Thursday, January 24, 2019

Change Agents - The New Pamphleteers - Bloggers



Blogging as given an outlet to express the thoughts and communicate to a large audience. In 17 and 18th centuries, printing press has given the communication outlet to some to create pamphlets and circulate or sell. It meant access to printing press at that time. Now, persons who have a computer and internet access can publish blogs and communicate their thoughts.





Bibliography


http://www.thepamphleteers.com/

07.10.09
American Revolution’s Pamphleteers, Today’s Bloggers and Twitterers for Change
https://www.fastcompany.com/1306652/american-revolutions-pamphleteers-todays-bloggers-and-twitterers-change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphleteer

Everyone a pamphleteer? Reconsidering comparisons of mediated public participation in the print age and the digital era
Hallvard Moe, Media, Culture & Society
Volume: 32 issue: 4, page(s): 691-700
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443710367715


Thomas Paine, Passionate Pamphleteer for Liberty
A Singleminded Private Individual Aroused Millions to Throw Off Their Oppressors
Monday, January 01, 1996
https://fee.org/articles/thomas-paine-passionate-pamphleteer-for-liberty/


ARE BLOGGERS JOURNALISTS?
LET'S ASK THOMAS JEFFERSON
by Christopher B. Daly

"What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington. The records of 13 legislatures, the pamphlets, newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed..."

--John Adams, writing to Thomas Jefferson, 1815.

http://www.bu.edu/cdaly/whoisajournalist.html


The Blogosphere and the New Pamphleteers
Nexus Law Journal, Vol. 11, 2006

Chapman University Law Research Paper No. 08-02
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=908631

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Becoming Resilient and Overcoming Adversities



Resilience Research - 1998

I came across an article that I took a printout in 2003. The article is " Finding Strength: How to overcome anything" by Deborah Blum published in Psychology Today in May 1998. It is available at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199805/finding-strength-how-overcome-anything


The article gives an account of research works and researchers in the field of resilience.


Some interesting information from the article


David Miller, assistant professor of social work at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland

A national news magazine (okay, U.S. News and World Report) published a cover story about resilience research titled "Invincible Children."

Washington, D.C., psychologist Sybil Wolin, Ph.D., with husband and clinical psychiatrist, Steve Wolin, M.D., co-authored the popular book, The Resilient Self.
"We're talking about the capacity to rebound from experience, mixed with all the damage and problems that adversity can cause. It's not an either/or thing.

John DeFrain, Ph.D., a professor of family studies at the University of Nebraska.

* Faith -- be it in the future, the world at the end of the power lines, or in a higher power -- is an essential ingredient. Ability to perceive bad times as temporary times gets great emphasis from Seligman as an essential strength.

Most resilient people don't do it alone. They have or get some support. 


* Believing in oneself and recognizing one's strengths is important. University of Alabama psychologist Ernestine Brown, Ph.D., discovered that when children of depressed, barely functioning mothers took pride in helping take care of the family.

* Recognizing one's own strengths is important. Many people don't. Teaching them such self-recognition is a major part of the approach that the Wolins try when helping adults build a newly resilient approach to life. Resilience can be taught, perhaps by training counselors and psychologists to focus on building strengths in their clients.

Edith Grotberg,  Ph.D., from the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

Edith Grotberg tries to help people organize their strengths into three simple categories:
*I have (which includes strong relationships, structure and rules at home, role models);
* I am (a person who has hope and faith, cares about others, is proud of oneself); and
*I can (ability to communicate, solve problems, gauge the temperament of others, seek good relationships).

"All people have the capacity for resilience," says Grotberg,

Garmezy and Rutter refocused on the coping skills of people in troubled families. Their work laid the foundation for an entire generation of resilience researchers.

Garmezy gives credit to Emmy Werner for nurturing the field.

Ann S. Masten, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota,

The foremost element in transcending trouble is not having to do it alone.

Peg Heinzer, who holds joint nursing appointments at LaSalle University in Pennsylvania and Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York, studied the ways in which children cope with the death of a parent.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Become Driver of Your Community for at least a Day and Take it Forward - Community Service and Leadership



My appeal or request to everybody is to take up the responsibility of driving or taking forward your community forward at least on one day in a year. What do I mean by it?  Have you observed what is happening when you are travelling in car, bus, train or airplane. The driver is taking the responsibility to take you forward to your destination is a safe manner. You may be sleeping, relaxing or day dreaming. You may be talking to others on some or other issue. But the driver is concentrating on the road, traffic, direction and many other relevant things to take to in the direction of the destination as per schedule. 

In day to day working of a system or a community, a similar thing happens. All the people in the community are not active and vigilant. Some are tired, some are bored. Hence some people are sleeping. Some are escaping from the reality and day dreaming. Some others are engaged in fun activities. But some persons in the community have to be active and do things relevant for the community's physical and mental well being and upkeep. So if you compare the community to a vehicle, it requires a driver or many drivers every day to take it forward, Many are passengers who are sitting passively in the vehicle. Sometimes you can observe passengers making fun of drivers. They may be even quarreling with the driver. But still the driver is doing his job.

Communities require somebody or other to take up the job of driver. It can be by turns. Offer your service to the community when you can. A society which has to more volunteers will be more effective and efficient. If you are seeing some countries as more developed today it is because of large number of community leaders.

Read an interesting essay on community leadership at https://ctb.ku.edu   Kansas University

https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-functions/become-community-leader/main