If I Could Turn Back Time…

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I take you through the wild ride surrounding the Time Change. It appears some people took the concept of turning back time and made it a challenge and others made it an hour. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I sometimes wonder at the huge conglomerate that is the internet. There are so many potential good uses for it. Yet, there are also so many poor uses of time. Computers make us more efficient, yet they put us behind. This past time change period has been memorable in several ways. First, it seems that someone has taken the idea of turning back time quite literally. We see this in the first actions of the new owner of Twitter from the Twitterverse itself. First, there are some erratic pronouncements from the new owner which is concerning. It didn’t just start with this particular one, but this was closer to the time change. The flip flops are the most concerning. First it was indicated that he had a belief that social media should be neutral to politics, but then went on to endorse a candidate so apparently this doesn’t necessarily count for people who own social media companies….which is somewhat confusing (https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/musk-re...). Was it because celebrities were endorsing their own candidates? If so, that is concerning on that basis because he is not a leader then, he is a follower. If not, the flip flopping still doesn’t seem to be an encouraging sign. For those of us on the outside looking in, things are starting to feel a little bleak. Then came something that definitely turned back the clock in the form of an announcement that Twitter remote work would stop and everyone was expected to be in an office at least 40 hours a week. Is this a boon or not, time will tell. The other part of me wonders if there is enough office space to make this solution work (https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/elon...). This seems to be a step backwards in time when society has had to move to more work from home options since the advent of COVID. So, since I associate the Cher song with this time change, “If I Could Turn Back Time” I wonder if someone took this a little more literally than was necessary. It also leaves me to wonder, if in the end, the song might be a little more prophetic about the end of a relationship and regrets, but I digress.

Other things I notice in the news is that the there had been a desire to have a vote on a public enquiry into the last hurricane, Fiona. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince... I had wondered at what reasoning there should be for that to be brought up. I’m no Government person and no expert on natural disasters, but I have to wonder, other than getting military involved, utility companies from outside the area and getting Ottawa to foot the bill for the electric utility companies to work on getting the power back, getting people organized to help out and other measures and warnings given on the Island, just what was expected that didn’t happen? https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada... I just have to wonder what it is that they think the Premier should have done? I see that payment roll outs were admittedly not rolled out fast enough. Most of it seems to have to do with money after all. Perhaps exploring money dissemination methods could be useful. Otherwise, it is a matter of money and manpower. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/p-e-i-s-r... I’m not sure what things would make this a better situation. Perhaps having more locations that can do the verifications, but then remember, most of the agencies out there were also trying to get put together from Fiona. At the same time, putting more money onto enquiries is just going to be more money that we don’t have to spend. I’m not politically minded, I don’t care who is in, but to be honest, it’s a natural disaster…what do you expect? Much like a death in the family, one never expects it and it doesn’t make things easier. It appears that the complaints were made clear in the legislature. Now it should be up to logistical staff to figure it out for future situations. If you know the problem, spending time and money on trying to figure out the problem, when there is limited budget for such things, seems a bit overkill. So, if they are going to review the situation and the problems are clear according to the article I posted and saw. No one seemed to question what the issues were. So, they wanted an enquiry and spend money for what reason? Was it to make a political point? I think we need to stop being so quick to want enquiries. I see the need for enquiries into mass casualties and to missing and Indigenous women and things of a larger and more endemic nature. Though with climate change, it is possible that this issue will become more frequent; however, it appears that they are learning from the problems and trying to address things as quickly as possible. First enquiries don’t come cheap and secondly, if we know the problem then we need to find solutions, all the enquiries into what the problems were aren’t going to solve the issues and will just give us very similar answers.

Of course this all wrapped around the USA elections. It is rather disconcerting to see the finger pointing, the mudslinging and the circus that it becomes. For the Twitter takeover to be in full swing at that time, made things even wilder. What scares me more is that I see Canadian politics disintegrating into that style of politics. I far prefer to know what it is that someone has to offer. I far prefer to know what the particular party policies are. I actually hate politics. I want to know, not what the other guy has done that you don’t like, but what you can do and why do I want to bother to vote for you? This brings me to a more important point. No matter who we are, we have a voice. Whether we choose to use it in economic, political, humanistic or other endeavours, we have a voice. In the immortal words of John F. Kennedy, “…ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.” In many of these things, we are asking what someone can do for us. What someone can give us or do for us. There is no thought of our own responsibilities in the situation. Then when things don’t work, we play the blame game. We fight each other. Yet, when it comes down to it, we are all on the same earth. We are all here together. For better or for worse, this is the world that we have and the only one we have. There is no magic elixir. There is no magic cure. The world will not improve because of what we take, but will improve only by what we give.

I think in all the fighting and political rhetoric out there, in all the hate speech and intolerance, we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten who we want to be. We need to take a step back and remember who we are and were, and who we want to be. That was what I found most disturbing about all the fighting, hate speech and things that got put all over Twitter. I found that it was always us against them. The problem is that there is no us and there is no them. There are only we, the people, as the constitution of the US put it. I figure it is fair to use it on this occasion since it was their election week after all.

As Edward Everett Hale is credited with saying, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. “ When we forget that the world is filled with people. When we forget who we are or want to be as people, we run the risk of things running amok. In English we tell our children to be good. In French, they tell their children to “sois sage”. It means be wise. https://dictionary.reverso.net/french... I think, for behavior of any age, this makes a statement. It doesn’t question the behavior as being good or bad. It cautions to be wise in what you say and do. With wisdom, one hopes for better actions. It is less judgmental and more cautionary. It is meant to make people think. This brings me to something that felt so inappropriate and I know many would not agree. First, to be fair, I’m not a fan of Elon Musk in any way, but the new thing about fake and parody accounts (by this I mean taking someone else’s name and putting it on an account and making statements to belittle the person). There are multiple reasons why this can dilute the integrity of the forum. He’s made enough statements that were strange to begin with, so one doesn’t look too hard at the Twitter agent. That aside, this was first and foremost against the rules of good and fair conduct, but also against the forum rules. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and.... The main problem with this was…the first one I saw, I thought it was a valid account and then the name looked weird until I looked closer, I thought it was him…and granted with some of the stuff he did post, that wasn’t an out there thought. It wasn’t a fair thing to do, however. It also, if done enough brings into question, which is the valid account and do I have to read the whole biography slice to see if it is valid and will that be enough? Though many people were upset that the comedian had been suspended for it, it is obvious that someone likely reported it. We have enough fake accounts but it had the check on it which is supposed to be a form of showing integrity. To do this purposely seems unwise. This was rather distressing. I know it might have been intended for fun, and to make a point, but the point would have been easier to make and a better point made if the questionable actions had been addressed from the person doing parody. When we forget who we are and forget how the system is meant to work, we can get ourselves into trouble. So, when it comes to your interactions, remember who you are or want to be. Keep your integrity. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

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