Post Scripts
Posts and "special editions" since the last regular posting on Dec 6, 2024.
Posts and "special editions" since the last regular posting on Dec 6, 2024.
Happy Labor Day! Well, we're here - Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. There's still a lot of beautiful weather ahead. I thought you might enjoy some old WITW posts and some new posts from the web as we ease out of summer and into fall.
What in the World? - Rolling Stones - I'd forgotten how bluesy some of the Stones' early songs were. Their music is timeless.
What in the World? - Random and Sundry - A collection of very short, light pieces written during the second half of 2024. I had fun re-reading them these many months after I posted them.
World Peace Day (aka International Day of Peace) is September 21. If you can't find an event near you, you can still join the "Peace Wave" - a moment of silence at noon in all time zones on Sunday Sep 21 to reflect on how important peace is in our lives and in our world. International Day of Peace A good, if symbolic, antidote to the ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
A post at Mother Jones relates futurist Tracy Worlee's reflections on sci-fi writer Octavia Butler's chillingly prophetic Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents. Community and imagination will get us through these tough times. "No one should have to travel alone." - Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Finally, a Labor Day post from AFSC. As the "big, beautiful bill" effects the greatest transfer of wealth upwards in American history by stripping benefits from the less well-off to provide tax breaks for the wealthiest, AFSC reminds us of the long struggle for worker's rights and economic justice. 4 highlights from AFSC's work for labor rights | American Friends Service Committee
Some quotes and music, some posts from the archives, a few new finds, some news and commentary, a reflection on community and a look back at the student protests of 1968 - "my year of being 20".
Quotes
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." - Marcus Aurelius
“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place." - R. Buckminster Fuller
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Posts and Links
"To understand a man, you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty" (Sep 2025) - a look back at the student protests of 1968 and "my year of being twenty"
Community (Sep 2025) - Maybe we just need more food and music in our lives
Autumn (2019) - Poets, composers, artists and philosophers celebrate the season.
Boomerland (2021) - Reflections on three Best Picture nominees from that year - Nomadland, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Three Poems, Three Takes on Getting Older (2022) - Each reading of a poem brings new insights.. "Autumn in Sigulda" contains a favorite passage that starts, "Thank you, Life, for having been..."
Guernica (2018) - the most powerful antiwar painting in all of Western art
From Guernica to Gaza: On the Detached Cruelty of Air Power (TomDispatch, 2025)
49 Literary Movies and TV Shows to Watch this Fall (Literary Hub, 2025)
The 6 superpowers that faith communities bring to nonviolent struggle | Waging Nonviolence, 2025)
A Single, ‘Naked’ Black Hole Rewrites the History of the Universe (Quanta Magazine, 2025)
Marcus Aurelius and Albert Camus on courage and hope in troubling times (2020) -Two writers separated by almost two millennia provide sage advice on confronting today's troubling times.
Powerful calls for peace and justice, freedom and equality from Dylan, Springsteen, Wilco, Disturbed, Green Day, The Clash, The Decemberists, and Roger Waters
Gerhard Richter - the twenty-first century's Picasso
The Lies America Tells Itself About the Middle East (Foreign Affairs)
Taking Stock of the Roberts Court at 20—and the Shadowy Forces That Built It – Mother Jones
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