PRIVACY

Privacy is a big deal for most people.

Like the dictionary says -- it's the state of being apart from company or observation. It's seclusion. It's freedom from unauthorized intrusion.

Many of my friends are adamant, passionately upset, that Facebook and Google are selling their data to advertisers or to the National Security Agency (NASA).

I am not -- what I write in an email, say on the phone, post on my blog, share on Facebook and tweet isn't seditious, pornographic, or about buying/selling drugs.

Okay, I don't use a smartphone or tablet, but I have desktops and a laptop and they could be invaded, accessed by NASA, or some advertisers.

Well, so what? I express how I feel. It's me, I am proudly me. What harm could come to me, or to you, if private something-or-other things are used?

I read this to my husband, John Cullum. He said, "Lots of people don't agree with you," shook his head worriedly, and added, "I would NOT like my personal data being used or sold."

Hmmm......

Okay, please explain to me, "What are YOU saying, doing, revealing on your various communication devices that could be harmful to you, if this personal data is used or sold?"

If it could be harmful to you, why oh why share it?  Get together with a friend, or a trustworthy pal, and talk.

Hey, talking is ... well, being with someone face to face and exchanging words and ideas is ... well, it's an easy, natural, normal, helpful thing you can do without wondering about stuff like privacy.        

(VIDEO) WAVE A MAGIC WAND

Emily Frankel wants to know what John Cullum would FIX if he had a magic wand -- of all the things that need fixing in our country, what would he fix first?

He says, "Fix potholes..." and John is into a list of issues.

Emily says she'd fix education.

John and Emily mention many things they want to fix, but what's first?

WHAT WAS JOHN CULLUM THINKING?

Golly, I love this photo.

John Cullum, my husband, was in costume, on the set for the movie "1776," that Peter Hunt directed. Was this photo a shot from the movie?

The candle on the table, the shoulders seen on each side of John indicated that other cast members were sitting with him -- the photo said it was John as "Rutledge," the senator from South Carolina, listening to John Adams while thinking about his own vote.

I guess I love the photo because the look on John's face was so real -- so typical -- my husband was thinking, planning, contemplating what? My private thought was that my husband, while waiting for his cue as Rutledge, was thinking about the song he was about to sing.

John told me that this scene in the movie had been done as a long shot -- cameras and lights repositioned for the medium shot and filmed again -- the set up was again changed for the closeups -- he'd already sung "Molasses to Rum" twice. He told director Peter, "Better get it this time, I've just got one more "G" in me."

(JC told me just now that if I listened to the film again, I'd hear how he "slipped into the high note, that "G." He's a Baritone -- a G can be tricky.)       

Wife, fan, lover of John Cullum, loves that photo of the man she fell in love with at first sight, the guy who had evolved from a very good looking, handsome, leading man on a stage, a leading man who could rivet an audience -- into a man who could truly star in a show and draw thousands of theatergoers. Yes, wife Em WAS, IS enthralled by this John in that moment, in that marvelous film, stunned, by the power in him, artist, musician, singer, actor performer that he is.

Hey, I'm a blogger -- why am I jabbering about private thoughts?

I'm doing it to remind you that people with whom you are intimately involved change, grow up as you change, and viewing them freshly grows you up too.

POWERFUL PEOPLE ARE PONDERING

I saw this photo six months ago in Time Magazine.

It's haunted me -- the row of V.I.P's seated on a stage, with WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM printed over their heads, and above their chairs. I wondered which of the world's huge problems they were trying to solve. They looked important. I wondered if that one woman in the picture was Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook.

I checked. She wasn't in this picture, but she was at this conference, talking as she often does, about the role of women. No doubt about it, she's a very powerful woman who's affecting women throughout the world, but  "gender equality" is not one of my priorities.

Googling, I learned that the World Economic Forum. W.E.F. is an annual get-together in Davos, a mountain resort in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The attendees -- top business leaders, heads of state, ministers, CEO's of international organizations, heads of think tanks, religious leaders of different faiths -- come to these meetings to share what they and their countries are doing, learning, seeing, feeling, and fretting about. What they discuss will affect global decisions that will be made in the coming years.

W.E.F. was put together in 1971 by German-born Klaus Schwab, Professor of Business Policy at the University of Geneva. He liked the idea of top guys getting together in the relaxing environment of a luxurious ski resort, discussing this and that.

The get-togethers at the ski resort have grown over the years. Guys who attend proudly call themselves Davos men. The annual meeting this year was three days long with about 2500 notables from about 100 countries discussing technology's affect on people, gender equality, also health, education, poverty, climate change, and more. On YouTube, there are 127 videos of the January 2015 meetings.

I browsed. I have to admit, I get turned off by lectures, chats, discussions that are loaded with facts, numbers, percentages, polls -- all those facts that research corporations gather to make sure that we know that they are in touch with plain ordinary folks like us. So, I find myself wondering if everyone's impressed by W.E.F? Does anyone, other than me, feel sort of left out?

The fact is, ever since Sheryl Sandberg coined the idea of leaning in -- I know she lost her husband quite recently and feel sympathy for her -- even so, I've been leaning out. If women are, in fact, holding up the world, I don't want to be one of the holder-uppers.

Do their decisions affect you and me? Probably. What's discussed trickles down, and when 2500 Davos aficionados went home, as usual, it was shared, and affected local legislation, media, and business, which undoubtedly affected other regions, but it seems far away from anything that touches me and my life.

I read Al Gore's summary of the 5 most important things that come from these W.E.F. meetings  (Hey, I love Gore for what he said and did when George Bush was not quite elected back in 2000.) I read Gore's "First Important Thing." I struggled with his "Second Most Important Thing," got sleepy by the "Third," and never got the gist of the fourth and fifth things -- Gore's writing is about three degrees too abstract for me.

Hey, Sheryl, I bumped into this fact. In 2014, 17% more females were equal with males, up from 9% in 2000. (Mathematically that means it could be 81 years for women to reach economic equality with men.)

Other highly regarded men feel W.E.F's global views are not very significant. One of them mentioned how long it takes new ideas to take hold -- it took 50 years for the benefit of electricity to filter through our county.

Well, Davos guys, even if it does take another 49 years, big thanks for helping to shape and focus the world on the environment, climate, health, and racial equality.

Hey, racial things -- that's major important  right now -- hurray World Economic Forum -- that touches all of us Americans -- that certainly touches me!