Ishmael is still with us . . .

It's Odin's day . . . First the lighter mailbox notes:

Today is the 95th anniversary of Chuck Berry's birth. The seminal rock musician was born on today's date in 1928 St. Louis, Missouri.

The BBC was established on this day in 1922.

In 1851 Moby Dick was published in London as The Whale. Herman Melville's most famous novel, he authored several other sea-adventures before turning to poetry later in his literary career.

And then:

After eight years of self-imposed exile, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakisatan only to be the target of politically motivated assassins.

When politicians act like children, children wind up dying.

We used to be able to assume that Americans did, in fact, play by the rules, accepting the principle of the rule of law. That principle is now openly challenged here in the U.S. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters from an American, October 16, 2023

Caught as we are amid the flotsam and jetsam of The Way, Soren has offered his reflection

Games Played by People

If it is true — and it is — that we have all done things we ought not to have done, / and not done things we ought to have done, /

why, then, do we penalize, if not literally in deed, then in minded thought, / those who's deeds done, not done, and even, /

perhaps undone by some unknown, who's transgressions we ourselves hold dearly, / as secrets in the dark, denied by light of day? /

With a preference for the great game of magic, we are outraged when the phantom is unmasked /

and the play becomes real.

– jb