Calling Roland Burton Hedley III

I'm not a techie. Not a Luddite, but not a techie, either. I've got a fancy smartphone and a pretty good laptop and even a Kindle (though I have to admit a preference for paper bound between covers). But I mostly use a fountain pen rather than a ballpoint, though that last is probably an affectation more than a sign of being a non-techie. And though I have this blawg, I haven't mastered many of the things I'd like to do (like get spacing consistent and have fonts both consistent and with variations I might choose, and I'm completely at a loss for how to get text to appear next to a picture).

I played some recently with a friend's iPad and agreed it was cool, but couldn't think of why I might want one or what I'd do with it if I had one. I don't have an iPod, either. I don't send or receive text messages. (When my son sent me one, I didn't find it for over a day.) I don't Tivo (is that how you type it?). I'm not on facebook. I don't twit. I've no idea why I might want to do those things.

I'm not particularly proud of those things. I point them out as a way of saying mine may not be the most sophisticated response to this news story. But What the fuck were they thinking even to have the idea?

Prisons spokeswoman: Ohio mulled execution tweeting, though tastefulness a concern

By Associated Press

7:22 AM EDT, April 23, 2010

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A spokeswoman says Ohio's prison system has contemplated using Twitter to announce when an execution has been completed.

However, Communications Director Julie Walburn at the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction says she's concerned that tweeting about an inmate's time of death may be considered in poor taste.

She says the department still hasn't decided how to use Twitter and other social media to disseminate news.

Walburn says she's focused on trying to get the word out about executions quickly. When condemned inmate Darryl Durr died by lethal injection at 10:36 a.m. Tuesday, a news release was e-mailed to media outlets one minute later.

(The red, by the way, is how it appears on the newspaper's website.

h/t Eric A