So, what do you think?
Friday, July 3, 2026. It's Freya's day . . . Moderate Southerlies bring another hot, humid day to Green Country today. Real temperatures are forecasted to be a bit lower than yesterday, while the afternoon index is to be again in the low 100's. A break is forecast for Sunday with a 50/50 chance for rain.
The fear of age loosens its hold the moment you stop trying to outrun it and embrace the work you were put here to do.
The Civil War battle of Gettysburg ended on this day in 1863. It was the bloodiest battle of the war, but marked the turning point for the Union.
America at 250. – Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen, Noēma, 7.2.26
There’s no invisible hand guiding our democracy into the future. There are only fallible people. When an order is unlawful, do you keep faith with the Constitution, or with the man? In our 250-year history, most Americans were never confronted with this question. Until now. The week of its 250th, what's the real state of American democracy? – Miles Taylor, A Warning in Marble, Defiance, 7.2.26
Former CIA Director John Brennan is taking on Trump's DOJ. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.
Today is the birthdate of playwright Tom Stoppard, born in 1937 Zlín, Czechoslovakia. He is the Academy Award laureate for Shakespeare in Love. My fave: Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Another Czechoslovakian writer, Franz Kafka was born on this day in 1883 Prague.
Tom Cruise is 64 today. One of cinema’s most consistently bankable and artistically versatile stars, he was born in 1962 Syracuse, New York.
And, the originator of general semantics, scientist/philosopher Alfred Korzybski was born in 1879, Warsaw, Poland. He was a pioneer in the study and refinement of ways of using and reacting to language.
It’s impossible to not care what people think. If you truly didn’t care what anyone thought or felt… you’d be a psychopath. Caring is the engine behind empathy, compassion, friendship—every meaningful relationship we have. Don’t waste your energy trying to win over petty, selfish people. Instead, find better people. And if you really want to stop giving a—, find something more important than approval. Ask yourself: What’s worth being ridiculed for in your life? Because your answer to that question matters more than anyone’s opinion ever will. – Mark Manson, Breakthrough, 7.2.26
The without within . . .
Thursday, July 2, 2026. It's Thor's day . . . forecasts for Green Country appear to have been Xeroxed from yesterday: another hot and humid day for TulseyTown. Moderate Southerlies, sun and clouds, and a heat index in the 100's mid afternoon.
Every day you play with the light of the universe. – Pablo Neruda.
What should have been a simple unanimous, open and shut decision was dangerously close. Supremes: Summary. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.
Thurgood Marshall civil rights activist, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was born in 1908, Baltimore, Maryland.
Today in 1937 the airplane piloted by American aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean during her attempt to fly around the world.
Nobel Prize laureate in literature, poet Wisława Szymborska was born on this day in 1923 Prowent, Poland 1966.
And, today is the birthdate of Herman Hesse. The Nobel Laureate author of Siddhartha – the life of Buddha – was born in 1877 Cawl, Germany.
“The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment, every sin already carries grace in it.” – Herman Hesse, Siddhartha. First published in 1922. As of its hundredth anniversary in 2022, it had sold more than four million copies in the United States alone.
The great paradox of personhood is that the sum is simpler than its parts. We move through the world as a totality, fragmentary but indivisible, clothed in a costume of personality beneath which roil parts perpetually … yearning for harmony. – Maria Popova, “Living in Unison,” The Marginalian,
There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters. – D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, this edition: Penguin Books. 1996,
The exciting age we live in . . .
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
It's Odin's day . . . Strong Southerlies are forecasted to bring another hot, humid day to Green Country. TulseyTown is likely to see an afternoon heat index in the low 100's.
Today is the birthdate of Princess Diana. The consort (1981–96) of Prince Charles and mother of Princes William and Harry was born in 1961 at Park House, Sandringham, England. Her 1997 death caused a massive outpouring of grief around the world.
Twyla Tharp is 85 today. The dancer, director, choreographer was known for her innovative and often humorous was was born in 1941, Portland, Indiana; Pulitzer Prize novelist Jean Stafford was born on this day in 1915 Covina, California; and it's also the birthdate of French novelist George Sand in 1804 Paris.
What Musk's New Net Worth Asks Of Us. – Soren, “The Trillionaire Stress Test,” Wisdom 2.0. 6.29.26
The new energy taking over the Democratic Party isn't Democratic Socialism. It's something far more exciting. – Robert Reich, The Next America.
The Age We Live In
. . .
I have stood nearly fifty years in this body,
long enough
to grow unashamed of want without trying
to make an art of it. Long enough to know
what I have each night
– Virginia Smith, “The Age We Live In,” Rattle, Issue #40, Summer, 2013.
In the past two months we have visited remembrances on Mother's and Father's day. For many of us, these anchors of our lives and personalities have left us with varying patterns of grief involving the experienced loss of wives, husbands, children, siblings and other family members and significant others, as well as the events of our world. We're a large group and growing for many. Grief is another word for loss, addressed by Mirabai Starr in a recent half-hour video post that examined the common “thresholds of grief.”