Longest married couple tweets advice
Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher are the world’s longest married couple. On Valentine’s Day, the couple answered questions sent to them via Twitter under the name longestmarried.
According to Mashable, the couple was married in 1924. Zelmyra is 102 and Herbert is 104. Each have their own bedroom so Herbert can stay up late watching baseball.
Eighty-five years is a long time to be married, and through the years Herbert and Zelmyra have perfected some aspects of marriage.
The couple received the questions before Valentine’s Day and selected the ones they wished to answer to the public.
Some of my favorite questions and and answers:
Q6 @Miss_Ink What are the most important attributes of a good spouse?
A6 A hard worker & good provider.The 1920s were hard,but Herbert wanted & provided the best for us.I married a good man!
Q5 @caresseaudra What was the best piece of marriage advice you ever received?
A5 Respect, support & communicate with each other.Be faithful, honest & true.Love each other with ALL of your heart.
And for the non-committed and still-looking:
Q4 @LaurenHuston What is your advice to someone who is trying to keep the faith that Mr. Right is really out there?
A4 Zelmyra: Mine was just around the corner!He is never too far away, so keep the faith – when you meet him, you’ll know.
Their story is pretty remarkable. I come from a family of grandparents who have been married for 60 years and parents have been married for 30, but 85 is incredible. If I married someone tomorrow I’d be 109 on our 85th anniversary.
The Fishers ended their tweets with a wish for all:
…and we wish you a happy Valentine’s Day – may it be filled with love and joy. God bless you all, Herbert and Zelmyra.
Subscribe to the comments for this postA non-blogging trend
I think I’ve seen this pattern coming for awhile — the fact that teens aren’t blogging and other demographics are likely to follow.
From thesocialpath.com:
This week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released the results of its fall 2009 survey focusing on the internet habits of teenagers (defined as 12 to 17) and Millennials (18 to 29).
While it’s not necessarily news that teens haven’t jumped on the Twitter train yet, what is interesting is the drop in teen activity on blogs The study found that 14% of online teens were blogging, compared to 28% just in 2006. Additionally the number of teens commenting on blogs has dropped from 76% to 52% since 2006.
Read the article in full here.
When sites like Facebook and Twitter allow such easy communication and instant gratification, it’s no doubt younger people aren’t going to take the time to sit down and write a blog post. I’ll even throw cell phones as a time consumer in here — most teens I know and see are texting fiends.
Even in my small-town life and desire to reach out to the rest of the world, I find some obstacles in sitting down to actually write blog posts. After research, report, write, rinse, repeat, sometimes at the end of the day it’s hard to stare at the computer screen again.
But I’ll stand behind blogging. It’s a great way to share meatier information with the world.
So come on teens, get on Xanga. That was the popular site when I was a teen and pre-teen, and although the look has changed, the blog posts are still as important and relevant as ever.
Courtroom tweets banned in Baltimore
The following is another case where social media meets the cops and courts:
From Romenesko:
A judge has banned “the use of any device to transmit information on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or any other current or future form of social networking from any of the courthouses within the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.” The Sun’s Andy Green says the order is predicated on the assumption that posting to Twitter is effectively the same as having cameras broadcast court proceedings. “That analogy is false,” he writes.
I followed the blog of Ron Sylvester, Wichita Eagle reporter, during the Roeder murder case and found it really informative and an efficient way to share information in real time.
I’ve done some tweeting from the court room but I think it was mostly to get information and updates back to my editors.
I agree with Green, I think the analogy of courtroom tweets as being the same as having cameras broadcast court proceedings is wrong. What Sylvester did and what many others are doing is sharing the information they gather faster.
During trials in Finney County, the judges will take breaks throughout the day. I suppose a reporter could always leave the courtroom during the break and tweet, but some information, and the frequency of that information, would be lost.
Social media links Haitian families
I am friends with a tight-knit Haitian community in Lawrence, Kansas. I got the news of the earthquake while on an eliptical watching Univision. At first it didn’t seem like much, and even my good friend Alyssa, who is married to a Haitian man, thought just a church came down.
As I watched the news and tweets coming out of Haiti, I learned the destruction was much more than a church.
Alyssa and I kept texting back and forth and after 24 hours she had no word from her husband’s family in Haiti. Her husband, Fritz, was in Florida at the time of the earthquake, which left Alyssa at home in Lawrence alone and worrying.
She decided to join Twitter to exchange information, get updates and search for family members by tweeting back and forth with @RAMHaiti, who operates the Hotel Oloffsen near Fritz’s family’s neighborhood.
I started following Alyssa, watching her send tweet after tweet hoping for word about the Esperance family near the hotel.
Her last post looking for her family:
TitTetChajie: Looking for Esperance family near St. Trinite school/church or Magloire Ambroise/Route des Dalles area two blocks from Hotel Oloffson. 2:47 PM Jan 14th from web
Her tweets before this and after were pleas of information for her family. Shortly before this tweet she texted me to tell me her in-laws all were safe:
RACHELLE ESPERANCE IS OKAY!!! 7:14 AM Jan 15th from web
I asked Alyssa how she found out and she said she connected with a relative of Fritz’s in New York via Twitter. Rachelle, her sister in-law, sent a text to the relative in New York and the relative relayed the message to Alyssa.
Needless to say, Alyssa is now addicted to Twitter and let’s hope we can get her husband, @djkokonut, to tweet more.
From the streets to the Tweets
A simple search of OYG, which stands for Original Young Gangsters Crew, a gang based in the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, pulls up numerous profiles of people who reference or align with the gang, according to New York Daily News staff writer Simone Weichselbaum. In this profile, @tallyboiq claims involvement or exchanges with OYG, as well as criminal threats and drug dealing.
When I added the category “social media and crime” to my blog, our IT guy looked at me like I was crazy. But it’s a trend that’s making sense lately.
Social media can play a role in crimes. Before residents took off for Thanksgiving travel, Sgt. Michael Reagle, Garden City Police Department, said not to announce plans to travel online. He said to keep it off of Facebook and MySpace because people have access to status updates.
Robbers can read these updates, and if they know where the person lives, they can take advantage of the person’s absence.
In New York City, the Daily News reports gangs have turned to Twitter and Facebook to plot crimes and entice rival gangs into fights.
“It’s old-school crime meets new technology: attacks being plotted – and thwarted – 140 characters at a time,” writes staff writer Simone Weichselbaum.
Weichselbaum writes:
A basic search of the social-networking site for OYG or Jeff Mob the gang based in the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, yields shout-outs and throwdowns.
“I knoe bitches from oyg that would dead mob yah s–t in harlem,” one girl wrote in a series of tweets aimed at drawing out a rival for a fight.
Investigators are monitoring the traffic in hopes of sweeping up gangbangers before the bloodshed – and searching Twitter after attacks for clues.
“It is another tool … just like old phone records,” a police source said. “We can go through them [messages] to track these guys.”
Harlem pastor Vernon Williams, who runs Perfect Peace Ministry Youth Outreach, said his staff uses Twitter, MySpace and instant messaging to keep track of 4,000 at-risk teens.
A week ago, Twitter helped the volunteers stop a street war after they saw the Get Money Boys, based in the St. Nicholas Houses on W. 127 St., exchanging threats with Goodfellas and The New Dons, based just a few blocks north.
Tony Castro, staff writer at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Valley, Calif., said using cyberspace to broaden their appeal, boast illegal exploits and pose threats and recruit new members is common among gang members.
Castro writes:
“It’s just one example of what law enforcement says is an increasing trend among gangs – using cyberspace to broaden their appeal, boast of illegal exploits, pose threats and recruit new members.
And more than ever, prosecutors are scouring sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter for potential evidence in gang- related criminal cases.
“Five years ago we would find evidence in a gang case on the Internet and say, `Wow.’ Well, there’s no more `Wow’ any more. Sadly, it’s much more routine,” said Bruce Riordan, director of anti- gang operations for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
Cyberbanging, as authorities call it, can provide prosecutors with the proof they need in criminal cases to demonstrate affiliation in a street gang – something typically denied by defendants at trial.”