#Robert D. Putnam

[thoughtfulfangirling]

"First, social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily. Social scientists have long been concerned about "dilemmas" of collective action. Such dilemmas are ubiquitous, and their dynamics are straightforward. People often might all be better off if they cooperate, with each doing her share. But each individual benefits more by shirking her responsibility, hoping that others will do the work for her. Moreover, even if she is wrong and the others shirk, too, she is still better off than if she had been the only sucker. Obviously if every individual thinks that the others will do the work, nobody will end up taking part, and all will be left worse off than if all had contributed."

— Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam

[funsimplethings]

[l-1-z-a]

A reading list from The Sims (2000) game guide

Here are some titles that might enhance your understanding of some of the background and social issues entertained in The Sims.

Warning: all are filled with provocative ideas; Maxis disavows any responsibility for encouraging deep thought.

1. Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynski (July 1987), Penguin USA; ISBN: 0140102310

2. Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher W. Alexander (June 1970), Harvard University Press; ISBN: 0674627512

3. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein (1977), Oxford University Press (Trade); ISBN: 0195019199

4. Architecture: Form, Space, & Order by Frank D. K. Ching, Francis D. Ching (February 1996), John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471286168

5. Housing by Lifestyle: The Component Method of Residential Design by James W. Wentling (November 1994), McGraw-Hill; ISBN: 0070692939

6. Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time by John P. Robinson, Geoffrey Godbey (Contributor), Robert Putnam (June 1997), Pennsylvania State University Press (Trade); ISBN: 0271016523

7. Maps of the Mind by C. Hampden-Turner (March 1982), MacMillan Publishing Company; ISBN: 0025477404

8. Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life by David D. Friedman (September 1997), HarperCollins; ISBN: 0887308856

9. Making the Most of Your Llama by Linda C. Beattie (Editor), Araneen Witmer (Illustrator), Kathyrn Doll (Editor), Dr. Linda Beattie (September 1998), Kopacetic Ink; ISBN: 0961963417

10. Finding Your Perfect Love by Arthur Clark, Cassandra Skouras (January 1998), Rosebud Press; ISBN: 0965276902

11. The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size by Tor Norretranders, Jonathan Sydenham (Translator) (April 1998), Viking Press; ISBN: 0670875791

Was found here:

[phantalgia]

We Need Community Care Not Self Care and Why Current Community Sucks

TW: Talk of unaliving oneself and some violence!

Self-care is quite the buzzword. It's everywhere and it's a term, along with self-love, that I don’t get. There isn't anything unique to self-care as a concept. Taking care of yourself isn't anything new. You take a walk, you take a nice bath, you play a cute cozy game. What is so unique about it? Why is it all the talk?

Self-Care Creates a Docile Class

One of the most disheartening conversations I had with someone was someone who works in education who had a co-worker take their own life from being overworked. This person then became a big advocate for self-care. But I had to ask why they aren't challenging the structures at be that require people to work themselves up to that point? Again, there is nothing wrong with a break, that's not the point. Perhaps at the time I didn't quite have the words to properly convey what I meant.

My concern had been that they deflected a systemic problem onto an individual one that can only be solved through taking care of oneself. Sometimes even practicing consumerism as a form of self care or meeting certain beauty standards via the beauty industry.

Self-care is a new form of rugged individualism and engaging the affected individual in crisis through consumerism or further alienation. Again, nothing wrong with needing time away from people. Capitalism deprives humanity from people, it strips away at any semblence of concious awareness of other people.

Capitalist industries find new ways to integrate and maintain a docile class of people by reconciling with human needs and production needs. This is what the self-care industrial complex does. It also goes into a greater critique of the role of psychiatry as a whole within the capitalist framework, which I will save for another time.

I was disappointed with the conversation I was having with this person. I was sympathetic to their cause and I think their heart is in the right place but they just were not thinking bigger, beyond themselves. There didn't seem to be an awareness at all that human beings are mutually dependent on each other.

We must break free from this self-care system. Again, not breaking free from the very need for people to take breaks as needed, but that system and line of thinking. Self-care becomes a tool to focus on the 'I' that is damaged rather than the society, the 'us', that is deeply damaged.

Community Care Not Self-Care

Now that I have removed self-care from being associated with the natural need for humans to take breaks. And have discussed that self-care is more of a tool to maintain the status quo. We need an alternative.

I think community care is of the upmost importance. This can indirectly impact the individual as well. Community care should emphasize the rights of individuals in working spaces to take the time off they need while maintaining a greater sense of control over their environment.

Community care can manifest in other ways besides worker agency. Mutual aid efforts such as crisis intervention, community respect and understanding of individual needs, fostering a healthy social ecosystem to rely on when needed, more alternatives than just indulging in consumerism.

So what would community care do for the individual?

Worker autonomy and control over their work which would allow them to decide when they need a break (worker self management)

Disentanglement from oppressive and heirarchal structures that reduce human beings to robots

A community to rely on for mutual aid assistance

A sense of agency and control over ones life

The ability to free oneself and feel their own self growth and community growth

But I have some concerns about our vision of community...

Community is Not What it Once Was Nor Ever Was

Over the past few decades it has been recorded that communities were dying. Less and less people were going out and seeing each other. This has been documented by Robert D. Putnam in his book "Bowling Alone" and you can watch a video here from the Gravel Institute:

Community seems to have always been soured, however. Community just can't be taken away from the fact that people grow up in liberal democracies and capitalist cultures. So therefore, they really can't see any alternative in structuring themselves. This is why many Hippie communes have failed in the 60s - 70s. Community soon then became what brands or subcultures you belonged to which are still extensions of the capitalist culture.

With the rise of the internet in the middle of the neoliberal New Democrat era of the 90s, it seems as though community found itself a home on the World Wide Web.

The Californian Ideology

Amidst the backlash against the bureaucratic New Deal era, there seemed to be fear of a State Socialist model coming soon to America. This can be seen from the New Left and New Right movements at the time. What eventually came out of it was "The Californian Ideology". It's an essay to be exact, critiqueing 1990s Silicon Valley for its mishmash of neoliberal policies combining with New Left and New Right ideals. What came out of it can be best summed up by the late Carmen Hermosillo's essay 'Pandora's Vox: On Community in Cyberspace':

"i have seen many people spill their guts on-line, and i did so myself until, at last, i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money-value" - Carmen Hermosillo

It's a scathing critique on the fakeness of cyberspace, and the transfer of power to corporations. It holds prophetic to what would become in the future as the internet grew and became fundamental in the development of Gen Z and now Gen Alpha.

You can see more about "The Californian Ideology" in the following:

Adam Curtis' "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace"

Then and Now's video:

The Community Just Isn't Right Online

I have in my experience been in a lot of communities online and noticed a pattern. Many of these communities and even people often mimic the real world or reflect it. Not just in the way they structure themselves like liberal democracies or a corporation, but often culturally and socially.

These communities and the people in them can often be toxic or "too nice". I often believe that this is both a form of escapism and to feel a sense of control in their lives. The troll wants to escape the real world by being an exaggeration of how they feel about the real world. Angry and frustrated. Or maybe they lack control and power in their lives so they like to make people feel bad. Then you have the opposite side. The toxic positivity. They want to escape the real world and create a vision of the world too beautiful that it's unrealistic. Or they want to feel like they can control people and make them feel good about themselves.

The inception of the internet and its communities on it require the context of real world history and social conditions. I have yet to see online communities and people as anything but an extention of these systems. And this is further fueled by free-market principles and corporate power.

Algorithms Are Stripping Us of Humanity

The other day on Twitter (Not calling it the other name) I got randomly recommended a fighting video. I got so mesmerized by it that I wanted more and more and kept digging myself further into this rabbit hole until I snapped out of it.

These algorithms and just internet culture in general is filled with this toxic garbage. How many times do I need to see the some dumb internet micro-celebrity get canceled? How many times do I need to see a 'Red Pilled' podcast of men talking about how men are becoming too weak? How many times do I need to see the next internet drama? The next guru who "has it all figured out"?

I just don’t think anyone has stepped back for a moment and went "Holy shit, this is insane and not good". And big tech companies are profiting off these algorithms that take advantage of these human vulnerabilities. Dividing us further, enducing us with ragebait, and shortening the attention spans of Gen Alpha.

Worse yet, it's stripping us of our own ability to make quality judgements and proper justice. Instead things become spectecle, we become commodities, brands. Whether if that's literally or metaphorically.

Free-market principles, corporate power have stripped away our humanity, it's turned the internet into a place where people express how they REALLY feel about the world. And this sours creativity within community structure and culture online. The internet has become a place of gaining status, a meritocracy of the most vile or the biggest "saints". It's allowed for people to be cyberbullied into ending their lives, massacred people in Myanmar, incited riots, and on and on. The belief that the internet is not real life is just not true.

If You're a Hammer Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

I think another problem that comes out from the fact that these social media companies and communities just mimick the real world is they don’t give out proper tools to create alternatives. So essentially, everyone is a hammer looking at problems as nails. If these platforms actually gave us the means to create alternative structures maybe things would be different and we'd have some progress.

I have dreamt of a day in which Discord would allow individuals to structure their servers in a decentralized manner. It can be sort of done with bots but not to such a great degree. Instead, it's you’re a moderator or not. But how cool would it be if they gave us the tools to create a server in which individuals with shared interests could be in their own space and create their own micro corners within that server. They still could be beholden to the greater rules of the server.

This is sort of how Mastadon works, an alternative to Twitter that allows users to be apart of servers with their own privacy rules and guidelines while still being connected to the larger Mastadon feed.

Imagining Community

I think generally speaking, when we want to create new communities whether in real life or online, it requires a heterodoxic approach in both the mind, systems, and social relations. Being aware of the fact you are a mutually dependent human being is a good place to start. But the next part requires our systems and social relations reflect that.

Next I think is to recognize that human beings have no natural objective human nature quality outside of mutuality. We're not good, we're not bad. We want personal autonomy and we want community. We should allow ourselves to associate with who we want, however we want and be held accountable by those around us.

We need to find new ways of reconciling with differences, and again I think this can take many forms from just choosing who you want to associate with, to mediation or reconciliation. A new concious culture that can do these things might be a good one.

We must break free from the entrapment that big tech, capitalists, and government has on us. We can decide for ourselves how we want to live as long as we recognize another human being behind a person's eyes or a screen. We don’t need to be friends with each other but we can recognize the fact we're all a work in progress till the end and can live life with the peace of mind that when things go wrong we have the power and control to make a difference. Not a technocrat, a politician, a bussinessman, nor a bureaucrat.

Wrapping Up and Closing Thoughts

This is quite a crudely written post, honestly I feel it's not a complete thought and actually turned into something else completely. Initially it was supposed to be my personal critisisms of self-care and why it bothered me. But I also saw the flaws in what community is in the 21st century. So, I felt a need to cover that as well. I think for me, I noticed I ended up rambling off onto a completely other tangent unrelated to the topic at hand but was loosely related. I haven't really explored too much in terms of the future of community nor mental health either. So really, this is just a crudely made post on some things bugging the hell out of me that I needed to get out of my head. I will probably improve upon this as time goes on.

The Bottom Line

Essentially, self care as a movement or a cultural phenomenon is what my issue is. It's not the practice itself. There is nothing unique about taking care of oneself. What is unique is how much this has skyrocketed in popularity and has overtaken much needed critisims of systems that need to be critiqued that cause people to feel the way they do. And the need for more collective care to heal individual wounds.

Other Movements and People For Mental Health

There's also a lot of work in alternatives for mental health care and other forms of analysis of mental health such as:

Decolonization (returning indigenous forms of healing)

Post-psychiatry

Mad Pride

Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health (A podcast you can find on Spotify)

Freudo-Marxism

pat.radical.therapist (on Instagram)

connectwithoumou (on instagram)

There are plenty of other things to look into but they all cover similar topics.

[gracie-bird]

Mrs. Frederic S. Claghorn (left) and Mrs. George J. Hauptfuhrer Jr. meet at the Chestnut Hill home of Mrs. Joseph S. Rambo (right) to complete plans for Oct. 30 gala being sponsored by women's division of Eastern Pennsylvania Multiple Sclerosis Society at Academy of Music.

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Sunday, October 12, 1969).

DANCE HONORS PRINCESS GRACE

Dance honors Princess Brace Princess Grace of Monaco will be guest of honor at a "champagne dance" on Thursday, Oct. 30, at the Academy of Music Ballroom. Mrs. Joseph S. Rambo, of Chestnut Hill, is honorary chairman of the gala being sponsored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Multiple Sclerosis Society to raise funds to support research in finding the cause and control of this disease.

Festivities will begin with cocktails at 5 P. M. followed by dancing to the music of Romig, Lewis and Carney orchestras.

CHAIRMEN LISTED

Mrs. William E. Milhollen, Mrs. William A. Roth and Mrs. A. Ardley Henkels, are cochairmen.

Assisting the chairmen in arrangements for the Oct. 30 dance will be Mrs. Lloyd M. Coates, Mrs. George Morris Dorrance, Mrs. Frank B. Axelrod, Mrs. Frank Garofolo, Mrs. Morris R. Shaffer, Mrs. Alan D. Ameche, Mrs. Kershaw Burbank, Mrs. Murray Firestone, Mrs. F. Howard Goodwin Jr., Miss Ann Jane Callan, Mrs. Margaret K. Con-Ian, Mrs. Sydney Daroff, Mrs. Michael Daroff and Mrs. Edward Dudlik. Also, Mrs. Frederick H. Le vis Jr., Miss Marian Hayes, Mrs. W.Thacher Longstreth, Mrs. George J. Hauptfuhrer Jr., Mrs. Paul R. Kaiser, Mrs.Frederic S. Claghorn, Mrs. Russell Levin, Mrs. William Levinson, Mrs. Donald LeVine. Others are Henry S. McNeil, Mrs. Walter J. Maiden, Miss Patricia Lockhart, Mrs. Charles Nicholson, Mrs. Elizabeth Orr, Mrs. B. Arthur Pinney, Mrs. William Putnam, Miss Mildred Rinker, Mrs. Henriette Wallace, Mrs. Stanley A. Welsh Jr., Mrs. Michael A. Walsh, Mrs. Thomas A. Wood Jr., Mrs. Douglas H. Worrall Jr., Mrs. Vernon D. Wright, Mrs. Charles Wilson, Mrs. Robert G. Wilder.

"OPENING NIGHT" IS THEM OF BALL

"Opening Night" is the theme of the sixth annual West Park Hospital Ball to be held Saturday evening at Radnor Valley Country Club.

The ball is sponsored by the Women's Auxiliary of the Hospital and is cochairmened by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron N. Cohen. Proceeds will benefit the hospital building fund campaign and a new cardiac unit.

LANEiBRiANT for Fine carpet. we design them. From you like investment in dedicated Wall-to-Wall Hardwick's Colors: Green, sq. yd..

[fearsmagazine]

The 2022 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the Final Ballot for the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards®, an award they’ve been presenting  in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/)

Works appearing on this Ballot are Bram Stoker Award® Nominees for Superior Achievement in their Category, e.g., Novel.  Congratulations to all those appearing on the Final Ballot.

THE 2022 BRAM STOKER AWARDS® FINAL BALLOT

Superior Achievement in a Novel • Iglesias, Gabino – The Devil Takes You Home (Mullholland Press) • Katsu, Alma – The Fervor (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) • Kiste, Gwendolyn – Reluctant Immortals (Saga Press) • Malerman, Josh – Daphne (Del Rey) • Ward, Catriona – Sundial (Tor Nightfire)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel • Adams, Erin – Jackal (Bantam Books) • Cañas, Isabel – The Hacienda (Berkley) • Jones, KC – Black Tide (Tor Nightfire) • Nogle, Christi – Beulah (Cemetery Gates Media) • Wilkes, Ally – All the White Spaces (Emily Bestler Books/Atria/Titan Books)

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel • Dawson, Delilah S. – Camp Scare (Delacorte Press) • Kraus, Daniel – They Stole Our Hearts (Henry Holt and Co.) • Malinenko, Ally – This Appearing House (Katherine Tegen Books) • Senf, Lora – The Clackity (Atheneum Books for Young Readers) • Stringfellow, Lisa – A Comb of Wishes (Quill Tree Books)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel • Aquilone, James (editor) – Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50th Anniversary (Moonstone Books) • Gailey, Sarah (author) and Bak, Pius (artist) – Eat the Rich (Boom! Studios) • Manzetti, Alessandro (author) and Cardoselli, Stefano (artist/author) – Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt (Independent Legions Publishing) • Tynion IV, James (author) and Dell’Edera, Werther (artist) – Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 4 (Boom! Studios) • Young, Skottie (author) and Corona, Jorge (artist) – The Me You Love in the Dark (Image Comics)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel • Fraistat, Ann – What We Harvest (Delacorte Press) • Jackson, Tiffany D. – The Weight of Blood (Katherine Tegen Books) • Marshall, Kate Alice – These Fleeting Shadows (Viking) • Ottone, Robert P. – The Triangle (Raven Tale Publishing) • Schwab, V.E. – Gallant (Greenwillow Books) • Tirado, Vincent – Burn Down, Rise Up (Sourcebooks Fire)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction • Allred, Rebecca J. and White, Gordon B. – And in Her Smile, the World (Trepidatio Publishing) • Carmen, Christa – “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror) (Wicked Run Press) • Hightower, Laurel – Below (Ghoulish Books) • Katsu, Alma – The Wehrwolf (Amazon Original Stories) • Knight, EV – Three Days in the Pink Tower (Creature Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction • Dries, Aaron – “Nona Doesn't Dance” (Cut to Care: A Collection of Little Hurts) (IFWG Australia, IFWG International) • Gwilym, Douglas – “Poppy’s Poppy” (Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Vol. V, No. 6) • McCarthy, J.A.W.  – “The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body” (A Woman Built by Man) (Cemetery Gates Media) • Taborska, Anna – “A Song for Barnaby Jones” (Zagava) • Taborska, Anna – “The Star” (Great British Horror 7: Major Arcane) (Black Shuck Books) • Yardley, Mercedes M. – “Fracture” (Mother: Tales of Love and Terror) (Weird Little Worlds)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection • Ashe, Paula D. – We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (Nictitating Books) • Joseph, RJ – Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted (The Seventh Terrace) • Khaw, Cassandra – Breakable Things (Undertow Publications) • Thomas, Richard – Spontaneous Human Combustion (Keylight Books) • Veres, Attila – The Black Maybe (Valancourt Books)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay • Cooper, Scott – The Pale Blue Eye (Cross Creek Pictures, Grisbi Productions, Streamline Global Group) • Derrickson, Scott and Cargill, C. Robert – The Black Phone (Blumhouse Productions, Crooked Highway, Universal Pictures) • Duffer Brothers, The – Stranger Things: Episode 04.01 "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (21 Laps Entertainment, Monkey Massacre, Netflix, Upside Down Pictures) • Garland, Alex - Men (DNA Films) • Goth, Mia and West, Ti – Pearl (A24, Bron Creative, Little Lamb, New Zealand Film Commission)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection • Bailey, Michael and Simon, Marge – Sifting the Ashes (Crystal Lake Publishing) • Lynch, Donna – Girls from the County (Raw Dog Screaming Press) • Pelayo, Cynthia – Crime Scene (Raw Dog Screaming Press) • Saulson, Sumiko – The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry (Dooky Zines) • Sng, Christina – The Gravity of Existence (Interstellar Flight Press)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology • Datlow, Ellen – Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (Tor Nightfire) • Hartmann, Sadie and Saywers, Ashley – Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology (Dark Matter Ink) • Nogle, Christi and Becker, Willow – Mother: Tales of Love and Terror (Weird Little Worlds) • Ryan, Lindy – Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga (Black Spot Books) • Tantlinger, Sara – Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women in Horror (Strangehouse Books)

Superior Achievement in Non–Fiction • Cisco, Michael – Weird Fiction: A Genre Study (Palgrave Macmillan) • Hieber, Leanna Renee and Janes, Andrea – A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts (Citadel Press) • Kröger, Lisa and Anderson, Melanie R. – Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult (Quirk Books) • Waggoner, Tim – Writing in the Dark: The Workbook (Guide Dog Books) • Wytovich, Stephanie M. – Writing Poetry in the Dark (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Short Non–Fiction • Murray, Lee – “I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)” (Interstellar Flight Magazine) (Interstellar Flight Press) • Pelayo, Cynthia – “This is Not a Poem” (Writing Poetry in the Dark) (Raw Dog Screaming Press) • Wetmore, Jr., Kevin J. – “A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television” (The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More) (McFarland and Company) • Wood, L. Marie – “African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore” (Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students) (Conjure World) • Wood, L. Marie, “The H Word: The Horror of Hair” (Nightmare Magazine, No. 118) (Adamant Press)

[jkhstuff]

The Stack

The Stack is my ever-expanding list of books to read, movies to see, games to play, and albums to hear. If you have recommendations, feel free to drop into the askbox and let me know!

Currently... 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Delicious In Dungeon

FILM Shelby Oaks (2024) Vampires! by John Carpenter

BOOKS Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D Putnam The Scar by China Mieville The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Mieville

GAMES Dungeons of Hinterberg Citizen Sleeper Persona 3 Reload Xenoblade Chronicles 3

ANIME Deca-Dence Freiren (i know, i know)

[nathanalbright151]

Book Review: Bowling Alone

Bowling Alone: The Collapse And Revival Of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam This book is one that has been viewed as a classic work of sociology, but it ends up being a mixed bag, even (especially) with recent additions to bring the author’s conclusions and observations up to date with the Coronavirus disaster. Where this book succeeds is in providing a statistically sound examination of…

[thoughtfulfangirling]

I finally finished Bowling Alone today. It was due back to the library yesterday XD It was so interesting! I'm glad I read it, and there are several quotes queued up. But it was very dry! I couldn't read a lot all at once.

For the most part, Putnam did a really good job of trying not to over-attribute or make guesses that didn't take confounding factors into account without surmising what some of those confounding factors would be. I really appreciated that.

But in the afterward, he makes the claim that virtual learning in the beginning of the pandemic proved that learning is not as effective virtually and that grades plummeted.

And like, I'm not even going to say that I think he's wrong per se, but it felt really weird, and, not going to lie, a bit disingenuous that after all the efforts he made not to make grand sweeping statements, this one wouldn't come along with comments on how this experiment into virtual learning happened during a global traumatizing event when parents had to scramble to find ways not to leave their children at home alone and whatnot. Talk about there being a lot of extenuating circumstances to effect results.

Today, I get so much more work done when I get to work from home than when I'm in the office, but do you think that was the case in the first six months of a global pandemic when we were scrambling to figure out how to make this all work, were stressed and scared at the unknown, and had no adjustment period?

Big yikes there.

It was only the afterward that he seemed to get negligent about that, but given that this afterward came 20 years later to address something as big as the internet... I dunno. Not the best way to make your last impression XD

[booyahpurgatory]

Starting a new book and I'm very excited about it

The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett

Compares usamerica's current situation to the division of the gilded age

[gravitascivics]

AN ARRAY OF DISPOSITIONS

The last posting referred to certain points this blog has made through the years.  More specifically, those points describe the political/cultural landscape that the political scientist, Daniel Elazar, describes.[1]  Here is how this blog (with some editing) reported on Elazar’s contribution, back in 2011:

Daniel Elazar's study of American political dispositions identified these three subcultures. They are the individualistic, the moralistic, and the traditional. The origins of these distinctive cultural dispositions can almost be traced to the earliest colonial period. Highly affected by the economic diversity that sprang up from the colonies in the northern, New England region to the plantation-based economies of the southern colonies, the subcultures of each of the three regions [New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern] reflected the social realities emerging from these diverse economic conditions.

Robert Putnam found these diverse political ideas, ideals, and beliefs surviving in the nation’s more current times.[2] Elazar claims that the distinct cultural dispositions stretched westward in mostly three parallel layers of states. The trend is not perfect; for example, while the traditional subculture of the south moved westward, its expansion was limited to the former Confederate States [and ends at the western border of Texas].

Mostly stretching westward from first the mid-Atlantic colonies and then the resulting states, overall, the individualistic subculture is the most dominant today as it mirrors the marketplace perspective. [This blog has made the argument that that dominance was first exerted in the years just after World War II replacing a more moralistic bias that prevailed.]  Today, the nation’s political culture is well ensconced in the natural rights construct that is dominant in our nation's school curricula. Why? Because it best reflects the nation’s capitalist biases.[3]

This general description, as presented in this blog, was further supported by the thoughts of the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana.[4] He argued that American history saw a religious outlook among Americans that began with a strict Calvinist belief that evolved into a more genteel transcendental perspective. Those competing moral views helped develop or at least co-existed with the above described three distinct political subcultures.

To be clear, none of these perspectives held or hold total allegiance among the American population at any time.  That includes the thinking and feelings of Americans today.  For example, the Republican Party base today is described as holding a Christian nationalist perspective among its MAGA[5] advocates.  Readers can pass judgment as to the validity of that claim.  But to the extent it is true, one can classify such thinking as a form of parochial/traditionalist thought.

[1] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism:  A View from the States (New York, NY:  Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).

[2] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone:  The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[3] Robert Gutierrez, “Individualistic Political Subculture,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 18 or 19, 2011).  This posting is no longer found in the blog’s archive feature.

[4] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” in The Annals of America, vol. 13 (originally published in 1911) (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopaedia Britanica, 1968), The Annals of America, vol. 13, 277-288.

[5] Make America Great Again.

[karenlacorte]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: J. D. Robb Kindred In Death.

[kwain-itinerant-meddler]

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Scattered Minds by Dr. Gabor Maté M.D.

Okay okay let’s be constructive:

What is your favorite nonfiction book that you’ve read in the last year?

[blimmo]

What makes for a good life? According to the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, the simple answer is relationships. In this episode, author and psychiatrist Dr. Robert Waldinger explains why building strong connections with other people helps us to have...

[docrotten]

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) – Episode 155 – Decades Of Horror: The Classic Era

“Where are you? What do you look like? What am I supposed to be looking for? I know you are out there hiding in the desert. Maybe I’m looking right at you and don’t even see you. Come on out!” Doesn’t the song go, “Who are you? Who, who, who, who?” Join this episode’s Grue-Crew – Chad Hunt, Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, Doc Rotten, and Jeff Mohr – as they set their eyeballs with relish on Jack Arnold’s It Came From Outer Space (1953).

Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Episode 155 – It Came From Outer Space (1953)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

ANNOUNCEMENT Decades of Horror The Classic Era is partnering with THE CLASSIC SCI-FI MOVIE CHANNEL, THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE CHANNEL, and WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL Which all now include video episodes of The Classic Era! Available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, Online Website. Across All OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop. https://classicscifichannel.com/; https://classichorrorchannel.com/; https://wickedhorrortv.com/

A spaceship from another world crashes in the Arizona desert and only an amateur stargazer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strangely.

  Director: Jack Arnold

Writers: Harry Essex; Ray Bradbury (film treatment)

Produced by: William Alland

Music by: Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini, Herman Stein (all uncredited)

Cinematography by: Clifford Stine

Editing by: Paul Weatherwax

Costume Design by: Rosemary Odell (gowns)

Makeup Department:

Joan St. Oegger (hair stylist)

Bud Westmore (makeup artist)

Jack Kevan (makeup execution) (uncredited)

Art Department: Joseph Hurley (conceptual artist) (uncredited)

Visual Effects by:

David S. Horsley (special photography)

Roswell A. Hoffmann (special photographic effects / visual effects optical printing) (uncredited)

Selected Cast:

Richard Carlson as John Putnam

Barbara Rush as Ellen Fields

Charles Drake as Sheriff Matt Warren

Joe Sawyer as Frank Daylon

Russell Johnson as George

Kathleen Hughes as Jane

Virginia Mullen as Mrs. Daylon (uncredited)

Dave Willock as Pete Davis (uncredited)

George Eldredge as Dr. Snell (uncredited)

Bradford Jackson as Bob – Dr. Snell’s Assistant (uncredited)

William Pullen as Deputy Reed (uncredited)

Robert Carson as Dugan (uncredited)

Edgar Dearing as Sam (uncredited)

Alan Dexter as Dave Loring (uncredited)

Whitey Haupt as Perry (uncredited)

Casey MacGregor as Toby (uncredited)

Dick Pinner as Lober (uncredited)

George Selk as Tom (uncredited)

Robert ‘Buzz’ Henry as Posseman (uncredited)

Kermit Maynard as Posseman (uncredited)

Ralph Brooks as Posseman (uncredited)

Ned Davenport as Man (uncredited)

Calling all “Monster Kids!” The Grue Crew tackles the sci-fi, 3-D, Jack Arnold classic, It Came From Outer Space. This one’s got it all: groovy alien eyeball monster, body-snatching shenanigans, coming-at-ya 3-D fun, and… The Professor from Gilligan’s Island. What else do you need? The Grue Crew discusses all this and much more.

At the time of this writing, It Came From Outer Space is available for streaming from the Classic Sci-Fi Movie Channel, the Classic Horror Movie Channel, and multiple PPV sources. The film is also available as a Blu-ray disc from Universal.

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era records a new episode every two weeks. Up next in their very flexible schedule, as chosen by Daphne, is The City of the Dead (1960), released in the US as Horror Hotel and featuring Christopher Lee.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a comment on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel, the site, or email the Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com

To each of you from each of them, “Thank you so much for watching and listening!”

Check out this episode!

[garudabluffs]

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Paine wrote

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Paine wrote, “yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dear-ness only that gives every thing its value.”

“Historians credit the Battles of Trenton and Princeton with saving the Revolutionary cause.”

READ MORE https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-25-2022

Notes: https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/01/a-brief-publication-history-of-the-times-that-try-mens-souls/

https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/buildings/section4

424 Comments “This is no time for laxity. This is the time to be the best Americans we can be.’The preceding were excerpts from 'Putting the Jan. 6th Committee Report in the Context of America’s Democratic Story' in Bulwark by Gary Hart is a former United States senator from Colorado and the author of, most recently, The Republic of Conscience (2015).                                           See link https://www.thebulwark.com/putting-the-jan-6th-committee-report-in-the-context-of-americas-democratic-story/ “

Dec 26 “To me, this Letter is *history*, not "military history." Military history tends to edit out who's doing the fighting and what they were fighting for. It gets bogged down in tactics and strategy, terrain and weaponry. In the service of history, in modest doses, it's important, but on its own? On the whole I think that military history is to history as the military is to the civilian government.”

Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America Author(s): Robert D. Putnam Source: PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 664-683 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/420517

https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS293/articles/putnam1.pdf

“...Coursera offers an online class on beginners civics called Civic Engagement in American Democracy”. It is taught through Duke University, and if memory serves me, the course is free, unless you want a certificate. I believe it starts today

At least two of these are available

FREE online

... thanks to that horrible techie thing (shrub) called the interwebs... that manages to connect all of us and Heather. :-)

https://www.coursera.org/learn/civic-engagement-american-democracy

https://www.thecivicseason.com/events/civic-engagement-in-our-democracy-online-course/

Dec 25 edited Dec 25

“Read David Fischer's "Washington's Crossing," a definitive work on this subject.  The common belief is that the ragged remnant of an army snuck up on the garrison at Trenton and defeated the Christmas-loving Germans who were hung over from celebrations of the preceding two days.  In truth, the tide was already turning, and the Hessians were tired and stressed not from drink but from the ceaseless vigilance required to protect themselves from aroused local partisans who resented their presence and their habits of stealing everything that wasn't nailed down.  The attack, carried out in the teeth of a bitter Nor'easter, convinced the Continentals, ragged as they might have been, of what many of them already believed, that they were hardened soldiers capable of victory.”

Let's hope enough of us still carry the resolve to fight to the last measure against oppression and tyranny.”

“Our soldiers during that winter long ago were so poorly equipped that many suffered and died from exposure... yet they persevered and fought battles against much better trained and equipped foes.   Afterwards, they retreated to Valley Forge and in winters afterward to Morristown.   Like right now, the cold was penetrating and constant but accompanied by deep snow.   They endured it and went on to fight and win more battles until with the help of the French the tide turned decisively against the British years later at Saratoga.   It took a long time with constant effort and sacrifice.  This is how it was and still is...”

“General Howe, shacked up with a lovely lady in NYC, called off the British assault and engaged in the Christmas party scene. By contrast, General Washington, with the remnants of his army—cold and underfed—faced the certainty that his remaining soldiers would go home on January 1st when their enlistments expired.He decided on an incredible Hail Mary. His troops would cross the Delaware on Christmas Eve and attack the fearsome Hessian mercenaries in Trenton. Thanks to Marbleheader Glover they got the boats and arrived in Jersey territory later than anticipated. Surprise was their best hope. [Colonel Rahle, the Hessian commander, had been handed a spy’s report of Washington’s attack, but, during the drunken festivities, failed to glance at it.]The ragged American soldiers attacked, the Hessians were defeated—with 900 prisoners—and, astonishingly, not a single American soldier was killed.If Washington hadn’t succeeded in his astonishing Hail Mary, the American revolution may have ended on January 1st. [Thomas Paine’s wrote The Crisis, which was a rousing carrion call that was read to the troops before their extraordinary victory.]“

“On the wall of 10, rue de l'Odéon, Paris, there's a big plaque to say that that's where he lived and wrote.  Here's a translation:  

"Thomas Paine 1737-1809:  English born, American by adoption, French by decree, lived in this building from 1797 to 1802. He placed his passion for freedom at the service of the French Revolution, was a member of the Convention and wrote the Bill of Human Rights. When opinions are free, the strength of truth always prevails.”

READ MORE https://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/americon-lp-thomas-paine/thomas-paine/

“David McCullough’s “1776”; is a chronicle of just that one critical year in our history. There were several times Washington’s army was near defeat and collapse. Had the British been just a little more aggressive, a little more assertive, all would have been lost.

The other book is Howard Fast’s “Citizen Tom Paine,” about the eloquent, literary firebrand who expressed the consciousness of the American Revolution in his pamphlets.”

“ And let’s remember this: There was a small pox epidemic at the time. British troops were vaccinated. George Washington, who had survived the disease in his early years, KNEW the importance of vaccination. His “regulars” were required to be vaccinated from small pox, but the independent militias (like ones from Tennessee) refused vaccination. The disease devastated those ranks. . . Some things never change.”

“The flag you are referring to Mark is the Gadsden Flag. It’s a great flag adopted in 1775 and used by the Continental Marines, who did indeed find it honourable. The timber rattlesnake is unique to the US, a symbol that helped distinguish the colonists from Europe. Ben Franklin, a founding father of legendary honor used the rattler symbol in the first political cartoon in an American newspaper!Here Franklin describes the symbolism:There was painted a Rattle-Snake, with this modest motto under it, "Don't tread on me." She has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders... The Rattle-Snake is solitary, and associates with her kind only when it is necessary for their preservation ‘Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces.”

“_ _A storm not unlike what began this past Friday began as the Continental Army, which included a couple of my ancestors, formed to board the boats and ferries. We have to assume that fortunate for the future of the World that storm was not as severe. But, enough rain to render some of the gunpowder too wet to fire.Following the victory the captured Hessian POWs were marched off to Lancaster, home to a lot of German-speakers already, then later to Virginia to while away the war. These Hessian troops were rent-a-soldiers. Highly regarded as well-disciplined, effective fighters in Europe, King George III rented them from his cousin Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel to assist in the ongoing troubles with his own subjects in the Colonies. When Washington captured Trenton and its "airfields", a bolt of lightning struck in Europe similarly to Ukraine's standoff of the Russian Army attack on Kyiv back in February-March.Suddenly, the Colonies were to be reckoned with. The 19 year old Marquis de LaFayette (both recently orphaned and married), middle-aged Prussian Army officer Baron Frederich von Stuben, ex-pat Moses Hazen, previously a member of Roger's Rangers in the French & Indian War returned from Canada to lead "Congress' Own" 2nd Canadian regiment, Lithuanian Tadeusz Kościuszko (Ko-CHEWz-ko) joined in as a Colonel to Combat Engineer (leading to the Army Corp), and Tuffin Armand, Marquis de la Rouerie to forge our Cavalry and Francois Teissedre de Fleury from the French Army. Benjamin Franklin, of course, had a hand is 'encouraging' 3 or 4 of these volunteers. Within months of Trenton and Princeton, Washington had a few more experts to help train and focus the brave volunteers from the Colonies. Personal Note: What a difference 60 years can make. I have to presume the Hessian POWs were treated well enough and were pleased enough our Eastern lands to return home as the vanguard of the 'time-share' salesmen, who fledgling Midwest States would dispatch to Europe in the 1800s to recruit "hard-working German" laborers and farmers to populate their new States.”