RL, much of the atmosphere here is toxic. And there is an overabundance of religious threads, probably one in four.
You can find me a Larry Schweikart on Substack, where I have free writings 1x to 2x a week and higher-analysis subscription writings 1x to 2x a week. Also I have “Larry’s Commentary” which is political commentary, about 15 min MWF, at the Wild world of Politics, “Insider” subscription. (www.wildworldofpolitics.com)
BTW, with Ash Epp and Seth Keshel we will do LIVE ELECTION NIGHT STREAMING COVERAGE again this election night!
Hi LS, thank you very much. I will check out those references you sent...hope all is well!
I understand your observation about the atmosphere. As I stated, I occasionally contribute to that atmosphere, though I strive not to.
I have long had a theory: “We are all Assh*les”.
I formed it while driving the roadways of this country. And it isn’t just one locality, as some here like to think. It is everywhere.
You may drive carefully and politely 98% of the time. But that one time you pull out into traffic and misjudge the speed of an oncoming car causing the driver of the other car to apply the brakes and blow their horn, you become an assh*le. If millions of people are driving their cars on the road, and everyone commits one act a day that causes a problem to someone else...then there are millions of normally good and polite people who become assh*les to others while driving their cars around each day.
Same dynamic here.
I don’t often go into religious threads often, but there was one recently about a woman who had communion given to her dog, which seemed kind of interesting.
I related a story about how I had been a ten or eleven year old altar boy, and me and another boy broke into the locker where the hosts and wine were kept, and were eating handfuls of the hosts, which were being kept in a small garbage bag for storage, and breaking the bigger ones into pieces as the priests did during the ceremony, intoning “Dominus Sanctum” or some other made up Latin phrase, and drinking mouthfuls of the Maneshewitz wine...
We were just being stupid boys. I wasn’t bragging about it, just relating a story that seemed funny to me now as an adult, but this denizen of the religious threads laid into me fully, telling me I was going to go to Hell and such, and I should be ashamed of myself, etc.
And then warned me not to enter any Religious threads again.
It was totally weird. I have seen this person’s posts for years, and barely ever said boo, and the first time I did, she came at me like some furious harpy with snakes for hair.