Twitter Wit

I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to figure out Twitter. I’ve sent out something like four – maybe five – tweets in my whole life. I just haven’t determined Twitter’s social value yet and I probably never will.
by Charlie Leck

This is a blog I’ll stick in somewhere – somewhere where I can follow it with another blog 5 minutes later – to cover it up. It’s really quite an unimportant piece of business.

I read only a few tweets each day and I follow very few people. There a local news writer who follows Minnesota politics very closely and I like glancing at what she has to say (@RachelSB). She’s a reporter for the StarTribune here and very active on Twitter.

Here’s something Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, Jerome Simpson recently said about Twitter: “…Twitter gave a voice to a lot of people who don’t have a brain.” (From a StarTribune article by Mark Craig on 7 August 2013)

I happen to think Mr. Simpson is correct. Twitter may also be dangerous if one isn’t careful. One’s first thought about a matter or subject is very often not the best thought. I think people tend to have quick trigger fingers on Twitter.

I also follow our local newspaper’s baseball writer, Lavelle E. Neal (@LaVelleNeal). I especially enjoy reviewing those tweets while a Twins’ game is going on and I’m not in a position to watch it or listen to it.

In case you’re interested (and I don’t see why you would be), here are the few tweeters I follow…

Hillary Clinton: @HillaryClinton

Nate Silver: @fivethirtyeight (I think this may have changed recently)

Nate Silver: @natesilver

Carriage Association of America: @CarriageAssoc

U.S. Senator Al Franken: @alfranken

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak: @MayorRTRybak

Tony Rugare (one of my favorite bloggers): @tonyrugare

Rachel Maddow: @maddow

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar: @amyklobuchar

Sam Stern (a buddy of mine and a lawyer): @sistern

This short list pretty much proves I’m not much at this Twitter thing. There’s just too many things to do and places to go and my head starts spinning if I get more than a few tweets in a day.

Personally, I don’t live an exciting enough life to tweet. Who wants to know that I just shanked an 8-iron into the high fescue grasses at Giant’s Ridge? Or, that I just finished reading Northern Slave Black Dakota by Walt Bachman? (Frankly, reading this book makes one check one’s constant criticism of the racial bigotry in America’s south; for Bachman “tells us about the cauldron of racial prejudices and cultural conflicts that simmered in the upper Mississippi country during the pre-Civil War years… and boiled over in 1862.” Thanks to one of my blog followers for sending a signed copy of this wonderful book along to me. I thought it was terrific.)

Frankly, my blog is my outlet for these pent-up opinions that I’ve just got to make public; however, I give at least some thought to my blogs and let them sit for a few hours to season before I reread and edit them for posting. My blog followers may choose to ignore me for weeks on end if they wish to.

I know a lot of my friends are pretty witty with their tweets and I probably ought to follow them. I just can’t get used to regularly checking my Twitter app. I apologize to these wonderful friends for that. I’ve at least gone back to checking Facebook every day. I don’t make very many entries because I just don’t consider what I’m doing worthy of a posting. It is fun though to keep up with people I find creative (including my lovely daughters).

If you know of someone who regularly tweets witty and worthy stuff, let me know about him/her and I may follow that person.

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