It’s not because we have shorter attention spans than goldfish that this week’s rescued stories shifted focus from the 2020 election. The goldfish myth has been debunked—by fish themselves demonstrating to researchers that their memory is just fine. Fish recognize and learn from each other, have complex spatial maps of their habitats, and when taught to avoid a trap, they will remember that lesson for at least a year. Humans, however, have not demonstrated definitively to researchers that individual attention spans have decreased, although research does find that our collective attention has narrowed. News topics “sharply capture widespread attention and promptly lose it just as quickly.”
The past four years have given us too many extreme examples of how rapidly topics can flare up into hot stories, only to then abruptly drop off as old news. Rescue Rangers saw a flood of election-related Community stories this week, but we don’t rescue hot takes on common themes, even if heartfelt or incendiary. Instead we look for well-written stories expressing original ideas, although this doesn’t require avoiding current events. This week’s 15 Community writers may have begun with a hot news topic like the election, but they’ve expressed it obliquely through what they’ve learned from interactions with other people, aspects of their complex spatial habitats, traps they’ve avoided, and other personal insights.
Rescued Stories from 7PM EST Friday Nov. 13 to 7PM Friday Nov. 20, 2020
Community Spotlight’s Rescue Rangers read every story published by Community writers. When we discover awesome work that isn’t receiving the attention it deserves, we rescue it to our group blog and publish a weekly collection—like this one—each Saturday. Rescue priorities and actions were explained in a previous edition: Community Spotlight: Rescuing your excellent stories for over 14 years. You also can find a link in Meteor Blades’ “Night Owls” series, which publishes daily between 10-11PM EST.
Diwali - Triumph of Good over evil by kkodithala
Last Saturday was Diwali, a festival of light. “Hindus believe that light symbolizes the triumph of goodness (light) over evil (darkness). The Diya is the symbol that evil will eventually be overcome.” As a child in India, Kkodithala questioned the holiday’s symbolism. “If the evil is overcome, why do we still see it everywhere?” As an adult in the U.S., he detects subtleties that lead to a greater understanding. “I was fine with this symbolism until I learned more about World War II, the Holocaust … and other atrocities … The only way the ‘bad guys’ kept their people on their side was by keeping them in ignorance. While all of this was obvious, I never saw this in real time until 2016.”
For the City of Detroit, With Love and Gratitude by srsjones
The author describes finding himself the only white young man in a group of Black young men in 1960s Detroit, a place Republicans consider the poster child for Democratic failure. “Somebody said something about gay people he saw on TV. He said something bad. I spoke up. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to take it anymore. And there we were, confronting each other on a street on the east side of Detroit; all of us suddenly all absorbing new information.” Those men’s reaction to learning he was gay allowed srsjones to feel “for the first time in my life there were people who treated me like a human being.”
Dawn Chorus: Baby It's Cold Outside by giddy thing
A record-setting early snowstorm with sub-zero temperatures inspired biologist giddy thing to explain how wild birds adapt to winter weather and how we can help them. Using text and photos, she details physical and behavioral adaptations that allow birds to survive cold weather. “I’m Not Fat, I’m Fluffy. On those extra-cold days, a bird will fluff out its feathers to create air pockets that trap heat between its body and feathers.”
A Tiger Walks... by mohistory2
The author employs a Disney movie about an escaped tiger stalking local residents as a metaphor for the traumas BIPOC have endured in America. "On Oct. 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus unleashed the first of what would eventually end up being millions of metaphorical tigers into America over the next five centuries." But there’s a catch: “(S)hockingly, somewhere around a half a century ago, those metaphorical hungry tigers stopped restricting their movements to only nonwhite victims ... So many of the very mechanisms that were long ago designed to make it easier for those tigers to target POC are now enabling them to statistically pick off even greater numbers of white people. Which leaves us in the year 2020, between a proverbial rock and a hard place.”
Some thoughts on Democratic “Messaging” and the Annoying Tactics of the “Woke” Left by GrafZeppelin127
Everyone agrees that Democratic messaging needs to be strengthened going forward. However, as GrafZeppelin127 points out, is the problem really the party's left wing, or is really how the entire Democratic party is portrayed in the media? "Why am I, and so many of us, getting a different ‘message’ from Democrats than the one … that everyone else is getting, and how is that the Democrats’ fault? Maybe the better question is this: Is cancel culture/wokeness a message that people are getting from Democrats, or about Democrats? I think that’s a critically important distinction."
Consumer Capitalism Stumbles Towards Collapse by veritas curat
Veritas looks at our economy, what it is, who it serves, and who serves it. “The true nature of consumer capitalism becomes clearer in times of crisis. And in this crisis, it is revealing its true nature as a sacrificial cult. Sacrificing the planet for short-term profits and reveling in willing human sacrificial victims. Its political power has been underestimated by those who, like me, were following the polls and hopefully expecting a massive Blue Wave landslide. I woefully underestimated the willingness of the populace to sacrifice themselves in service to the economy."
Mariah lives in Estes Park. A Colorado State Open Thread, 11/16/2020 by ColoTim
The author and his wife moved from Denver to Estes Park two years ago, despite his concerns about “having a fire destroy my house while I’m away for the day, and having to commute in the snow.” ColoTim relates how they’ve survived both wildfire and snow-packed roads, and discovered a new concern. "One thing we didn’t know to plan for, but which has been very impactful is that Estes Park, in the six months of winter, is a very windy place.” He calls this wind Mariah, after the song “They Call the Wind Mariah” from the musical Paint Your Wagon. “(S)he does give us plenty of one of my favorite natural sounds in the world—the sound of wind through the pine boughs, but when she thunders on by, we do sometimes cringe and hope that we’re not losing things being blown away into the forest."
Why Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Matter by DrMarmot
Reversing Trump’s actions against these national monuments is among the action items for the new administration. DrMarmot lays out why the fight to restore the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments is a “crucial action for the advancement of social justice.” It’s more than returning access to indigenous peoples and removing extractive industrial uses. “Public lands, then, mean much more than any one value or interest group, as important as any of those values or groups may be. They are a means by which we can achieve our best, most democratic aspirations.”
mRNA Vaccines by lyleoross
Using easy to understand language, lyleoross explains the role of mRNA, why the new vaccines need to be kept at such cold temperatures, and personal concerns about these vaccines. “What Moderna claims to have done is to modify that lipid sack. They’ve made it hardier, more resistant to RNases, and other factors that might break open the sack prior to delivery. (But) Moderna won’t tell us what that technology is, it’s proprietary.”
The Cruelty Of the Trump Era Is What Hurts My Heart by dsnottselliott
This author turns a familiar theme—“The cruelty is the point!”—into a mild rant that expresses what many of us are feeling. “These 30 million-plus people don’t turn away from the cruelty. They LOOK for it. They LOVE it, and the more they see the more they want to see—and one thing they can count on Trump (and acolytes like Stephen Miller) for is to provide MORE of it. They don’t bother with pretense about not seeing. They increasingly boast about looking at it and asking for more!”
Dispatches From A Pandemic Guinea Pig by bradx2
This new member’s first story is a personal account of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine study. Bradx2 explains how they connected with the study and the steps involved for study subjects. “I’m a relatively healthy 47-year-old guy, and a bit of a science geek, so I thought it would be interesting and a fun cocktail party story whenever we can have those again … Technically I don’t know for sure if I'm in the vaccine group or not, but I doubt my body could produce a placebo-effect that strong, so it’s a safe assumption that I was given the vaccine.”
A house divided by Frank Palmer
The author begins by acknowledging that the pundits were correct about “how divided the country is.” Citing Republican and Democratic popular and Electoral College vote data by state, Frank analyzes the Electoral College's structural strengths and weaknesses, pointing toward strategies for Democrats to manage the built-in Republican advantages. “Democrats complain that they must carry more than 50% of the popular vote to reach 50% of the electoral vote. Many blame that on the many small (in population) states which are solid Republican. That’s one cause, and you can see it in the list where the solid Republican states have 15% of the electoral vote but only 12% of popular vote.”
The Daily Bucket-- The Creek's Roaring and Billy's Watching by 6412093 (AKA Redwoodman)
Billy is a great blue heron who regularly visited Redwoodman’s backyard until he didn’t. “(W)hen Billy didn’t come to my backyard for a few months, I went looking.” With annotated photos, Redwoodman describes the plants and hydrology of a wetland near his home where he spotted Billy perched on a berm. “Hard rains just swept across NW Oregon and vicinity. The creeks climbed their banks … Upstream of Bethany Lake, a half-milewide grassy meadow has transformed into a nicely braided creek with a half dozen channels. Elephant-eye-high cattails hide the numerous backwaters but the ducks, herons, nutria, fish, and frogs seek every corner.”
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT is dedicated to finding great writing by community members that isn’t getting the visibility it deserves.
- To add our rescued stories to your Stream, click on the word FOLLOW in the left panel at our main page or click on Reblogs and read them directly on the group page.
- You can also find a list of our rescued stories by clicking HERE.
- Meteor Blades posts a link to rescued stories in the Night Owls open thread that publishes daily between 7-9PM Pacific time.
An edition of our rescue roundup publishes every Saturday at 1 PM ET (10AM PT) to the Recent Community Stories section and to the front page at 6:30PM ET (3:30PM PT).
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