History

The invasions that brought down the Justinian Roman empire. pic.twitter.com/jkmZBcXJsL

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) March 9, 2025

 

An Insight

I think about this daily.

Life’s work. Ikigai. pic.twitter.com/jpdswIfGBj

— Harley Finkelstein (@harleyf) March 9, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen are the only two actors to have been killed by a Terminator, a Predator, and an Alien. pic.twitter.com/pCHXD3ghar

— Creepy.org (@creepydotorg) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

2 Part Video:

TODAY: Democrat Boston Governor Maura Healey says they have an energy crisis because it’s impossible to get natural gas

2022: Gov Healey brags about BLOCKING natural gas pipelines that would’ve solved their crisis

You can’t make this uppic.twitter.com/ySmHoQBMWo

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 8, 2025

 

Data Talks

There you go.

Only 10% of top medical journal articles accurately used and interpreted the stats.

Peer review does not work - it is just gate keeping for consensus. https://t.co/Bd5g1tXc0N

— Dr Clare Craig (@ClareCraigPath) March 8, 2025

Father's Arms by Stephanie J. Frostad

Father's Arms by Stephanie J. Frostad (America, 1965 - )

Click to enlarge.

In the Middle of the Night by Joseph Massey

In the Middle of the Night

by Joseph Massey

 

In the middle of

the night, all that will suffice

is poetry - to

speak clearly into the dark - 

a lantern for company.

 

“Time, You Old Gipsy Man” by Ralph Hodgson

“Time, You Old Gipsy Man”

by Ralph Hodgson

Time, you old gipsy man,

Will you not stay,

Put up your caravan

Just for one day?

All things I'll give you

Will you be my guest,

Bells for your jennet

Of silver the best,

Goldsmiths shall beat you

A great golden ring,

Peacocks shall bow to you,

Little boys sing,

Oh, and sweet girls will

Festoon you with may,

Time, you old gipsy,

Why hasten away?

Last week in Babylon,

Last night in Rome,

Morning, and in the crush

Under Paul’s dome;

Under Paul’s dial

You tighten your rein —

Only a moment,

And off once again;

Off to some city ;

Now blind in the womb,

Off to another

Ere that’s in the tomb.

Time, you old gipsy man,

Will you not stay,

Put up your caravan

Just for one day?

History

The De Kalb monument in front of Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Camden South Carolina marks the grave of Johann von Robais Baron de Kalb, a Major General in the Continental Army, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Camden in 1780. On March 8th 1825 this monument was… pic.twitter.com/vKCZVZ4kCt

— Aedanus Burke (@aedanusburke) March 8, 2025

 

An Insight

In our age of distraction, remember:

Your focus is your future pic.twitter.com/oy8jy45fca

— Evan Amato (@SirEvanAmato) March 10, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Pallas Cats are the most cat of all the cats and I love them pic.twitter.com/5g4bnf238E

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 9, 2025

 

Hierarchies, Rituals, Ideologies, Bureaucracies and Habits - Means to escape limits

I am taken with this post because it harmonizes with my thinking and discussions over the past several years.  I reasoned my way from an economics background which essentially the study of scarcity and trade-offs.  As Thomas Sowell says:

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it.

He also mentions the second order effect which is also a constraint issue:

The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

When economics meet the Dunbar Number, you are beginning to see a pattern of overlapping constraints.  Finally, marry that with the history of science and technology (and the effect Moore's Law has had) and you begin to understand how rich is the mesh of interwoven constraints and how determinative they can be in an emergent order fashion.  

Via Divia Eden:

I just asked ChatGPT if it had any pet theories about how the world works that it hadn’t seen much elsewhere and I liked one of its responses! (I got two and was asked to pick which I preferred)

“Absolutely, here’s one I find compelling and haven’t seen widely discussed:…

— Divia Eden 🔍 (@diviacaroline) April 9, 2025

Extracted:

I just asked ChatGPT if it had any pet theories about how the world works that it hadn’t seen much elsewhere and I liked one of its responses! (I got two and was asked to pick which I preferred)

“Absolutely, here’s one I find compelling and haven’t seen widely discussed:

“Bandwidth economics” as a driver of social structure.

We usually talk about economics in terms of money, resources, or incentives. But what if a major limiting factor in how societies develop—especially in group size, complexity, and norms—is cognitive and emotional bandwidth?

Basically: humans only have so much attention, working memory, and emotional capacity to track others’ motivations, resolve ambiguity, and maintain shared understandings. Many social patterns—like hierarchy, taboo, bureaucratic ritual, or even ideologies—can be seen as compression strategies to make social life cognitively manageable. It’s like lossy JPEGs of messy reality.

So:

•Hierarchies = reduce the number of people you need to track carefully

•Rituals = outsource behavioral decisions to shared scripts

•Ideologies = heuristics for moral/emotional allocation without constant rethinking

•Bureaucracies = attempt to systematize social interactions into predictable formats to minimize cognitive load

In this view, many modern failures (e.g., political polarization, burnout in online activism, collapse of shared reality) are driven by bandwidth overflow. We’re exposed to way more people, data, and decisions than our brains evolved to handle.

What’s cool about this is it frames social dysfunction not as malice or stupidity, but as compression artifacts from trying to fit a big, messy world into narrow channels.

What about you—do you have any favorite underappreciated theories or frameworks?”

Which makes clear the connection to my other preferred idea - that culture, class, tradition, and religion are all mechanisms of cultural coding which supplement whatever benefit we derive from our genetic coding.   Coding transmitted via stories (spoken and observed) instead of via genes.  

They are all mechanisms to reduce the individual's learning curve (and enhance survival).  Donald Kingsbury:

Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was.

Missing from ChatGPTs list of Hierarchies, Rituals, Ideologies, and Bureaucracies is Habits.  The one thing we have the greatest control over.  From our culture, class, tradition, and religion, via stories, we can derive our own lessons from there habitualize those elements which we believe can make a positive difference to our survival and well-being.  

All because we are profoundly limited.  As wondrous as is the human body and mind, we are a mere speck in an effectively limitless reality which we only barely comprehend.  How we leverage our limited capabilities to better fit the uncertainty of limitless reality is an ever shifting challenge.

Call it bandwidth economics or cultural coding or Dunbar Number - they are all aspects of the effort to recognize and address profound human limits.

Offbeat Humor

This probably made a lot of sense before a deaf, autistic girl brought down the entire NGO and non-profit complex by mapping publicly available financial transaction data in her spare time. https://t.co/GtqR99sGL7

— Upstate Federalist (@upstatefederlst) March 8, 2025

 

Data Talks

In the past 10 years, the United States has had among the lowest infection rates by measles in the advanced world, on par with other high performers like Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands.

Only South Korea has a significantly lower infection rate. pic.twitter.com/HukDfz1KdQ

— Kevin Bass PhD MS (@kevinnbass) March 9, 2025

 

Mist and Rain on the Tyne Bridge by Reg Gardner

Mist and Rain on the Tyne Bridge by Reg Gardner (England, 1948 - )

Click to enlarge.

Out-Of-Doors by Walter Conrad Arensberg

Out-Of-Doors

by Walter Conrad Arensberg

I hear the wings, the winds, the river pass,

And toss the fretful book upon the grass.

Poor book; it could not cure my soul of aught —

It has itself the old disease of thought.

History

20% of post-Revolution settlers in Nova Scotia were disbanded British regulars. A slim majority were from New Jersey and New York. Vast majority of Southerners who settled in Nova Scotia were born in Germany, Ireland, or Scotland. pic.twitter.com/ywmO7jx2HN

— Nemets (@Peter_Nimitz) February 17, 2025

 

An Insight

I'm not much of a fan of the phrase "it's not complicated," but, in this case, he's right, it really isn't. pic.twitter.com/Emgoq9KAtD

— i/o (@alkonata) March 10, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Proud boy finding best stick pic.twitter.com/eR4iLjv7UD

— B&S (@_B___S) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

2 Part Video:

TODAY: Democrat Boston Governor Maura Healey says they have an energy crisis because it’s impossible to get natural gas

2022: Gov Healey brags about BLOCKING natural gas pipelines that would’ve solved their crisis

You can’t make this uppic.twitter.com/ySmHoQBMWo

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 8, 2025

 

Data Talks

What pocket do you keep your phone in?

— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) March 9, 2025

 

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heaven by Gustave Doré

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heaven by Gustave Doré (illustrations to the Divine Comedy).  (France, 1832-1883)

Click to enlarge.

History

When Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, lost his right eye in a tournament, he had the bridge of his nose removed so that his left eye could have a better field of vision when looking to the right. You'd never guess. pic.twitter.com/rTPEVH3AkY

— Antigone Journal (@AntigoneJournal) February 28, 2025

 

An Insight

Why women live longer than men… 😬 pic.twitter.com/hxtLgmwI9t

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) July 24, 2020

 

I see wonderful things

Dog clears sheep traffic jam pic.twitter.com/1ryj1hMAbb

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Student A, from Detroit: "I consider myself a Scandinavian-style Democratic socialist - not all the way to Marxist advocacy, but very much into the Scandinavian 60%-tax-rates model."

Student B, from Appalachia: "That there's a lot of words for 'lazy.'"

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) March 5, 2025

 

Data Talks

The fundamental problem with American urbanists’ suggestion that European-level transit dependence should be a model for American cities is that transit-rich European cities are much less accessible than their American counterparts. https://t.co/tc4oACgfbS

— Marc Scribner (@marcscribner) March 7, 2025

 

Over the Fields to the Sea by Ann Burnham

Over the Fields to the Sea by Ann Burnham (England)

Click to enlarge.

Of China and her Wisdom by Paul Edlridge

Of China and Her Wisdom

from Cobwebs and Cosmos

by Paul Edlridge

Quam Tsi T’ung Finds Violence Weaker than Serenity

The moth,

Enraged,

Beats against the lamp,

His wings forming

Countless tiny fans,

And falls at last

A fragile pinch of gray ashes.

The lamp burns on,

Tranquilly.

Ku Mung Mourns the Passing or His Years

The rose is dangling

On its broken stem —

Its petals are dropping

One by one —

Who shall gather them together

To make a rose again?

Mi Ti Advises a Young Poet Not to Despair

At the right moment,

The Earth smiles —

Between her lips,

Slightly parted,

A daisy trembles

In sheer delight.

Chou Ching Advises Practicality To a Poet

The stars are radiant queens,

Walking majestically across Infinity,

But the edges of their azure cloaks

Trail in the muddy pools of the Earth.

Ti Fu Rebukes A Vain Man

The branches laden with fruit

Bend humbly to the ground.

Wig Mu Si Speaks of the Vanity of a Man's Illusions

The souls of men

Are birds with beaks of glass,

Which break, knocking

At the adamantine gates

Of Paradise.

History

And was, of course, ended by Woodrow Wilson. https://t.co/ukpxOIZpsu

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 5, 2025

 

An Insight

This probably made a lot of sense before a deaf, autistic girl brought down the entire NGO and non-profit complex by mapping publicly available financial transaction data in her spare time. https://t.co/GtqR99sGL7

— Upstate Federalist (@upstatefederlst) March 8, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Fun fact

A chicken can be hypnotized with its head down near the ground, by drawing a line along the ground starting at the beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken.pic.twitter.com/dJSsbYvOvM

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/MCapmOhRl4

— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) March 4, 2025

 

Data Talks

Canada only became majority English-speaking in the decade following the Revolution, when about eighty thousand Americans migrated north to British-controlled territories. There had only been about twenty five thousand English-speakers in Canada before their arrival.

— Nemets (@Peter_Nimitz) February 20, 2025

 

Robin, 1965 by Ronald Lampitt

Robin, 1965 by Ronald Lampitt (England, 1906-1988)

Click to enlarge.

In Harbor by Paul Hamilton Hayne

In Harbor

by Paul Hamilton Hayne

I think it is over, over,

I think it is over at last,

Voices of foeman and lover,

The sweet and the bitter have passed:

Life, like a tempest of ocean

Hath outblown its ultimate blast;

There's but a faint sobbing seaward

While the calm of the tide deepens leeward,

And behold! like the welcoming quiver

Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river,

Those lights in the harbor at last,

The heavenly harbor at last!

I feel it is over, over!

For the winds and the waters surcease;

Ah! - few were the days of the rover

That smiled in the beauty of peace!

And distant and dim was the omen

That hinted redress or release:

From the ravage of life, and its riot

What marvel I yearn for the quiet

Which bides in the harbor at last?

For the lights with their welcoming quiver

That throbbed through the sanctified river

Which girdles the harbor at last,

This heavenly harbor at last?

I know it is over, over,

I know it is over at last!

Down sail! the sheathed anchor uncover,

For the stress of the voyage has passed:

Life, like a tempest of ocean

Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast;

There's but a faint sobbing seaward;

While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;

And behold! like the welcoming quiver

Of heart-pulses throbbed thro' the river,

Those lights in the harbor at last,

The heavenly harbor at last!

Worth Makes the Man by Alexander Pope

Worth Makes the Man

From An Essay on Man, Epistle IV, 6

by Alexander Pope

Honour and shame from no condition rise;

Act well your part: there all the honour lies.

Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made;

One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade,

The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd;

The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.

`What differ more,' you cry, `than crown and cowl?'

I'll tell you friend! a wise man and a fool.

You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,

Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow.

The rest is all but leather or prunella.

History

Three-headed snake fresco from the Etruscan tomb known as the "Quadriga Hellish," Sarteano, Siena, Italy, c. 4th century BC. pic.twitter.com/FhM7mW5xw8

— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) March 5, 2025

 

Even when He is silent by Anonymous

Even when He is silent

by Anonymous

Found on the walls of a Nazi concentration camp

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when I fell it not.

I believe in God even when he is silent.

An Insight

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

- Attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

— Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator. (@RudyHavenstein) February 26, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

Thought of George Eliot’s wonderful quote just now: ‘The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; & that things are not so ill with you & me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life & rest in unvisited tombs. pic.twitter.com/7s145UAEmh

— Gwydir Castle (@JudyCorbett) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

DOGE fired all their speech writers…. https://t.co/iqJHbimlrR

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 4, 2025

 

Data Talks

The top 20% of political science departments produced 75% of all tenure track research university faculty & the bottom 50% accounted for less than 5% https://t.co/UNc2I0NrYP pic.twitter.com/VYq1gneDcK

— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) March 4, 2025

 

When you look in the mirror you see not just your face but a museum.

From The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony

When you look in the mirror you see not just your face but a museum. Although your face, in one sense, is your own, it is composed of a collage of features you have inherited from your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. The lips and eyes that either bother or please you are not yours alone but are also features of your ancestors, long dead perhaps as individuals but still very much alive as fragments in you. Even complex qualities such as your sense of balance, musical abilities, shyness in crowds, or susceptibility to sickness have been lived before. We carry the past around with us all the time, and not just in our bodies. It lives also in our customs, including the way we speak. The past is a set of invisible lenses we wear constantly, and through these we perceive the world and the world perceives us. We stand always on the shoulders of our ancestors, whether or not we look down to acknowledge them.

The Fish Bucket, 1924 by Gifford Beal

The Fish Bucket, 1924 by Gifford Beal (America, 1879-1956)

Click to enlarge.

Each in His Own Tongue By William Herbert Carruth

Each in His Own Tongue

By William Herbert Carruth

A fire-mist and a planet,

A crystal and a cell,

A jelly-fish and a saurian,

And caves where the cave-men dwell;

Then a sense of law and beauty

And a face turned from the clod —

Some call it Evolution,

And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,

The infinite, tender sky,

The ripe rich tint of the cornfileds,

And the wild geese sailing high —

And all over upland and lowland

The charm of the golden-rod —

Some of us call it Autumn

And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in —

Come from the mystic ocean,

Whose rim no foot has trod, —

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,

A mother starved for her brood,

Socrates drinking the hemlock,

And Jesus on the rood;

And millions who, humble and nameless,

The straight, hard pathway plod, —

Some call it Consecration,

And others call it God.

History

Carthaginian N. Africa was populated by a large number of people referred to by ancient sources as "Libyphoenicians," a group described by Livy as "a mixed race of Punic and aboriginal African descent." We hear of numerous Libyphoenician troops used in the Punic wars and also in… https://t.co/NRkZ9fpfcu

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) March 4, 2025

 

An Insight

An actual genocide is currently being perpetrated by the Syrian Islamist regime against Syrian Christians, Druze, and Alawites, and barely anybody is talking about it.

More people need to start speaking up.

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 7, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Approximately €3,000 in loose change is thrown into the Trevi Fountain in Italy each day, totaling up to €1.5 million approximately annually, which is then used to aid the needy.

pic.twitter.com/qcd21AS10x

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Hot cross bun production is in full swing in time for the start of Lent.

BL Lansdowne 451, f.6r @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/6ec27NaDuA

— Ennius (@red_loeb) March 4, 2025

 

Data Talks

Except it wasn’t chaos, it was deliberate policy. The Biden administration deliberately sought to enable and maximize the flow of illegal immigration, in contravention to & undermining our immigration laws, on purpose. They wanted a large quantity of illegal immigrants and got it https://t.co/PlzTczLsUd

— sonch (@soncharm) March 5, 2025

 

Anne Willumsen 19 years. Nocturne de Chopin mi b majeur, 1929, by J. F. Willumsen

Anne Willumsen 19 years. Nocturne de Chopin mi b majeur, 1929, by J. F. Willumsen (Denmark, 1863-1958)

Click to enlarge.

Preparedness by Edwin Markham

Preparedness

by Edwin Markham

For all your days prepare,

   And meet them ever alike:

When you are the anvil, bear—

   When you are the hammer, strike.

History

Kapilikaya Rock Tomb, which translates to "rock with a door," is a historical site dating back to 2nd Century BC, during Hellenistic Period. There is some debate among locals, with some Turks believing the tomb to be Roman rather than Greek, reflecting historical complexities and… pic.twitter.com/kH6QWx5KtK

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) March 2, 2025

 

An Insight

pic.twitter.com/G6L5lPDbu0

— Physics In History (@PhysInHistory) March 6, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Amazing Paralympic blind runner with her hero guide...pic.twitter.com/AfcGxxClC8

— The Random Guy (@RandomTheGuy_) March 9, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

https://t.co/9ZuziBar11 pic.twitter.com/S34TwZ6yVC

— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) March 3, 2025

 

Data Talks

Population Density Map Of Egypt

credit: @researchremora

See 100+ more: https://t.co/9GqvKsZV60 pic.twitter.com/03G6wAWynh

— Brilliant Maps (@BrilliantMaps) March 4, 2025

 

Leningrad Nights, 1961 by Boris Fedorovich Fedorov  (Russia, 1923-1991)

Click to enlarge.

The Builder By Willard Wattles

The Builder

By Willard Wattles

Smoothing a cypress beam

With a scarred hand,

I saw a carpenter

In a far land.

Down past the flat roofs

Poured the white sun;

But still he bent his back,

The patient one.

And I paused surprised

In that queer place

To find an old man

With a haunting face.

"Who art thou, carpenter,

Of the bowed head;

And what buildest thou?"

"Heaven," he said.

History

Chairs with built-in coin operated televisions and ashtrays in the waiting hall of the Los Angeles bus terminal, 1969. pic.twitter.com/pbD8WIiZTP

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 1, 2025

 

An Insight

“Property is a central economic institution of any society, and private property is the central institution of a free society.”

― David D. Friedman pic.twitter.com/ca9YVOVcgC

— Students For Liberty (@sfliberty) March 4, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

We're literally just living on mountains pic.twitter.com/6mqMFoadJL

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 10, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

This SNL local news skit on the race of alleged criminals is legit fantastic: pic.twitter.com/MDtzfoo0t6

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) March 3, 2025

 

Data Talks

War is bad. We all know that but still easily forget how huge population losses were during past wars. This map shows the population loss in the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Ouch. pic.twitter.com/9rhJH0mSAc

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) March 1, 2025

 

Montmartre Nocturne - Rue Cortot by Jean-Claude Götting

Montmartre Nocturne - Rue Cortot by Jean-Claude Götting (France, 1963 - )

Click to enlarge.

They reminded me that correction isn’t cruelty, that assertiveness isn’t aggression, and that love — real love, the masculine kind I was trained not to recognize — doesn’t always sound like comfort.

From Systemic Misogyny: A Theorem Disproved by Holly MathNerd.  The subheading, what my feminist professors lied about. 

Having received an education when schools and universities were focused on the creation and transmission of knowledge, I find it hard to comprehend the university experience of kids today.  Holly MathNerd's essay is one peek into that world and one person's escape from it's cramped worldview.  

Because here’s what I finally understand, with the help of my guy friends: boundaries aren’t bitchiness. Assertiveness isn’t aggression. Asking for what you need — calmly, clearly, without apology — is neither a failure of femininity nor a moral defect. It’s a skill.

And for me, it’s one I’ve had to learn entirely from men.

The best men I know don’t just fight for the people they care about. They teach you how to fight for yourself. With clarity. With strength. With dignity.

And they remind you, when you forget, that none of that makes you a bitch.

It just makes you free.

I was taught to fear men long before college. Not by theory, but by trauma.

College didn’t plant that fear; it just gave me reasons. Justifications. A framework that made my oldest wounds feel not only valid, but virtuous. And humans are incredibly good at justifying our feelings — especially the ones that damage us.

[snip]

But over the last five years, it’s been men — real men, good men — who’ve helped me unlearn that. Who’ve challenged me, supported me, corrected me, and refused to lie to me. They didn’t coddle me. They didn’t play along. They told the truth. They expected effort. They modeled strength.

They reminded me that correction isn’t cruelty, that assertiveness isn’t aggression, and that love — real love, the masculine kind I was trained not to recognize — doesn’t always sound like comfort.

Sometimes it sounds like “try harder.”

Sometimes it sounds like “stand up.”

And sometimes it just sounds like “Maybe you can’t, but try.”

I’m better for having heard it.

And I’ll never stop being grateful that I learned to listen.

I was taught that the reason for every statistical difference, every imbalance, every struggle I, along with all other women, faced was men — their privilege, their dominance, their systems.

Turns out, the oppressors were just guys.

And the cage I thought they built?

Feminism handed me the blueprints — and I helped weld the bars.

Ecclesiastes 12

Ecclesiastes 12

King James Version, The Holy Bible

1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

History

A wooden prop in the margins, beautifully employed to support a bit of text that has overrun the end of the line - 15th century, Birgitta of Sweden, British Library, Harley MS 612, f. 50r pic.twitter.com/rjeZDsunKZ

— Medieval Military Medicine (@MedMilMedicine) March 1, 2025

 

An Insight

Ignorance is more contagious than knowledge; folly spreads more quickly than wisdom; left untended, the garden fills with weeds, not roses.

— Paul J. Pastor (@pauljpastor) March 2, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Before I go to work I want to tell you about a type of Soldier in the military that is near and dear to my heart. I have so many stories to tell about these folks but this one chokes me up to this day:

I was testing to get my Expert Infantryman's Badge awhile back at Fort… pic.twitter.com/ZcAVY39xgV

— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) March 4, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

If you think Trump was the angry one, you’ve clearly never met a Cuban American and experienced this stare. pic.twitter.com/0GrQVEyCDF

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) February 28, 2025

 

Data Talks

Operational productivity of public transit has plummeted in the wake of remote work; and so greater efficiencies through automation and competitive procurement are essential to getting transit to work

Transit mode share is just 1.4% https://t.co/XhMPY56jyZ

— Arpit Gupta (@arpitrage) March 1, 2025

 

Atlas and the Sea by Alexander Volkov

Atlas and the Sea by Alexander Volkov (Russia/America, 1960 - )

Click to enlarge.

The Purpose of a System is What It Does

From The Purpose of a System is What It Does by Charles Fain Lehman.  The subheading is Review: Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.  

A very substantiative review.  It reviews the book as a book and then the book as portfolio of ideas and finally the book as a process.  

Some points:

Abundance, the new and much discussed work from the NYT’s Ezra Klein and the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, is a book with two distinct visions. The authors would like to believe that these are, if not one and the same, then reconcilable. Unfortunately, they are not.

The first way to understand Abundance is as an intra-coalitional argument. Klein and Thompson are (they take great pains to remind us) liberals. And the book’s primary audience is fellow liberals, with the goal of galvanizing one side of an intra-liberal debate while chastising another.

In Klein and Thompson’s view, the liberal agenda is in conflict with itself. On the one hand, liberals want the state to deliver many goods and services efficiently and universally. They want health care and roads and houses and science funding and so on. Most importantly, they want the state to solve big problems: to fix climate change and disease and poverty and the rest.

On the other hand, liberals also want to regulate the processes by which these things are produced. They want to make sure that the housing is produced in a way that is not disruptive of community character, or doesn’t hand too much profit over to business. They want to make sure the solar panels are not constructed in a way that disrupts anyone’s view, or hurts endangered species. They want to distribute life-saving medication, but in a way that promotes racial equity.

Klein and Thompson think that liberals have leaned too heavily into this regulatory agenda, in a way that stifles the production of the things they want the state to produce.  

[snip]

This version of Abundance—a book about the idea that liberalism needs to get out of its own way—is fundamentally laudable. I am not in Klein and Thompson’s coalition, obviously. But I agree with many of their goals: I want more houses, more renewable energy, more scientific innovation, etc. And I am glad that someone from within their coalition wrote a book making their argument to fellow coalition members. I think America is a better place with a liberalism that wants to build than with a liberalism that wants to choke building off at the root. Abundance is a book that will get people talking about the right problems, and for that alone it deserves praise.

What I am not sold on, however, is the idea of a liberalism that builds.

This is the second way of reading Abundance: as a claim about what the state ought to do. When Klein and Thompson talk about a “politics of abundance,” they are envisioning a far more aggressive role for the state in the actual process of making things—of building—than it currently occupies.

[snip]

There’s a phrase from systems thinking that gets used frequently on Twitter X: “the purpose of a system is what it does.” As coiner Stafford Beer put it, there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” The liberal state constantly fails to build. Why should we think that’s what it’s supposed to be doing?

Rather, a better way to understand the everything bagel phenomenon is as coalition management.4 It’s not that the IRA got passed or public housing gets built in spite of the giveaways and procedural requirements layered on top. It’s that the IRA got passed or public housing gets built because of the giveaways and procedural requirements layered on top. The pay-offs to and carveouts for unions and local agitators and everyone else exist because that’s how you make sure things actually get done. In their absence, those people exercise the vetos that are inherent to the state building in a democratic society.

The idea generalizes. The fact that California spent billions of dollars without producing usable high-speed rail (a favorite foil of abundance liberals) can be viewed as an accident. But it is more parsimonious to say that California succeeded at its goal—allocating billions of dollars to innumerable contractors and private interests—and, incidentally, some train tracks were eventually constructed.

[snip]

A “politics of abundance” is an oxymoron. Politics is for the divvying up of the fruits of actual productivity, sometimes well and sometimes poorly. To ask it to do the work of production is to miss what it is for.

from The World by Henry Vaughar

from The World

by Henry Vaughar

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,

Driv’n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world

And all her train were hurl’d.

 

History

Did you guys know that the word "daily" in the Lord's Prayer is a wild-guess translation of a Greek word found nowhere else but in the Gospels, and no one actually knows what it means??? pic.twitter.com/YKhaNKKImT

— SatanWatch 👿 (@_SatanWatch) February 28, 2025

 

An Insight

100 percent https://t.co/nAnblDQlhn

— Michael Powell (@powellAtlantic) March 1, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Bush baby super jumppic.twitter.com/E93kJgULIr

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 1, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

HUGE W pic.twitter.com/PnCKXmglCZ

— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) March 1, 2025

 

Data Talks

Britain has 40 working tanks…. That’s the post.

— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) March 1, 2025

 

The Channel at Gravelines, Evening, 1890 by Georges Seurat

The Channel at Gravelines, Evening, 1890 by Georges Seurat (France, 1859-1891)

Click to enlarge.