Meme🇺🇸time... "SAJA?"
Before tropical storm Debby even had a name, sea changes in this election-season news cycle were surging large, fast and frequently funny.
And not yet the stuff of overarching metaphor or catch-phrase slogan.
Long unfamiliar in our public life and politics, the new presidential race’s energy, ideas, events and people are dynamically evolving by the hour. So I don’t suggest plastering today’s working-title (not to mention derivative) acronym onto ball-caps, tees or battle-sized flags.
“SAJA” is just a descriptor for this moment in time. Which could have made today’s title:
“Sparking America’s Joy Again”
As for storm Debby’s wide, slow-moving deluge, I hope all are safe and that you’ve had minimal to no impacts on people, pets, property — or on any cherished late-season beach trip traditions or outdoor mountain ventures.
a few logistical notes + coming soon:
Through Monday this extended weekend is a long-planned road trip with out-of-town friends and fam for some deep-dive Biltmore Estate history, dining and touring of the current Chihuly glass museum-exhibit there.
So this newShrink is a travel weekend/on-the-fly edition to flag an assortment of very short takes, spotted in recent weeks and clustered somewhat randomly here. You might consider them a teaser-prelude to next week’s more comprehensive pre-Democratic National Convention selection of recommended readings, viewing and commentary.
Through the election and beyond I’ll continue to be collecting and sharing relevant memes, cartoons and at-a-glance quotes. Please do send me those that speak to you.
Beginning soon after the DNC, I’ll be sharing election-related volunteer options and experiences of all kinds. (Ie., along with partisan efforts to elect candidates, this includes ongoing non-partisan things that are of passionate interest for me, and maybe you too? These may include voting-rights efforts and volunteering to register new voters. A favorite volunteer gig in my area is through the League of Women Voters, registering not only new voters but sworn, newly minted naturalized US citizens at ceremonies held in federal courts. (Despite its name, the LWV is open to all, not gender-specific or exclusive.)
I’ll also want to hear from you about what you’re doing along these lines, or wanting to!
🔵
Just some favorite silliness…
🔵
rally time
Inspiring, electrifying at times — and the numbers are visibly, staggeringly large. If you haven’t yet caught a whole Harris/Walz rally from start to finish, please don’t miss the experience of watching or attending one — no matter where you are in voting-choice decisions. These early-introduction ones, featuring Vice President Harris and MN Governor Tim Walz, provide a helpful multi-faceted look and experience of them.
(These should be browsable at many sites, eg YouTube, MSNBC and others. For comparison-coverage sake, Trump rallies are mostly now run in excerpts rather than in full because of their increasing long duration. I’m not sure about Fox Channel’s full-coverage as I prefer to routinely read transcripts vs video when possible, and don’t pay for or get the channel in cable package.)
Will note that my own triple-whammy focus from perspectives of journalist, strategic PR/communicator and psychologist is admittedly extra-intense compared with normal viewers. I hope and aim for it to stop short of the dreaded weird and creepy!
🔵
smiles
🔵
🔵
Since 2019, as Candidate-, then-President, Joe Biden’s leadership mission for our democracy has been to save, stir, secure and strengthen the soul of America. (This aligns with defining principles in the depth- or soul-psychologies of Jung, Hillman and many others. Tracking the perspective of soul — that is, the unconscious as well as our conscious functioning — in our politics, news and public figures is a core purpose of newShrink.)
These recent transformative weeks illuminate what may be essential drivers for that soul-engaged mission:
alert disciplined, motivated minds; and perhaps most of all,
hearts on fire.
Which, rather naturally, brings us to…
“the politics of joy”
And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.
🦋💙 tish
•🌀🔵🔷🦋💙
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
🔵