State of the Discussion

Open thread -

I live in MA, where we definitely have winter, but I live pretty near the ocean, which has a mind of it's own as far as seasonal cycles of warm and cold go.

Net/net, we get less snow than places even as close as 10 miles away.

And that's the way I like it.

To me, snow means I have to drag my sorry behind out there in the wet and cold with a shovel before I can go anywhere. It means half the parking spaces are not available again until April or May.

In short, it's a PITA.

Basically, I'm over the romance of snow.

My wife tells me it's good for the plants - helps insulate them from a hard freeze while they are dormant. So i'll put up with it.

But not gracefully.

lj: I think ObWi is infinitely preferable to LGM and BJ, so I definitely don't think there should be more threads, and I also agree that the non-US commenters add interest (but then, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, I would, wouldn't I?). But I've always been far more interested in e.g. American politics etc than British, to the consternation of some of my friends, so the balance on ObWi seems excellent to me.

One trouble with too-frequent posts is that conversations in Comments sometimes fizzle out prematurely, as people move on to comment under the latest post.

This of Tony P's is something I've noticed as well, so I guess I prefer fewer threads. The great thing about our open or open-ish ones, IMO, is that people introduce new subjects during them, which may or may not get talked about, and then people can circle back to prior subjects as they get around to catching up, or have time to think about them. There's something about the less staccato rhythm of that which seems more relaxed to me, and more conducive to an atmosphere like friends hanging out together and talking about what interests them, and generally chewing the fat.

But the old ObWi was the site which formed my (first and only personal) experience of blogs, so I guess a lot of it is personal taste and familiarity.

lj, is it your belief that ObWi would be better if there were many more threads, like LGM or BJ?

I'm not sure about the enforced binary here and it ignores the underlying dynamics of this site and the sites mentioned. Both LGM and BJ have a stable of frontpagers, so it is not simply a question of more threads, it is more viewpoints. Also, both of those sites have istm a commentariat that is pretty US-centric. It's a bit silly to compare because I think the numbers are so different, but I think the non-US commentators here provide a pretty good counter balance for discussions. With that in mind (and sounding selfish), I want to have enough posts that allow them in particular (as well as everyone in general) to give their viewpoints on things that interest me. That is balanced with a desire not to troll anyone, which I think is an easy thing to slip into.

As far as posting frequency, I feel like I need to post around 2-3 things a week, though it's getting to term end and the weekend music post had me listen to a bunch of stuff and not get it out until (I hope) tomorrow. If that's too many, I can certainly pull back, if people think there need to be more, it might be tough to pull off. This is because there is a ton of stuff to post about the US, but it's getting to the point where it takes me to the point of physical disgust to write about some of the stuff that is happening.

I agree with Tony P's point that all threads are generally open, (and I'll try to get to his suggestions, thanks for those) and they are open because we generally don't have people trying to distract or avoid questions by engaging in what-abouterry.

Anyway, that's my current thoughts.

Charles's summer version of the picture is surprisingly accurate, less details that are concealed by the snow. The rock/bushes/edging is very much typical of the Front Range Colorado urban corridor; was the AI guessing, or did it have some location information? I wish I saw neighbors' windows lit as much as in the holiday picture. The townhouses' interiors are laid out so that the kitchen and living rooms are away from the front windows.

Perhaps this will motivate those folks in the military to not obey illegal orders.

I seem to be horribly pessimistic today. I find it more likely that it will motivate flag officers to leave the military, to be replaced by officers who will have no problem when Trump/Vance declare martial law and order them to halt the 2028 federal elections. If their big military project in 2027 is pulling the 100,000+ uniformed troops stationed in Europe and Asia home, that will be the real giveaway.

In addition to Snarki’s nitpickery, I would also love it if the actual pages of comments were longer, I think it’s distracting to have to turn the page forward and back so much on occasion.

I took the liberty of bumping up the number of comments per page.

At another site, I maintain a WordPress plugin that provides the most comment-centric view of a blog that I've ever seen. The guy who originally wrote it turned it over to that site to do with as they see fit when he abandoned it. Since that turned out to be "Mike keeps it running across new versions of WordPress and PHP", my working assumption is that I am free to install it here. To reassure lj, it doesn't interact with any other settings or plugins, just provides a different view of what's in the database.

More threads aren’t needed.
What I mostly want is to be able to easily find if there are new comments, and read them.

This pretty much sums up my attitude. I think the number of threads we've been having can be a real distraction, and disrupts the easy flow of conversation we've tended to have in the past. Also, IMO, what's in most of them can just as (or more) usefully go in Open Threads. And although historically I may possibly have been the worst at thread discipline, it's become obvious that I am not alone.

In addition to Snarki's nitpickery, I would also love it if the actual pages of comments were longer, I think it's distracting to have to turn the page forward and back so much on occasion.

Anyone else's MMV on all of this, of course.

On Your Party, and lj's question, IMO the whole phenomenon demonstrates yet again the factionalism of the far/mid left, and its incredibly self-defeating tendency which seems to (in fact if not in theory) value purity and virtue as against electoral success and the ability to actually achieve anything. There's no question that there are "stubborn attitudes to anything on the left", although admittedly not in the same league as in the US, but the far/mid left makes it awfully easy for them. The Monty Python sketch has never been far from mind during these developments.

More threads aren't needed.
What I mostly want is to be able to easily find if there are new comments, and read them.

So: too much stuff at the top of the page, requiring scrolling down a page or two, and for whatever reason, comment links that one has previously clicked don't change color, making it harder to tell if there are new comments beyond what was previously read.

Nit pickery! It's all nit-pickery! Maybe I should demand a refund!

So I’m asking the UKians if the whole thing is a farce or reflects stubborn attitudes to anything on the left. Or both.

Or, just for completeness, stubborn attitudes of anyone on the left. Not saying that the left is particularly inflexible. Just that, given how far away we are, that's also a possibility.

The novel variations in winds around the pole are having consequences in lots of places. In California, we've had some unseasonably warm spells. But the serious issue is rain/snow. Lack of. Last winter we got enough to refill the reservoirs. But we're heading for no rain for at least the first half of December, and that's usually the month with the precipitation.

cleek, that was the point. No work requirements though. The anona was not sufficient for a full family anyway. And rents in Rome were extremely high too (worse than NY City).
Well, full time work in several jobs and still in need of food assistance is indeed a parallel. A major difference is that any politician proposing cutting the anona would have quickly met a sticky end. And actually cutting it almost killed an emperor or two. The threat level is not yet as high in the US.

Btw, 'deserving poor' almost required "...". The main criteria were not necessarily actual need (again one could see parallels).

A discussion of early Christianity needs to consider the practices and institutions of Second Temple Judaism in addition to those of Rome. And those include the tzedekah, which was a mandatory tithe for helping the poor as well as travelers.

It was administered through religious institutions - the temple, and then synagogues during the early Rabbinic period - but there was no clear line between those religious institutions and civic or municipal government. To the degree that the Jewish community was self-governing during Roman occupation, the religious institutions *were* the government.

Ha - I've not seen any of the series, although I know everyone says they're great. I try to limit the platforms I subscribe to, and actually I watch very little TV compared to most people, but I imagine I'll weaken at some stage...

russell: Jackson Lamb is a great creation and character, and someone a joe would definitely want on their side. But the Rodmeister - what bliss he is in all his deluded glory. Have you read all of them, including the Slough House adjacent "The Secret Hours"?

Roddy Ho is my fave

Team Lamb here. The man is my shadow self. Or maybe not so shadow.

In early Christian times, there was no state or welfare, so I think that you can argue that, actually.

Followed by:

The Christian tradition is about communities and families and charity, not about compulsory taxation in order to pay welfare.

Somebody needs a theological / historical clean-up on aisle three.

India started doing it after it was clear that the world had already overshot the climate boundaries

Yes, it plugs into the idea that Robinson said started the book, which was the observation that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. It is difficult to imagine a profit motive sufficient to move the current titans of industry, though one could imagine a savior complex moving them to do it.