Armistice Day

The eleventh day of the eleventh month has always seemed to me to be special.  Even if the reason for it fell apart as the years went on, it was a symbol of something close to the high part of the heart.  Perhaps a life that stretches through two or three wars takes its first war rather seriously, but I still think we should have kept the name "Armistice Day."  Its implications were a little more profound, a little more hopeful.

-- Walt Kelly (1913 - 1973), American animator and cartoonist, creator of the Pogo comic strip, Ten Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo (1959), p. 100

The Farce

Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.

-- Arthur Rimbaud (1854 - 1891), French poet, Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell) (1873)

Three Thousandths

[Kelly Holley-Bockelmann] tried to understand the vastness of space-time by imagining the history of the universe laid out across a 100-yard field.  The Earth was born at the 67-yard line.  Complex multicellular life formed after 96 yards.  Apes began to walk upright in the final two inches.  And all of human civilization -- the end of the ice age, the birth of agriculture, every war and every empire -- had come in the last three thousandths of an inch.

-- Eli Saslow, "The American Brain Drain Claims Another Scientist", New York Times (7 November 2026)

Refusing Themselves

The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing.

-- James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784 - 1859), English poet and essayist, Table-Talk (1851), p. 62

Exhausted

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

-- Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005), American playwright, essayist, and author, "The Year it Came Apart", New York magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 (30 December 1974), p. 30

Change Is Not Made

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

-- Richard Hooker (1554 - 1600), Anglican priest and influential theologian, as quoted in the preface of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Election Night

How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened?  The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men.  Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven.  If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.

-- Jeremiah S. Black (1810 - 1883), American statesman and lawyer.  He served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (1851-1857) and as the Court's Chief Justice (1851-1854), "The Third Term: Reasons Against It"; first published in The North American Review (March 1880)

Rock The Vote!

Rock the vote, people!

Black Belt Kudos

A shout out to 3 of my Taekwondo students who successfully tested for Black belt ranks at the Fall Full Rank test in October.  I've mentioned David a couple of times before -- he has now earned his 3rd-degree Black belt, and is a very accomplished martial artist.

Ruby joined the academy five years ago and has really taken charge of her martial arts training over the last year. She earned the rank of 1st-degree Black belt.

And last but not least, Henry also earned his 1st-degree Black belt. He joined the academy 4 1/2 years ago, and while preparing for his Black belt test he showed that he has matured and can focus on his work.

These students helped each other prepare throughout all of 2026. They're a good crop of Black belts.

RIP Patrick Stewart

I know that if it were all to end this evening, everything, I would be largely known for my work on Star Trek.  I would be Captain Picard.  Not Macbeth, King Lear, not Shakespeare, not any of those things, but Captain Picard.  And I am absolutely fine with that.

-- Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (13 July 1940 - 28 October 2026), English actor with a career spanning seven decades on stage, television, and film, nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, as quoted in The Captains, a series of interviews conducted by William Shatner, (1 October 2011)

Treacherous

Ideological data -- like personality data -- is treacherous when fed into a computer.  For by its use the loyalty and security board's failure or refusal to clear a person becomes a virtually incontestable ‘fact.'  All one has to do now is to press the ‘subversive' button and all the names of 'dangerous' people come tumbling out.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 28

I Voted

I voted.

I parked near the courthouse and went in to vote in person.  It was quick and easy, with no waiting.

Plan your vote today.  You can literally google "How to vote".  Then vote today, if you can and you're ready.

Don't forget to vote.

Never Trust An AI

You can never trust an AI's recommendation.  If you ask an AI to recommend a course of action, and there's any chance that pursuing that course of action could require the expenditure of resources, then that circumstance virtually ensures that the AI will provide a recommendation that results in benefits to the AI owner from the expenditure of those resources.  The recommendation itself is a vector for advertising.  Imagine asking an AI for stock tips, and the intrinsic conflicts of interest for a corporate AI answering the question.

-- Don Appleman (25 October 2026)

The More Sure I Am

The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.

-- James Clavell (1924 - 1994), Australian World War II veteran and POW, who became a novelist, screenwriter, and director, André Delambre in The Fly (1958) screenplay

You Can't Go Home Again

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time -- back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

-- Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900 - 1938), major American novelist of the early twentieth century, You Can't Go Home Again (1940) Book VI, Ch. 44: The Way of No Return

The Door Opens

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-- Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH (1904 - 1991), English novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic, The Power and the Glory (1940) Pt. I, ch. 1

Always The Same

We are always the same age inside.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, as quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946

A Matter Of Time

President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin's ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine.  Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration. 

Putin doesn't want peace.  Putin wants Ukraine.  I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia's military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.  

-- Former Vice President Mike Pence posting as @Mike_Pence (10 October 2026)

Bad Luck Follows

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

Studying Economics

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

-- Joan Robinson FBA (1903 - 1983), British post-Keynesian economist, Contributions to Modern Economics (1978) Chapter 7, "Marx, Marshall and Keynes", p. 75