Open thread 1/8/2025

Anonymous January 8, 2025, 9:29 AM

Im assuming that is bamboo in the red bag and it looks like overly crowded tenements is the window. China?

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ghostsniper January 8, 2025, 1:06 PM

Grove.
https://tinyurl.com/2mujbb57

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ghostsniper January 9, 2025, 7:37 AM

Is it me, or does it seem like this place is dying?

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DT January 9, 2025, 8:37 AM

Sure seems so. Missing some “regulars” now. The new site doesn’t seem to be picking up the slack either.

Perhaps most realize this site has moved to hospice care and don’t want to be around at the end. The new site may be an imitation but it won’t be the real thing.

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- Anonymous January 9, 2025, 11:05 AM
  
  I personally enjoy the “new site”. I hope that it makes the cut. AND–we have to give a lot of credit to whomever is starting it.
  
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John A. Fleming January 9, 2025, 1:02 PM

For the last two years since Gerard’s passing, we’ve just been commenting. There weren’t very many long-form essays on the front-page or in the comments. Gerard provided, attracted, cultivated and curated long-form content.

Unfortunately for me at this moment, I haven’t got much to say long-form-wise, to provide to the new site. My muse is awol. Yeah, I’ve read the cure for writer’s block: just start typing damnit, get words on paper and then work them. Don’t wait for my fickle muse.

If Gerard had a theme, it was this: American Digest: who we are, where we came from, where we are going. And not politically, but culturally. Politics is downstream of culture. So focus on the culture then and now, and you will gain understanding on the roots of the politics. Gerard called it the Poetics. He had a saying about it, I haven’t the time to look it up.

Maybe American Digest is not “dying”, but it’s quiescent. Maybe it’s just the New Year. Will it truly stop, digital dust to digital dust?

I apologize up front for going hyperbolic with the analogy, but: Ok, it’s like the 40 days from the Crucifixion to the Ascension, these last two years. The Ascension is upon us. Next, if it is to be, comes the Acts. Does Gerard’s example and insights have persistence beyond him?

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ghostsniper January 9, 2025, 2:34 PM

2 years ago today
============

Update to the update
by Vanderleun on January 9, 2023
It turns out that Gerard’s return home was premature. He went back into the hospital for some fine-tuning of his oxygen levels, which are much improved now. He’s staying there for the moment, though, in order to get stronger enough to return home on his own. The main problem holding him back right now is fairly severe back pain from what appears to be a back spasm, which makes it nearly impossible for him to walk and build up his stamina. The plan is for an interim stay in a better rehab facility than he was in before, to get him more reliably on his feet. He sends greetings.

https://americandigest.org/update-to-the-update/

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HJB in Texas January 10, 2025, 7:02 AM

very thoughtful post there from John A ….. Indeed, Politics should be downstream of culture …that concept itself, and the degeneration of it to the point of their current ‘intertwine-ment’, could be the subject of quite a bit of discourse. Probably pretty much gets back to the basic definition of what government ‘should be’. I remember in my very early days in the ‘oil bidness’ (1970s) there was a cantankerous CEO of one of the large service companies – Eddie Chiles, The Western Company – who used to put out his own public service advertisements on the radio …. He’d always end his commentary with (paraphrased, I think …..) …. “I want the government to do three things – protect our shores, deliver my mail, and leave me the Hell alone!” Over the years, government (and politics) have decided that managing culture is a noble mission. When, how and why that happened, and how it can be (slowly ??) undone might provoke some chat.

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Open thread 1/8/2025

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