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Many people have the expectation that what they type, look at, watch, and share on a smart device is private. But privacy and the internet—especially social media platforms—has become a sticky situation for the legal profession. The belief that a tweet, a message, an email, even a visit to an internet site remains solely a personal concern isn’t a hard and fast line—and neither is it a guarantee that information on social media will be relevant and useable to a court case.

In generally, lawyers and judges are watching other court cases closely to see the results of individual questions related to social media privacy. Requests that are too broad have less of a chance of being held up than those that are very specific and also pursuant to the case.

To learn more about this ever-changing world of social media privacy, use the information in this graphic.

The Irony of Privacy Settings: Can Lawyers Use Social Media Posts in a Court of Law?

I had an unexpected moment of joy over the weekend.

My spouse and I were walking down the street. Suddenly, I noticed a little dog carrying a ball in her mouth and walking the opposite direction from us.

I grinned and quietly pointed her out to my spouse.We often point out cute dogs to each other. Luckily, Toronto is full of people who love sharing their lives with four-legged friends.

Her little body was alert and happy from nose to tail. I can’t quite remember if her tail was wagging, but she looked proud and happy to be carrying her toy around by herself.

The human walking with her paused for a moment before leading her across the street.

Were they going to the park to play fetch? Quite possibly.

She was moving with twice as much anticipation and pep as you’d expect to see in such a small body. This wasn’t at all the gait of a dog who has already burned off a lot of energy and wanted a nap.

Imagining all of the fun her and her human were about to have made me grin. I could clearly picture them running around on the grass together as a few more autumn leaves floated to the ground.

Maybe she even paused to chase a few squirrels? I’ve seen a lot of city dogs chase them, but the squirrels always seem to stay two steps ahead of the game.

I imagine that her human laughed for a minute before calling his little friend back to play some more fetch. When they were both worn out, I’d like to think that they went home for a cozy family nap.

The bond between a person and their pet can be like that sometimes.

Picturing all of these details made me smile. It’s so interesting to try to guess what other people’s (and animal’s!) lives are like after you lose sight of them. Half of it is a creative exercise for me as a writer. You can learn a lot about plotting a scene or writing about an interaction between two characters by seeing how real humans and animals behave.

The other half of the reason why I do it is because it’s just plain fun.

What small things have brought you joy lately?

Here is this week’s list of poems, comic strips, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

This is the time of year when I start thinking about candles a lot. Maybe it’s because the sun is setting so early these days that we have hours of darkness before bedtime?

Before the First Frost via jdubqca. I really liked how the title tied into what was going on in this poem. They complemented each other nicely.

A Thousand Little Weights. Yes, exactly.

Balancing Act via NancyERoman‬. Most of us are going to live long enough to become old. What happens after that largely depends on what you think being “old” should be like.

5 Take-Aways from the Presidential Debate via Dan_Salerno_‬. This was a good summary of the presidential debates in the U.S.

From Sex and World Peace:

In fact, the very best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy or its ethno-religious identity; the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated.

From Small Talk Should Be Banned – Here’s Why:

What is your relationship with God? What is something you fear in life? These may be great topics for conversations, but we rarely tackle such meaty topics at social gatherings….

This is a shame, because research has confirmed what most people know but don’t practise: surface level small talk does not build relationships and it is not great for our happiness levels.

What have you been reading?

Lately I’ve been getting a fair number of search engine hits from people looking for ways to skip out on Christmas altogether. I’ve also been getting visitors who want to celebrate this holiday without exchanging presents for it anymore.

In the past, I’ve blogged about alternative ways to celebrate Christmas if you’re only interested in bowing out of the gift exchanges.

What should you do if you want to stop celebrating it altogether, though? It can be harder to turn down an invitation for a meal, get-together, or festive performance than it is to say you’re simply bowing out of the present exchange. Sometimes people who love this holiday have a hard time understanding why anyone wouldn’t want to celebrate it.

With that being said, there are some reasons not to celebrate this holiday that are hard to argue with.

Travel

There have been times when my spouse and I travelled over the holidays. Some airlines have started to crack down on people bringing overstuffed or over-sized carry-on bags with them.

We’ve travelled with other airlines that have strict weight requirements for everything you bring with you. Going over those limits can be expensive, so you have to be careful about what you do and don’t pack.

The other nice thing about travelling is it nearly impossible to pressure someone into participating in a specific event when they’re hundreds or thousands of miles away at the time. At the very most, you might have time for a breezy conversation with them before returning to whatever agenda you’ve set for your day.

Grief

While grief isn’t one of the reasons why I don’t celebrate Christmas, I have known people who changed how they celebrated the holidays after the death of a loved one. In some cases, this can mean toning down those celebrations or even not having them at all.

No kind or reasonable person would guilt-trip someone into celebrating something that reminded them of such bittersweet memories.

Minimalism

This may be confirmation bias on my part, but I keep meeting more and more people who are interested in paring down their possessions and simplifying their lives.

Minimalism can be a great reason to cut back on all kinds of holiday stuff. Why not leave the Christmas decorating and event-planning to people who genuinely enjoy them?

It doesn’t make any sense to buy things you don’t like with money you should be spending elsewhere simply to impress people.

Nearly everyone understand what it’s like to feel tension between their values and what others think they should be doing. Framing the conversation this way can earn you supporters that you might not have otherwise had.

Religion

Christmas is a deeply religious holiday for many of my relatives. I’m planning to blog about some of those experiences later on this year, but it can be hard for my mind to tease out the difference between the kinds of Christmases I had growing up and the secular version of this holiday that some people knew.

They are tightly bound together in my mind.

It would be quite strange to insist on celebrating Eid with someone who wasn’t Muslim or Yule with someone who wasn’t Pagan, after all.

I see the religious celebration of Christmas as the same thing. It’s great for people who are part of that religion, and it’s fine if outsiders want to respectfully experience it as well. It is incredibly bizarre to pressure non-believers into celebrating a faith they don’t have, though.

No

Sometimes you don’t have to give a reason at all. While I generally do try to explain my decisions to people who ask, there are times when this doesn’t work so well.

“No” can be used as a full sentence if you’re having a conversation with someone who is going to pick apart any answer you give to them.

Respond

If you don’t celebrate Christmas any longer, how did you come to this decision? If you’ve never celebrated Christmas, what other holidays have you celebrated and how do you feel about them? If you’ve changed how you celebrate certain holidays, what kinds of changes have you made?

Close your eyes when you listen to this video.

It will be well worth it.

1. Internet access.
2. Books.
3. The ability to read this list and others like it.
4. Centralized heat. I’m so glad I don’t have to build a fire every morning to cook breakfast on and to stay warm with.
5. My Canadian and American identities.
6. The right to vote.
7. Funny texts from my family. They always have the greatest stories about what’s going on in their lives!
8. Antibiotics. Many of us might not still be around without them.
9. My funny, kind, and mischievous husband.
10. Lemon meringue pie.
11. Youtube. Who else has found the strangest and most wonderful things there?
12. People who enjoy my writing.
13. The workers who sweep the streets in Toronto. They keep our city looking good.
14. Life in a country where the media doesn’t spend months to years obsessing over every single detail of one upcoming election.*
15. Thanksgiving feasts.
16. Thanksgiving naps.
17. That tired, satisfied feeling you get when all of the food is safely packed away and the dishes and counters are scrubbed clean on a holiday like today.
18. Every Star Trek show in existence.**
19. Toilet paper. I’ve read that some people used to use corn cobs for this purpose, and it makes me shudder.
20. You.

*Canadian elections don’t happen on a strict timetable, and there’s a much shorter time space between when campaigns begin and when the election itself takes place.

** My spouse and I have been slowly working our way through all of them. We’re on season one of The Original Series right now, and it’s make me feel like I’ve travelled back through time. The 60’s were a time of drastic change for society, and it shines through clearly in this show. It will be so much fun to check out the newest one next year and make comparisons!

What are you grateful for today?

Here is this week’s list of poems, shorts stories, essays, comic strips, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Hundred-Year-Old Thanksgiving Poem. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers!

Snuggle. There’s a lot of truth to this.

Workin’ the Poll via MeghanSaraK‬. This is an important thing to read with the election in the U.S. coming up soon. I hope all of my readers in the States will be going out to vote. I also hope that you won’t have to wait in line too long for it.

6 Horror Movies Perfect for Halloween You May Not Know via ‪K8Tilton‬. I haven’t seen any of these movies yet, but I’m hoping to change that soon. How about you?

The Red Strings of Fate. This is one of the best science fiction short stories I’ve read in ages.

Inventor of the Photobomb via nazmaniatweet‬. These stories about someone the blogger once knew were absolutely hilarious. They made me want to photobomb a picture…although I don’t think I’ll be doing it anytime soon.

What have you been reading?

I wanted to talk about something lighthearted today. With Thanksgiving peeking around the corner, dessert is on my mind.

While I’m not a big fan of sweet potatoes with marshmallows baked on top of them, turkey, or stuffing, I’ve never met a pie that I didn’t like.

The nice thing about Thanksgiving is that there’s normally at least one pie at the end of your meal.

My family usually had pumpkin and/or ground cherry pie for dessert on big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Most people haven’t heard of ground cherries before, so I’ll try to describe what they taste like to you. They are tart like cranberries, sweet like pineapple, and have a texture that is something like a soft tomato.

People seem to either love them or hate them. I wasn’t a big fan of this dessert the first few times I tried it, but now I really like it.

My grandmother made “pumpkin” pie with what I believe was butternut squash instead of an actual pumpkin. It has a firmer and more flavourful texture that works really well for this pie, although this did mean that I was slightly disappointed when I tasted real pumpkin pie later on in life. The differences between them are subtle but important.
These days I like to have lemon meringue pie on special occasions. The slight tartness of the lemon filling reminds me just a little of ground cherries. That filling is balanced out nicely with the lightly sweet meringue and flaky crust.

What kinds of desserts do you like to eat during the holidays? Whatever they are, I hope you get to have a slice if you’re celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend!

This is the story of a girl who tries to help a tiny pilot find his way home again. That’s all I can tell you about it without giving away spoilers, but I thought it was really well done.

I was especially impressed by how many different emotions the characters shared with the audience without ever speaking a single word. As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I really love this style of cinematography.