Watched November 11, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode from PBS NewsHour
Wednesday on the NewsHour, President Trump makes his first public appearance since losing reelection to Joe Biden -- and still refuses to concede. Plus: Sen. Bernie Sanders on Democratic politics, Republicans divided over Trump’s false claims, struggling essential workers in California, India’s pandemic economy, a blow for democracy in Hong Kong and a Gen Z artist bringing back the blues.
Watched "Hinterland" Aftermath from Netflix
Directed by Gareth Bryn. With Richard Harrington, Mali Harries, Alex Harries, Hannah Daniel. A minister has been killed. Mathias and Rhys investigate his life and violent death. DS Owens leads an investigation into the attack on Mathias and his home as he struggles to keep his emotions under control. Prosser faces an old rival.
Watched November 10, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode from PBS NewsHour
Tuesday on the NewsHour, President-elect Joe Biden assures Americans that his transition team is moving forward despite President Trump’s unfounded claims of vote fraud. Plus: The Supreme Court considers the Affordable Care Act, Biden’s health care outlook, presidential transitions, more shocking revelations about the Catholic Church, the death of Saeb Erekat and moving toward American unity.
Read - Want to Read: American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam (Simon & Schuster)
American Grace is "perhaps the most sweeping look yet at contemporary American religion. It lays out the broad trends of the past fifty years, assesses their sociological causes, and then does a bit of fortune-telling" (The Washington Post).
Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. In recent decades, however, the nation's religious landscape has undergone several seismic shocks. American Grace is an authoritative, fascinating examination of what precipitated these changes and the role that religion plays in contemporary American society. Although there is growing polarization between religious conservatives and secular liberals today, at the same time personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased, and religious identities have become more fluid. More people than ever are friendly with someone of a different faith or no faith at all. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings greater interfaith tolerance, despite the so-called culture wars.
Based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America (and with a new epilogue based on a third survey), American Grace is an indispensable book about American religious life, essential for understanding our nation today.
Read - Want to Read: The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again by Robert D. Putnam (Simon & Schuster)
An eminent political scientist's brilliant analysis of economic, social, and political trends over the past century demonstrating how we have gone from an individualistic "I" society to a more communitarian "We" society and then back again, and how we can learn from that experience to become a stronger, more unified nation--from the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids.
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism--Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times.
But we've been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became--slowly, unevenly, but steadily--more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today's disarray.
In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an "I" society to a "We" society and then back again. He draws inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. Engaging, revelatory, and timely, this is Putnam's most ambitious work yet, a fitting capstone to a brilliant career.
Replied to How to keep track of books you'd like to borrow from your local library by Matt Maldre (Matt Maldre)
Is there any service that does this sort of alert when my library gets a book I want? 
Not quite the functionality you’re looking for, but in the same sort of vein as WorldCat:
Library Extension is a browser extension that works on Amazon, Goodreads (and possibly other book sites) that allows you to register your favorite local libraries, and when you look up books on those services, it automatically searches and shows you which are available at your local library. One click and you can usually download or reserve a copy quickly for pick up.
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Read - Want to Read: Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society by Ronald J. Deibert (House of Anansi Press)

In the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author and renowned technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert exposes the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity.

Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation. 

Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.

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