The most recent in my series of aphorisms that have captured my attention.
I’ve long been a fan of the pithy proverb—a quote or bit of advice that contains truth in 20 words or less. The New York Times reports that “social media is an aphorism machine” but my love for the short and to-the-point adage is much more old school, coming from my Grandmother Brown who was known to say things such as: “The graveyard is full of people who thought the world couldn’t get along without them.”
Grandmother and Granddaddy Brown’s wedding picture
I admit I might have heard that particular one when she thought I was getting too big for my britches. Grandmother, who passed away in January of 1981, was definitely not a social media influencer, although her life had a great impact on mine.
Hope needs to lead to action, however, if we want it to be more than a feel good placebo. Which is where belief and feet come into play. We have to believe in a better future, a better world. Frank suggests that hope is “hearing the music of the future; belief is dancing to it.”
Frank, like my grandmother, is his own aphorism machine!
We often like to think of a world without injustice in the abstract. But Frank sets the record straight.
“I want something for my head. Instead, I am given something for my feet. Not a thing to understand, but a way to live.”
Over the past six months I have highlighted several sayings that helped me understand why hope, joy, belief, and action are so important to living into the life we are meant to live. I’ll begin with a writer who suggests that the simple act of winding the clock (or whatever the twenty-first century equivalent is) is an act of hope and anticipation.
“Hang onto your hat. Hang onto your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”
E.B. White
A comedian and a historian both suggest that we have more agency to change the world than we often realize.
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”
Robin Williams
“To live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Howard Zinn
Pope Leo XIV quotes St. Augustine about the importance of making sure that our actions begin with self-examination and commitment—there are those feet again—while Father Richard Rohr casts sainthood in a different light than what we often hear in church.
“If we want to change the times, if we want the world to live in peace, we must begin with ourselves”
Pope Leo XIV quoting St. Augustine
“Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one.”
Richard Rohr
And I’ll give Frank the last word in this section, as he brings belief to life.
“With the tragic events of Holy Week and the similarly tragic events in the news, it is important to remember that our faith does not explain the world. It guides us through a world we cannot understand.”
The Rev. Dr. Francis Wade
KINDNESS, COMMUNITY, LOVE
Many of my teachers and mentors push us to think differently about reality and what’s true. Historian and activist Rebecca Solnit turns our perception about wealth on its head.
“What if we imagined wealth as consisting of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to clean air and water, to good food produced without abuse of labor or nature?”
Rebecca Solnit
Lao Tzu and Martin Luther King, Jr. both ask us to think about love with a wider perspective.
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
Lao Tzu
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Father Rohr reminds us that forgiveness is at the heart of love. Oscar Wilde has another (ahem) take on forgiveness.
“Without forgiveness the logic of victimhood and perpetrator rules instead of the illogic of love.”
Richard Rohr
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Oscar Wilde
OTHER WORDS OF WISDOM
And finally, I included words of wisdom found from a wide variety of teachers, beginning with one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever known. Then Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel reminds us of how we truly understand the world: we face it with awe and wonder.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
Leonardo da Vinci
“The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.”
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Timothy Snyder and Carl Jung remind us of the dangers of individuals and governments who lie to get us to believe their version of reality, even when the lie is easily disproved (e.g., see Greenwatergate).
“Be alert to the use of the words ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism.’ Be alive to the fatal notions of ‘emergency’ and ‘exception.’ Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.”
Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny
“A lie would make no sense unless the truth was felt to be dangerous.”
Carl Jung
Quaker activist Parker J. Palmer ventures into the “don’t get too big for your britches” territory that my grandmother also favored.
“Today’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.”
Parker J. Palmer quoting his father
I’ll give the last word to Rebecca Solnit, one of my favorites. Solnit always likes to remind us, often through the use of great images, that history does not follow a linear path. And there is always more history to come.
“Cause and effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension.”
Rebecca Solnit
“We are always in one way or another in the middle of the story.”
Bold Fork Books specializes in “Cookbooks, food writing, and more.” Jane Bertch’s entertaining and engaging memoir falls into the “so much more than simply food” category.
Installment #9 in my series on the region’s independent bookshops.
Staff at Bold Fork Books on DC Independent Bookstore Crawl Day 2026
The shop was filled with other crawlers in April, so while we purchased two books we made plans to return as Candice had a special request that would take more time than the busy day allowed.
You may have noticed the binders of Gourmet magazine in the background of the photo above. Candice has Gourmets that go back to the 1960s, but she was missing 17 issues. We returned last week when Candice could have a longer conversation with the staff. They are now in the process of working through their collection to see what holes they can help plug.
That willingness to work with culinary-inclined customers is at the heart of what makes Bold Fork Books so special.
Cookbooks are the main ingredient at Bold Fork. However, the food writer Lisa Ruland notes that for her a cookbook is not just a block of recipes.
“Cookbooks are also memoir, travelogue, escapism, bedtime reading, teacher, friend, and a continual source of inspiration. (I get excited about fall cookbook season the way others may get excited about a Rolling Stones reunion tour.)”
And in answer to the question why anyone would want a cookbook when recipes are available on line, Bold Fork Books owner Clementine Thomas had this response:
“So actually, there’s a cookbook store in L.A. called Now Serving. I was reading an interview by one of the owners. And he said that going online to find a recipe is like when you have a song stuck in your head and you really just need to hear that song. But turning to a cookbook is like listening to the album beginning to end.
I think that cookbooks give us context, and there’s also so much beautiful storytelling that’s being done via cookbooks. I think people really respond to that, especially now. Having a trusted voice in the kitchen is all the more important when we’re all cooking from home a lot more.”
But one will find more than just cookbooks at Bold Fork Books. Which is how I came across a memoir about an American in the banking industry who was brazen enough to open a French cooking school. In Paris.
The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time; A Memoir (2025) by Jane Bertch is a story of reinvention, resilience, and resolve. At the age of seventeen Bertch and her mother travel from their home in Chicago to Paris on a graduation trip, where Jane’s high school French is met with derision and scorn. She vows never to return. Yet ten years later she finds herself back in Paris after a stint in London working for an American bank. She has been transferred and thrown into the deep water of the French financial world. Then as Jane realizes that she can make it in French banking she leaves in 2009 to open—of all things—a cooking school in Paris! Non! This just cannot be done. Except The French Ingredient—through delightful storytelling, astute observational skills, and a willingness to share doubts and failures—shows that not only can it be done, but our author/entrepreneur can thrive in the process.
There are wonderful tales and very real trials along the way. Real estate challenges. Volcanoes that deposit an ash cloud over Europe. Terrorists attacks. French bureaucracy. Pastry chefs who only think in precise, linear fashion. Pandemics. Through it all, Bertch keeps putting one foot in front of the other. She found people who believed in her. She learned that asking for help is not a weakness, but a strategy.
And through it all Bertch passes along tips and words of wisdom of how to deal with French etiquette, French ways, and just overall French psychology. My friend Janet Hulstrand—who has been featured here and here on MORE TO COME—interviewed Bertch for a recent edition of Bonjour Paris. She asked Bertch about the most important thing—or perhaps the most difficult thing—for Americans to understand about the French, and the French way of life. The author’s response reflects much about the lessons she conveys in this memoir.
“Oh, this is a big question [replied Bertch]. I think the most important thing—and also the most difficult—is learning to be comfortable with time. Time and relationships are completely intertwined in France, and they rely on each other. Time in all senses is important here. The time you take and dedicate to yourself and to others. The relationships that eventually develop through that investment. And then the time you use to cherish and build on what you’ve created. Whether it be a cup of coffee savoured alone, or a long stroll with a friend—the French understand that none of this can be rushed.
And then, the “non.” But here’s what I’ve learned after 20-plus years: the French “non” is almost never the end of the conversation. It’s the beginning. It’s an invitation to come back with a better argument, to show that you’re serious, to demonstrate that you’ve thought things through. But it can feel like a constraint.
I actually think there’s something deeply creative about constraint, and Paris is a city built on it. The rules, the formality, the “non”—these aren’t obstacles. They’re the structure within which something beautiful can emerge.”
Jane Bertch (credit: Katie Donnelly Photography)
This is, in its own way, a deeply creative work. The French Ingredient, like Bold Fork Books, is a little gem to be treasured and savored.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo of cheese by Jez Timms on Unsplash. Photos of book displays at Bold Fork Books by Sam Vasfi. Photo of Bold Fork Books staff by Candice Brown. Photo of Jane Bertch by Katie Donnelly Photography.
Taking the time to look at the unique connections to baseball found throughout all fifty states.
As the baseball season reaches its traditional midpoint—the All Star Game—MLB.com has been running an entertaining series of stories that highlight the game’s place as the national pastime. In celebration of our 250th anniversary the writers and editors have been featuring one baseball story from every state. There are unique connections to the sport, many unrelated to the big leagues.
“Take the Legion Collegiate Academy Lancers as an example, a high school team in Rock Hill, S.C., a suburb just down I-77 from Charlotte, N.C. Their Senior Night is an especially poignant one, with players taking on-field batting practice thrown by their fathers, and then running the bases one final time with a message playing over the speakers narrated by their mothers, who await them for a warm embrace at home plate. They call it ‘the last childhood lap before college and adulthood starts.’”
As the editors at MLB.com noted, it’s stories like these that might otherwise go undetected. These are the ones this project is attempting to highlight.
“That also means digging deep into the past, sometimes traveling all the way back to the 1800s for what is widely recognized as the first baseball game ever played, taking place in New Jersey. Or honoring the many Negro Leaguers who barnstormed their way across the country in the 1930s and ’40s to places like Miami’s Dorsey Park, where legends like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson took the field.”
And there are plenty of other great stories in this ongoing series.
I was taken with the high noon at midnight classic in Fairbanks, Alaska, having once visited the area near the summer solstice.
Snowshoe baseball in Alaska
Alaska has a long history with baseball. “Whalers and prospectors from the contiguous U.S., Asia and other parts of the world—holed up in the area for months—passed the time playing hardball on fields of ice and heavy snow . . . Snowshoe baseball was a fairly common activity.”
“And back on June 21, 1906, the area’s most famous baseball event, and one of the more unusual on Earth, began its inaugural foray into sports history. Two local bar teams in the gold-rich town of Fairbanks agreed to play each other in a game that would run through midnight because, well, they could: For 70 days, from about mid-May through mid-July, this part of Alaska sees about 24 hours of daylight—with the summer solstice on June 21 remaining the longest under the sun’s beams. So much so that no stadium light is needed to catch a pop-up or hit a curveball.”
Since 1960 the Alaska Goldpanners—a collegiate summer team based in Fairbanks—have hosted the event at Growden Memorial Park. They typically play local amateur teams or other summer college squads from around the country.
“The ‘Panners, as lovingly abbreviated by Fairbanksans, have popped in and out of the Alaskan Baseball League over the years—a summer circuit that, since its inception, has hosted some of the best college players and future pros in America. It’s toned down recently, but during certain time periods, it rivaled the Cape Cod League for collegiate summer league prominence.
Mark McGwire and Randy Johnson played for the Glacier Pilots. Jeff Kent and Paul Goldschmidt appeared for the Anchorage Bucs. Aaron Judge scouted moose by day and pitchers by night during the endless Alaskan summer.”
From Utah, there is another connection between snowy fields and baseball.
BYU Baseball field (credit: BYU Athletics)
The writers note that the baseball field at BYU, with snow-capped mountains rising beyond the wall, was made to be put on a postcard. But the state-of-the-art heating coils beneath the field can clear off the snow from the all-too-frequent blizzard to ensure that the games go on.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards by Jerry Reuss – 1996 via Wikimedia
The south end of Eutaw Street is a pedestrian walkway. Located inside of Camden Yards it serves as a primary entrance/exit but also as a gathering spot for fans to socialize and “to dine on ballpark fare, most notably at Boog’s BBQ—the famous barbeque stand named after longtime O’s slugger Boog Powell.”
“But watch where you step. Much of the southern half of the walkway is littered with bronzed plaques designed like baseballs, and at any time of day—before, during or after games—there may be somebody squatting down or hunching over to read one.
And there are a lot of them—134 on the ground for every in-game home run that landed there from 1992-2025, as well as two temporary markings for the pair hit so far in ‘26. There’s also an honorary plaque on the B&O Warehouse that runs parallel to Eutaw Street, marking the only ball to hit the historic brick building, which came off the bat of Ken Griffey Jr. in the 1993 Home Run Derby.”
Sometimes in the midst of the uncertainty and turmoil of life in America today, I search for a book that helps me remember what is good about our country. This year I went back to what was an instant classic, an intimate and very personal look at baseball history through the lives of the 100 greatest players of all time.
The Baseball 100 (2021) by Joe Posnanski—the self-described “writer of sports and other nonsense”—is characterized by the publisher as “a magnum opus . . . an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write.” It is pure baseball bliss. Posnanski originally wrote this over a 100-day stretch for the web pages of The Athletic. But the compendium is much more satisfying. First, the rankings are important—and instantly give the reader a chance to argue with Joe, which he encourages. But they serve the larger purpose of providing this talented writer and lifelong fan with a chance to explore baseball’s rich, deep, diverse, and at times challenging history. A history that—like all history—is under construction.
Since early May I’ve been re-reading this work on what is, in some instances, my fourth pass through this work. Truth in advertising, I did not go back and read every one of the 827 pages but that’s the joy of this book. You can dip in and out whenever you want. Chances are very good that you’ll find one or more of your favorites included. Number 1—in Joe’s book and mine—is Willie Mays. “The greatest baseball player is the one who lifts you higher and makes you feel exactly like you did when you fell in love with this crazy game in the first place.” Rest in Peace, the Say Hey Kid.
On the night before the midsummer classic, enjoy this little bit of baseball history for everyone.
Let’s play ball!
More to come . . .
DJB
UPDATE: Joe Posnanski had a segment of his post on July 17th that I agree with SO MUCH that I have to post it. Unfortunately it is a story about how the game has lost its way (at the MLB level).
BETTING ODDS NOW AVAILABLE!
“This is now at the top of the MLB App — ‘Betting odds now available.’ Arnold Rothstein looks down — or up, depending on your theological leanings — and smiles at what has become of the National Pastime. Owners hired the first commissioner to rid the game of gambling. Owners charge today’s commissioner to make as much money off gambling as possible.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I find MLB’s whole vibe so utterly distasteful, and I think it’s this: They’re constantly telling us that the game is not enough. Baseball is the best game there is. I know that not everyone thinks that — I know that most people don’t think that — but a lot of us do, enough of us do, and we fill the ballparks and watch on television and check the scores and buy the merch and spread the gospel and tell the stories and learn the history and follow the news. And we are constantly told that we don’t matter. MLB is always chasing theoretical new fans who apparently will only watch baseball if they can lose money in the process, who apparently want games constantly interrupted with endless patriotic displays and Boyz 2 Men mini-concerts, who apparently need constant diversions because baseball is not enough.
Betting odds now available.
Thank goodness MLB is now offering those. I wouldn’t have known where else to go to find them.”
Living in the past doesn’t honor the lives of those we have loved.
Candice and I attended a celebration of the life of Elizabeth Fisher late last month. We were both friends with this brilliant woman who was Professor Emerita and the long-time Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at The George Washington University. However various ties—including their work together on the healing ministry and a mutual fondness for long conversations over leisurely lunches—meant that Candice and Elizabeth had a special bond.
At the service I read a remembrance written by her cousin Bill Fawcett, who could not attend. Elizabeth’s parents passed away when she was a teenager and she went to live with her aunt and uncle, Bill’s parents. While Elizabeth went on to have a distinguished academic career as a classics scholar, Bill wanted us to know about her childhood. Of trips taken to hunting camps and lodges. Of her beloved parrots.
Bill Fawcett wrote a lovely piece about growing up with the person he knew as “Sister Betty” and he ended it with the David Harkins’ poem She is Gone.
You can shed tears that she is gone Or you can smile because she has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her Or you can be full of the love that you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember her and only that she is gone Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back Or you can do what she would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
I love so much about this poem, but I’m especially drawn to the line that calls us to be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
Elizabeth was a long-time member of the choir at St. Alban’s so it is appropriate to also remember her with a song. The St. Olaf Choir’s acapella version of Wondrous Love from the old Southern Harmony hymnal is a beautiful version that touches the soul.
I always admired Elizabeth’s quiet leadership at St. Alban’s, especially in the ministry of healing. I believe her legacy there will be in the reminder that while pain―physical, emotional, spiritual―is often deeply personal, healing happens best in communion and community. She lived that out every day through the way she lived and through the ministry she established which touched so many lives and lives on in different ways in the church today.
Five books at a minimum. Every month. A variety of topics from different genres. Here is the list from June 2026.
American Visions: The United States, 1800 – 1860 (2023) by Edward L. Ayers is an illuminating synthesis of the six decades leading to the Civil War, showing how a broad cast of characters came together to shape the volatile new nation. Ayers interests and scholarship are so wide—with subjects including “authors, reformers, pseudoscientists, mystics, showmen, and more”—that any listing of the people and voices found in this work will be inadequate. But one never loses the thread and readers are brought along by Ayers skill at weaving these many pieces into one fascinating, mind-expanding, and enlightening fabric. It was a time when “bold men and women in the new United States spoke without permission and often in defiance of those who held power . . . Their visions remain powerful—and necessary—generations later.”
The Gardens of Emily Dickinson (2004) by Judith Farr joins “both poet and gardener in one creative personality.” Dickinson’s passion for gardening was intrinsic “both to her personality and to a much larger movement in American culture,” especially in nineteenth century literature and painting. In this deftly written and beautifully illustrated work, Farr takes the reader into the various “gardens” of Dickinson’s life: the wildflowers in the nearby woods, the blossoms from the cultivated plot at her father’s home, the exotic species from the conservatory that allowed her year round pleasure, and finally the gardens in her mind which served as “a summary synonym of life itself.” Dickinson said that her garden was her church. Judith Farr, with impressive scholarship but even greater love and affection, opens this world to those of us fortunate enough to discover this timeless work.
Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (2026) by John Garrison Marks takes a deep and insightful look into how we as a country have wrestled with Washington’s conflicted status as one of the nation’s most prolific enslavers and the architect of one of its largest private emancipations. It is a debate that began days after his death in 1799 and continues to 2026. In the first two decades following his passing the American public created a myth of an infallible father and erased slavery’s centrality to Washington’s life. The time leading up to the Civil War and the 1932 Washington Bicentennial—celebrated during an era of rapid and often unsettling change—were other milestones that brought the issue to a head. Marks brings this thoughtful and revelatory work to a close by studying the way Washington and slavery were taught in the American classrooms of the 20th century and how the issue was treated by the stewards of his home at Mount Vernon. “Commentary about Washington and slavery—denouncing his slave owning, praising his emancipation, or silencing the issue altogether—is always about much more” than a simple debate or conversation.
Levels of the Game (1969) by John McPhee is a masterpiece of the writing craft. The precision that is at the heart of McPhee’s writing shines through in the choice of words, the form, the shifts in tense, the images he creates, the poetry in his prose. The frame of the book is the 1968 U.S. Open semifinal match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. There is the description of four sets of tennis, played in bright sunlight before 14,000 spectators. On one level it is sportswriting. On another it is a joint profile, complete with backstories and long flashbacks and interludes, of two players from very different backgrounds at the top of their game. On yet another it is a time capsule of an America recently torn apart by the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Finally, it is also “a highly original way of looking at human behavior.” The writing comes to life with the style and verve of a well-placed backhand return of a scorching serve. It is, as so many have said, a remarkable performance.
The Man Who Died Twice (2021) by Richard Osman returns us to Coopers Chase, a high-end peaceful British retirement village where four residents turned septuagenarian sleuths meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes from old police files. Ex-spy Elizabeth Best; Joyce Meadowcroft, who retired after a career in nursing; the tattooed former union organizer Ron Ritchie; and Ibrahim Arif, an Egyptian-born semi-retired psychiatrist call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. The story begins as Douglas Middlemiss, Elizabeth’s second husband, asks for her help with a case. The bodies pile up quickly and it is clear that the murderer has no qualms about killing more, including our Murder Club members. There are twists and turns throughout that are as surprising as the final outcome in this book that will lead you to laugh, tear up, think, and ultimately compel you to turn page-after-page. Getting to the conclusion is just as much fun and pleasurable as in the debut of this series.
The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change (2026) by Rebecca Solnit is the eighth in a series of Haymarket Books by the longtime climate and human rights activist, historian, and writer. Solnit takes the reader back to times when those pushing for change appeared to be swimming upstream. We discover how seeds are planted and nourished even in dark, difficult times. The fierce backlash that comes against the future is made by enemies who “believe in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves.” Those who believe in an interconnected, mutually supportive, and more open world have been far more successful than we believe. For those who take the time to stop and consider where we’ve come from, we see the old orders that have fallen apart, the systems that no longer work, the assumptions that no longer fit. It is easier to see the old world dying than the new world being born. Solnit wants us to not only see that new world, but to work together to hasten its coming.
Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (2014) by Rowan Williams is a clear, accessible, and thought-provoking work; simple to read and yet profound in its approach to what it means to be a Christian in today’s world. As the title suggests, Williams looks at four elements that cut across almost every part of Christendom beginning with baptism, the act that brings us into full membership in the church. Christians read the Bible and gather to share bread and wine in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Finally, Christians pray, with many incorporating the prayer passed along by Jesus into their worship service. Some traditions of the church have other elements that are important to them to varying degrees but Williams wants to focus on what brings us together, not what divides. As one reviewer notes, Williams entices us all to go deeper by reviewing the basics. “It takes a theologian of depth to write a simple book about complex concerns.”
WHAT’S ON THE NIGHTSTAND FOR JULY (Subject to change at the whims of the reader)
The world showed up, fell in love with ordinary America and reminded us why this country is still worth fighting for.
In today’s America of culture wars, obscene wealth, endless scams, masked terrorists riding public transit, rampant racism, corrupt justices, and feckless office holders, it is easy to hate what one sees and transfer that to others. Or worse, to our country.
When the man at the top of this thumb on the scale, finger in your eye type of public life inserts himself into everything—and I mean everything—and then day-after-day consistently proves that he is incapable of even throwing a decent anniversary party, we too often want to scream. Shut out those who we perceive as supporters of this type of ineptitude and polarization. Assume that the whole thing is not worth saving.
They want you to hate, because in their mind it justifies their hatred. It also takes your eyes away from the corruption.
Just when you thought we’d lost everything, who could have known that a world full of football fans would invade America and help us see what’s right, what’s beautiful, what’s crazy quirky, and most importantly what’s loveable about this country of ours.
Jessica Craven recently posted a link to a piece in The American Pamphleteer newsletter which she introduced by saying “This piece will delight you.” It certainly delighted me. The piece is titled I Was Wrong About the World Cup and I urge you to read the whole thing. As another commentator suggested, have a tissue nearby, because it winds up hitting you in the heart.
After confessing that she thought “the whole spectacle would be a five-week humiliation reel,” the author admits she was wrong:
“. . . what has unfolded instead is one of the sweetest, strangest, most culture-affirming things I have seen in a long time.
It has not felt like an invasion. It has felt like a great big international sleepover where everybody brought a flag, learned one another’s songs, got sunburned, ate too much, cried at midfield and discovered that America is not only the place they see in disaster clips, shooting headlines, political horror shows and social media sneer-posts . . .
We need to see the world come here and find joy in us. We need to see strangers fall in love with our ordinary. We need to see our cities become meeting places instead of battlegrounds. We need to hear other people sing our songs badly and beautifully. We need to watch them eat our ridiculous food and call it wonderful. We need to remember that culture is not just museums and monuments . . .
This World Cup has not fixed America . . . But it has done something I did not expect.It has let us see America loved from the outside.
And sometimes, when you are tired, furious and half-convinced the whole thing is beyond saving, that matters. Sometimes you need to watch a crowd go still for the national anthem and remember why your throat tightens. Sometimes you need to see visitors cheer for our cities, laugh with our people, eat our food and sing our songs before you can feel, again, that this place is not only what has been done to it.
It is also what is still alive in it.
And that’s why we fight.”
In spite of everything we’ve been through since 2016, what the World Cup fans discovered was that the better America still exists. Yes, Donald Trump inserted himself into our lives and instantly killed some of the vibe. As Heather Cox Richardson noted, “a world in which playing fields are level is not the world Trump wants. He wants one in which people in power can ignore the rule of law for their own ends.” He called his friend, another corrupt authoritarian, and worked to get a suspended U.S. player reinstated.
Irony of ironies is that the player he got reinstated, striker Folarin Balogun, is a birthright citizen. Yep, those people that Trump, Stephen Miller, and four justices on the Supreme Court love to hate. Balogun’s Nigerian parents were living in London when they took a trip to New York in the summer of 2001.
“The trip proved fateful. Balogun’s mum was not allowed on the flight home when airline attendants realized she was heavily pregnant, and instead of being born in the English capital, he arrived into the world in Brooklyn, New York on July 3, 2001.
Being born in Brooklyn meant Balogun was automatically granted US citizenship under the country’s birthright citizenship laws—based on the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.”
Consistency of thought is not our president’s strong suit. In this instance Trump acted to make it clear that America’s birthright citizens are crucial to U.S. success. Journalist and lawyer Marcy Wheeler wrote that “If I were Stephen Miller, I would resign on what other people call principle.”
But we can see our way through. Just look to the New York Knicks. Donald Trump showed up at Madison Square Garden during the NBA Finals, turned the mood sour, and the Knicks lost their only game in an amazing playoff run. But they recovered—thanks to an otherworldly OG Anunoby tip heard ’round the world—restored the vibe and went on to become NBA champions.
Yes, the world’s going to hate what Trump did in our name to try and rewrite the rules. Those who thrive on hate, from all political perspectives, will tell us that the vibe is lost. But that will pass unless we let it eat us up.
Instead let’s remember that the world has reminded us that there’s still plenty worth fighting for in this country. As Lady Libertie wrote in her post quoted above, love for the promise of our country still matters.
“It matters because Americans have been force-fed contempt for ourselves for years. Some of it we earned. Let’s not get precious. We have real violence here, real poverty, real cruelty, real corruption, real democratic danger. Nobody needs to put a doily over the rot and call it patriotism. That is not love.
But the opposite is just as dangerous.”
Love trumps hate. Always.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo of DR Congo vs Uzbekistan World Cup Match in Atlanta by Olympic.uz CC via Wikimedia Commons
Laila Lalami’s debut novel takes us into the hopes and fears of modern Morocco with subtlety and grace.
Installment #8 in my series on the region’s independent bookshops.
Our recent trip to Morocco led me to want to know more than could be seen through the eyes of well-trained guides. I mentioned my interest and a friend recommended a novel by a Moroccan-American writer that was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize in 2014. When I stopped in a bookstore as part of my 2026 quest to visit all 29 DC-area independent bookshops the helpful clerk said that particular book was sold out but . . . they happened to have the author’s first work as well as her most recent. Would I be interested?
Of course! Which is how I came to read this compelling work of fiction that introduced the world to a talented voice who writes about her home country “without the expatriate’s self-indulgent and often condescending nostalgia,” as Pankaj Mishra noted inThe New York Review of Books.
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005) by Laila Lalami is a story of dreams, determination, displacement, heartbreak, and perseverance. It captivates the reader and leads us to care about these four characters who find themselves on a small, inflatable boat headed for Spain. With spare prose, sharp insight, and a sympathetic gaze, Lalami begins with the harrowing crossing of the Mediterranean by illegal migrants after paying large sums of money they really couldn’t afford. Crowded into the boat, they are taken only to where they could swim to shore before being deposited in the rough waters to fend for themselves. Some are met by Spanish Coast Guards. Others slip away. Lalami then returns to the time before the trip, to help us see what would drive them to such desperate measures. The book’s second half picks up their journey after they reach the Spanish coast.
There is a vibrancy in Lalami’s storytelling. And a sympathetic ear.
The author describes how she read article after article in 2001 about arrests of illegal immigrants by the coast guards on either side of the Mediterranean.
“[T]here was even a slang term in Moroccan Arabic for these migrants—harragas, meaning ‘those who burn.’ Whether they were burning their papers, their lives, or their futures, I couldn’t tell.”
As she researched the subject, Lalami turned to fiction to help her understand their motivations.
“I had been writing fiction for many years, and I thought that the answers to my questions might lie in creating a story about a group of harragas. I set the action on a lifeboat, at sea, in the middle of the night. The characters grew over the course of several months. There was Murad, an unemployed young man who feels emasculated by his sister’s ability to provide for the family; Faten, a fanatically religious girl on the run from the law; Halima, a mother who takes her children with her on the boat; and Aziz, a mechanic who leaves his wife behind to try and find a job.”
In setting the context for their perilous journey, and then in showing us how their subsequent lives differed from their dreams, Lalami has provided us with a thoughtful, timely, and empathetic look into people—not very different from you and me except for the circumstances of their birth—who dared to hope. These characters have stayed with me even after I finished the book. And Lalami’s novel has me eager to read the other works she has completed since her debut.
I bought the book at Bol; a worker-owned cafe, bookstore, and event space in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington DC. After a short ride down from Silver Spring on the Metro, I walked into the store on a busy Friday afternoon. The staff was setting up for an event but they stopped to help me when I explained my bookstore quest and asked for assistance.
“The word Bol means speak in Urdu and Hindi. Bol Cafe will set itself apart from other bookstore cafes by adopting the worker-owned cooperative business model and is based on the ideals of racial justice and economic democracy. We aim to serve as a model for creating wealth in the community by becoming a destination for DC residents who are interested in social justice, engaging conversations, reading groups, and stimulating talks in a relaxing atmosphere.”
The shop is small but inviting, and it features a table in the middle for group discussions. The Coop’s booklist is diverse and comes with the promise that you will find at least one title that you have never seen before. A quick scan shows books from or about Iran, Bolivia, Venezuela, Palestine, Black Women, Native Americans and much more.
One of the DC region’s newest bookshop, Bol fills an important niche, reminding us to expand beyond what we think we know to hear other voices and perspectives.
On the 250th anniversary of its signing, remembering that the Declaration of Independence was the original NO KINGS document. Three iconic songs from our past bring that point home.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
THE RADICAL IDEA THAT SET THE STAGE FOR A STRUGGLE LASTING 250 YEARS
Until the extreme heat that has settled over the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend caused its cancellation, we would have been doing what we do each July 4th: attending the Takoma Park Independence Day Parade. So I’ll probably take a stroll through past posts and pictures—like the one above of Congressman Jamie Raskin at the 2022 parade—that ended up in the New York Times.
The Founders who signed the Declaration understood “men” to mean “white men.” I get that. Black and indigenous men and women of all races were not included at the time. Nonetheless, in an era of monarchies it was pretty radical to suggest that everyone from the king down to the lowliest farmer was created equal. That self-evident truth set the stage for a struggle that has now endured for 250 years. A struggle, as Abraham Lincoln so memorably phrased it at Gettysburg 87 years later, to see “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
America survived the attempt by Southern oligarchs during the Civil War to restructure the nation so that some people would be seen as better than others. Rights were expanded over time to include Black men, other men of color, and women. Two steps forward were often followed by one (or more) steps back.
This July 4th we are still fighting battles with people who believe they are superior to their fellow citizens and should be allowed to live with a different set of laws. Or above the law. But basic decency tells me that we must push back against those who want to rule as tyrants or kings.
My new t-shirt, just in time for July 4th!
To me, July 4th is about battling oppression and tyranny while honoring the truth that all people are created equal.
MAKING STATEMENTS IN A WAY OUR OFFICIAL ANTHEM NEVER CAN
Mississippi Freedom Singers from the 1960s
To my mind three songs exemplify the higher ideals that animate the Declaration of Independence. The first was written at the beginning of the Civil War. The second is a classic written by an American folk singer who fought tyranny through music. The third is a stirring anthem that came out of a time of deep oppression. All touch my heart in different ways.
Jake Lundberg writes in the cover story for the current issue of The Atlantic that Julia Ward Howe’s poem The Battle Hymn of the Republic—first published in the magazine in 1862—is both an explication of the promise of America and an exhortation to persevere on behalf of the country. The magazine’s editor picks up the story:
“The ‘Battle Hymn,’ Lundberg argues, is our unofficial national anthem, one more relevant through the ages than the actual anthem, the difficult-to-sing by-product of a minor war. ‘By the time of the Great Depression,; he writes, ‘the Battle Hymn had achieved a truly national character. The song’s stature is such that it can be used to make a statement in a way that the official anthem never can.’”
As opposed to the Star Spangled Banner, which opens with a question, when we sing the Battle Hymn “we don’t ask a question. We testify.”
“’Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,’ we proclaim, before working through four more stanzas of earnest witness—seeing, hearing, and feeling God’s wrath on the way to service in a great national cause.
Andersonville National Cemetery, Andersonville, GA (Photo by Scott Dressel on Unsplash)
The difference between the two songs is more than a matter of syntax. Though notoriously difficult for vocalists, The Star-Spangled Banner . . . is not a challenging text. The ‘Battle Hymn’ “is easier to sing, but harder to reckon with.” Especially when the final verse is unaltered from Howe’s original version.
“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.”
It is one of three songs that far outpace The Star Spangled Banner in honoring the promise of America.
I happen to believe that the Woody Guthrie 1940 classic This Land is Your Land should be the national anthem. It makes a powerful point but avoids the Christian imagery—moving as I find it—in the Battle Hymn. No less an authority than Bruce Springsteen has said, This Land is “one of the most beautiful songs ever written about America.”
Guthrie was hitchhiking his way to New York City when he became upset over hearing the Kate Smith version of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America over and over again during the trip. Guthrie sat down and wrote a song in anger, but his revisions over time turned it into one of the most shared and beloved songs in our nation’s history. I’ve posted various versions before, including the unvarnished recording from Woody and terrific live versions from Sharon Jones and Bruce Springsteen.
Today, for a number of reasons, I want to feature folk icon Pete Seeger and Springsteen singing this at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over the beautiful Reflecting Pool, with tens of thousands at the Obama Inauguration in 2008.
The third song I want to celebrate on this 250th anniversary is known as the “Black National Anthem”—none other than the soul-stirring Lift Every Voice and Sing.
Sanitation Workers in March 1968 outside Clayborn Temple (photo credit: Ernest C. Withers/Withers Family Trust)
With words by James Weldon Johnson and music by his brother John, Lift Every Voice and Sing was written at the turn of the 20th century, a time when Jim Crow laws were beginning to take hold across the South and Blacks were looking for an identity. In a way that was both gloriously uplifting and starkly realistic, it spoke to the history of the dark journey of African Americans. “It allows us to acknowledge all of the brutalities and inhumanities and dispossession that came with enslavement, that came with Jim Crow, that comes still today with disenfranchisement, police brutality, dispossession of education and resources,” Shana Redmond—author of Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora—says. “It continues to announce that we see this brighter future, that we believe that something will change.”
The version I learned was from the hymnal that you hear in churches and concerts and seen here from late November 2016—an especially auspicious time—at Abyssinian Baptist Church.
On the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, yes let’s celebrate. But let’s also resolve to keep working, as so many have done before us, to claim the true promise of America, a country where all are created equal and have a voice in our government, not just the wealthy, the white, the privileged.
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo of University of Virginia copy of the Declaration of Independence by Dan Addison, University Communications
Short takes on topics delightful, powerful, destructive and dumb from posts that had been drafted but weren’t ready as stand-alone pieces in prime time. (Now with a few updates.)
Opinions are just like noses. Everybody has them. Here are a few of mine.
GOOOOOOOOOOOAL
Netherlands vs Tunisia at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City by CNC33 via Wikimedia Commons
Let’s begin with something that’s right with the world.
I, too, have become a fan of Telemundo’s World Cup coverage without understanding a word the announcers are saying. Andrew, who speaks pretty fluent Spanish, had to admit that the announcers’ diction was flawless but they spoke so fast that he only picked up about half of what they were saying. And that’s Hay’s point when he cites “one of the best discoveries of my trip to the 2026 World Cup: Telemundo’s television match commentary.”
“I’ve been hooked on it ever since, flying blind without the faintest idea of what is going on in the commentary booth. I can’t recommend the mystery enough.
Conversely, in this scenario, not speaking Spanish is a bonus because it turns Telemundo into a theme-park ride where you’re in the dark and unable to see where the tracks are going next. The enthusiasm of the commentators is unrivalled and scary, bordering on cardiac arrest. I could take them to Peterhead versus Arbroath, north coast of Scotland, middle of December, midweek night with a crowd of 345, and they’d turn it into Lionel Messi’s finest hour. We’re about 40 matches into the World Cup, and I haven’t heard them phone it in once. Every day is a fresh start.“
Hay notes that they talk incessantly, and that’s great.
“Listening to it is like being at the lights with a Mustang next to you, revving its engine. Sometimes it’s roaring, sometimes it’s purring, but it’s always ticking over.”
UPDATE #1: Right on cue, legendary announcer Andrés Cantor calls the amazing goal by USMT member Malik Tillman against Bosnia—Herzegovina in the World Cup Knockout Round of 32. It just reinforces Hay’s point. One commentator said, “It’s perfect. It’s hysterical. Maybe the best call ever.” I don’t disagree.
FEED THE HUNGRY. CLOTHE THE POOR. LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. HOW VERY RADICAL.
Pope Leo XIV greets Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, who led the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople sent by Patriarch Bartholomew, during the Mass for Saints Peter and Paul at St. Peter’s Basilica on June 29, 2026 (from Letters from Leo)
I have become a big fan of Christopher Hale’s Substack Letters from Leo. As I wrote a few days ago, Hale is from my hometown, growing up in Murfreesboro’s St. Rose of Lima Catholic Parish with “the kind of Southern Catholic upbringing where you learn early that your faith puts you at odds with polite company.”
While there is zero chance I’ll be converting, I am enjoying watching and listening to this pope carry forward the work of his predecessor, Pope Francis. Leo is working from a conviction that it is important, as he said recently, to “resist the commodification of basic human needs. Food, water and healthcare cannot be subordinated to market considerations or geopolitical interests. Access to adequate food is a fundamental human right grounded in the dignity of every person.”
Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Love your neighbor. How very radical.
“[It] was, in its quiet way, beautiful. He turned to the keys of Peter, the symbol stamped on every image of the first pope, and refused the obvious reading of them.
‘A key does not break down doors,’ he said. ‘Rather, it opens and closes them by finding the proper levers within and guiding their movements, so that locks may release, bolts withdraw, and doors turn freely on their hinges, thereby joining rooms together and transforming many isolated spaces into one welcoming home.’”
Imagine leaders who listen, who work to build up rather than tear down.
LET’S TALK ABOUT AI
Some people—I am even close friends with a few—love AI and what it promises.
I learned from a recent piece by Eve Fairbanks in The Atlantic—The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI—that the sentence in the paragraph above is one that tutorials on how to strip the telltale signs of AI use from your writing would hate. Those tutorials tell you to “get rid of em dashes” and colons. I LOVE em dashes AND I’m pretty fond of colons as well, sometimes even in the same sentence. I’ve been using them for years. But I suspect that no one believes I use AI to write these posts.
Leonard Pitts, Jr.—who I have long admired as a deep thinker and terrific writer—also has a piece I commend to you entitled This Was Written by a Human Being. I would love it for this sentence alone:
“I am a worshiper at the First Church of the Written Word, a lover of language, a student of its rhythm, its music, its violence and its power.”
There are all sorts of reasons to be very wary about AI. Let’s begin with the folks who are behind it and what they are doing to build artificial intelligence. Actually, I’ll just let Naomi Klein say it for me.
Naomi Klein writes a great deal about the dangers of AI. If you want to go deeper, watch the video where she is joined by tech analyst, journalist, and author Paris Marx to break down the dangers behind Silicon Valley’s push for an AI-centered world, including for the environment, education, and democracy.
Finally, Pope Leo also weighed in on AI with his Magnifica Humanitas encyclical (read it here). As John Sarvay writes:
What Pope Leo did with Magnifica Humanitas is reclaim something the tech industry has quietly seized: the moral authority to decide what these tools are for, who they serve, and what we owe each other in their wake. And beneath that political claim, a deeper one: that while AI models “may imitate language, behavior… or even simulate empathy,” they are fundamentally empty of what makes us human.”
Christopher Hale has, as you would expect, written thoughtfully and extensively about Magnifica Humanitas. Here are four essays that you may find of interest.
As Pitts says, stories are how we explain ourselves to ourselves. That requires us to think. If we turn everything over to AI we stop thinking.
CARS AND TRUCKS ARE TOO D**N BIG
This is an appropriate size for a pickup truck. Photo by Anthony Wright via Pixabay.
I hate large SUVs. They take up way more space on the road than they need to. The drivers can’t see pedestrians (so pedestrian and cyclist deaths are up). And for me, their lights shine right in my eyes, blinding me as I drive.
“For decades, American roads were steadily getting safer for pedestrians. But around 2009, the trend reversed. Since then, the number of pedestrians killed each year has risen by about 75 percent.
The surge in pedestrian deaths has baffled researchers. Most other wealthy countries haven’t seen similar increases, suggesting that possible culprits like smartphones don’t tell the whole story . . . the trend toward ever-larger vehicles has received much less scrutiny, even after federal researchers in 2022 cautioned regulators that it was endangering pedestrians.
After analyzing federal and industry records, including never-before-examined data on vehicle dimensions, we found that the rise of large pickups and S.U.V.s is an important factor.”
“IT IS THE JUDICIARY’S DUTY TO CHECK LAWLESSNESS, NOT EXPEDITE IT”*
The fact that the birthright decision was not a 9-0 vote based on the very clear text of the 14th Amendment shows how corrupt this bunch is. As one commentator noted, “Sam, Clarence and Neil voted against the original text of the 14th amendment because, well, you need to pretext the original text to understand how they really feel about it, see?”
This cartoon from the decision to gut the Voting Rights Act in 2023 still stands.
There are too many decisions where the court has decided that it knows better than the founders, the Constitution, and 250 years of political practice to list them all, but the Slaughter decision this week—allowing the President the power to fire the members of independent regulatory agencies, thus granting the office even more power—is worth noting. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing:
“Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong…. [T]he Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”
Justice Elena Kagan succinctly spelled out so many of the problems with this current court in her 2023 dissent to Biden v. Nebraska:
“…the Court, by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”
John Roberts is the worst Chief Justice since Roger Taney, and all six of the conservative justices lied about their respect for precedent at their confirmation hearings to gain a seat on the high court. What’s 90 years of precedent, as in the Slaughter case, when you have an ideology to impose on the nation?
Justin Briley writing in Liberal Currents, considers why Greenwatergate has stuck when so many other incidents have not in a post entitled Let Us Reflect.
“Call it Greenwatergate. In the ruined ripples of the Reflecting Pool, between the lines of his panicked attempts to backfill excuses and deflect blame, in the swirling foam of hydrogen peroxide and algal blooms, perhaps here, through the fog of whatever ails him, he begins too late to confront the true and complete shape of the man in the mirror.”
Have a wonderful day.
More to come . . .
DJB
*A quote from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in last year’s case permitting the dismantling of the Department of Education.
Photo from 2026 World Cup by Omar David Sandoval Sida via Wikimedia Commons
In his recent 39 (Or So) Lessons On The Way To 39, author and independent bookstore owner Ryan Holiday had this as one of his lessons learned:
“I think most people should consume less news and read more books. Less news, more books. More history. More poetry. More literature. More philosophy. More myths. Because you know what those stories are about? They’re about what’s happening now!”
I’m right there with him. To help me with that goal, regular readers know that in 2026 I have two reading-related challenges underway (and a third one on the horizon . . . check below the fold, as they say):
The second is the result of a gift from my friend and Brilliant Reader Margit who slipped a note and a piece of paper into a book she loaned me. The paper had the look and feel of an old library card. Instead of a library card, however, it was a Reading Challenge 2026 list from Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, MT, near where she visits a family home. I was hooked and immediately accepted the challenge.
At this mid-point in the year, I thought I’d provide an update on my progress!
INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS VISITED AND REVIEWED
As an update, here are the seven independent bookstores I’ve visited so far in 2026 where I have posted reviews of the shop and the book I purchased there:
Wonderland Books, Bethesda (see my review of Death in the Strike Zone: The Mystery of America’s First Baseball Hero)*
INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS VISITED BUT NOT YET REVIEWED
Here are the nine independent bookstores I’ve visited so far in 2026 where I have purchased a book but still need to post a review.
Bergstrom Press & Books, Kensington (review of Karl Schlögel’s Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland to come)
Bol Coop Bookstore, Brookland (review of Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits to come next Monday)
Bold Forks Books, Mt. Pleasant (review of Jane Bertch’s The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time; A Memoir to come)
JF Books, Dupont Circle (review of Yiyun Li’s Things in Nature Merely Grow to come)
Kensington Row Bookshop, Kensington (review of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s to come)
Kramers, Dupont Circle (review of Megan Kate Nelson’s The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier to come)
Laurel Leaf, Takoma Park (review of Charles King’s Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreamsor Christopher Oldstone-Moore’s Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair to come)
Lost City Books, Adams Morgan (review of Molly Crabapple’s Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund to come)
Second Story Books, Dupont Circle (review of Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to come)
BOOKSHOPS THAT REMAIN ON MY TO-BE-VISITED LIST
And here are the thirteen independent bookshops I’ve yet to visit in 2026.
If one of these shops is among your favorites and you’d like to show it to me, reach out and let me know. Lunch or coffee and a bookstore visit with a friend is a great way to spend a day!
So I’m a little more than halfway home with my independent bookshop visits and I’m four-fifths of the way to completing my Chapter One reading challenge. That pace seems just about right.
Keep reading!
More to come . . .
DJB
*It just so happens that Wonderland Books—one of our DC area independent bookshops—has a summer reading challenge! Complete all ten and win a great Wonderland tote bag! What’s not to like!?! I’ve already read 8 books in the ten categories, so I’m jumping in on this one as well. I’ll update you after Labor Day.
Photo of Desperate Literature bookshop sign in Madrid by César Viteri on Unsplash
MORE TO COME... 