The daily Twitter referendum or lottery

Twitter is truly an odd, albeit interesting, beast when it comes to “following” and “followers” for those of us anyway whose numbers aren’t up in the gazillions on either side of the equation and we have at least a general sense of  plus or minus changes.

Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, where one’s number of “friends” and “connections” seem more stable (sure you lose the odd one but generally gain them at least incrementally), Twitter is more akin, at least in my experience, to a daily (if not hourly) referendum or maybe lottery. I’m really not sure which.

While I like social media analytics and trying to figure out how algorithms are applied to determine the feed of tweets in my stream, and find engagement metrics as truly fascinating as the next guy who went through high school years ago loathing mathematics and majoring in history in university, I really find it hard to see direct correlations in terms of the numbers sometimes. Does losing a “follower” on Twitter mean you’ve offended someone? Or even worse bored them? Or maybe they just wanted to round-off their numbers or make room to follow someone else?

Anyway. Below are some of the folks we follow on Twitter. For today anyway. My very unscientific analysis of how I wound up following these folks, based on something like a cursory glance at the list, goes like this. Some are personal friends or former colleagues I’ve known for years. Some are related to places where I have previously worked and lived. A disproportionate number are Catholic, but a good number are simply religion writers in general or journalists.  Add in some union activists. Chris Rutkowski, research co-ordinator for UFOlogy Research of Manitoba (URM) by night, communications officer in media relations with the communications marketing office of the University of Manitoba by day, is my go-to UFO guy, while Mark Boslough, an Albuquerque, New Mexico physicist, is a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories and an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. He also a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and member of the group New Mexicans for Science and Reason. Asteroid 73520 Boslough (2003 MB1) is named after him.

Follow me, tweet me and retweet me. Go ahead. Make me viral. Make my day.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

Following

So Bad So Good

@sbadsgood

We hunt best & worst pop culture on the web, so you don’t have to.

Old Pics Archive

@oldpicsarchive

The most interesting historical photographs. Follow, discuss, share!

CANADALAND

@CNDLND

http://CANADALANDSHOW.com 

Amy Welborn

@amywelborn2

Catholic,writer,reader,traveler. Blog: http://amywelborn.wordpress.com  New book: ADVENTURES IN ASSISI: http://tinyurl.com/adventuresinassisi …

coreyredekop

@CoreyRedekop

Author of (award-winning) SHELF MONKEY [http://ow.ly/A6iQa ], (award-nominated) HUSK [http://goo.gl/PwxpQz ], and an assortment of quality sweets.

CJR

Verified account

@CJR

Monitoring the press, tracking the evolving media business & encouraging excellence in journalism since 1961.

J-Source

Verified account

@jsource

News, research and commentary about Canadian journalism. Tweets by @rpobeirne.

ChurchMilitant.TV

@Church_Militant

Save the World. Be Catholic. http://www.churchmilitant.tv/premsignup.php  http://www.facebook.com/ChurchMilitant.TV …

Francis X. Rocca

@FrancisXRocca

Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service

The Tablet

@The_Tablet

The Tablet is a weekly Catholic journal which has been reporting on events of significance for more than 170 years.

Dr William Pelletier

@BibleScienceGuy

Mathematician. IT company vice-president. Bible-Science blogger. Sportsman, Orienteer, Camper. Husband, father of 7.

maurice emelu

@Revemelu

Catholic clergy, TV host, author, journalist, retreat preacher, African content producer for EWTN and President, Gracia Vobis Ministries,…

Jorge Barrera

@JorgeBarrera follows you

Journalist/Periodista, dabbler, occasional absinthe sipper, follower of threads. 6132942011 Email: jbarrera (at) aptn.ca; fax: 6135671834

Rev. Fidelis Omeaku

@RevFICO follows you

Catholic Priest, Gospel Artist and Follower of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Co-Heir of God’s Kingdom and son of our Blessed Mother Mary.

Jeff Mcinnes

Protected Tweets

@herbalizer306 follows you

Admin for the private FB group Thompson Confidential. Original admin of Thompson Talk. What a shitty list of accolades

Lisa Winters Evasiuk

@greta202 follows you

Someday maybe I will write the story of my life. Maybe.

Steve Lambert

@stevelambertwpg

Reporter with The Canadian Press. President of the Manitoba legislature press gallery. Music geek. Distance runner. Hacks-and-Flacks street…

Mark Boslough

@MarkBoslough

Physicist and skeptic. Tweets about science, asteroids, and climate change. Annoys deniers.

ninaburleigh

@ninaburleigh follows you

Journalist @newsweek, bestselling author. Anywhere on the Med. And Washington, D.C.

John Baert

@JohnBaert follows you

MGEU Special Projects Officer. Views expressed are mine. Jets, Bears, Blue Jays, 76ers, Chelsea.

Tim Fontaine

@anishinaboy follows you

Ojibway factotum. Associate Producer at https://twitter.com/CBCManitoba . http://mediaindigena.com  contributor. Tweets about bannock. Often.

The Times

@WellingtonTimes follows you

Prince Edward County’s Independent News Source

Ruth Gledhill

@RuthieGledhill follows you

Loving life one day at a time. Contrib Ed @ChristianToday & student @GoldMADjourno. Reviewer @LondonTheatre1.

Anne D’Innocenzio

Verified account

@ADInnocenzio

National Retail Writer for The Associated Press. Foodie & theater lover. Having fun with standup comedy. Manhattan. Email me story pitches…

Chris Rutkowski

@ufologyresearch

UFO guy, media guy, writer

Rachel Zoll

Verified account

@rzollAP

@AP national religion writer since 2001. b. Salem, Mass. rzoll@ap.org

Michael Paulson

Verified account

@MichaelPaulson

National religion reporter at The New York Times. Living in New York; missing New England.

Religion NewsService

Verified account

@RNS

Religion News Service reporters, columnists and bloggers cover news & views where faith, spirituality and nonbelief meet society, culture, politi…

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Verified account

@spulliam follows you

On vacation! Soon: @WashingtonPost religion reporter. Amateur violist, cook, board gamer. spulliam@gmail.com

Religion Newswriters

@ReligionReport

Religion Newswriters Association provides networking, tools and training for reporters covering religion. We envision fair and informed religion…

GetReligion

@GetReligion

GetReligion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business…

ChristianCinema.com

@ChristianCinema

Since 1999, we’ve been connecting audiences with Christian movies and filmmakers. Now over 4000 titles that will impact lives via DVD, Rental, VOD…

Ted Andkilde

@andkilde follows you

photographer, malcontent, new dad, old soul

Luke Coppen

@LukeCoppen

Editor of the Catholic Herald

Damian Thompson

Verified account

@holysmoke

Associate editor at The Spectator specialising in religion and classical music. Once described as ‘A blood-crazed ferret’ by the Church Times

Dwight Longenecker

@dlongenecker1

Bob Jones U, then Oxford and an Anglican priest, now Catholic priest, blogger, broadcaster, Author of Romance of Religion and fifteen…

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

@fatherz

Catholic Priest, Blogger, Columnist – http://wdtprs.com 

Zenit English

@zenitenglish

Raymond Arroyo

@RaymondArroyo

Anchor, The World Over Live on EWTN Thurs.8PM ET., EWTNews Director, New York Times Best Selling author, journalist, producer, husband, dad.…

L’Osservatore Romano

@LOsservatoreUSA

USA edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, now printed by Our Sunday Visitor. Follow @CatholicReview for latest Vatican…

Fr. Robert Barron

@FrRobertBarron

I am a Catholic priest, author, and creator and host of the award-winning documentary series CATHOLICISM

Our Sunday Visitor

@OSV

Sharing our Catholic Faith online & in print …. Looking at news & trends of today through Catholic eyes.

Vatican – news

Verified account

@news_va_en

Vatican media: CTV, Osservatore Romano, Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Vatican Radio, Press Office, Vatican website, V.I.S.

Catholic News Svc

@CatholicNewsSvc

Catholic News Service is a leader in religious news. Our mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.

Salt + Light

@saltandlighttv

Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation is a charitable organization devoted to spreading the light of Christ through media.

Laurie Goodstein

Verified account

@lauriegnyt

New York Times National Religion Correspondent. Covering the reverent and irreverent since 1993. @washpost @nytimes http://nyti.ms/VFHNZR 

Crux

@Crux

Covering all things Catholic, from Church doctrine to personal faith. Featuring expert Vatican coverage by @JohnLAllenJr and edited by …

John L. Allen, Jr.

Verified account

@JohnLAllenJr

Vatican expert, journalist, author and pug lover. Associate editor at Boston Globe and also at Crux, covering all things Catholic.

Paul Andersen

@PaulAndersen6 follows you

Producer for Shaw TV in Thompson, Flin Flon & The Pas. I only have two talents in Life: Mini Putt and Bubble Hockey. Views are my own.

Shaw TV Thompson

@ShawTVThompson follows you

Shaw TV Thompson brings your local community content to you. We represent your local community programming in Northern Manitoba

Abigail Bimman

@AbigailCTV

Videographer & anchor for CTV Kitchener.

City of Thompson

@cityofthompson

Journalism.co.uk

@journalismnews follows you

News, digital tools and tips for journalists and publishers from http://Journalism.co.uk . Contact @abigailedge or @ajreid. Tel: +44 (0)1273 384290

Thompson Citizen

@ThompsonCitizen follows you

50 years and counting as Thompson’s source for local news.

Steve Ladurantaye

@sladurantaye

Government and news at Twitter Canada.

Neil MacCarthy

@neilmaccarthy

Com. Dir., Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. Follow @archtoronto for official feed. I’m that church media guy, smiling most of the time. Tweets are my own.

Jeanette Kimball

@dancewithsun7 follows you

Mediator, conciliator, cedar, bamboo and silver flute player. Peacemaker and camera maven.

Ryan Flanagan

@flanaganryan follows you

News dude. Sports fan. Pop culture noun. I’m a web writer at @CTVKitchener.

Dan Heffernan

@DanHeffernan2 follows you

Scott Edmonds

@tsedmonds follows you

Vice-president, Canada, The Newspaper Guild-CWA, Writer, multi-media journalist, Formerly with The Canadian Press

And (did I happen to mention?) you can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

The friendship of Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and St. Louis Jesuit priest Father Ed Dowling, who helped to convert American Newspaper Guild founder and union activist Heywood Broun to Catholicism

Bill Wilson, left, and Father Ed Dowling, right

Dr. Bob Smith, left, and Heywood Broun, right

The entire 12-step movement, which now totals more than 100 self-help fellowships, can be traced back to two men originally from Vermont, Bill Wilson, a failed New York City stockbroker, and Dr. Bob Smith, an Akron, Ohio physician.

The birth of Alcoholics Anonymous is dated from their meeting and Smith’s last bottle of beer on June 10, 1935. They would be affectionately known ever after as Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the co-founders of AA.

Wilson had been influenced by Ebby Thacher – or Ebby T. in the preferred anonymous parlance of 12-step programs – a friend from boarding school, who paid Wilson a visit in November 1934, while Thacher was a member of the Oxford Group, popular on college campuses in the 1920s, and founded by Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister.

The first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, known almost universally by its informal title as simply the Big Book, was published on April 10, 1939. There were 4,730 books printed, with red cloth binding, wide columns, thick paper (which was why it was called the Big Book in the first place), and a red, yellow, black and white dust jacket, which came to be known as the “circus cover.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA as it is also known, has long had an impact on the larger culture and its perhaps most famous slogan, “one day at a time,” long ago entered the public vocabulary as a sentiment to remind people feeling overwhelmed by events to pause for a moment, step back and see their lives in the present moment, not the past or future, which  has made the concept of the current 24 hours – and in a crisis sometimes even smaller units of time – a cornerstone of AA.

Wilson’s spiritual advisor and “sponsor”  for almost 20 years from November 1940 until his death in April 1960 was a Jesuit priest, Father Ed Dowling, from St. Louis.

Dowling was born in St. Louis on Sept. 1, 1898. He attended the Baden Public and the Holy Name Parochial School and went on to St. Louis University High School. In 1918, he served as a private in the First World War. In 1919, he began working as a reporter on the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Later that same year, Dowling entered the Order at Florissant and followed the regular course subsequently for philosophy at St. Louis University.

Dowling was a member of the American Newspaper Guild and served as a delegate for the St. Louis local at Guild conventions in Toronto and San Francisco. He was a friend of Heywood Broun, the noted New York columnist, Guild founder and legendary union activist, and helped, along with then Father Fulton J. Sheen, to convert Broun from agnosticism to Catholicism seven months before his death in 1939.

When he decided to become a priest, Dowling reportedly told his newspaper colleagues he was entering the seminary –  the very next morning –  at an all-night cafe frequented by Globe-Democrat reporters.

Dowling’s regency from 1926 to 1929 was spent at Loyola Academy in Chicago. He was ordained in 1931 by Archbishop John Joseph Glennon of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, who was elevated to be a cardinal shortly before his death in 1946.

On a cold and rainy November night in 1940, Dowling showed up at 10 p.m. unannounced at Bill Wilson’s apartment above AA’s Twenty-Fourth Street Club in New York City.

“I’m Father Ed Dowling from St. Louis,” he said. “A Jesuit friend and I have been struck by the similarity of the AA twelve steps and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.”

Dowling would become the first American Catholic clergyman to prominently endorse AA, both in later revised editions of the Big Book, and in 1947 in The Queen’s Work, a magazine published by the Central Office of Sodalities of Our Lady.

When Dowling, as one of the originators, helped start Couples Are Not Alone (CANA), a national Catholic movement for married couples in 1942,  he borrowed heavily, he told Wilson, from AA’s 12 steps to help participants deal with mental difficulties, scruples and sexual compulsions.

As a guest speaker at AA’s St. Louis International Convention in Kiel Auditorium in 1955,  Dowling remarked: “There is a negative approach from agnosticism. This was the approach of Peter the Apostle. ‘Lord, to whom shall we go’?” I doubt if there is anybody in this hall who really ever sought sobriety. I think we were trying to get away from drunkenness. I don’t think we should despise the negative. I have a feeling that if I ever find myself in heaven, it will be from backing away from hell.”

Dowling died peacefully in his sleep in Memphis on April 3, 1960.

It has has been customary across Canada during the third week in November since 1981, which begins Sunday, Nov. 16 this year, to mark National Addictions Awareness Week and all its variants such as National Aboriginal Addictions Awareness Week and Manitoba Addictions Awareness Week (MAAW).

The federal government in 1987 first proclaimed the week. Approximately 600,000 people take part in NAAW activities throughout the country.

Much of the early work was conceptualized and developed in St. Albert, Alberta at the Nechi Training, Research & Health Promotions Institute, which is housed with Poundmaker’s Lodge, known as Canada’s first addictions treatment centre specifically for aboriginal clients.

Damian Thompson, associate editor at The Spectator in London, specializing in religion and classical music, published a book in May 2012 called, The Fix: How Addiction Is Invading our Lives and Taking Over Your World, in which he argues addictions to iPhones, painkillers, cupcakes, alcohol and Internet pornography – to name just a few – are taking over our lives. Our most casual daily habits can quickly become obsessions that move beyond our control, Thompson argued, suggesting that human desire is in the process of being reshaped.

“Already, the distinction between ‘addicts’ and ordinary people is far less clear than it was even 20 years ago, Thompson wrote in a May 28, 2012 piece for the Daily Telegraph in London, where he was editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist at the time, headlined, “Addiction: the coming epidemic,” with the “line between consumption, habit and addiction is becoming dangerously blurred The difference between old-fashioned porn and Internet porn is a bit like the difference between wine and spirits. After hundreds of years as a mild intoxicant, erotica has undergone a sudden distillation. Digital porn is the equivalent of cheap gin in Georgian England: a reliable if unhygienic hit that relieves misery and boredom. And, unlike the old ‘dirty mags,’ it is available in limitless quantities.”

Whether addiction is a disease, in the true medical sense of the word (Thompson argued it is not), a cognitive behavioural problem, or self-destructive habits borne out of poor choices, but choices nonetheless, is an ongoing debate, and while interesting, is of secondary importance. Whatever addiction is or isn’t, few would argue that it doesn’t affect entire families – and even communities – across all generational, ethnic, racial and class distinctions.

Addiction, be it to alcohol or other drugs, gambling, Internet pornography, etc., is an equal opportunity destroyer of lives. While the addict or the alcoholic may be the most obvious casualty, the collateral damage is all around them.

While it’s impossible to overstate the influence of Alcoholics Anonymous and related 12-step programs on addictions treatment and recovery, it’s not the only model in a reality where relapse is the norm.

Two steps forward, one step backwards and perhaps a step sideways is the reality of addiction.

Bill Wilson himself  was a surprisingly freethinker on a lot of this, refusing often to get bogged down in the semantics. AA worked for him, so he worked his program with a live-and-let live attitude.