Happy Birthday Mel Brooks

Yesterday, in honor of Mel Brooks's (28 June 1926 -) 100th birthday, the local glorious old theater showed the movie "Young Frankenstein" (1974).  Tickets were just $7 and I was happy to attend.

There was a good crowd at the Virginia Theatre, though it wasn't packed.  Before the show, a live (adjective required?) organist played the Virginia’s historic two manual, eight rank Wurlitzer Hope-Jones orchestral pipe organ, installed during the original 1921 construction, to entertain us while we waited.  The organist sits at a console mounted on a podium in the orchestra pit that can be raised to stage height, as it was Sunday, and lowered again, as it was while the organist played his last tune of the day.

The crowd applauded the organist, and the beginning and end of the movie.  Mel Brooks would be happy to know that there was laughter in the theater, and audience members saying they had seen the movie in this theater in its original release. 

Climate.us

Climate.us today launched the full version of its new independent, nonprofit climate information website, creating a public-backed home for trusted climate science at a time when access to federal climate resources has become increasingly vulnerable to disruption.

Built by former members of the team behind the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's popular Climate.gov website, Climate.us will keep climate information accurate, accessible, scientifically rigorous, and useful for the people who rely on it, including educators, students, journalists, scientists, community leaders, local and state decision-makers, and members of the public.

The website features Climate.gov's 15-year collection of climate news and stories, expert blogs, visual status reports on key climate indicators, maps and data pathways, climate literacy resources, classroom materials, and restored access to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

-- Launch announcement from Climate.us, a non-profit created to host information formerly available at Climate.gov (23 June 2026)

MagnificaHumanitas

We cannot consider #AI to be morally neutral.  In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores, and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations.  Ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes.  It must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it.  #MagnificaHumanitas

For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions.  It must be possible to identify who must "account" for decisions, justify them, monitor them, and, when necessary, challenge them and remedy any harm caused.

-- Pope Leo XIV, posting as @Pontifex (25 June 2026)

Wind Through The Shutters

Nobody has ever thought himself to death.  The chief danger confronting us is not age.  It is laziness, sloth, routine, stupidity, -- forcing their way in like wind through the shutters, seeping into the cellar like swamp water.

-- Gilbert Arthur Highet (1906 - 1978), Scottish-American classicist, writer, and literary historian, The Immortal Profession: The Joys of Teaching and Learning (1976)

Leisure Moments

Leisure moments: each life well regulated has some such intervals, and he who cannot make way for them does not know how to live.

-- Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour (1903 - 1987), Belgian-born French novelist who wrote under the pseudonym Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (1951) p. 43

First Generation

This past Saturday we held our very first Gumdo (Korean sword) Black belt test at HMD Academy.  Five students successfully tested for Black belt in Gumdo, demonstrating 12 different cuts, special sword handling sequences, 8 forms (like poomsae or kata), and offensive and defensive partner work. 

These students signed up when we started our Gumdo program in March 2024.  All five benefited from their Taekwondo experience where they were already Black belts or Black belt candidates.  Three of the five were my students who train in Monticello, including David, previously mentioned here as a Taekwondo student and currently 2nd degree Black belt in Taekwondo.

These students will continue to advance their training.  We instructors are very proud of their accomplishments.  Haidong!

He Who Allows Me

He who allows me to rule is in fact my master.

-- Pierre Corneille (1606 - 1684), French tragedian, one of the three great 17th-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Jean Racine, Le Menteur (The Liar) (1643) Prusias, act II, scene i