In a frosty mailbox

… and on the wings of song this Sol's day . . .

The last retrograde of the year continues to Jan. 1, 2024. To help with some of the shifting going on under the Mercurial umbrella:

Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you. – Kahlil Gibran

Today is Pope Francis' 87th birthday. And, Beethoven was born on or about this date in 1770 Bonn, Germany.

Fixating on the flotsam and jetsam is rarely a productive way to navigate The Way. The solid sovereign boxes of the past no longer serve today's demands ... The challenge in our time is not just forging a deterrent equilibrium among contentious states and their spheres of influence, but managing the interdependence of plural civilizational identities. – Nathan Gardels, “Kissenger's Wake,” Noēma Magazine, The Berggruen Institute, 12/16/23/

The European Union has issued landmark rules to limit the use of artificial intelligence.

The removal of the dams on the Klamath River between Oregon and California is continuing at an increased pace.

And, today in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright Brothers took off on the world's first airplane flight.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—

I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

– James Whitcomb Riley, When the Frost is on the Punkin is in public domain.