There are presidential libraries and then there’s this presidential center. Hot dayum! 💚🔥

Oh, we had lots of teen magazines in my day promoting the teen heartthrob de jour. I don’t think they made it into book fairs, but it was so long I don’t really remember. 😁

And even if they are, I can care about other people and want to do things that helps them be included. Because they are my fellow humans. I don’t need things to happen to me to care about stuff.

I think the podcast This Week in Virology may have covered a paper or two on that topic. Some of the hosts are on this app, e.g., @bioprofbarker.bsky.social, @danielgriffinmdphd.bsky.social and @microbetv.bsky.social, if you want to ask them.

Ehh, sharks have more soul than that guy. Or is it sole? 🤔 Wah-wah. 😂 But seriously, at least sharks are useful to ecosystems and such. 😁

💯💯💯💯💯

Winter is coming, and we need to stay warm.

Same but as a former journalist. That said, is that really a “book” or is it marketing disguised as a book.

It always felt like they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick.

This dude reminds me of a newspaper company I worked for where corporate execs would roll out some new half-baked initiative that was supposed to make everything better. Except these ideas were never based on data.

(Also, I don’t think I articulated everything I’m feeling, and my use of logic in all of the above wasn’t as strong as it could be. My inner-anthropologist is trying to hypothesize about what I’m reading, watching and observing. It’s not fully formed in my mind yet.)

I feel like we’re going to get dragged into some dark hole before we say “fck this” and turn toward Enlightenment again. Into all that we could be if we embraced science, reason, humanism and progress.

And humans being humans, we don’t want to let go of our baser instincts, so we probably won’t ever fully live our ideals, but we can get closer.

The Civil War, in a sense, was our society again trying to reckon with the existence and conflict between our high ideals and our base habits. Current times have us again facing these two halves of our national identity.

Like Jefferson and others kept slaves, absorbed Enlightenment thought that said it was wrong, wrote about it being wrong, but still couldn’t end slavery and make it right.

Shoot the Founders weren’t even the same as the myth of the Founders. They didn’t want their businesses taxed by the crown into oblivion or to be forced to buy only British goods. They were driven by basic crap but inspired by Enlightenment idealism.

One of the people’s greatest interests is the premise that we all are equal, and if you want to overthrow something to establish or reinforce a hierarchy and privileged class, nope. You’re not the same as the Founders.