Friday:
Work and group therapy. No notes because there was no lecture.
I came home, read a little, napped, then talked via telephone with my niece for over 3 hours. I guess that is why we do not talk so often!
Then bed.
Items to share from yesterday.
Ex-Facebook worker's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg
From a read of the book, it’s clear why Meta wants to stop the spread of Wynn-Williams’ account: Its chief executive comes off badly. Though many of the book’s larger points have been previously reported, the anecdotes from Wynn-Williams’ globe-spanning interactions with Zuckerberg are the fresh, detail-rich stories you’d expect in a tell-all memoir. She casts him as hot-tempered, unaccountable for his mistakes, ignorant about history and — in one cringey board game session — an extremely sore loser.
Nothing increases sales like censorship.
How Bob Dylan Has Mirrored the Death of American Optimism (The New Republic) - the travails of a Dylan fan.
Why Putin will seek to sink Trump’s Ukraine ceasefire plan (POLITICO) - like this is a shocker? The shocker will be if Trump doesn't help with the sinking.
Speculative Fiction Can Shake Us Awake: A Conversation With Silvia Park and Kelly Link - Reactor
What Really Makes a Legend? Why Frank Zappa Is More Famous Than This Other Equally Innovative Musician (Ultimate Guitar) is answered in one paragraph:
There were several things that Zappa did that made him a more enduring persona in mainstream musical culture. First, he released music more consistently while Captain Beefheart quit making music in the 1980s to focus on painting. Zappa appeared on talk shows and did interviews wherein he was witty and charming; Beefheart, on the other hand, was notoriously reclusive. Lastly, Zappa's band members went on to do great things and spoke highly of him, further cementing his legacy, even though he has been described as a musical dictator. Captain Beefheart was a rigid perfectionist as well and dealt with his band members in a manner that strained those relationships.
I would also add that Frank was very much a public figure. Growing up, he was an obscure, kind of weird/kind of humorous singer, but the way he took on Tipper Gore is what made me realize he was a smart SOB. Beefhart was even more obscure; I came to his music much later than I did Zappa's, but he is till worth listening to.
Saturday:
I slept in until around 7 AM, did a little rooting around with withe email until time to go get the car. I rented a car to go to Anderson on Monday, but today was the only time I could go get it.
I cleaned, did my dishes, napped, ran to Aldi's and the convenience store, and now it is time to start dinner.
My short story, "Vanessa Greene" was submitted to The Threepenny Review.
The plan is to get some of the stuff on the tables scanned in and some sort of order imposed.
Items of interest today:
What Zelenskyy can learn from Syngman Rhee - Engelsberg ideas
Such a strategy would be incredibly risky. It is true that the American people are divided on Ukraine (although, they were no less divided on Korea), and Zelensky has only a fraction of the US contacts throughout the country that Rhee had. Yet one thing unites Americans then and now: they know who the aggressor is in 2025, just as they knew who it was in 1953. Americans were divided on Korea in 1953, but were nearly unanimously anti-communist. Americans might be divided on Ukraine today, but they are almost uniformly anti-Russian. Only four per cent of Americans say they support Russia in a recent poll. President Trump badly wants a peace deal to end the Ukraine War, and does not particularly care how he gets one or how durable it is. Yet, if his policies are seen to contribute to a Russian victory – which is possible – the American people may well consider this a defeat for the United States in general and for President Trump personally. That might be a sobering thought for a president who does not seem to consider the geopolitical consequences of a Ukrainian defeat on their own as being all that important.
It is far from clear that Zelensky will play this ‘card’. It is even less clear whether he should. It is a hand you only play when you’re desperate and out of other options. If he does, many in America and beyond will rally to his cause, but he would also place in jeopardy future US support for his country and for his government, just as Syngman Rhee did every time he played it. It would be one momentous gamble, but President Zelensky would not be the first to take it.
Nicaea: the council that shaped the West - Engelsberg ideas
This leads us to the next reason why Nicaea matters. It set in motion the dance between Church and State which continues, with various degrees of harmony, to this day. While it was the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 that formally established Christianity as a ‘state religion’, it was at Nicaea, and with Constantine’s intervention, that the process of formal engagement between Church and State began. It is one that is still under way.
In terms of what was decided upon, Nicaea was also crucial in the development of Christology. And a High Christology – the concept of God and Man held together in the person of Jesus Christ – has become essential to western concepts of personhood. Why human lives matter, how they matter, is entirely tied up with what was decided at Nicaea.
Finally, perhaps most important of all, it was at Nicaea that the concept of the credal statement as an instrument of unity and of differentiation received its formal baptism. We live in a more credal age than we have done for some time. What people subscribe to by way of a statement of faith – political, economic, religious or just social – is of crucial importance in a western society where the question of ‘what is it we believe?’ is more up for grabs than ever. It might be 1700 years since those glorious temper tantrums, and acts of Machiavellian guile, but the spirit of Nicaea is much closer than we might think.
Bringing back the stately quadrille - Engelsberg ideas
Policymakers seeking to navigate this unsettling new world should internalise several core truths. First, now that geopolitics appears to be moving towards a stately quadrille model, it is unclear if and when international affairs will revert to the previous paradigm, in which alignments between certain countries, such as the democracies of Europe and North America, or the United States and Israel, were a matter of course. One geopolitical realignment will likely catalyse the next, in a cycle that can last decades.
Second, appeals to shared values or common history are unlikely to hold much sway in the world of the stately quadrille. In the 18th century, countries with deep ideological divisions, whether with regards to regime type or religion, often partnered with one another to advance their self-interests and vanquish their rivals. Similarly, European policymakers hoping that reminding the Trump administration of their countries’ common democratic traditions or history of battling fascism and communism together will deliver strategic rewards will probably be disappointed.
Finally, officials need to widen the aperture of what can be conceived as possible. Analysts are already mulling what the defence of western and central Europe may look like should the US abandon its European allies to Russian avarice. It is not impossible that some European countries might shift beyond arms embargoes towards Israel to outright economic warfare. Without entertaining all potential futures, officials will not be able to plan effectively for what may lie ahead.
Ben Jennings on Donald Trump’s treatment of Ukraine – cartoon | Ben Jennings | The Guardian:
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