I decided I don’t like this layout. It doesn’t accomplish the navigation purposes of a blog very well. Tables takes longer to load, the header has no reason to stay visible at the top… and scrolling three different areas seems awkward. I am working on another change.
Of course, some of this is because vertigo had me tethered to stationary positions in front of a computer. Now I am actually eager to go into my yard and weed…even though it is looking like a lost cause.
I came across this,Beyond Kiwanis: Internet builds new communities
“Today’s social capitalists are investing their time on their own terms.
People are not members of the old hierarchy organizations,” says Ronald Inglehart, professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and president of the World Values Survey, which conducts surveys about social values and beliefs of people in in several countries. “They have much looser ties but many more ties. Lots and lots of loose ties.”
That’s what we are as bloggers, we are part of the spiderwebbing of our communities. The bungee jumpers of our own little corners of the world.
Bonzai!
The article also has an observation on the draw of Mega churches,
“Putnam says megachurches create a form of social connection by offering a multitude of smaller communities under one roof.
“The mountain bikers for God, the geeks for God, the small group for people who have breast cancer or whose spouses have breast cancer,” Putnam says. “In the context of a very big organization, everybody feels connected to some very small group. If someone is sick, they’ll bring them chicken soup. … In some sense, they’re replacing the Kiwanis.””
So in a sense we are larger… and yet we are smaller, more specified.
I wonder how much all this impacts such issues as increased partisan conflict, etc. If at all. I think I remember reading some years back that the internet encouraged people to find their niche and defend it rather than truly opening avenues of interaction between differing segments of society.
hmmmm. We do emphasize cliques. hmmmm. But we can learn about very different sorts of people…. hmmm. Oh never mind…got to catch that incoming wind….