Sunday Open Thread: January 21st is National Hugging Day

World History this day

1793 -- Louis XVI of France was guillotined
1925 -- Albania declared itself to be a republic.
1968 -- A B-52 crashed near Thule, contaminated the area with busted nukes and lost one nuke completely
2000 -- President Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador was deposed
2017 -- Over 400 US cities and 160+ countries hold a women's march,

US History this day

1861 -- Jefferson Davis resigned from the US Senate.
1950 -- Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury.
1968 -- The Battle of Khe Sanh began

Science & Technology this day

1911 -- The first Monte Carlo Rally was run
1954 -- The Nautilus, was launched
1976 -- The Concorde started commercial service

The Arts this day

1789 -- The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth.

Misc. this day
1535 -- Protestants were burned at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris

Birthdays of Note this day

1820 -- Joseph Wolf, ornithologist and illustrator
1869 -- Grigori Rasputin, mystic
1884 -- Roger Nash Baldwin, author, activist, co-founder of the ACLU
1923 -- Lola Flores, singer, dancer, and actress
1938 -- Wolfman Jack, DJ
1941 -- Placido Domingo, tenor
1941 -- Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1942 -- Mac Davis, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1942 -- Edwin Starr, singer and songwriter
1950 -- Billy Ocean, singer, songwriter

Deaths of Note this day

1670 -- Claude Duval, businessman
1789 -- Baron d'Holbach, encyclopedist, author, philosopher and atheist
1932 -- Lytton Strachey, writer
1950 -- George Orwell, writer
1983 -- Lamar Williams, bass player
2002 -- Peggy Lee, singer

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So now some music


Joseph Wolf

Lola Flores

Placido Domingo

Richie Havens

Mac Davis

Edwin Starr

Billy Ocean

Lamar Williams

Peggy Lee

Words of Wisdom


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Photo: Group Hug by Garry Knight

It's an open thread, so do your thing

We're off to the cost for a few days camping, so my attendance is iffy.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

{{{{{Good morning, c99pers}}}}}

Go forth and give free hugs today!

Have a beautiful, buggy day, folks! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

enhydra lutris's picture

@Raggedy Ann
for not too many bugs today and suspect that the wind will keep them at bay. Have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

enhydra lutris's picture

@NCTim
Good morning and have a great day.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

The Aspie Corner's picture

@NCTim Too bad idiots in the comment section of this video don't seem to realize or give a shit that this is all kabuki theater.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPIHZIW9q4I]

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

enhydra lutris's picture

@The Aspie Corner
Hashtag resistance, lol, to what?

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@NCTim
up equipment and supplies anyway, if they're whee they can, and using up fuel and equipment doing manouevres if they are among the hordes scattered about the globe on spec.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

It is 40 degrees this AM and sunny. Heading to 60 - and though the world is riding in a hand basket - it will be a lovely day in these parts. Rain is due tomorrow and we need it. This is usually our wet season, but little to no moisture this winter so far.

Does anyone else find it ironic that we let the tax bill pass, add more to military spending, increase the spying powers, with nary a whimper...but now we're going to shut down the government. Where was their spine with these other very important issues? Do you suspect the reason (like me) is that the largest future voting block are latino/as? I like hecates line...you can see it with pins in your eyes.

Well all the best to all of you!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout
adversely impacts the powerful interests that they represent. In fact, plentiful immigration benefits those interests as long as we don't try to feed them or anything like that. so, they get to look "liberal" at no political cost.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Good Sunday morning, earlier I was looking back at an essay Cant Stop the Signal wrote about women marching last year. I supported it, lol. What sent me back in time was searching on "ecotones" and my own bookmark popped up.

Here is the comment/essay link that took me back in time: https://caucus99percent.com/comment/234014#comment-234014.
c99 still reminds me of ecotones, how different points of view come together and the creations that come out of the mix seem interesting and productive, not so fake. {hugs for all}

That vid that dkmich posted yesterday, did it arrive via the Facebook? Huh, good one. Not done yet, but after 1:22 of viewing I am thinking yes, my paternal grandparents were fcking nazis in amerika. Thanks a lot dkmich.

Here is a guest book that used to sit at the family vacation home in Monte Rio, home of the Bohemian Club, the ones I grew up to later protest and then I'd go down the road to party with friends at Sans Souci. ~doink!~

The exclusive, male-only summer gathering in the redwoods of Monte Rio has been a fixture for more than 130 years and yet each July breathes an air of mystery into the surrounding community — a humble town of modest means that, for 18 days a year, has 2,400 of the world’s elite ensconced in the woods nearby.

The legacy it burns, between both sides of the family tree, how can I not be evil? Maybe the 98% unconscious part of my brain is what gave my inheritance away because that reality, that history blows. No wonder the head shrinks couldn't medicate me back to good health. ;-D It's armchair psychology or nothing right now, blog rants galore.

Leather bound guest book gold braid:
fftweaknessfront.jpg

Presented July 23, 1938. hmmm:
fftweaknessinside.jpg

I have a photo album from 1917, my grandpa and a bunch of men camping in the Sierras. For a long time I simply chose to believe the Bohemians were "nature lovers", not destroyers. I had to stop the vid again and digest the connections. What a horrible past, how does one escape it? There is no escape, it is what it is. Legacy of evil. Am I the only one here with shite ancestry?

karma

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo
your parents, did, isn't you and it isn't on you.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris thanks el, and everyone putting up with this stream of ... whatever it is coming off me right now. I close my eyes and hear thunder of waves crashing on the coast when you write about camping. thanks

Eyes/ears that vid is a trip, I am now at 2h32m and still don't think it looks like Bush1 at the Depository, not that it matters. I am enjoying the presentation of alternative facts. This made me LMAO:
ciafoxyou20thcentury.jpg
NO KIDDING

Okay, back to tearing apart my fond memories of Walter Cronkite. ta

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo
your parents, did, isn't you and it isn't on you.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Azazello's picture

The chef died yesterday at the age of 91. - Wikipedia
The Dakar rally ended yesterday after 14 stages.
Peugeot won the car class, Kamaz won the trucks, again.
Best of cars:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RITKlxMRg78 width:500 height:300]
Best of Trucks:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34E4inDqKEU width:500 height:300]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

NCTim's picture

@Azazello

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

NCTim's picture

@Azazello

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Azazello's picture

@NCTim
but I'd like to see some of these European teams come over and try Baja.
I wonder how the little Peugeots and Toyotas would do against Trophy Trucks.
No stages in the Baja so you can't race all day and wrench all night.
You gotta' be able to go flat-out for 19 or 20 hours straight.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

NCTim's picture

@Azazello ... are too big for Baja. The Dakar winner typically rides a ~1000 cc twin cylinder motorcycle. Baja, 500-600 cc single cylinder, weighing in 150-200 # lighter. BTW, first motorcycle was only six hours ahead of the first car, and almost twelve hours ahead of the first truck.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

enhydra lutris's picture

@NCTim
to post for comparison, but nothing public domain came up in a quick search and I'm still packing.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello
Peugeot (pronounced piggit).

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

hecate's picture

is important for the humans. Particularly the male ones. Without it, they suffer, become sick, think sick thoughts, engage in sick behaviors, vote for The Hairball.

Touch is the first, and perhaps most profound, language we learn when we’re very young. Touch might have a more immediate impact than words, “because it is physical and leads to a chain of bioelectric and chemical changes that basically relax the nervous system.”

The benefits of nonsexual touch read like a 19th-century tonic advertisement, except that the outcomes have been scientifically vetted. Touch has been found, among other things, to reduce stress, heart rate and blood pressure. Touch has even been found to lower the level of cortisol in the body which, when elevated, impedes our working memory and, most critically, the immune system’s resiliency.

The psychologist Ofer Zur notes that for most 20th- and 21st-century American men, physical contact is restricted to violence or sex. The fear that girds the lack of platonic touch among American men also fuels the destructive force of their hands. “The cultures that exhibited minimal physical affection toward their young children had significantly higher rates of adult violence. Those cultures that showed significant amounts of physical affection toward their young children had virtually no adult violence.”

When faced with stressors, men tend to turn cowboy, growing stoic, emotionally withdrawn and, too often, isolated. If this cowboy approach strengthened men mentally and emotionally, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the weight of having to suppress stress and the resulting emotions that are perceived as unmanly doesn’t make men more resilient. It makes them more vulnerable, triggering anxiety and depression. A 2000 study by U.C.L.A. researchers finds that “Men are more likely than women to respond to stressful experiences by developing certain stress-related disorders,” such as hypertension, alcohol and drug abuse.

They are a population Kory Floyd, a professor of communication at the University of Arizona, had in mind when he wrote about “affection deprivation." Dr. Floyd studied the effects of what he calls “skin hunger,” discovering that people who experience this phenomenon were, among other things, more lonely, depressed, had less social support, experienced more mood and anxiety disorders and an inability to interpret and express emotions. This lack of affection correlated with a “fearful avoidant attachment style,” the same reaction so common in affection-deprived children from orphanages—and in many men.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvibrk9xqoM]

Humans do not need the words. They can say what needs to be said, through touch.

We have an innate ability to decode emotions via touch alone. In a series of studies, Hertenstein had volunteers attempt to communicate a list of emotions to a blindfolded stranger solely through touch. Participants communicated eight distinct emotions—anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy, happiness, and sadness—with accuracy rates as high as 78 percent. Previous studies by Hertenstein and others have produced similar findings abroad, including in Spain and the U.K. Research has also been conducted in Pakistan and Turkey. "Everywhere we've studied this, people seem able to do it," he says.

"With the face and voice, in general we can identify just one or two positive signals that are not confused with each other," says Hertenstein. For example, joy is the only positive emotion that has been reliably decoded in studies of the face. Meanwhile, his research shows that touch can communicate multiple positive emotions: joy, love, gratitude, and sympathy. Scientists used to believe touching was simply a means of enhancing messages signaled through speech or body language, "but it seems instead that touch is a much more nuanced, sophisticated, and precise way to communicate emotions," Hertenstein says.

Psychologist Michael Kraus tracked physical contact between teammates during NBA games (consider all those chest bumps, high fives, and backslaps). The study revealed that the more on-court touching there was early in the season, the more successful teams and individuals were by season's end. The effect of touch was independent of salary or performance.

Mom's touch even seems to mitigate pain when infants are given a blood test.

Seemingly insignificant touches yield bigger tips for waitresses, people shop and buy more if they're touched by a store greeter, strangers are more likely to help someone if a touch accompanies the request. Call it the human touch.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5NLfQ3u358]

Some of the humans touch more than others.

Psychologist Sidney Jourard observed friends chatting to each other in cafes across the world. Jourard found that in the space of an hour, people in Puerto Rico touched each other an average of 180 times. In Paris, it was 110 times. Jet over to Florida and the averaged dropped to twice an hour. In London the average was zero.

This is why the British sailed all over the world, thrusting themselves into all the other peoples and cultures. They were searching for somebody to touch.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p124Fa_kTE8]

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enhydra lutris's picture

@hecate
that of two large, possibly generational, memes, "touchy-feely" is far mo bettah than da kine "reach out and touch someone". I think we all suspected that to be the case, but science is a vast improvement over suspicion.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

hecate's picture

@enhydra lutris
Touch doesn't work on a phone. Or in a tube.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@hecate @hecate
Made me recall an incident with my grandmother:

I was visiting her years after my grandfather passed away. And all of a sudden it just dawned on me that besides the hug and kiss we'd always exchange, there was not very much touching involved from my side. Of course for her it was different. As her firstborn grandchild her maternal instinct was such that she'd cover me with a blanket just moments after I began to doze on her couch, maybe take off my shoes also, or run her hands through my hair as she walked by. It was deep relaxation for me to be so cared for. I can still feel it when I think of it.

So there we were in her condo. I'm thinking, aside from the obligatory family greeting upon entering and leaving, she probably hasn't been touched at all anywhere for so long. So when I walked in back of her sitting on a chair I impulsively reached from her shoulder to her earlobe to sort of massage it. She laughed, thought it was strange and then seemed to enjoy it - all in a few split seconds. I thought later, she probably hadn't had anyone touch her ear in decades, if not ever, because it's not where we think to massage. But moreover, men, especially from my grandfather's era (and he was also incapacitated on workers comp), probably never thought to massage their women. It's likely she had never had anyone even touch her earlobe.

I get a warm feeling when I think of that.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --