I’ve had some fun thinking hard and sytematically with Obsidian the last few days.
But this fine sunny afternoon, I’ve been thinking that it’s remarkable how Trevion Williams has faltered and 7’-4” freshman Zach Edy has soared the last two games.
Go Boilers!
This didn’t post for hours. It’s not an anachronism.
So many people here use Obsidian that I’ve looked at it repeatedly, bewildered each time.
Finally, circumstances having pushed me to rethink things, I’ve downloaded it and found a YouTube channel on what sorts of things you can do with it. Bewildered no more.
This could get interesting: Is There a Civil Rights Remedy for Toxic Wokeness? - The French Press
Really good: Are We Still Thinking? - The Map is Mostly Water. I don’t remember who put me onto it. It has been in my queue for a while.
“All right, wise guy. If our disorder can’t be cured by politics, what’s your big idea?” I haven’t one. But I can suggest a place to start.
Let each of us resolve, once and for all, I will not do evil so that good will result.
CPAC (a big annual gathering of “conservatives”) isn’t what it used to be. Then again, maybe it never was.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poet Who Nurtured the Beats, Dies at 101 (Paywall - New York Times)
I have seen men, proud of their ability to lie, and exciting laughter by their clowning and joking, who have miserably destroyed in their hearers the habit of mourning.
Vassilios Papavassiliou, Thirty Steps to Heaven
Just added a Hey.com email account this afternoon. It’s now my preferred domain for its huge paradigm-shift in email handling.
In the process, discovered a fringe benefit of substack: one change, at substack, re-routes all my newsletters/blogs from its authors.
They say I’d enjoy SuperBowl better if I had “skin in the game” (i.e., used one of the betting apps). But with the Packers eliminated, I can’t even find it in me to arbitrarily choose one of the two teams to root for.
Whoa! Maybe I should root for Tampa! (or not).
Boy, did I ever enjoy reading Paul Kingsnorth, In the Black Chamber today. Written around 2014, it seems to chronicle the beginning of an atheist’s conscious efforts to figure out why he feels as he feels about nature.
He was baptized, Orthodox, January 6, Feast of Theophany.
Covidtide has led to a new family ritual of watching 60-90 minutes of Netflix (or other streams) after dinner. We’re reprising the Great British Baking Show, but also enjoying Blown Away, a glassblowing variation on the theme. I instantly found Forged In Fire unbearable, though.
Many sour notes and flat landings, but the Babylon Bee gave me a chuckle with this one that even carried over to the body (the headline is the whole joke generally): Trump Reveals Impeachment Defense Strategy: To Claim He Was Never President | The Babylon Bee
Why don’t I think of gentle mockery more often? It’s so much more effective a response to stupidity than my rage is. Jewish Space Laser Agency: We didn’t start the fire – The Forward
Currently reading: The Crisis of the Modern World (Collected Works of Rene Guenon) by René Guénon 📚
Pack dynamics: Son’s family adopted a standard poodle puppy 9 days ago. Ran into puppy’s mom at vet this morning and puppy ran away from mom back to the safety of her new tribe. Of course, mom never took her out for two long snow romps in two days.
Currently reading: Commentary on the Apocalypse by Andrew of Caesaria, translated by Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou 📚. This is essentially the only Orthodox Patristic Commentary on a book (a/k/a Revelation) that’s almost always mis-handled and mangled.
Finished: Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living by Dufourmantelle, Anne 📚 @JMaxB : I see the subtitle as key. The approach to this risky business is (I tried to get this in the ballpark) evocative, circumlocutory, even apophatic. I couldn’t summarize this book.
I heard that anti-inflammatories may diminish the Covid vaccine’s efficacy, so I stopped my two Naprosyn per day.
Man, I’d forgotten all the aches these old bones carry!
I resumed, and will stop again 36 hours before my poke.
No, this is not unprecedented, but one must go back 600 years, to Avignon: The Antipope of Mar-a-Lago - POLITICO
Sorting and filing old notes, I got a reminder why I wish former California A.G. Xavier Becerra wasn’t joining the Biden Administration. (This substantially repeats something I wrote yesterday, but which had a typo.)
Writing to the Left:
I saw politics as a fight between left and right. I don’t see it that way anymore … Politics has become a fight between those who are willing to respect evidence and those who aren’t.
Will Saletan, The Enemy Isn’t Republicans
Here I am not that Cleon celebrated
in Alexandria (where it is hard to astonish them)
for my magnificent houses, for the gardens,
for my horses and for my chariot,
for the jewels and silk that I wore.
God forbid; here I am not that Cleon;
let his 28 years be erased.
I am Ignatius, a reader, who came to my self
quite late; but I lived so for 10 months
happy in the serenity and security of Christ.
(C.P.) Cavafy