Photo credit goes to Josh Potter, arts & entertainment editor over at Metroland.
True enough.
Twego, Claimed and Explained
Twego (n): a Twitter user’s proportion of followers to people they follow, as reached by the following equation:
n1/n2
Where n1=the number of people that follow you and n2=the number of people you follow.
For instance, n1 for me (at 11:50 a.m. on March 28, 2011) is 19. n2 is 57. Therefore, I have a Twego of .33%
Matt Drudge, curator of all things conservative, has an n1 of 30,064 and an n2 of 0; giving him a Twego that is off the charts (would you expect anything less from Matt?).
Different iterations of the Twego formula will surely be authored in the coming months as this new area of research is explored by academics from all backgrounds. In fact, the Twego word and formula may already have been coined. However, if they have not, I am hereby laying digital claim to this new word and its accompanying formula. #goldmine
Suggestions for academic research:
- A formula for charting the margin of error for people who pad their Twego numbers by dropping people they follow.
- A formula that adjusts for Twitter celebs that have an outrageous amount of followers. How do these Twegomaniacs (#whammy!) stack up to the rest of us after their celeb status is accounted for?
Update: A quick search of the internet has revealed that the word “Twego Maniac” exists. As found in the Urban Dictionary: “A person who obsessively tweets about themselves working and how busy they are, it’s surprising they have time to Twitter.”
However, the word Twego and its formula seem to remain unclaimed…#callmylawyer
Portrait of Tom*
Tom is sitting beside me, polishing his glasses as we speak. His nephew lives in Dallas and is having problems with his wife. Tom emailed him last night. Tom likes giving personal and irrelevant information out in an offhand way, the way some older people do.
Tom loves computers. “I used to hate ‘em,” he says. “Now I wish I got into them when I was your age.” Tom is about 70 years old. “I use Google Chrome. Internet Explorer sucks.”
Tom used to sleep at the ministry back in 2005-6. He’s here now because he figured he had to give something back.
Tom talks incessantly about anything, but mostly computers. Sitting next to him it occurs to me that I could probably ignore him all night and he wouldn’t notice. Tom says he stays up all night on the computer, and if he can’t get on the internet he plays solitaire.
Bob** comes in and says he’s going to the hospital. He says it’s the flu. He tries to buy a cigarette off of Tom but Tom just gives him one for free, matches too.
Tom’s sister has emphysema.
I’m going to sleep.
Tom is a pervert, but at least he doesn’t hide it like the rest of us.
*Tom’s name isn’t Tom.
**Bob’s name isn’t Bob either.
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MOA between the Goshen Central School District and the Goshen Teacher’s Union
Download the MOA between the Goshen Central School District and the Goshen Teacher’s Union. Also, note that the board has agreed to address why the teacher’s union was able to negotiate raises last year at their March 21 meeting. If you care as much as you say you do, come to the meeting.
newshound 
Shades of Lansdale in Libya
Diane Rehm noted in her Friday News Roundup on NPR that the current situation in Libya is very similar to the situation in Vietnam during the 1950s. Namely, that CIA operatives were on the ground in an unstable country that was of diplomatic importance to the U.S.
According to a NY Times article on March 30:
While President Obama has insisted that no American military ground troops participate in the Libyan campaign, small groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi’s military, the officials said.
In 1954, the “shadow force” was a team led by C.I.A. operative Edward Lansdale. He was sent to Vietnam to create a toehold in the East for American interests, and essentially invented the country of South Vietnam. The country was of diplomatic importance to the U.S. because it was the next battlefield in the war on communism.
The reasons for American involvement in Libya are up for debate. A 2008 Congressional report noted:
“After an August 2005 visit to Libya, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman [Dick] Lugar called Libya “an important partner for [the United States] on the war against terrorism,” and indicated that he would “work constructively on the assumption that it’s in our best interest to normalize the relationship, to get an embassy there, to get an ambassador.”
Gene Cretz, former U.S. ambassador to Libya, stepped down in December 2010 in the wake of the Wikileaks scandal. It was reported that Cretz wrote critical memos of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
One thing is clear, a credible comparison can be made between U.S. concerns about communism in the fifties through seventies and current concerns about terrorism. The two are completely different beasts, but they are undoubtedly the two major foreign policy causes (read: boons) of the last 60 years.
It is said that history repeats itself. Lets hope that doesn’t apply in this case. Stay tuned, particularly on how much money the U.S. commits to the Libyan cause.