Silver by Walter de la Mare

Silver

by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

History

The voyage of Pytheas - Navigator, geographer, astronomer, and the first Greek to visit and describe the British Isles and the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Somewhere around 330 BC, Pytheas, an almost unknown Greek merchant, embarked on an amazing journey beyond the known limits of… pic.twitter.com/PdPYwNvkV8

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) March 14, 2025

 

An Insight

pic.twitter.com/uGBad8oBEd

— Pablo (@Pablo_1791) March 15, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Such beautiful dancing feet. No idea how his brain copes with all of that at the same time. And his musicality is glorious on top of all the physical dexterity. Genius!💖💖
🎵Full version of Bach’s Badinerie on the amazing Father Willis organ in Salisbury Cathedral. pic.twitter.com/yYhbZIdCBk

— 𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 🎼💝 (@Hoang_HQ) March 13, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

https://t.co/QaPMzeUPnQ pic.twitter.com/KkmBowNa7i

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 13, 2025

 

Data Talks

the exact moment my trust in our public heath experts began to erode was in June 2020 when they said “racism is a public health issue and therefore it’s okay to gather in public in the middle of a pandemic” https://t.co/hlg7pUfOz4

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) December 28, 2021

 

Do Remember They Can't Cancel the Spring by David Hockney

Do Remember They Can't Cancel the Spring by David Hockney (England, 1937 - )

Click to enlarge.

An Abandoned Tow-Path by Elias Lieberman

An Abandoned Tow-Path 

by Elias Lieberman

In idle dalliance now it welcomes weeds;

Grasshoppers dance along its unused ways;

A rainbow blur of flowers tells of seeds

The wind had caught in care-free yesterdays.

And resting close beside it, almost dry,

A greenish ghost of what was once a stream.

Sags low within its muddy bed, as lie

The broken things whose life is but a dream.

In memory alone it suffers pain;

Informal insect choirs and elfin brass

Intone a dirge for all who wax and wane,

A requiem for all who thrive and pass.

Sometimes, beneath the moon, it wakes to see

The rotted locks draw open noiselessly.

History

Sketchbook of Leonardo da Vinci.

Click to enlarge.

An Insight

Two general analytical rules I follow:

1) If something can be explained by way of incentives or by way of ideology, it is almost always incentives.

2) If something can be explained as either an act of stupidity or an act of malice, it almost always stupidity.

— T. Greer (@Scholars_Stage) March 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Audrey Hepburn's life using AI. The background shows scenes from her films and the places she stayed

📹vcv123321
pic.twitter.com/1tu0cLqx9O

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 13, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

My husband and I decided we don't want children.

It was a difficult decision, but we're telling them tonight.

— WHO? (@soursillypickle) March 13, 2025

 

Data Talks

A stunning essay in the FT on the international decline in the ability to read, reason, focus, and learn new things.
It began or accelerated in the early 2010s.
It's hitting teens AND adults.
Self-report and objective scores.
by @jburnmurdoch https://t.co/gPGrShE2dk pic.twitter.com/KiCkhceqFp

— Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt) March 14, 2025

 

Woman in Yellow Dress by Eugene Gull

Woman in Yellow Dress by Eugene Gull (Netherlands, 1988 - ) 

Click to enlarge.

Truly Astonishing

I am the 3rd person in the world to receive the @Neuralink brain implant.

1st with ALS. 1st Nonverbal.

I am typing this with my brain. It is my primary communication.

Ask me anything! I will answer at least all verified users!

Thank you @elonmusk! pic.twitter.com/bxYO3SBfA2

— Bradford G Smith (Brad) (@ALScyborg) April 27, 2025

 

This left only eight for the Gettysburg to deal with.

There's a lot happening in the Red Sea these days with not much coverage from the media.  From A Good Day For The Navy by J.R. Dunn.

The Houthis had launched a series of missile and drone attacks against the task force to no result. Now they decided on a concerted attack with a large number of missiles at once aimed at a single U.S. warship, hoping to overwhelm its defenses. The target was the USS Gettysburg.

The Gettysburg (CG-64) is a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, a veteran ship first launched in 1989. Sinking or heavily damaging a ship of this class could be presented as a major victory for the Houthis. Apart from that, there was the possibility that U.S. forces would retreat and give the Houthis a reprieve, something that might well have occurred under previous presidents like Obama or Biden.

The Gettysburg had endured a rough few months. On December 22, the ship mistakenly shot down an F/A-18 Hornet landing on the Truman while narrowly missing a second plane. After an investigation, in February, the Gettysburg’s captain was relieved and replaced. The ship was going into its first major combat under a new skipper.

I had read of the accidental shoot-down but had not seen any follow-up reporting.  

At around noon, the ship’s crew detected approaching Houthi missiles, a dozen of them closing in from different directions. The problem for the Gettysburg was that, after a long deployment, it was running short of missiles, particularly the SM-6 (Standard Missile), the weapon that acted as its main defense against attacks by aircraft and missiles. The ship was due for replenishment in a week, but until then, it had to make do.

The Gettysburg’s captain ordered two accompanying guided missile destroyers, the Stout and the Jason Dunham, to take down four of the missiles that were trailing behind the first wave. This left only eight for the Gettysburg to deal with.

Still concerned about the number of remaining defensive weapons, particularly in light of the possibility that the missile attack might be followed by a wave of drones, the captain decided on a bold tactic. Navy doctrine called for launching two missiles at each incoming threat to assure that they were taken out. Instead, the captain fired only single SM-6s at the closest six Houthi missiles. Since the probability of a kill from any single interception is a little over 90%, there was a distinct chance that one would get through and have to be dealt with by short-range missiles or Phalanx anti-aircraft cannons.

This time it worked — all six incoming missiles were splashed a good distance from the ship.

That left two other missiles to be taken care of. Rather than play it safe, the Gettysburg’s captain doubled down. Along with the SM-6s, the cruiser had a number of RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, descended from a venerable air-to-air missile. Although much faster than the SM-6s at a top speed of Mach 4 (3,000+ mph), the Sea Sparrows were considered useful only as point defense weapons — last-ditch ordnance used only after more potent weapons had failed. But the Gettysburg was going to use them as a substitute for the diminishing number of SM-6s.

As the Sea Sparrows launched, weapons crews watched their scopes tensely. Within seconds, both successfully intercepted the Houthi missiles, destroying them ten miles from the ship.

Little was heard from the Houthis the rest of the day. The Gettysburg resumed its operations a short time later.

Great storytelling about a critical theater of conflict.  With a message in there that isn't getting the attention it should.  We are necessarily stretching out military and military supply chain.  With conflicts in Ukraine, in the Middle East and active threats in the East, all our assets and all our people are in constant rotation and use.  All our supply chains are having to flex.  

South Korea, for instance, has three times as many active military personnel as Britain, the strongest of the European military powers. Malaysia’s army, meanwhile, is twice the size of Britain’s.

A usefully argued piece from the new media out of Europe, The end of Europe’s ‘soft power’ delusion, Part 1 by A Gibson.  

Importantly, this paradigmatic shift eastwards, away from Europe, is not a new development. The writing has been on the wall for decades, becoming ever more vivid through successive administrations; but only now is it being read aloud by the United States, catalysed by the emboldened mandate of this second Trump administration. Through decades of wrongheaded policymaking, European nations have rendered themselves strategically useless to the United States – indeed, the region is now proving to be actively burdensome, as Vance and Hegseth made clear. By contrast, Asian countries at the interface with China, such as India, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Indonesia, are now key regional allies with burgeoning economies, pragmatic governments and surprisingly powerful conventional militaries. South Korea, for instance, has three times as many active military personnel as Britain, the strongest of the European military powers. Malaysia’s army, meanwhile, is twice the size of Britain’s.

By contrast, European militaries are chronically short of service personnel, armoured vehicles, ships and aircraft. Indeed, the United States’ military budget utterly dwarfs that of all European nations combined. Thus, in reality, the Nato alliance consists of the might of the United States’ military, with a few European divisions, and possibly Turkish forces, bolted on. Moreover, Europe’s defence industries are fragmented, depleted and dependent on far more advanced American technologies. So deep-rooted are the problems that the touted grand European rearmament launched in response to Vance’s Munich speech is unravelling already.

Critically, the root cause of this military weakness is the now-entrenched industrial decline of the major European economies. Germany’s long-stable manufacturing industries are in crisis, with soaring unemployment; France is mired by astronomical debt and an unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent; welfare spending has swollen to unsustainable rates in all major European nations, depleting public funds and sapping productivity; and the euro has trended sharply downwards against the dollar for years.

Furthermore, as an excellent piece of research by Bloomberg has shown, not only are European economies collectively far smaller than those of the United States and China, but they have fallen well behind qualitatively as well. Europe is severely lacking in dispersed start-up entrepreneurship and frontier technological innovation. There is nothing in Europe that resembles Silicon Valley or the equivalent Chinese big-tech industry. Part of the problem has been the stifling effect of long-term over-regulation, much of it generated by decree from the European Union.

The whole piece is worth reading.

This Quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies

This Quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies

By Emily Dickinson

This quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies

And lads and girls;

Was laughter and ability and sighing,

And frocks and curls;

This passive place a summer's nimble mansion,

Where bloom and bees

Fulfilled their oriental circuit,

Then ceased like these.

History

getting government funding out of science is not an attack on science, it is a liberation of it.

this is exactly what ike warned us about in his farewell address:

that a small unaccountable group in government would come to dominate the funding of scientific research and… https://t.co/FLwKZfSq3L pic.twitter.com/E3XTBdwqmt

— el gato malo (@boriquagato) March 14, 2025

 

An Insight

Marcus Aurelius said this 2,000 years ago. It still holds up. pic.twitter.com/MgBuczatVu

— Seneca the Younger | Stoic Philosophy ✍️ (@SenecaQuote) March 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

How slugs drink.

📽: Steve Downerpic.twitter.com/yPI3KA83FV

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) March 13, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Alaska’s Passive Aggressive Map of the United States pic.twitter.com/TlHXhp3OAy

— Terrible Maps (@TerribleMaps) March 13, 2025

 

Data Talks

Most externalities are solved with technology, not coordination!

Deeply insightful post from @MTabarrok that actually should overturn a lot of how Econ 101 is taught.

If only someone in his family were co-author of a popular undergraduate textbook! pic.twitter.com/ARGbmF5gNk

— Eli Dourado (@elidourado) March 14, 2025

 

Interior with Staircase by Hendrik Willem Mesdag

Interior with Staircase by Hendrik  Willem Mesdag (Netherlands, 1831-1915) 

Click to enlarge.

The risk of being seriously injured by a Dachshund is very small, but not zero. Be warned.

From An update on Valerie by Ann Althouse.  

You remember Valerie, the miniature dachshund who escaped into the wilds of Kangaroo Island, blogged here.

Today, I see "Valerie the dachshund rescued after 17 months in Australian wilderness/The eight-pound miniature dachshund had transformed from an 'absolute princess' into a rugged survivor" (WaPo).

And in the comments:

mikee said...

Out bicycling with a friend one fine day in my undergrad college years, we rolled into a suburban street and a Dachshund immediately saw us from several lawns ahead of us. It gave chase, and almost caught my friend, who was cycling in the lead, but failed. He then saw me and hopped broadside directly into the path of my front wheel. I went ass over teakettle, a fine old expression, and ended up scraped and bruised. The little weiner dog was completely uninjured, quite happy with its victory over the bicycle, and trotted home. My wrist was broken and I wore a cast for 10 weeks and squeezed a rubber ball for many more.

The risk of being seriously injured by a Dachshund is very small, but not zero. Be warned.

Wood Song by Sara Teasdale

Wood Song

by Sara Teasdale

I heard a wood thrush in the dusk

Twirl three notes and make a star —

My heart that walked with bitterness

Came back from very far.

Three shining notes were all he had,

And yet they made a starry call —

I caught life back against my breast

And kissed it, scars and all.

History

America built the greatest train stations ever seen — and then demolished them.

Here's what the American railway was like at its peak.

And what destroying it says about us… (thread) 🧵 pic.twitter.com/jG11XnkJqR

— The Culturist (@the_culturist_) March 14, 2025

 

An Insight

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

— Robert Frost pic.twitter.com/RHpW7qrzyq

— Philosophy Quotes (@philosophors) March 12, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

A replica of a 16th century galleon of Republic of Ragusa.

This ship named Tirena was built entirely out of wood, according to the plans found in Dubrovnik archive. Historians, shipbuilders and carpenters cooperated to build it as historically accurately as possible! pic.twitter.com/SWXTWQfuqN

— Aristocratic Fury (@LandsknechtPike) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

I'm teaching databases this semester at Berkeley. My students all seem unusually brilliant. Not many go to office hours, and not too many folks post on the course forum asking project questions.

Weirdly, the exam had the lowest recorded average in my 10 semesters teaching it.

— Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) March 13, 2025

 

Data Talks

A few things about Western dominance that are commonly misunderstood:

1. It started earlier than most think, and was not solely the result of the printing press

2. It predates colonialism. Many parts of Europe were already very wealthy before Columbus sailed. https://t.co/gafWM9LMkM

— Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) March 14, 2025

 

Democrat judges who facilitate a defendant’s escape is like Democrat prosecutors who won’t prosecute criminals. Key pillars of the legal system are being destroyed. This is not normal.

 Well . . . yeah.

In fairness, she’s right that something here “is not normal.” Democrat judges who facilitate a defendant’s escape is like Democrat prosecutors who won’t prosecute criminals. Key pillars of the legal system are being destroyed. This is not normal. https://t.co/scT781caT2

— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) April 26, 2025

The conflict between the "By any means necessary" of the Progressive Left and the "Rule of Law" of the Classical Liberal is coming into focus.

Jones’s Corner Shop by Tom Brown

Jones’s Corner Shop by Tom Brown (England, 1933 - 2017)

Click to enlarge.

"The arrival of a new infectious virus was not unprecedented, but the response to it was."

From Public Health's Sacrificial Lambs by The Ivy Exile.  

At the time Covid-19 burst on the American scene in February 2020, there was already in place a series of pandemic protocols, both at the CDC and at the World Health Organization.  They were broadly similar to one another, varying by degree and emphasis rather than in kind.  

They were similar because they were both based on decades of accumulated knowledge, experience and empirical evidence.

The legacy media never seemed to fully comprehend just how deviant was the government response to Covid-19 and certainly never held the response up to the standard set by the plan.  They cheered on the totalitarian decisions and decried the commonsense responses which were reflected in the pre-existing protocols.

The Ivy Exile is perhaps among the more explicit in articulating now what was condemned back then.

In trying to wrap my mind around the self-inflicted catastrophe that was America’s COVID-19 lockdown regime, imposed five years ago this spring, I’ve been inclined to assume that public health leaders deserved something close to a free pass for those surreal first few months — that given the panic and the fog of war, people such as Anthony Fauci were entitled to some measure of grace as they adapted to a fluid situation. But in his harrowing and revelatory new book, An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, journalist David Zweig details how swiftly national COVID-19 policies diverged from the broadly accepted protocols enshrined in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic playbook toward an indefinite lockdown model seemingly inspired by China’s heavy-handed mitigation efforts. “The arrival of a new infectious virus was not unprecedented,” he writes. “But the response to it was.”

At the five-year anniversary, a number of books and retrospectives are coming out, finally telling the story which was known but actively suppressed in 2020.   

With Zweig’s young children languishing in front of screens at home week after week and fading prospects of getting them back into classrooms, in spring 2020, the professional researcher and fact-checker started digging into school closure policies around the world, scouring studies and speaking with epidemiologists and other public health specialists, particularly in Europe. What he learned was as baffling as it was frustrating: Many of the so-called studies the New York Times and much of the American media breathlessly cited were based upon computer modeling built on assumptions that were iffy at best, and evidence seemed to suggest that not only were children typically less vulnerable to COVID-19 than to some years’ more virulent strains of influenza, and far less likely to transmit the virus than adults, but that the entire dubious strategy of locking down schools for months was unlikely to do much to slow the spread. Whatever fleeting benefits were likely to be more than outweighed by the longer-term disruption to children’s educations and development, prompting schools throughout Europe to begin reopening by early May of that year, if they’d considered it prudent to close in the first place.

And yet, as Zweig attempted to air his findings among mainstream American media with whom he’d published before, including the New York Times, he almost always found a striking absence of curiosity or critical analysis. That uncanny disinterest “dovetailed with an ignorance and dismissal of a rich literature on both the inescapable harms that would result from the closures and on the evidence of their lack of benefit in the long term,” he writes. “Reasonable people could disagree about whether the schools in the US should open or not at that time, but there was close to zero dissent among politicians or in the framing by legacy media outlets on the topic. The narrative was set.”

The substack is worth a read for the galling evidence of the absence of wisdom, leadership, courage, or knowledge exhibited by the Mandarin Class and their near comprehensive failure.

There is a strong parallel in all this to the revelations coming out now about how clear was Biden's cognitive collapse after 2020 to his inner circle.  And his outer circle.  And to anyone else who was paying attention.

Its taken five years for the Covid-19 "Now the truth can be told" time to come around.  It has only taken five months for the "Now the truth can be told" time to arrive for Biden's cognitive collapse.

In both cases, the legacy media was both a propaganda tool for creating and maintaining the lie at the time and serving as a mechanism for the truth to be told now that it is more convenient.

It is easy to look at these fact patterns and conclude that the legacy mainstream media is no longer independent and functions solely as a propaganda organ of the establishment (Establishment Democrats and Establishment Republicans).  

I suspect the truth is that the business model of legacy media has collapsed (all the ad revenue disappeared online to Google and Facebook) and that in their financial emaciation and desperation, all the propaganda is actually simply an emergent order arising from unintended financial incentives and reduced capabilities (hard to do hard hitting reporting if you have fired all your reporters).  Even if it looks like corrupt propaganda.  

Shade by Theodosia Garrison

Shade

by Theodosia Garrison

The kindliest thing God ever made,

His hand of very healing laid

Upon a fevered world, is shade.

His glorious company of trees

Throw out their mantles, and on these

The dust-stained wanderer finds ease.

Green temples, closed against the beat

Of noontime's blinding glare and heat,

Open to any pilgrim's feet.

The white road blisters in the sun;

Now, half the weary journey done,

Enter and rest, Oh weary one!

And feel the dew of dawn still wet

Beneath thy feet, and so forget

The burning highway's ache and fret.

This is God's hospitality,

And whoso rests beneath a tree

Hath cause to thank Him gratefully.

An Insight

Bring back the front porch pic.twitter.com/F0tlOvHYDG

— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) March 12, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

1) An astonishing Roman marble portrait bust depicting an elderly man with a deeply lined face and hollow cheeks. Though it is believed to date to the reign of Trajan (98-117 AD), the expressive portrait evokes the veristic style of Republican art. In a rare addition… pic.twitter.com/rhD2dHpFTu

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

I can’t imagine having the chutzpah to hold Hamas rallies while whining about being “kidnapped.” https://t.co/RMFhwoz6so

— Max 📟 (@MaxNordau) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

You missed one out, David. Even on a winter day, solar produces "the square root of sod all". I wrote that in an article, some green nutcase complained to the press regulator and the regulator agreed it was a fair description - so it's official. A squarosa. https://t.co/smiYmMw9mg

— Matt Ridley (@mattwridley) March 13, 2025

 

Magnolias, 1938 by Stanley Spencer

Magnolias, 1938 by Stanley Spencer (England, 1891-1959)

Click to enlarge.

Commander Edward Steichen on USS Lexington (CV-16) with planes on deck below

Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

Commander Edward Steichen on USS Lexington (CV-16) with planes on deck below. Composite photograph released on June 16, 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-324556.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within.

From Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers.  Page 101.

By what ingratiating means Mr. Bunter had contrived to turn the delivery of a note into the acceptance of an invitation to tea was best known to himself. At half-past four on the day which ended so cheerfully for Lord Peter, he was seated in the kitchen of Mr. Urquhart’s house, toasting crumpets. He had been trained to a great pitch of dexterity in the preparation of crumpets, and if he was somewhat lavish in the matter of butter, that hurt nobody except Mr. Urquhart. It was natural that the conversation should turn to the subject of murder. Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be. On the present occasion, all the ingredients of an enjoyable party were present in full force.

 

Cock-crow by Edward Thomas

Cock-crow

by Edward Thomas

Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night

To be cut down by the sharp axe of light, -

Out of the night, two cocks together crow,

Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:

And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,

Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,

Each facing each as in a coat of arms:-

The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.

History

Painting of "Socrates debating with his pupils" from a 13th century Seljuk Turkish manuscript. pic.twitter.com/EQcu5K79ps

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) March 12, 2025

 

An Insight

Truth. pic.twitter.com/deWnenUiaL

— Alex Brogan (@_alexbrogan) March 12, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

At least 20,000 antelope crossing the state highway.

[📍 State HWY 230 south of Encampment, Wyoming]pic.twitter.com/9eQ7H2SDLZ

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

I lost my Security Clearance 3 years ago because I warned (on YouTube) that the RAF would be in significant trouble with pilot retention and recruitment if it continued to push it's destructive DEI policy.

Fucking lol.

Enjoy. https://t.co/dMe0HBaAGv

— Tim Davies 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@timdavies_uk) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

25% of jobs added in the US economy over the past two years were government jobs, up from 5% in 2021 and 7% in 2022, per Apollo. pic.twitter.com/pfiaZMwdUr

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 12, 2025

 

Daffodil, Narcissus, Tulip, Primula, Garden Flowers, 1960 by John Leigh-Pemberton

Daffodil, Narcissus, Tulip, Primula, Garden Flowers, 1960 by John Leigh-Pemberton (England, 1911-1997)

Click to enlarge.

Lieutenant Ronald P. “Rip” Gift relaxes with other pilots in a ready ro

Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

Battle of the Philippine Sea. Lieutenant Ronald P. “Rip” Gift relaxes with other pilots in a ready room on board USS Monterey (CVL-26) after landing on the ship at night following strikes on the Japanese fleet, June 20, 1944. Photographed by Lieutenant Victor Jorgensen. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives: 80-G-44791.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

What Is So Rare As A Day In June by James Russell Lowe

What Is So Rare As A Day In June

by James Russell Lowe

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays;

Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean

To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,

We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For our couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,

And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,

Warmed with the new wine of the year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

'Tis for the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

History

The story of how Venice was builtpic.twitter.com/k0hY4Ki5iE

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 12, 2025

 

An Insight

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky pic.twitter.com/dWeHomuhUA

— 🍂 (@Lovandfear) March 11, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

🏛️ Horses left out to graze in front of the ancient temple of Zeus, Cyrene, Libya. 📷 Mustafa Ekryem Photography. pic.twitter.com/5q6LHwAGBK

— Angela O'Brien (@GrecianGirly) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Peak male happiness pic.twitter.com/C9hMggtpH6

— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

It's not widely known, but over HALF of Columba University's enrollment is now foreign students. Some of them are people like Mahmoud Khalil, who spent all his time agitating in support of Hamas terrorists.

But if you dig deeper, the true story is even more appalling: Columbia… pic.twitter.com/gQQ6qi5x4u

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 12, 2025

 

Spring in Kensington, London, 1952 by John Alford

Spring in Kensington, London, 1952 by John Alford (England, 1890-1960)

Click to enlarge.

Wake Island raid

Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

Wake Island raid. Carriers, destroyers, and cruisers of the Pacific Fleet en route to raid Wake Island, circa early October 1943. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives: 80-G-472529.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

OK. Heh.

UPDATE: Order stayed by DC federal judge https://t.co/yUVty1KBsN

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) April 23, 2025

 

Swimmers by Louis Untermeyer

Swimmers

by Louis Untermeyer

I took the crazy short-cut to the bay;

Over a fence or two and through a hedge,

Jumping a private road, along the edge

Of backyards full of drying wash it lay.

I ran, electric with elation,

Sweating, impetuous, and wild

For a swift plunge in the sea that smiled,

Quiet and luring, half a mile away.

This was the final thrill, the last sensation

That capped four hours of violence and laughter:

To have, with casual friends and casual jokes,

Hard sport, a cold swim and fresh linen after...

And now, the last set being played and over,

I hurried past the ruddy lakes of clover;

I swung my racket at astonished oaks,

My arm still tingling from aggressive strokes.

Tennis was over for the day —

I took the leaping short-cut to the bay.

Then the swift plunge into the cool, green dark —

The windy waters rushing past me, through me;

Filled with a sense of some heroic lark,

Exulting in a vigor clean and roomy.

Swiftly I rose to meet the feline sea

That sprang upon me with a hundred claws,

And grappled, pulled me down and played with me.

Then, tense and breathless in the tightening pause.

When one wave grows into a toppling acre,

I dived headlong into the foremost breaker;

Pitting against a cold and turbulent strife

The feverish intensity of life.

Out of the foam I lurched and rode the wave,

Swimming, hand over hand, against the wind;

I felt the sea’s vain pounding, and I grinned

Knowing I was its master, not its slave.

Oh, the proud total of those lusty hours —

The give and take of rough and vigorous tussles

With happy sinews and rejoicing muscles;

The knowledge of my own miraculous powers,

Feeling the force in one small body bent

To curb and tame this towering element.

Back on the curving beach I stood again,

Facing the bath-house, when a group of men,

Stumbling beneath some sort of weight, went by.

I could not see the hidden thing they carried;

I only heard: ‘He never gave a cry” —

“Who’s going to tell her?” — “Yes, and they just mar-

nied’ 

“Such a good swimmer, too.” ... And then they passed;

Leaving the silence throbbing and aghast.

A moment there my buoyant heart hung slack,

And then the glad, barbaric blood came back

Singing a livelier tune; and in my pulse

Beat the great wave that surges and exults....

Why I was there and whither I must go

I did not care. Enough for me to know

The same unresting struggle and the glowing

Beauty of spendthrift hours, bravely showing

Life, an adventure perilous and gay;

And Death, a long and vivid holiday.

History

A Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack!

Made between 1593 and 1600, attributed to painter Kanō Naizen.

Portuguese traders first arrived in Japan in 1543.

The Japanese called Portuguese carracks "black ships" because they had the hull painted black with pitch. pic.twitter.com/Rse38K20DV

— Aristocratic Fury (@LandsknechtPike) March 12, 2025

 

An Insight

It used to amaze me at how effective Democrats were at flooding the zone with huge numbers of zealous demonstrators for whatever the party's cause de jure was at the time.

I was always jealous of the ideological commitment that it took to get so many individuals to turn out…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) March 12, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Milky Way galaxy over Devil's Tower in Wyoming 📸 pic.twitter.com/8KcvZfHsd5

— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Most rigorous ML paper pic.twitter.com/FGyHZ9WK53

— ksa 🏴‍☠️ (@kosa12matyas) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

We have more info on Domesday Britain (1086) than on much of Africa or Papua New Guinea today. Below is a map of English river systems and water mills from that survey. pic.twitter.com/jRrdlPBG3d

— arctotherium (@arctotherium42) March 12, 2025

 

Southampton Water, 1872 by James McNeill Whistler

Southampton Water, 1872 by James McNeill Whistler (America, 1834-1903)

Click to enlarge.

Signpost on Maj

Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

Signpost on Majuro: The men stationed on remote islands often made signposts to show new locations and how far they were from home. Photographed by Lieutenant Commander Charles Kerlee, USNR, March 1944. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives: 80-G-401008.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

First Rain by Zoé Akins

First Rain

by Zoé Akins

When Eve walked in her garden,

With Adam by her side,

And God was still the warden,

And she was still a bride,

How great was her amazement

To see when twilight died,

The first moon at the casement

Of evening, open wide!

But greater than her wonder

At star or bird or tree,

Or afterward at thunder,

Or delicate deer or bee,

Was her flushed awe one morning,

When down the clouded air

With freshened winds for warning,

Came water — everywhere!

History

"The Tears of Ra"

In ancient Egyptian mythology, the god Ra wept, the tears flowed from his eyes fell to the ground and turned into bees. The Bees made their hive and worked with the flowers of each planet to produce honey and wax. So too did the honey and wax. Bees came out of… pic.twitter.com/UAzrAMFfW7

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) March 12, 2025

 

An Insight

Teaching ethics to undergrads in 2025 is bizarre, because:
(1) They insist morality is entirely relative and culturally constructed...
(2) ...while simultaneously holding unshakeable ethical convictions and viewing disagreement as moral monstrosity.

— Henry Shevlin (@dioscuri) March 12, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Wow, an extremely rare and incredibly well-preserved tapestry-woven fringed linen cloth from 3,400 years ago!

Lovely lotus flower and bud design in the border of this ancient fabric. Dimensions 85 cm x 58 cm. From the Theban tomb of Kha (TT8) at Deir el-Medina, Egypt.

Museo… pic.twitter.com/m4mW665eIN

— Alison Fisk (@AlisonFisk) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Mongo only pawn in game of life https://t.co/0qhFs2jVng

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 12, 2025

Alluding of course to: 

Data Talks

1. Many think falling fertility is an Elite Woman Thing.

It's *not* really.

Fertility is falling most among poor & working-class women.👇 Why?

It's about marriage. Let me explain... https://t.co/K1z5xxW0ui

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) March 12, 2025

 

Interior with a Woman by Carl Vilhelm Holsøe

Interior with a Woman by Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (Denmark, 1863-1935)

Click to enlarge.

Submarine galley scene

Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

Submarine galley scene. Cook cutting lettuce, probably for ham sandwiches, in the galley of a U.S. Navy submarine during World War II. Photographed by Edward Steichen. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-13535.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

It used to happen and it was rather grand.

I am cataloguing my mother's library which includes a number of books from or of her youth in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1930s and 1940s.  Leafing through Tulsa: Biography of the American City, there is a picture which brings back long forgotten memories.

The picture is a black and white of two rows of young men with the caption:

The Ritz Theater had uniformed ushers to show moviegoers to their seats.

A similar picture:

Click to enlarge.

And the memory is that within my lifetime, I knew of this as well.

When we lived in England in the mid-1960s, there were ushers for both movies and for theatrical plays.  They would escort you from the theater entrance to your seat.  If you carelessly arrived late, they would wait for a suitable point of low drama, and then escort you, with a rebuking expression, to your seats, using a penlight to guide the way.  

There was usually an intermission when usherettes would bring around trays of snacks, sweets and drinks to sell to patrons.  

Click to enlarge.

By the time I lived in England again in the mid-1970s, they were gone.  You seated yourself in movie theaters and movies played straight through.  I think theaters with plays may have still had the remnant of ushers, more to stand at the entrance and point rather than to escort you to your seat.  

The passing of an age and I am not sure I even noticed at the time.  When did they phase out here in the US?  Earlier than England I would imagine but perhaps not.

I had not thought of that whole ritual of arrival, tickets examined, and being escorted to seats in so long.  It used to happen and it was rather grand.

To a Lady Seen From the Train by Frances Cornford

To a Lady Seen From the Train

by Frances Cornford

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

    Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

    And shivering sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

    Missing so much and so much?

History

Llama head whistle. Place of origin: Andes, South America. Date: c. A.D. 750–1500. Medium: Ceramic with slip paints. Collection: Dallas Museum of Art. pic.twitter.com/boKaiwCIGE

— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) March 11, 2025

 

An Insight

Chuck Schumer just posted that Elon is a liar for claiming that Social Security and Medicare have lots of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Chuck also says that any cuts in these programs by DOGE will reduce benefits.

Have a listen to Chuck Schumer back in 2010. pic.twitter.com/pgYhogYFFI

— MAZE (@mazemoore) March 11, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

The Acropolis is a sight to behold, standing through time like no other place on Earth.

Its Parthenon seems to be just as eternal as the legacy it has left behind.pic.twitter.com/5j0T3BmASa

— World Scholar (@WorldScholar_) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

Net fiscal contribution of 1st generation immigrants in the Netherlands by country of origin

Red and orange is negative pic.twitter.com/TVU4zwBcCS

— François Valentin (@Valen10Francois) March 12, 2025

 

An unshared mania

There is a Tesla dealership just a mile or two from me.  I live in a very blue neighborhood (the Tesla dealership replaced a Whole Foods store) in a very blue city.  

Given all the ruckus and performative protests against Musk of the past couple of months, I have been awaiting some demonstrations at the dealership for some while.  So far nothing.

Until Thursday.  And then it was consistent with CatTurd's observation.

USAID money is gone. https://t.co/6l24qGFgis

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) April 20, 2025

This is what I had been seeing reported across the country and ours was the same.

Maybe as many as fifty people at the intersection cornering the dealership.   A mix of handmade and printed signs but all hard to read from a distance.  A lot of yelling at drivers in traffic (oddly, just yelling at drivers, not necessarily Tesla drivers).  

It was a warm day which raised moderate alarm for the well-being of the protestors given the demographics.  The appearance was of white, college-educated, Boomer era women.  To be fair, probably not more than 65% of the small crowd met those criteria.  Maybe 25% appeared to be dutiful spouses/partners.  They seemed embarrassingly quiet and trying not to be seen.  

As usual, Pareto was present.  80% of the noise and activity was from 20% of the crowd, i.e. 10 little old ladies.  Silver haired, stick figured, they were marching around (individually), shouting at drivers, beating a drum, genuine anger marring their faces, etc.

The traffic stopped at the light, and then flowed by - normal people going about their business.  Tolerant of the old biddies, unengaged with their mania.  

Reykjavik Harbour, 1981 by Louisa Matthiasdóttir

Reykjavik Harbour, 1981 by Louisa Matthiasdóttir (Iceland, 1917-2000)

Click to enlarge.

A game of basketball in the forward elevator during operations in the Marianas

 Edward Steichen photography. 

Click to enlarge.

USS Monterey (CVL-26). A game of basketball in the forward elevator during operations in the Marianas, June-July 1944. Player at left jumping for ball is Lieutenant Gerald Ford, future President of the United States. Photographed by Victor Jorgensen. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-417628.

Source:  https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/1988/steichen-image-portrait-wwii.html 

Ellen Hanging Clothes By Lizette Woodworth Reese

Ellen Hanging Clothes

By Lizette Woodworth Reese

The maid is out in the clear April light

Our store of linen hanging up to dry;

On clump of box, on the small grass there lie

Bits of thin lace, and broidery blossom-white.

And something makes tall Ellen — gesture, look —

Or else but that most ancient, simple thing,

Hanging the clothes upon a day in spring,

A Greek girl cut out of some old lovely book.

The wet white flaps; a tune just come in mind,

The sound brims the still house. Our flags are out,

Blue by the box, blue by the kitchen stair;

Betwixt the two she trips across the wind,

Her warm hair blown all cloudy-wise about,

Slim as the flags, and every whit as fair.

History

Roman marble sculpture of a greyhound hunting dog scratching her ear, c.2nd century AD, Altes Museum, Berlin. pic.twitter.com/bgafwZpyg5

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) March 11, 2025

An Insight

This is why I believe Democrats spilled their basket of already-picked moral fruit to pursue DEI.

Essentially, most of the major civil rights battles had been won, and incremental gains don't produce the degree of catharsis leftists desire. So they inverted their morality. pic.twitter.com/h6UkAaSyjk

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) March 11, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Can we talk about how dang gorgeous Doc is?!
pic.twitter.com/wgupXQTNKl

— Stephanie (@airport_girl) March 11, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Layoffs Delayed As Dept. Of Education Unable To Calculate What Fifty Percent Of Employees Would Be https://t.co/OqNhHYVWJu pic.twitter.com/P88lfSBXKG

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 12, 2025

 

Data Talks

Have we found the cause of Suicidal Empathy?

Research shows free, affluent societies maximize guilt, shame, and altruism in women. In the West, evermore power is given to an increasingly self-loathing, selfless demographic. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/FGJnHAQ1Y3

— William Meijer (@williameijer) March 11, 2025

 

Boys looking out to Sea, Milford on Sea by Stephen Bone

Boys looking out to Sea, Milford on Sea by Stephen Bone (England, 1904 - 1958)

Click to enlarge.