It's alright, Ma, I'm only bleedin' . . .

Odin's mailbox has “good” news … and compared to mainstream media this blog is awash in positivism . . .

Three questions to ask when facing uncertainty, so you can let go of rigidity and embrace change.

The first question that you can ask yourself the next time you face something unexpected: How might this change change what you're capable of? We greatly underestimate how much we'll change in the future, even though we fully acknowledge we've changed considerably in the past. . .The second question: How might this change change what you value? An unexpected implosion can permanently shift the way we see our life. From a puzzle in need of solutions to a more serendipitous path of discovery. . .Third and final question: How might this change change how you define yourself? Facing the unexpected, these three questions can help open the door to beginning to see change with more possibility. – Maya Shankar. Check out Dr. Shankar at her TED talk.

The political maelstrom swirling around coronavirus vaccines may be to blame for a higher rate of excess deaths among registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida during the coronavirus pandemic, according the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The report published yesterday underscores the partisan divide over coronavirus vaccines that have saved lives but continued to roil American politics even as the pandemic waned.

The GOP wants research into gun violence to stop. – LA Times headline

Every time I hear one of those voices amplified by the “yes/no/lets-you-and-him-fight” media saying “don't look over there in that corner,” the journalist and social scientist in me starts looking immediately into corners.

Our ability to unify as many peoples is our strength. And the heroes of this moment will be those . . .who know that one’s strength is not measured based on who you beat down, but who you lift up. – Vice president Kamala Harris.

We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know. We have to learn what we should know. We should know about our country. We should know everything: the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation. That’s what great nations do. – President Joseph Biden

Both quotes above by Heather Cox Richardson in her Letters from an American.

If we can experience the moment we’re in, we discover that it is unique, precious, and completely fresh. It never happens twice. One can appreciate and celebrate each moment—there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more – Pema Chödrön