—I'm hereby extending an open invitation to any regular reader of this blog to become a contributor. Just leave a comment here or email me, and I will extend an official invitation with the signup link. There aren't any quotas you must meet to do this, and the "Golden Rule" should suffice as the blogging guideline. Obviously I'm the boss, but I'm the kind of boss that gets a kick out of people "taking advantage" of him. (That guilty look as you sneak a pile of wire bound notebooks or a stapler into your briefcase is... priceless. I know you'll be back tomorrow, laboring slavishly for cheap coffee and pennies on my dollar... MWA-HA-HA!)


Ahem.

Finally, I'm going to be making a concerted effort in the near future to find ways to promote this blog. This will take form in a few ways to begin with, as I see it. I'll probably begin attempting to write something of an editorial nature around once a week with a word count of between 500 and 1,000. This should increase the value of the blog by decreasing the percentage of the blog which is of a purely derivative nature. Also I'll probably be hat-tipping other bloggers more to acheive new traffic. Other ideas: book reviews, product reviews, local news... recipes?

Please think about whether you'd like to contribute to this blog, and don't be shy of giving me advice. This blog, albeit begun as sort of a joke, currently has an average of 40 visits a day. This places it firmly in the underachiever territory, but I think we can all turn it into something bigger and better and... who knows? What say ye?

Stanley Crouch on Gates incident: "Nothing to do with racism"

Here's a must-read by a smart black man. I always like reading Stanley Crouch—who interestingly enough has a connection to H. L. Gates, Jr. as a colleague in the Fletcher Foundation—because he's a great writer and an independent thinker. Siding with Bill Cosby in his recent criticisms of black culture, Crouch has boldly denounced "gangsta" hip-hop and Al Sharpton-style race baiting. This makes his comparison of first black President Barack Obama to rappers and second-rate black comedians all the more poignant. Excerpt:

President Obama put his big foot in it when he chose to give an uninformed opinion using words far below his expected eloquent shrewdness to describe the minor mishap. The grand irony is that Obama, who once appeared so far above the kind of overstatement one expects from a rapper talking about race politics, spoke on the amateurish level we perhaps thought was behind us, because Obama seemed to perfectly understand the restraint demanded of his enormous power and influence. Every second-rate black comedian has a routine in which black Americans get a chance for "payback" and take the white folks to task for all of the wrongs that they might not have committed but that they did not spurn whenever they resulted in skin-color privilege. The president stumbled into a version of that kind of routine when he allowed the issue to overshadow a discussion of his health-care agenda.

From his last paragraph, it seems as if Crouch is an ardent supporter of Obama. I hope his expressed opinion aids in the dismissal of any suggestion that criticism of Obama's poorly chosen words on the Gates matter is tantamount to "flopping to the floor" in support of a white cop by those less enthralled by the current prez.

Why I am a bad blogger

In reading many other blogs in the last few years, I’ve decided that I’m not a very good blogger, at least not very authentic. What I do seems like real blogging, but it isn’t really. What’s more, I don’t intend to do anything to remedy this, for better or for worse. Following is a Top Ten list containing eight sins of omission detailing why I am a bad blogger, in case you didn’t notice or maybe you thought "He's not a very good blogger", but couldn’t quite put your finger on the concrete evidence. They are in no particular order, at least none that I know of.

1. No stated commenting policy. A lot of the big-time bloggers have these. They say things like “Don’t use threatening language toward other commenters or their expensive pets.” Or things like that. I suppose if I had a policy it would read something like “Not responsible for suicides. Please bring your own ropes and petards.”

2. Not enough posts beginning with the word “so”. Maybe I'm being picky here, but it sounds unnatural when I read it and hear it in my head. However I've noticed that this is a common way for real bloggers to start a post or even every paragraph. Example: “So my wife and I went to a nightclub the other night.... (next paragraph) So it turned out that the main act had been canceled due to severe diarrhea, so we had this big dramatic discussion about what we should do.... (next paragraph) So we finally decided to go drink a six-pack in one of the city parks and then go squirrel-flailing...." I don't know; maybe this style sounds perfectly fine to most people.

3. No apologies for not blogging. I seem to be obsessed with the notion that my readers were never charged for the pleasure of reading my work, rather than feeling the immense burden of producing content for the masses of addicts I’ve created.

4. No “true confessions”. Example: “We really did want to kill the entire litter of kittens painlessly, and at first drowning seemed like it was out of the question....” I've always been of the mind that these touching moments are best saved for family reunions where drinking and hugging can heighten the effect of catharsis. But real bloggers far and wide have obviously taken a “why wait” point of view, and just let it all hang out on their blogs as a routine.

5. Lack of misspellings. Just as rabbits produce their trademark pellets, I've noticed that real bloggers leave beaucoup misspellings in their wake. But I use a spell checker, plus I try to read my posts before publishing. I use all the tricks we learned in school, too; if you're amazed that I spelled diarrhea correctly above, I always remember “Two R's for Really Runny”.

6. No announcements of vacations or other times when I won't be home. This annoying omission makes it very hard for net-savvy criminals to loot my residence. I suppose if I ever decide to initiate this dubious practice that I should also announce where the gun traps are.

7. Shortage of one word sentences. I think the medical term for this common blogging tendency would be perioditis. But unlike real bloggers, I haven't indulged in it that much. My guess is that it is sort of like eating potato chips—it easily becomes addictive. Period. End. Of. Story. See?

8. Top ten list only has eight entries in it. Yes, I can count. I'm just done. Call it a top eight list if you must, Mr. Beancounter. I'm simply not a big fan of lists; you can rejoice that you'll never read something like "25 Things You Will Soon Wish I Hadn't Shared About Myself" on my blog, yet another mark of my blogging inauthenticity and maladroitness on these here internets.

These are all very general reasons, but I have future plans to give examples from really good bloggers to support my thesis of how bad I am. I will only accomplish this if my extreme laziness is permitting and my record of following through on promises improves dramatically.

Funny list

Way back when I started this blog (remember?) I didn't expect to take it even as moderately serious as I have, posting an average of 10 pieces of stuff per week for the last 2 years. This in fact is my 799th post, a milestone that some people never get to in their blogging life even when, like me, they cheap out by posting time-wasting youtube videos rather than substantive commentary about Ann Coulter's new black dress et suchlike.

Some of you might remember one of the many annoying things I used to do "back in da day", i.e. changing the title to the blog every few posts. It really messes with people who use feed readers, whatever they are. Anyway, I just found a list of some of the erstwhile titles of my blog before I settled on Est Quod Est which translates roughly to "yo 't be wha''t be, ma dog". Here's the list.

Lundi Gras
Marty Graw
Parce, Domine, Parce populo tuo
Ours go to Eleven
Gimme that old time religion
Happy Birthday Chelsea Clinton
He Shall Give His Angels Charge Over Thee
The Whole Enchilada
Sorry, I'm Feeling Ambivalent
Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve?
Sacramentum Caritatis
Let the Wookiee Win

In retrospect, my favorite is "Isn't it bliss, don't you approve" a line from Send in the Clowns. But the most utterly random is probably "Happy Birthday Chelsea Clinton".


Isn't it rich. Yuk, yuk.

New Contributor

Although I didn't succeed in convincing him to change his name to "Marki", Mark Adams has agreed to become a contributor here. Mark is a law student, a veteran of the "culture war" and all-around smart guy, so readers will be happy to have the benefits of his insights. He lives a couple states down the highway with his wife and kids. Welcome aboard, mate.