I am a huge fan of the lunch-size brown paper bag. (And not merely because of its contents, though they often also are worthy of praise.)
@mbkriegh @jack @annie @DaveyCraney @manton Despite my having extolled the virtues of a real response over a like button, the "liker/likee-only" opion also is very appealing. On mb it does sometimes feel like I'm speaking into a void... I hope this option can be put under consideration.
I think of her and Dad all the time.
The best is when they're in my dreams.
@manton It's definitely for better. Actually conversing with someone, instead of tapping a button, is one of the great benefits of micro.blog.
@tinyroofnail I love it. Can't remember where I first came across it, and I know nothing of Edwin Muir.
Image: Wikimedia/Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0)
@JohnBrady My wife and I had constantly to remind ourselves, "Start with the end in mind." Do you want these small people to be able to carry on civil and interesting conversations when they're bigger? You'll need to converse with them while their still smaller.
@jabel Well done. That's why we're on the board of our neighborhood association and "friends" of the group that advocates for our neighborhood park (and gives $ to the city for projects in the park -- most recently, 50 young trees and a sand volleyball court.) Subsidiarity, subsidiarity.
Tradition is a good thing. It is traditionalism that is bad. Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.—Jaroslav Pelikan
(h/t blog.angloromanticism.org - btw, my new band name)
@dwalbert Exactly, great advice. Or work in the garden. Down in Texas, there's something cleansing about a real, good sweat when it's 102 degrees (F). (But try to keep in the shade, and drink plenty of water. Cough... or beer.)
... his entire industry is on pins and needles, terribly anxious about a Trump victory. I asked him if it’s because Trump is opposed to his industry on specific policy issues. He said no.“That’s not it. It’s that Trump is crazy. That’s what we worry about.”
My friend’s business involves putting big chunks of money into long-range investments that already involve plenty of risk. The added risk of wild wombats in the White House with regulatory power over their deal is way too much.
When I first sat with Wendell [Berry] to talk about educating farmers as farmers, he started by turning to the idea of love—in the fullness of the term, not sentimentalized but fully rounded, with the joyful and the difficult joined through membership in a place and with its people.
He then asked a question that I try to answer every day: what works does this love propose?
Start with love, then see what works that love proposes. (H/T: @ajay)
Public Work is an image search engine that boasts 100,000 “copyright-free” images from institutions like the NYPL, the Met, etc. It’s fast with a relatively simple interface and uses AI to auto-categorize and suggest possibly related images (both visually and content-wise). And it’s fun to just visually click around on related images. On the downside, their sourcing and attribution isn’t great — especially when compared to something like Flickr Commons.
Capers are white people's fish sauce. Briny and salty and umamiful. -- my daughter
@cliffordbeshers Great! Neil would be pleased, I'm sure. (Actually, it's difficult to know if Neil is pleased about anything, but I think these are great!)
@cliffordbeshers Lovely. I can only hope your next one is a yellow moon on the rise.
A Trump win would play into the narrative of Americans as helpless victims. The economics of grievance is ineffective, counterproductive, and corrosive, eroding the foundations of prosperity. Messages matter. Tell people that the system is rigged, and they will aspire to less. Champion personal responsibility, and they will lift their aspirations. Promoting an optimistic vision of economic life can increase risk tolerance, ambition, effort, and dynamism.
@manton Saw Twisters (as Pres. Biden was saying he wouldn't run -- lots of texts popped up after the movie). The movie itself was absolutely ridiculous and absolutely great. Two gorgeous people chasing tornadoes: what's not to like?🌪️🍿🇺🇲
@frjon Re: your points: 1. I'm sure we agree about Mr. Trump. I also feel confident in our system when at least two branches are doing their jobs. But I'm concerned that a malign executive and malfunctioning legislature during Trump 2 would stress the system a LOT. 2. You, sir, are too kind.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat animals who are.
@frjon For elections before 2016, I agree with you. But because Trump is a president whose actions are not only unpresidential but also unprecedented in American history, I think "most consequential in our lifetime" was an accurate assessment in 2016, and was again in 2020, and will be again in 2024.
@frjon Your reflection aligns, a bit, with that of my cousin, who moved to the Anglican tradition after many years in a denomination grounded in a strong Reformed tradition. He said (I'm paraphrasing), "I'd enjoyed great teaching in my old church. I came to my current church because I felt a need for great worshipping, as well."
@frjon And yet, the fact that one candidate fomented an attempted coup the last time around lends a certain novelty, at least, to this election. I'd go so far as to say "consequence."
@KyleEssary @KyleEssary But, they are not both "Totally Unfit." Biden is, maybe, 90% of what you'd desire for the president. And in 4 years, he may be 70%. Trump is 100% vicious, trending to 200%.
@tinyroofnail Great.
@bbowman I really like those umbrellas/flowers and the Ellsworth Kelly "chapel." (Like the Rothko "chapel," except they're unlike in every way other than the "chapel" moniker.)
@JohnBrady That's such a great novel. The people you love -- Mr. Harding, in particular -- benefit from a situation that probably should be reformed, and the people pushing for reforms are not the ones you care for much. Trollope is good at telling "messy" stories.
