{"id":989,"date":"2021-04-29T15:56:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T14:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=989"},"modified":"2021-04-29T15:56:12","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T14:56:12","slug":"season-xv11-alphaday-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/season-xv11-alphaday-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Season XV11 &#8211; Alphaday 12"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to Alphaday 12, Season XVII. If you check your Alpha calendar you\u2019ll see that we\u2019ve only got two more Alphadays left this season after this one. There\u2019s a lot to be done before we can wrap up the season and go off on our annual break before we start on Season XVIII some time in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today\u2019s agenda may have fewer items than is our wont, but it\u2019s nevertheless one of those cornucopian ones that will provide us with plenty of writerly treats to digest at leisure over the coming weeks. The great thing is \u2013 as I\u2019ve so often said \u2013 that everyone is involved in providing this rainbow-coloured display of writerly fireworks. We don\u2019t teach, but I\u2019m sure we learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alphaday 12, Season XVII agenda:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>This bulletin from me<\/li><li>The results and feedback from the quotation challenge from Elke<\/li><li>The collated entries for the Open Page 3<sup>rd<\/sup> edition from Christine<\/li><li>The latest Alpha Log news from Phil<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What more could you ask for? Enjoy taking it all in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019ll be <strong>Alpha news<\/strong> in today\u2019s Log.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for the <strong>general news <\/strong>I think we\u2019re beginning to look forward to a time when we don\u2019t have to consider all our fellow human beings as dangerous spreaders of disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cReligion is the opium of the masses\u201d declared Karl Marx. That was in the middle of the Victorian era and he seems to imply that the real thing, i.e. opium, was a privilege reserved for the upper classes and people like de Quincey at home, and Graham Greene lording it in far eastern hookah dens. Lower down the social scale the easily available over-the-counter drug was laudanum. I doubt that Karl Marx meant that religion gave the masses a high of the Joan of Arc variety, but rather that religion encouraged people to behave with soporific propriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During this lengthy period of social isolation it has perhaps come as a surprise for some that so many people actually did behave with soporific propriety. But when the lid comes off the masses will need their ersatz opium. Governments could have taken Karl Marx\u2019s advice and encouraged the masses to enjoy their church activities \u2026 if that could still be seen as \u2018the opium of the masses\u2019. But Karl Marx is slightly outdated here. Or they could have opened theatres, cinemas, museums and concert halls \u2026 if they could live up to the \u2018opium of the masses\u2019 label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They knew better. There may still be precautions in place and people are only allowed in outdoor areas; but opening the pubs was exactly what was needed. After a couple of pints &nbsp;worries vanish and loudmouthed, deep philosophising, self-glorification, insults and dirty jokes can be announced to friends and the public in general as \u2018the opium of the masses\u2019 works its magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cheers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 12, Season XVII. If you check your Alpha calendar you\u2019ll see that we\u2019ve only got two more Alphadays left this season after this one. There\u2019s a lot&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}