37 Comments
founding

Santa hat, Mary!! You look fetching!!!

P.S. A very fine interview!

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Marvelous interview. Waj brings out the best in our humanity. Thank you Mary!

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Enjoyed this, Mary. Get some rest as 2024 is coming at us, enjoy some downtime. Happy Holidays and a blessed New Year.

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Wonderful!!! Thank you!!! Love the Santa hat!!!

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Thank you for transcribing. I prefer reading to listening!

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This was so inspiring and it was great to see you and Waj. I will be watching this again when I find myself worrying about the 2024 election and other things that are out of my control. I'm going to work on Biden's campaign again so I can stay hopeful and feel I'm not leaving it all to chance. I'm so excited the nerds are coming back in the New Year!

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I Shared this Video Newsletter. Your Newsletter Frequency is Impressive and inspires me to be more focused: Thanks For The Unfiltered Coverage Mary. Your Fan John

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This is an interesting and prescient, albeit a bit meandering (not a bad thing!), dialog. This resonated: "the myth of American individualism, which has caused more harm than almost anything over the course of American history". From my perspective, their is so much toxic individualism out there of late (fed and amplified by social media with no conscience)... it is bringing our society down and fomenting tribalism and deep fissures.

We need society (and media) to shift back toward a more collective "what's the best thing to do that helps the most people" mindset as opposed to those that are self-centered "profit, materialism before people" and "othering, finger pointing, blaming and feeling a need to take away basic freedoms and rights". Apathy and nihilism -and- too much of a laissez-faire attitude towards fascism are significant contributing factors. Our society's overall EQ is seemingly plummeting while income disparity and equity are going in the wrong direction.

Mind you, I am not a doom & gloom guy... far from it. I am ever optimistic that electing the right leaders starting from the ground up and eventually fixing some very bad legislation will have very positive benefits: e.g. get the hell rid of "Citizens United"(what a totally inappropriate euphemism), Reinstate and codify a stronger version of the fairness Doctrine, reinstate a stronger version of Roe v Wade, etc.

Personally, I am hoping and supporting efforts to make the 2024 elections a clear tide changer to shift from this downward spiraling Plutocracy toward a more equitable and empowering honest "by the people, for the people" Democratic Republic. Off my Soapbox.

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Delightful. Great job Mary.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS DEAR HEART~

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Thank you, Mary and Waj, for your excellent in-depth interview! I am glad Waj is feeling better.

I agree with Waj's advice at 5:00. Mary, I look forward to your new book!

I also would LOVE for Mary and Waj to show on VIDEO their guitar playing skills! 😀 💙 💙 💙 😀 (When Mary did her Nerd Avengers at her Cape Cod house, she had 2 guitars behind her. 😀 😀 😀)

I am still going to learn how to play my music keyboard in 2024.

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founding

Beautiful interview, and wonderful advice for us all to spend time recharging our batteries.

Dr Brene Brown explains it this way:

Play -- doing things just because they're fun and not because they'll help achieve a goal -- is vital to human development. Brown believes that play is at the core of creativity and innovation. It’s anything that makes us lose track of time and self-consciousness, creating the clearing where ideas are born.

Which means it's a mistake to restrict play to vacations.

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“Surviving is a victory.” – Wajahat Ali - Truth.

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Thank you for having Waj! I was thinking about him and the other Avengers the past couple of days. They're like family I haven't seen for a while and I miss the round table discussions, yet I know everyone is busy. Blessings of the season to all!

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Wonderful Mary! Thanks so much. Waj should definitely be on Substack. Happy Holidays!🧑🏻‍🎄

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Glenn Kirchner does an annual live event for his Patreon subscribers. He also does mini ones when he travels to major cities for folks who live in that area. For his annual one, people travel from all over the country. It's a highlight of my year. Great way to build community and enthusiasm.

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Hello, Mary! This is Judy making a connection in our great Substack community bringing the commitment to carry on, on line ( disabled, mobility impaired is the blessing that allows me the time to connect and learn, share on line as a novice at 76!) OMG, that’s old but I’m not dead yet! And I will NOT check out before election 2024! My vote will be cast in a red state but I’ll keep posting the smaller ways, comments, restacking good stuff with notes, the “Notes”, chats, all the others I can do. The full on newsletter remains an enigma to me but I continue in my own ways. Happy Holidays to you and the sane members of your family. I have few so can relate! Enjoy some rest, recalibrate, recycle yourself for the fight of our lives for the kids, Gen Z and the Swifties rising deserve a shot at a decent world so let’s get our BIG GUNS out and throttle the authoritarian wannabes who are NUTS 🌰! 😘🎼💃🏼 Idea 💡; I love to go to YouTube and pull up the lyrics and sing along to Helen Reddy “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar in Numbers Too Big To Ignore” ; great for getting out the vote. More 😘😘😘 & 🕊️❤️🎶🌊 also hugs from my 😽😽 my sanity! Till’ next time!

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That’s KARYOKE, remember?

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