Dave Fortin

Can anyone make out what is on the paper that Richard Branson is holding up?

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism: “Once the moral person has been killed, the one thing that still prevents men from being made into living corpses is the differentiation of the in- dividual, his unique identity. In a sterile form such individuality can be pre- served through a persistent stoicism, and it is certain that many men under totalitarian rule have taken and are each day still taking refuge in this absolute isolation of a personality without rights or conscience. There is no doubt that this part of the human person, precisely because it depends so essentially on nature and on forces that cannot be controlled by the will, is the hardest to destroy (and when destroyed is most easily repaired ).”

Reading Rates Among American Adults — The Learning Scientists …the amount of time Americans spend reading for pleasure has decreased, on average, 3% each year for the past 20 years. In 2004, when I graduated high school, 28% of Americans read for pleasure. I thi...

www.learningscientists.org/blog/2025/12...

Of course, had Gore won NH (like every Democrat since), Florida wouldn’t have mattered.

The Kid has some stupid "special" class for the semester on entrepreneurship in 8th grade and had to come up with a product to develop and sell. Lame. I suggested they jazz it up with a Brockabrella:

Just shared with my students---thanks for the heads up! We recently read some extensive excerpts from Grant's memoirs and are watching Lincoln right now and they are very interested...

Retrieval practice is a powerful tool but it's often used in ways that are not supported by the evidence. Here are five principles to think about when trying to avoid lethal mutations and apply it more effectively. open.substack.com/pub/carlhend...

YouTube video by WMP Hulk Smashing Loki Scene | The Avengers

youtu.be/_RXW0XrQ1HU?...

YouTube video by Dropkick Murphys - Topic Who'll Stand With Us?

youtu.be/bxKfFmxpRHc?...

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism: “Through the creation of conditions under which conscience ceases to be adequate and to do good becomes utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total.”

Shapiro is not doing himself any favors by picking a fight with her either.

I took a convoy down that road a few days after the fact. Horrible stuff.

It's really a shame what happened with him---remember, he won every county in the state in the primary, often being the first major D candidate to campaign in the rural counties in decades.

His main primary opponent was True Centrist Conor Lamb (who might have been just as bad had he won).

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

The Italian neighborhood in St. Louis is called "The Hill" (Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola were from there) but my grandfather ALWAYS referred to it as "Dago Hill" and that's what I thought it was actually called as a kid.

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism: “This attack on the moral person might still have been opposed by man's conscience which tells him that it is better to die a victim than to live as a bureaucrat of murder. Totalitarian terror achieved its most terrible triumph when it succeeded in cutting the moral person off from the individualist escape and in making the decisions of conscience absolutely questionable and equivocal. When a man is faced with the alternative of betraying and thus murdering his friends or of sending his wife and children, for whom he is in every sense responsible, to their death; when even suicide would mean the immediate murder of his own family—how is he to decide? The alternative is no longer between good and evil, but between murder and murder. Who could solve the moral dilemma of the Greek mother, who was allowed by the Nazis to choose which of her three children should be killed?”

The problem is that they could recreate what happened after 2011--a bunch of aging veterans signed for long term and immovable contracts. If they resign Realmuto, in two years they'll have a core of 34 and 35+ y.o. guys in decline.

YouTube video by Springsteen Bruce Springsteen-I'll Work For Your Love -11/22/09 Buffalo, NY

I'll work for your love, dear
I'll work for your love
what others want for free
I'll work for your love

youtu.be/6MgLp46U4oo?...

The trick is to connect their Things to a good cause—Caro rightly says that once LBJ linked his ambition to civil rights, African Americans had their greatest champion of the 20th century.

I was at a training with Ilhan Omar a long time ago (years before she was a household name) and hung out with her a couple times there.

I say this not to namedrop, but because I remember that she was the most calm, gentle, unassuming person.

The POLAR opposite of how the right tries to profile her

I see you when you’re sleeping

Bluesky challenge: what is your favorite artwork from 50 years before you were born.

Jesus...

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism: “The next decisive step in the preparation of living corpses is the murder of the moral person in man. This is done in the main by making martyrdom, for the first time in history, impossible: "How many people here still believe that a protest has even historic importance? This skepticism is the real masterpiece of the SS. Their great accomplishment. They have corrupted all human solidarity. Here the night has fallen on the future. When no witnesses are left, there can be no testimony. To demonstrate when death can no longer be postponed is an attempt to give death a meaning, to act beyond one's own death. In order to be successful, a gesture must have social meaning. There are hundreds of thousands of us here, all living in absolute solitude. That is why we are subdued no matter what happens." [Arendt is quoting David Roussett]

When should kids get a smartphone? A CHOP study links owning one before age 12 to health risks. Kids who owned a smartphone by age 12 had a greater risk of depression, obesity, and insufficient sleep compared to those who didn’t, a CHOP study found.

Gift link: share.inquirer.com/Rhxvdq?utm_s...

Hire Kirk Ferentz!

Watched Midway (1976) again last night. Mostly holds up. Cast is great: Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston, Robert Wagner, and Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifume, Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Pat Morita, Cliff Robertson, Eddie Albert, Dabney Coleman, and a young Tom Selleck.

And after he kicks off, old ladies in the South will insist that he, like Elvis, faked his death and now walks the land doing good deeds along the way---sort of like a Fat Reacher.

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism: “The first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man. This was done, on the one hand, by putting certain categories of people outside the protection of the law and forcing at the same time, through the instrument of denationalization, the nontotalitarian world into recognition of lawlessness; it was done, on the other, by placing the concentration camp outside the normal penal system, and by selecting its inmates outside the normal judicial procedure in which a definite crime entails a predictable penalty.”

ChatGPT feels easier, but taking notes works better A new study shows that students feel more comfortable using ChatGPT, yet learn more from taking notes. Easy does not always mean effective.

ChatGPT feels easier, but taking notes works better

ChatGPT feels smooth and effortless. Learning does not. A new study shows that students remember far more when they take notes themselves. theeconomyofmeaning.com/2025/12/08/c...