A Justice Site
A Justice Site
About Us - Site Map: Where to Find Stuff - What's NEW?
MIRROR SITES: CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
YAHOO DISCUSSION GROUP: Building Communities
MODERATORS' NEWS: jeanne's World - Susan's World
Susan's Afghan Grows
RESOURCES: Community-Building - Visual Sociology - Message-Building
SEARCH: - Site Index - Topics Index - Archives - Online Sources
FACULTY ASSISTANCE: Susan - jeanne - Pat
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary Search: |
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: February 6, 2008
Latest Update: February 7, 2008
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
patriciaacone@yahoo.com
Yahoo Discussion Group: Building Communities
Topic of the Week: What Is Community?
and How to Survive the Big Stuff
My life is topsy-turvy along with the world. At least that might mean that I'm keeping up with things. I'm not sure that all these things are worth keeping up with. Super Tuesday and Super Bowl Sunday are behind us now. Kind of like New Year's and Easter, all in one. Arnold (husband) and I watched the the Giants and the Patriots for four hours. But I did think the Giants made a rather exciting game of it, maybe making up for having kept the Green Bay Packers out of it.
Long ago Susan and I adopted James Thurber's "my world and welcome to it." If you're paying attention, life is a fascinating story. You've just got to guard your sense of humor, as thurber did.
More on all this tomorrow. It's about using laughter and creative innovation to sweat the small stuff when you have to. But tonight I've had a whole day of sweating the small stuff, so I'm gonna get back to Susan's afghan. See how it's growing. As it slithers across the kitchen table and starts turning into a full-fledged free-form knitted and crocheted art work, Arnold is trying to take it by adverse possession. But meanwhile, it's saving my sanity and reminding me that I can make this all back into "my world," that can be lots pleasanter than bureaucracy out there. jeanne
References:
- Alfie Kohn.
- My world and Welcome to It Based on James Thurber's book of short stories. Be sure to read the section on the book itself. jeanne
- Join Our Discussion Group
YAHOO DISCUSSION GROUP: Building Communities
One of Susan's students tried to join Write-Free. That's a separate group on writing our stories. Good practice. But no one has come to join it recently, so I was about to delete it, but didn't know how. If you'd like help with writing your projects up, I'd be delighted to start it up again. Let us know. jeanne
- Updating Site for Spring Semester
Jeanne is trying to update the site for this semester. Patience, please. She's a little slow.
- Updating Online Sources for Spring.
- Sometimes You Have to Sweat the Big Stuff
Romney withdrew from the presidential race today. I picked up the news on an RSS feed with the BBC, and went immediately to check it out in the New York Times. If you have the time, check out some of the responses. I must have laughed and cried for an hour. This is the big stuff, folks. Ideology on lots of levels. Do we have the arrogance to demand that all follow our religious choices? Or would God's people consider living togeher and leaving that to God? Are we so sure that America is "right" that we're willing to carry on a war for a hundred years? And do we so disrespect the moderate conservative ideology that we can rejoice that the Republican party is so torn? What a mess! And it's no better on the Democratic side. My goodness, when did we forget that we all live on this small globe together? Couldn't we just get along? Collaborate? Make human mistakes like all humans, and not excoriate one another for our humanity?
I'm living the case of the over-stimulated 72-year-old. Now it's time to sit down and have a piece of cake and a glass of milk and center myself. I thought I heard on the BBC that someone in the UK is demanding that he UK must recognize Sharia - Muslim religious law. No, I must have misheard. That wasn't a Turkish newscast. My Turkish isn't that good. I must have misheard.
And so you will see that I have followed my own advice and returned to knitting and crochet to ground myself in the midst of all this big stuff. Maybe we should sweat the small stuff, hmmm? A little easier to handle. jeanne
My Defense Against the Big Stuff
I had meant to write about how art and exploding cards and free-form afghans are all a part of building community and not sweating the big stuff, but the big stuff got to me first. So, as the Muslims say, "God willing . . . . Tomorrow . . . . Well, nevermind." Did I remember that right, Susan? Jack Smith, a well-loved LA Times columnist said it long ago.
- Building Community Rituals and Sharing
- Up soon on the ritual of awards and recognition and how it relates to community innovation and sharing. jeanne
Somebody's always going to take the credit, and many others are going to add their efforts to produce that which takes the credit. Let's talk about how that makes us all feel. Why credit for achievement, and how does credit for achievement harm all those who don't get to take the credit. Alfie Kohn reference.
Alfie Kohn. Look at just a few of Alfie kohn's ideas:
- THE DEADLY EFFECTS OF "TOUGHER STANDARDS": Challenging High-Stakes Testing and Other Impediments to Learning
- PERFORMANCE VS. LEARNING: The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement
- ON BRIBING STUDENTS TO LEARN: Second Thoughts About A's, Praise, Stickers, and ContestsON BRIBING STUDENTS TO LEARN: Second Thoughts About A's, Praise, Stickers, and Contests
- CHOICES FOR CHILDREN: From Coercion to Community
- FROM DEGRADING TO DE-GRADING: Basic Questions About Assessment
- Artist's Gallery On TakingItGlobal,
The place I know
by Hayley Ellis
"Description: This is a beach in Crete that is really important to me, I found myself there."
Visit the Taking It Global art gallery, and see the role art can play in building community.
Local and Global UNDER CONSTRUCTION - jeanne
- Finding Issues that Matter and Reliable Access to Information on Those Issues:
General Information
- Newspapers:
- A Range of Scholarly Sources
on Issues that Matter from Many Perspectives, Left, Right, and OtherLeft/Right Perspectives - Cursor - The National Review
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation
The Cato Institute (Libertarian) - The Open Society
BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
- La Opinion - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report
- Web Sources Linked from Dear Habermas
Concept Index - T.R. Young and the Red Feather Institute
The World Wide School - Free access to important worksThe Slought Foundation: New Futures for Contemporary Life
The Church and Postmodern Culture: A Conversation
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
Individual copyrights by other authors may apply.
