spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/ne... Hawaii Act 011: “It simply defines the powers that the State grants to artificial entities [e.g., corporations] and makes clear that participation in election activity and ballot-issue activity is not among them.” How interesting!

www.glenstone.org If you haven’t visited Glenstone, in Potomac, Maryland, it’s a *Bucket List* destination 🎨 (Psst, it’s free!)

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... In case you don’t have time to read “London Falling,” here is a lengthy excerpt published in 2024. It is a fascinating story, featuring typically outstanding writing from The New Yorker✏️

I’m still thinking about this classic book!

apnews.com/article/king... Charles III said that the U.S. and the U.K. should “rededicate ourselves to each other in the selfless service of our peoples and of all the peoples of the world.” Quite a speech!

Revisiting a classic, which includes this comment: “It is the hallmark of the age—the less you exist the more important it is to make a clear impression.”

Fascinating on several levels. A key takeaway for me is this quotation: “Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.” TJR is a wonderful writer ✏️

www.newyorker.com/news/annals-... In the past fifty years, he said, North American waters have seen three catastrophic spills: Ixtoc I, in 1979; Exxon Valdez, in 1989; and Deepwater Horizon, in 2010….We’re just about due for another.” Aren’t wind & solar safer bets for future generations?

www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026... Sharon seems to harbor real affection for the texts he’s reinterpreting. “I’m not tearing down a statue—I am using the same clay,” he told me before an early rehearsal of Tristan last month. “The greatest form of critical engagement is an act of love.”

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led... “As the Columbia scholars Erica Downs and Jason Bordoff wrote in Foreign Policy, recently, China has been preparing…’by electrifying its economy, securing domestic sources of energy, amassing stockpiles, and dominating clean technology supply chains.’” Bill McKibben

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... “‘I’m not some tree-hugging fucking hippie,’ an activist named Erik Hayward, who had campaigned to save native forests in Tasmania, told me. ‘It’s not necessarily about the individual trees. It’s about a culture change.’”

Caught in the Net of Lauren Groff's "Brawler" chireviewofbooks.com/2026/02/24/_...

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01... “Published in Nature Sustainability, the findings have grave implications for humanity. The Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Laos, and Brazil are predicted to see the most significant increases in dangerously hot temperatures…”

Beautifully performed by Virginia Opera and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. The music + libretto = an intense evening at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts.

“The ethos was one of self-defense.” “In every interview, I asked two questions: (1) why did the radical environmental movement collapse in the early 2000s, and (2) what does the future of radical actions look like?”

Once again I ask: Does the American Bar Association still exist? If so, a sign of life might be helpful ⚖️

Trying to escape the madness on Hilton Head Island.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-... “Yet instruments are also tools, a way of making the marvellous sound from which their value is supposed to derive.” …..and Isserlis is a master craftsman!

Courage and patriotism run in this family🇺🇸

I’ve been thinking about this 1965 novel lately. (Is the past prologue, as Shakespeare famously said?)

A fascinating and tenacious subject—Claire McCardell + a serious researcher and wonderful writer—Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson = a sensational biography. Totally compelling 💯

www.yahoo.com/news/article... “In an era of disinformation, polarization and online outrage, democracy depends not on rote recall but on citizens who think critically, collaborate effectively and disagree civilly.”

www.fcnp.com/2025/12/23/a... “These small communities also score well in engagement, so residents have plenty of opportunities to socialize together, work together, build community together and effect positive change together.” Government at its best ✔️

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... “[Jefferson] Tester told me….that using electricity for heating is not nearly as efficient as using heat for heating. And geothermal wells for heating, which can be relatively shallow, can work in places with no hot springs or volcanoes.” Fascinating!

www.classical-music.com/articles/196... What a year 💯; what a list‼️; what music 🫶 My particular favorite is #8—“Between the Buttons,” by The Rolling Stones.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... A great irony hangs over Pärt’s career: the music that insured his later fame in the West wrecked his career in the Soviet Union. His urge to address religious subjects made his work largely unperformable, except in underground contexts such as the Riga discothèque.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... “[I]n areas near data centers, wholesale electricity costs have risen by more than two hundred per cent in the past five years. And rates will probably continue to increase—power plants can’t produce nearly enough electricity to meet the demand.” Ready or not‼️

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... “You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.” From the archives—Sound and humble advice from LBJ.

“How does one finish the sentence: ‘It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead, but…’”

Does the American Bar Association still exist? If so, a sign of life might be helpful ⚖️

“An unbounded place, a suspended jewel so shockingly bright. Can humans not find peace with one another? With the earth? It’s not a fond wish but a fretful demand.” [p. 108] A very different, but wonderfully written book.

www.newyorker.com/culture/list... “Riley replied…’I feel it’s my field to create magic in sound. Magic in the sense of transcendence of this ordinary life into another realm. An awakening, you know. To use music to try to awaken ourselves.’”

Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania—no words are necessary!

www.newyorker.com/culture/phot... “What I’m trying to capture,” van Wessel told me, “is a personal emotion, what moves me in the moment—clicking the shutter is not a matter of framing or light but, rather, you could say, a decision of the heart.”

www.newyorker.com/magazine/tak... “In reporting on the emerging science of pesticides, “Silent Spring” knocked some of the shine off modernity, nailing difficult questions to the door of the Church of Progress. Carson thought that man had grown overlarge and was upsetting a necessary balance.”

www.newyorker.com/culture/pers... “FM classical broadcasting is a shadow of what it once was. CDs are vanishing—vinyl LPs now sell more copies per year. At this point, the major labels are practically giving away disks, throwing them into large boxes…” Raise your hand if you have a CD player🖐️ (😆)

www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a... “Now you’ve got the utter devastation of an education system of children. A little girl said to me, ‘Look at me. I used to be beautiful, but now all I do all day is chase water trucks around.’”

www.newyorker.com/sports/sport... “He wasn’t talking about the old guard—it was Sinner against whom he gauged himself. “He and I have already had great battles on all surfaces and in various tournaments, and I believe we will fight together for major titles in the future as well.” Oh, I hope so 🎾

apnews.com/article/stra... “As Michael Luo’s “Strangers in the Land” demonstrates, understanding America’s efforts to keep Chinese laborers out, and the violence enacted against those who stayed in, is essential to understanding the evolution of America’s immigration system as we know it today.”

Fabulous music from Raphael Pichon and Pygmalion 🎶

www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a... “Rather, it’s the result of government policy—knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.” Strong words from the former prime minister!

Delightful!

www.npr.org/2025/05/27/1... “To his fans, as well as many critics, Carrie & Lowell was an unqualified success. The songs are startlingly intimate and at times spiritually euphoric, and are consistently ranked among Stevens' best and most affecting work.” Yes!

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202... “AV exhaled and sank her head into the bed of pale white flowers on top of her mom’s casket. “A tiny sob. Pianissimo.”

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led... “Rodriguez allegedly found two people, whose lives he knew nothing about, and made them die for Israel’s sins. That he killed a Christian and a Jew, one Israeli and one American, only underscores that their particular lives and histories and beliefs did not matter.”

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led... “From the outset, Putin saw the invasion as a way of forcing a larger conversation with the West on Russia’s terms, in which the whole of Europe’s postwar security architecture would be relitigated.”

Catawba College in North Carolina is hiring an assistant or associate level climate science faculty member who loves teaching and collaborative research. Check it out!

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led... “Two countries fighting is normal, but you have to protect us when you’re doing that,” she told me, a week after the largest tariff increases. “And I’m worried this change just makes rich people more rich, and poor people lose everything.”

wapo.st/4lMEQDA “….1 in 5 Americans — including one-third of those under 30 — telling the Pew Research Center last year that they get their news from influencers who specialize in current events.” The evolving landscape of news 🗞️

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... “Immediately, our conversation appeared as legible lines of translucent green text, which seemed to be floating in the space between us. ‘Holy shit,’ I said (duly transcribed).”