William Lindsey :toad:
To my followers here, a note of both sincere gratitude and apology for my protracted silence. As I posted on May 3 (see the link below), out of the blue and with no notice or explanation from this Mastodon instance, on May 3, I received a spate of notifications that multiple postings of mine had been removed.
This happened on the eve of a trip I was making to see a friend I hadn't seen in eight years.
Paul Cantrell
That’s a shame. I’ve •really• appreciated your news roundups! I might hope you would consider moving to a different instance — and would happily offer help with that — but if stepping back is what’s best for you, then you should do that.
William Lindsey :toad:
So, sadly and with much heart pain, I think I should stop posting here and wean myself of trying to keep up with the latest news. I find my focus already waning due to age, which tends to isolate us. And now my husband and I have a medical situation to deal with that hasn't been there until very recently — at least, we hadn't known that some blood irregularities his doctors had been tracking had a name.
William Lindsey :toad:
I do not mean that I'm inclined to give up. We do not have that luxury, any of us who care. I think I just have to figure out ways to conserve strength for the increasing personal battles I'll have to fight along with my husband on the home front, if his illness progresses more swiftly than his hematologist and oncologist hopes will be the case. He already experiences fatigue that's exacerbated by his having to have blood taken routinely as a treatment.
William Lindsey :toad:
Hence my use of the term "censorship"….
And when no explanations are offered for the censorship and no really transparent vehicle for accountability seems to exist to challenge the censorship….
If I may, at the risk of sharing too much, add some personal pieces of information: I turned 76 in March, and am definitely feeling my age.
In several aspects of my life, I'm being challenged to cut down activity.
William Lindsey :toad:
Along with my spouse, I am also coping with his recent diagnosis for a serious disease that will, if it follows its expected course, end his life — not soon, we hope, but this is one of the possibilities the disease offers.
A lot to cope with — age, the usual infirmities and challenges of age, and, honestly, I am simply very tired. I'm tired of the issues and topics we all have to confront right now in the political-cultural-economic-ecological sphere.
William Lindsey :toad:
I'm afraid I have to conclude — I see no other conclusion — that I've been given a strong signal that what I have done here on this instance for some years now is not welcome. By those who have the authority to censor, that is….
And I see no reason to carry on posting when I've been given what seems to me a strong signal of unwelcome. When the postings that have been removed aren't even my own but are excerpts of other people's commentary….
William Lindsey :toad:
A posting in which I shared commentary from a Jewish thinker whom I much admire about the Israel-Palestine situation was removed with no explanation. I contacted the Toad Social administrator and asked for an explanation.
I did not receive one.
That fact leaves me dubious about the effectiveness of contacting the administrator again now. I notice that one of the postings removed recently was an excerpt about the same topics.
William Lindsey :toad:
Rather than add anxiety to a long-expected visit with an old friend for a week, I decided not to do anything in response to this unexpected act on the part of this instance.
Then I returned home and have sat on this issue for a week, because, to be quite honest, I haven't known what to do.
In the years I've posted at Toad Social, I have had I think two previous postings removed. My memory about one of those is clear.
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