The consequental “this.”

Monday, May 18, 2026. It's the Moon's day . . . A mid-80% chance for thunderstorms is in the forecasts for Green Country overnight tonight. Ahead of the storms, TusleyTown is to feel strong Southerlies beginning in the near 90º cloudy afternoon.

Some of the most consequential international work in America happens nowhere near Washington.

You can see it in play for yourself if you move your butt quickly: late this morning — Monday, May 18— at the OU Schusterman campus near 41st and Yale here in Tulsa. Richard Shackleton, the new British Consul General will be the guest of former Tulsa mayor Rodger Randle's Town Hall and public-policy series. The event starts at around 11:30 a.m. Doors open at 11. Apologies for the short notice. The event is free and open to the public. Find the main parking lot and look for direction signs (so I'm told). I'm indebted to my intellectual brother-from-another-mother, Ray Pearcey for this announcement.

The week ahead. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.

The madman in charge. – Robert Reich, Sunday Thought. 5.17.26

Today is the birthday of Bertrand Russell. The Nobel Prize philosopher was .born in 1872, Trelleck, Monmouthshire, Wales.

St. John Paul II was born on this day in 1920, Wadowice, Poland. Head of the Roman Catholic Church, from 1978 to 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

And it's the birthdate of one of the major influencers on the development of modern architecture, Walter Gropius. The architect, educator and director of the Bauhaus (1919–28), was born in 1883, Berlin, Germany.

The actress, comedian, entrepreneur Tina Fey is 56 today, born in 1970, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania .

Three-time winner of the Academy Award for Directing, Frank Capra was born on this day in 1897 Bisacquino, Sicily.

And, today in 1980, Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted in one of the greatest volcanic explosions ever recorded in North America.

Practicing “just this.” – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, The Center for Action and Meditation.