Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

More Silly Tweets

In an attempt to come up with catchy one-liners, some tweeters end up reaching the heights of pomposity. Here is a small collection of the silliest tweets I have received recently:
It's difficult to earn a living except through abuse, neglect, and harm. This is the lever by which we've been turned against one another.
I read this as I was preparing to go to class where I make a very decent living by teaching students to speak Spanish and appreciate Spanish literature. In my workplace, I'm surrounded by people who make their living by teaching their students a variety of fascinating and important things. This tweeter might not believe it, but we do not abuse, harm or neglect anybody by practicing our profession. 

The following pompous and meaningless pronouncement comes from the Dalai Lama:
When patience is combined with the ability to discriminate between the action and the one who does it, forgiveness arises naturally.
So what, the actions of the Nazis who were condemned at the Nuremberg trial were bad but they, as people, were good?  Murder is bad but all murderers should be "forgiven" and let out of jail? Actions do not exist independently of people who perform them. If a child molester or a rapist doesn't make the decision to molest or rape, these crimes will not take place. I also wonder how anybody can reasonably ask people to be "patient" when somebody commits a crime against him. Is a person who is being assaulted, for example, expected to submit patiently to the assault while trying to convince himself that the act of beating and the person who inflicts said beating are somehow magically unrelated?

The following is maybe the clunkiest and most dysfunctional metaphor I have seen in a long time (and I grade many student papers each semester):
The vending machine is capitalism: overpriced, unyielding, impersonal. It is indifferent to the penniless. If you want change, smash it.
I sincerely hope that this person doesn't do any writing on a regular basis because that would be a waste of perfectly good paper. 

I might make posts about ridiculous tweets a regular feature of this blog because there are so many of them.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Twitter

Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963) is a Spanish avant-garde writer who created the genre of greguería, a pithy humorous statement that is funny and profound at the same time. Here are some of my favorite greguerías by don Ramón (in my clumsy translation):

Love is born of a sudden desire to turn what is fleeting into something eternal.

Popularity is being known to people we don't know.

History is a pretext to keep confusing humanity.

The person who is in Venice is wrong in assuming he is actually in Venice. Only the person who dreams about Venice is truly in Venice.

A liar can only be cured by a deaf person.

Medicine offers to cure in 100 years those who are dying right now.

Hurry is what takes us towards death.

Just imagine how many twitter followers don Ramón would have today.

Thank you, Jonathan, for making me think of writing this post.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Twitter First

Believe it or not, but there is a person whose very first tweet is about this blog. And I've never met that person in my life.

Check out this intelligent Twitter user with a great taste in blogs. He is @cousy.

I feel very important and popular right now.

Friday, August 6, 2010

People Worth Following on Twitter





So I'm still trying to figure out how Twitter works and how it can be made more productive. It takes me a while to get a hang of new things and I don't expect to know all about it immediately.

Still, I would welcome advice from my readers on interesting people to follow on Twitter. Feel free to nominate yourself and I promise to check it out.

Leave your suggestions in the comments or send them to clarissasblog@hotmail.com .

And don't forget to follow this blog on Twitter at @Clarissasblog.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Follow @Clarissasblog on Twitter

I have finally figured out how to use Twitter. (Better late than never, I guess.)

So make sure you follow @Clarissasblog on Twitter. Also, leave your twitter name in the comments if you want me or other visitors to the blog to follow you.

If you want to share some interesting people you follow or some crucial information about Twitter that a technologically challenged doofus like me might not know, please do so.