by Patrick Rhone, Master Generalist
Finally, we can get ebooks from local bookstores!
Browse and buy on Bookshop.org, and read right in your web browser, or download our iPhone or Android apps for the full reading experience. Every purchase financially supports local, independent bookstores!
One more reason to ditch Amazon for books.
Despite the fact that because of my diabetes I shouldn’t have them, I’m finding my craving for a big stack of banana pancakes with heavy cream and blueberry compote almost overwhelming.
Beatrix as The Vain Man in SPA One Acts performance of the Little Prince which won the sub-sectional state competition last weekend.
“…because of the Biden administration’s export bans. DeepSeek engineers found and implemented multiple massive efficiency improvements that allowed the company to train its latest models at far lower prices using far-less-capable hardware, and perform inference under heretofore unprecedented memory constraints.
Constraints fuel creativity and innovation. Honestly, everyone should have seen this coming.
Amazing editing work.
I’ve reached the stage in my parenting journey with Beatrix where every day she says or does something that fills me with pride.
Today was realizing the major project she’s working on for American History is essentially a treatment for the book I’ve long been meaning to write.
Listen to The Current’s first two hours of music from 2005
My favorite local radio station turns 20 years old today. This is a wonderful trip down memory lane. I heard this live when it happened and have been listening near daily ever since.
Cancellation: a complex mix of accountability, power, justice, anger and societal change
So, when you start a targeted move against an individual, when you stoke up social media outrage against them, questions need to be asked not just about your target, but about your own motivations. Accountability, in a community, counts both ways. And the biggest question is: is you wielding that power actually helping the people you claim to be helping? Because if it’s not, then you’re just wielding power for your own pleasure.
You’re a bully.
This is important. Very important.
Some general thoughts on the subject of trust.
Trust is, quite literally, the glue that holds society together. Without trust, every human interaction and relationship is impossible. Every societal framework is built on trust.
Money is built on trust. The trust that one can exchange a token of ascribed value for a good and then turn around and exchange it for some other good of equal value to the holder. Lose trust in any part of such a transaction and money becomes effectively worthless.
This is what we saw in the 2008 global financial crisis. Explained very simply, one very large financial institution lost trust in the value of the holdings of one or more other very large financial institutions and basically said, “I don’t trust the value of what you are using to guarantee your money” The moment that trust was lost, the entire financial system collapsed.
The Great Depression was caused by people losing trust in the stock market, banks, and other financial vehicles.
All war begins when one country/society loses trust in another. The Russians invaded Ukraine because they no longer trusted it would not join a perceived enemy. The Israelis do not trust the Palestinians and vice versa. The early United States 13 colonies lost trust in the government of England.
The rise and fall of the Roman Empire? Et tu Brute?
All of this is to point out that a loss of trust in society — trust in government, trust in institutions, trust in each other — is the cause of a break down and, if left uncorrected, end to that society. Period. There is no “but”. You can not have a society without it. Society rises and falls on the strength of it.
Consider where we are as a nation — a people — today and make of this fact what you will.
Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act.
— Annie Besant