Beauty in a parched parade . . .

Sunday, July 5, 2026, It's Sol's day at 8 a.m. . . . After overnight storms in Green Country, light Northerlies are in the TulseyTown forecasts for a cooler day in the upper 80's with a very slight chance for an afternoon shower. The heat returns tomorrow.

How we square our commonality and individualism has always engendered fierce national debate. Road traffic serves as a rare alignment of self-interest and the common good. There is a spiritual lesson in this – our interdependence – and it’s not a novel one: The self is illusory. And this illusion, the notion that we are all distinct individuals living among other separate individuals in an external universe, is at the core of income inequality, racism, climate change, and just about every other source of human misery. Our ability to solve these existential riddles will stem from a collective spiritual revelation as much as political resolve. – Jeff Krasno, Interdependence Day, substack, 7.4.26

Dissent isn't a threat to America. Dissent built America. Because the American people do not bow to kings. – Elizabeth Warren, 250 Years Ago We Fired a King, email 7.4.26

It's been two hundred fifty years since 56 men risked their necks signing a document built on one radical idea: You get to decide your own future. So somewhere between the parade and the potato salad, I hope you took one second to appreciate how rare that really is. [If you didn't yesterday, consider doing it today.]The British still say we go overboard with this holiday. Fair enough. But the only thing that ever went overboard was their tea. – Kim Komando, The Current, 7.4.26.

Today  in 1687, Isaac Newton published  Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” In it, along with laws of motion, celestial and terrestrial mechanics were unified under one umbrella: gravity. It remains one of the most important books in the history of science. For a deeper dive into the Principia. ( For history/science denizens looking for a day-long-Sunday task. )

The ultimate Swiftian experience: News of the closest thing America has to a royal wedding was both everywhere and unknowable. – Emily Yahr, The Washington Post. 7.5.26

Prophecy

You see no beauty in the parched parade,

The quivering, heat-glazed highways mile on mile,

The fields where beauty holds a debt unpaid,

The gray, drab barracks in monotonous, grim file.

You take no joy when dust wraiths dimly curl

Above the winding column crawling on far hills.

You see but short beyond the present whirl

Of circumstance, your little wrongs and petty ills.

But when it all has passed and you have lost

The swinging rhythmic cadence of the marching feet,

Then you will reck as paltry small the cost,

And memory will purge the bitter from the sweet.

– Robert Penn Warren, “Prophecy” – This poem is in the public domain. Published by the Academy of American Poets in Poem-a-Day on July 4, 2026,

‘tis of thee . . .

Saturday, July 4, 2026. It's the Satyr's day . . . Another hot, humid Summer day is in the Green Country forecasts. Moderate Southerlies, mid 90's. A heat warning in effect for an index of 107º this afternoon. Rinse and repeat: there is rain in the overnight forecasts. 50/50 chance says the weatherfeather, so, either it will or it won't.

On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress announcing to the world the separation of the 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. The Brits didn't take the news all that well, leading to the War of Independence and finally the establishment of The United States of America.

Two major figures of the American Revolution who became U.S. presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died on this day in 1826—50 years to the day after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Waving the flag and shooting fireworks is not what July 4th means. – Robert Reich, The Real Meaning of July 4th. 7.4.26

Words to live by in 2026. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American. 7.4.26

It's our country. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse, 7.4.26

Today in 2012, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announced that they had detected an interesting signal that was likely from a Higgs boson.

On this day in 1855 Walt Whitman first published Leaves of Grass, a landmark in the history of American literature.

The author of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804, Salem, Massachusetts.

And today in 1845 essayist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau moved to his retreat at Walden Pond.

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