Culture | Buzz Chronicles

A lot of folks are grappling with, "What comes next? How do we atone for our part in what happened?"

We Jews have a ~700 page book you can turn to, The Gateway to Repentance. It painstakingly catalogues what true atonement requires.

But I want to tell you WHY we have this book.

Have you heard of Maimonides, aka The Rambam, aka Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon?

He was a Torah scholar, Saladin's doctor, wrote widely on mysticism and rationalism, and was super controversial.

He lived in Spain. Here's a common rendering:

He was born in 1138. He wrote The Guide for the Perplexed. In the late 1100s, controversy erupted over the fact that he had the gall to suggest that Torah scholars should work rather than live off of benefactors, and that his Mishneh Torah was more helpful than many rabbis.

The Guide for the Perplexed attempts to reconcile science and philosophy with rabbinic Judaism. This is no small thing! Assimilation in Spain and France was rampant among Jews, and many were not happy about this work, to put it lightly.

So the author of the book I posted, Shaarei Teshuvah, is Rabbi Yonah of Gerona. He is born in 1180. Unlike Maimonides, he spent all day learning Torah. He is related (by blood and marriage) to the Ramban, aka, Nachmanides, aka Rabbi Moses ben Nahman.

(Maimonides dies in 1204.)

T. S. Hunter
@nykr59

The Iron Law of Oligarchy:

The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, 'Political Parties'.

It asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an "iron law" within any democratic organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of an organization.

Michels's theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy,

...power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise.

Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty,

...the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members.

Elke Reunis
@EReunis

Incredible paediatric ST3 regional teaching day organised by @DrSeanMon

Feel so privileged to be a @WMPaeds Trainee and have monthly study leave to attend this amazingness 🤩

#PaedsRocks #ChoosePaediatrics

A summary of my highlights:

First up Sean did an interactive session on #debriefing sharing frameworks for structuring a debrief both from literature & his own top tips(using pics to illustrate rather than lots of text -love this @DrSeanMon #MedEd technique, def going to steal this for future teaching 😆)

Sean's framework top tips:

1) Get Out --> get off the shop floor, go to private place and fill it with tea and biscuits

2) Get the whole team together

3) Ask "Are you ok?" then ask again #asktwice

4) Recap what has happened

Sean's tips continued...

5) What went well - although outcome may be sad, your team was likely all kinds of awesome, highlight this!

6) Could anything have gone better?

7) Is there any other learning here to be discussed?

8) Summarise and thank your team 🧡

Next up Dr Doug Simkiss gave an incredibly engaging talk about Social Determinants of Health:

-Striking graphs illustrating the effect of social deprivation on child outcomes

-Actions we can take as trainees - take a detailed SHx!

-List of essential & additional reading

$M\xe1ty\xe1s \U0001f1ea\U0001f1fa \U0001f3f4\U000e0067\U000e0062\U000e0073\U000e0063\U000e0074\U000e007f$

Mátyás 🇪🇺 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿...
@vadkakukk

This reminds me of an old story...

Once upon a time there was a city.

In the middle of the city there was a huge and very popular meeting place where everyone gathered and talked and shared ideas.

The meeting place had only one rule: "No shitting on other people".

1/10

The people agreed that it was a good rule and they met and talked and didn't shit on each other and were happy.

2/10

By and by a politician wanted to take advantage of the meeting place to talk to all of the people at once.

The owner thought it was a good idea and said "everyone is welcome but you must obey our one rule".

The politician agreed.

3/10

Day after day, the politician talked and talked and people listened, but there was a bad smell in the air.

People thought that the politician was not obeying the rule and complained to the owner that they were being shat on.

4/10

The owner assured the people that the politician wouldn't do something like that deliberately but agreed that it was only fair to warn people.

So, whenever the smell was bad the owner made the politician wear a blue badge to advise that there may be shit in the air.

5/10

$Karoli \U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8$

Karoli 🇺🇸...
@Karoli

Does anyone remember when @DavidCornDC and I wrote about the #Groundswell group led by Ginni Thomas and organized by Cleta Mitchell?

The organizer of yesterday’s insurrection is one of the top influencers in that group — JennyBeth Martin, formerly of Tea Party Patriots.

Because no one calls them out, and because the IRS granted this group of orgs their coveted nonprofit status and further loosened restrictions and disclosures for them, they’ve been allowed to grow a seditious, criminal enterprise, led by the spouse of a sitting SCOTUS justice.

Reuben Abraham
@nebuer42

I had set myself a goal of 35 books for the year, but lack of travel meant I could squeeze in a fair bit more. I’ve tried to read more fiction, but not very successfully (most of the books here are non-fiction). Nonetheless, here is my reading list for 2020. (1/9)

1. The Quantum Spy — David Ignatius
2. The Siege of Mecca — Yaroslav Trofimov
3. The Only Plane in the Sky — Garrett Graff
4. American Spy — Lauren Wilkinson
5. Rise and Kill First — Ronen Bergman
6. Return to Sri Lanka — Razeen Sally
7. Scale -- Geoffrey West (2/9)

8. Bridgital Nation — Roopa Purushottaman & N Chandrasekaran
9. Backstage — Montek Singh Ahluwalia
10. Spillover -- David Quammen
11. The Theory the Would not Die -- Sharon McGraves
12. The End of October -- Lawrence Wright
13. Team of Teams — Stanley McChrystal (3/9)

14. Galileo’s Daughter — Dava Sobel 15. The Gated Republic — Shankkar Aiyar
16. Powerful — Patty McCord
17. The Paladin — David Ignatius
18. India Moving — Chinmaya Tumbe
19. How Innovation Works — Matt Ridley
20. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll (re-read) (4/9)

21. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap — Yuen Yuen Ang
22. Phantoms in the Brain — VS Ramachandran & Sandra Blakeslee
23. Seeing like a State — James C Scott
24. El Jefe: The stalking of Chapo Guzman — Alan Feuer (5/9)

Meghna Chakrabarti
@MeghnaWBUR

The faces of the insurrectionist, anti-American mob that attacked the country have inspired me to re-read George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier".

One of his lesser known, but IMHO best books. Thread.

First, so many right wing extremists tweeting Orwell quotes right now, as if he would have supported an attack on democracy. Read his work. Here's what HE believed, in his own words:

Orwell was a socialist. In fact, he was fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War when the book was published in 1937. He took a bullet in the

I'm re-reading the book because of what Orwell writes about class.

Buying plane tickets, purchasing weapons of war and body armor, taking time off from work, that takes time and money.

This is why Orwell is so interesting. Who are the people most prone to fascism?

Gerry Anderson
@GerryAndersonTV

Here's some good stuff that happened in 2020 for Anderson fans! Strap in and let's see what happened in the year we'd all rather forget... When you start to look at it, there's quite a lot of cool stuff going on for Anderson fans! Let's get started!

#FirstActionBureau was written, recorded & released. Starring @GenevieveWGaunt @ignatius_sancho @sacha_dhawan @RichardNJames Nicola Walker & Wayne Forester, this full-cast Anderson audio drama is totally FREE!

Haven't listened yet? Listen here: https://t.co/vlr6ZQHdy2

Co-creators and co-writers @ImJamieAnderson and @BriggsNicholas have announced a second series for 2021, and work has already begun. We know you're going to love it!

Anderson Entertainment and @bigfinish signed a co-production deal and released multiple Anderson audiobooks including newly written Space Precinct books by @RichardNJames

Listen here: https://t.co/4A0GvvPIy1