She was smart with many great quotes like, "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap." lol
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The Backwoods Barbie Doll Dolly
At dollypartonsamerica.com, thanks to Jad Abumrad of Radio Lab, there is a 9-part series of interviews on America's favorite bra owner, The Dali Parton, Goddess of Kindness, a kind of cultural iconand bodhisattva (a "being destined for enlightenment/awakening" by the marriage of compassion and wisdom) for the benefit of us all. Feminist, activist, Buddhist Rebecca Solnit says it quite well:
How to win friends: Can an app fix the "friendship recession"?
How to make friends and be an influencer
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I have no idea why people follow me
Amidst what some researchers call a "friendship recession," apps and services have been proliferating to connect Americans. We hear from people who have already tried them or use them regularly to reflect on what about them has worked and hasn't.
TRANSCRIPT
HOST SCOTT SIMON: Many of the old places where friendships formed -- the office, houses of worship, maybe the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars, a.k.a. degenerate bars] -- may have become less central to people's lives.
Just react to things with opinions!
It's part of what's been called a friendship recession: Americans spending dramatically less time with friends than they did a decade ago. As Leslie McClurg of member station KQED FM [San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento] reports, a growing number of apps and services are trying to bring people back together.
BYLINE LESLIE MCCLURG: When Jen Hobbs moved to Oakland last summer, she assumed friends would come naturally at the coffee shop or after an exercise class, but six months in...
JEN HOBBS: And on New Year's, I was kind of reflecting on things, and I realized I still don't have any friends.
Talk about fitness on TikTok with a hot bod!
MCCLURG: She made it her resolution to fix that and downloaded every friendship app that she had seen advertised on Instagram. Some are simple, like "BumbleFor Friends" (BFF: Bumble For Friends), which works much like the company's dating app.
But instead of swiping for lovers, you're swiping for pals. Others, like Timeleft [or Friend Cult], go further by matching users with like-minded strangers for a meal. [SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING]
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: In restaurants across the country [LAUGHTER] total strangers are gathering for conversation and community over shared meals. More
We’re not a social club, we’re a Friend Cult™ -- a weekly, Oakland-based gathering that makes it easier to see friends. No more text tag, no more calendar Tetris, no more doomscrolling. Just show up and hang out — like it used to be. See friends. Eat food. Feel better. Die happy.
An "influencer" has the ability to alter the attitudes, shopping behavior, or shopping decisions of others through knowledge, position, authority, or the because of an audience relationship.
This ability is either inherent to one's personality or is completely constructed by others for some benefit: social, personal, or economical [1].
The term "influencer" is used in media, business, religion, politics, and communication, referring to folks like social media influencers, podcasters, public speakers, religious influencers, writers, and newsletter writers who have dedicated followings [2, 3].
One writer defines influencers as those "who exercise influence over the organization and its potential customers" [4]. Another defines them as someone "who significantly shapes the customer's purchasing decision" [5]. According to another writer, influencers are "well-connected, create an impact, have active minds, and are trendsetters" [6].
What does every American want?
Just because someone has many followers does not necessarily mean that person has much influence over them [7, 8].
In contemporary usage, it means a social media influencer [9, 10, 11] or an online influencer [12, 13, 14] who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos, and updates.
This is done by using direct audience interaction to establish authenticity, expertise, and appeal by standing apart from traditional celebrities by growing a platform through social media rather than pre-existing fame [15, 16].
The modern term is commonly a paid role in which a business entity pays for social media influence-for-hire activity to promote products and services, known as influencer marketing [17].
As such, an influencer effectively acts as a modern salesperson or a marketer. A 1% increase in spending on influencer marketing can lead to a 0.5% increase in audience engagement [18] for a company or corporation.
Types include fashion influencer, travel influencer, virtual influencer, content creators [19, 20, 21], and streamers [22, 23, 24]. More
How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to be an influencer? Keep talking until someone breaks your jaw like Jake? Read a book?
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This classic self-help book written by Dale Carnegie came out in 1936. Worldwide, over 30 million copies have been sold since, making it one of the best-selling books of all time [1, 2].
Dale Carnegie had been conducting business courses in New York since 1912 [3]. In 1934, Leon Shimkin (Simon & Schuster) took one of Carnegie's 14-week courses on human relations and public speaking. He later persuaded Carnegie to let a stenographer take notes from the course to be revised for publication [3].
The initial 5,000 copies of the book sold exceptionally well, going through 17 editions in the first year [3]. In 1981, a revised edition containing updated language and anecdotes was released [4]. The revised edition reduced the number of sections from six to four, eliminating sections on effective business letters and improving marital satisfaction. In 2011, it was Number 19 on Time'sList of the 100 Most Influential Nonfiction Books [5]. In 2022, a newly revised edition was published.
Author Dale Carnegie
I know what people want (Carnegie)
Before How to Win Friends and Influence People, the self-help genre had other successes. Authors like Orison Swett Marden and Samuel Smiles had sold well with their self-help titles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Dale Carnegie began his career teaching night classes at a NY YMCA, later expanding to YMCAs in Philadelphia and Baltimore [6]. He then taught independently at hotels in London, Paris, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, writing small booklets to go along with his courses [7].
When evolution gets us
After one of his 14-week courses, publisher Leon Shimkin of Simon & Schuster approached him [8]. Shimkin urged Carnegie to write a book, but he was not initially persuaded. Shimkin then hired a stenographer to type up one of Carnegie's long lectures and presented that transcript to Carnegie [9], who edited and revised it into its final form [10].
To market the book, Shimkin sent 500 copies to former graduates of the Dale Carnegie Course, with a note that pointed out the utility of the book for refreshing students with the advice they had learned [11]: 141.
Or just work out until you have a hot bod. See?
The 500 mailed copies brought orders for over 5,000 more copies, so Simon & Schuster had to quickly increase the original print order of 1,200 [11]: 142. Shimkin also ran a full-page ad in the New York Times complete with quotes by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller on the importance of human relations [12].
Originally published in Nov. 1936, the book reached the New York Times best-seller list by the end of the year and stayed on it for the next two years [11]: 141.
Simon & Schuster continued to advertise the book, relying heavily on testimonials as well as the testable approach the book offered [12]. More
Understanding 'masculinism,' a movement to restore the primacy of men
(Fresh Air) June 24, 2026: Terry Gross interviews Helen Lewis. Masculinism is a belief that feminism emasculates men [making them less masculine], and men should be in control while women stay at home [barefoot and pregnant or] raising children. The Atlantic writer Helen Lewis says the movement is becoming mainstream. More
In his ideal system, “we would do it in our politics the same way we do it in our church structure,” he told me recently. “And that is, we vote by household.”
Wilson is a co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, based in Moscow, Idaho. Over the past five decades, he has built a small empire there, dedicated to disseminating his theocratic vision for the United States: a publishing house, a school, a liberal-arts college, and a video-streaming service.
His denomination, which has about 170 affiliated churches, counts [macho drunkard] Defense SecretaryPete Hegseth as a member, and Wilson was invited to lead a prayer service at the Pentagon in February. So when the pastor casually suggests disenfranchising half of America, people listen.
When I asked him about this position, Wilson said it wasn’t his top priority—“We have bigger fish to [kill and] fry”—but something he sees happening in perhaps 200 years’ time.
I found this intellectual footsie maddening. “If I said to you, ‘I think all white men should be put in cages—but not now; it’s not my aspiration for now,’” I suggested, “then you wouldn’t be interested in a single other thing that I had to say at that point.”
Wilson chuckled. “Oh, I know you’d probably have all my attention.”
Bibi meets Petey to talk about more genocide.
This is twinkly, avuncularDouglas Wilson, the guy who joined a hippie congregation fresh out of the U.S. Navy because he liked to play guitar and ended up leading church services once the regular pastor moved on. This is the same guy who once went on a multicity debating tour with the New AtheistChristopher Hitchens, and bonded with him over their shared love of... More
On the Summer Solstice of Saturday, June 20, 2026, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm the LAist is holding a rave at Remainders Creative Reuse. Total price of entry? $5.00 (five USD and 49 cent service fee).
Break out the rave gear and join Remainders Creative Reuse and LAist.com for a night of wild dancing, crafting, and community.
DJ Tekfor will be on hand all night bumping the 90’s rave jams and all the other hits. And there will be not one, not two, but three crafting stations with instructors:
Already have a project in progress? Bring it along! Or if still looking for a spark, we’ll have a pop-up crafting table ready for everyone.
Whether a raver knits, collages, beads, sketches, or basketweaves, this is the perfect excuse to make something while soaking up the ravey 90’s vibes! Come as you are. (Bonus points will be awarded for 1990s-inspired outfits).
We wouldn't put anything past Larry Mantle or Pasadena's KPCC 89.3 FM and its long-running battle to seem more relevant than Madeleine Brand and Santa Monica's KCRW 88.9 FM.
No, remember there was that Asian science journalist at KPCC and like the LA and Pasadena Weekly? She used to go to all sorts of parties, festivals, events, write about it, be on the radio all the time. Then KPCC booted her, KCRW picked her up? She lived in a small house in NoHo, the value of which kept going up, trapping her in LA.
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