My wife’s cousin Kelly recently retired from teaching.
(That’s Kelly on the left, when she and Mrs. Dubbatrubba had a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-style adventure recently.)
She spent 30+ years at Catholic grade schools in the D.C. area.
Over those three-plus decades, thousands of kids crossed paths with her. In the classroom. In the lunchroom. In the hallways. At the school plays, and the sporting events. At Sunday Mass too.
The lessons those kids learned from her didn’t always come from a textbook.
She taught them kindness, by showing up with a smile on her face, even on the tough days.
With her sense of humor, she taught them that learning can be fun.
By being attentive, she let them know they mattered.
By demanding their best effort, she inspired them.
Those lessons don’t stop when the kids move on. They carry them with them, wherever they go, for the rest of their lives.
Kelly’s out of the classroom, but her lessons are still going strong. What an amazing legacy!
We’re a year and a half into the second term of the Cheeto in Chief. How’s it going for you? Grocery prices? Gas prices? Affordable housing? Peace?
Donnie’s dumped more than $100 billion down the gold-plated toilet for an unwinnable war, which also shut down a key shipping route. It’s wreaked havoc across the world. And here were are in 2026, worse off than when the Obama agreement was put in place more than a decade ago.
And some costs can’t be measured in dollars and cents, because they’re senseless.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Deranged Donnie has “fixed” the Reflecting Pool. Or “pond” as he keeps calling it. It seems more like a fetid swamp at the moment. Why? Because he had a “pool guy… the best!” and awarded a no-bid contract. And he picked “American Flag Blue” as the new paint color, and a darker color creates a better environment for algae growth. And then the “fix” (dump hydrogen peroxide into the water) will kill some algae, but it also peels paint.
Pure genius, Mr. Perfect Score on the Cognitive Tests that they keep giving you. No notes.
It’s not an aberration, it’s a pattern. It’s his M.O.
Jeff Tiedrich summed it up quite nicely in his Substack post from June 22:
He’ll never learn. So it’s up to us.
“Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.” — Harry Emerson Fosdick
And if you voted for DJT, please take some time for a bit of reflecting. Uh, you’ll have to find a different pool.
Earlier this month, Mrs. Dubbatrubba, our son Peter and I went out west, along with some friends.
Five of the six folks in the photo above had run the Grand Teton half-marathon the day prior to this hike. Three of the people in the photo went on to run the Yellowstone half-marathon a week later. I’ll give you three guesses as to which of folks above was the sluggard who did neither race.
(And yes, I know the background of the picture looks like an Olan Mills studio backdrop – but it’s legit!)
Grand Teton National Park for three days.
A day trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve…
… including a hike through a cave.
Shoshone Falls.
Mesa Falls.
Three days in Yellowstone National Park.
We hiked all over God’s green earth out there (and God’s scorched earth too!) and it was glorious! I’d never been to that area of the country before, and loved every bit of it. (It helped that it was warm – don’t know that I’d love the snow.)
Ken Burns has a documentary called The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. And he’s right. Thank goodness that back in the day, the powers that be decided to preserve these gorgeous areas and make them “for the people” in perpetuity. (Nowadays the powers that be would probably try to put up hotels and golf courses.)
It’s such a treat to be out in nature.
Nature does quiet the mind. And it’s a salve for the soul too!
Hola! I’ve been using Duolingo to learn Spanish. Or at least to try to learn Spanish.
I’ve been at it for a bit. Or a bit longer than a bit.
Am I anywhere close to fluent? No. (Or, as we say in Spanish… “no.”)
But am I a lot better than I was before I started? Si!
And am I a lot better off spending time on the Duolingo app instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media? Without a doubt! I’ve probably never spent more than 20 minutes on Duolingo on any given day. Most days it’s more like 5-10 minutes. Not enough to make me bilingual. But enough to make a dent.
I’m up to 97 on my Duolingo score. Here’s what that means:
It didn’t happen overnight. I happened over 2112 days. (And yes, I chose that screenshot because I’m a Rush fan.)
Better late than never, I suppose. Good thing I didn’t have “stop procrastinating” on my resolution list.
Although this great article from The Guardian that was published… well, the start of the year… is also giving all of us permission to ease off the self-improvement resolutions.
The intro paragraph from Oliver Burkeman’s piece sums up the concept quite nicely:
The older I get, the more “finite hours on the planet” really resonates. But no matter our age, all of us have limited spins on the big blue marble. And rather than putting off the things we like until a “someday” that may never come, why not do more of them today?
It’s waaay too easy to get caught up in the “I’ve got to be better at _____” cycle. It’s much tougher to give yourself permission to indulge in stuff you enjoy. But it’s not indulging, it’s nourishing your heart and soul.
The concepts of “keep grinding” and “hustle” have been elevated to virtue status.
But if you’re always grinding and never savoring, what’s the point?
That sort of heartless profiteering from the prediction markets (namely Kalshi and Polymarket) has continued pretty much unabated. Those companies have become unregulated casinos in our pockets, with scary consequence. So much so that John Oliver devoted an episode of his Last Week Tonight show to it a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a four-minute clip from it:
What Oliver says at the end is especially poignant:
If you’re considering using these markets to gamble, try and remember that you’re statistically likely to lose money. And while I’m not against gambling per se, there’s something so grim about these sites turning every aspect of our lives into a bet. Because sure, money can be won on them. But in that happening, something also gets lost. Specifically a society where things aren’t only weighed in financial terms, and where people engage in news for what it means to human beings – not just because they have $50 riding on it.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Scott Galloway’s post from last November about the prediction markets. He’s the one who put this emerging issue on my radar. His post is titled “The Next Opioid Crisis” – which may seem like hyperbole. But it’s a clear-eyed, fact-based and somber assessment of the dangers of gambling disguised as prediction markets, especially to young men.
As Oliver points out in his show, with Donald Trump Jr. on the payroll for both Kalshi and Polymarket, there won’t be any changes at the federal level. (The only sure bet is that the Trump family will always look for ways to cash in, no matter the costs to others.)
Are prediction markets making our society poorer in multiple ways? You bet!
Damian on The Future is forever: “It was a magical time for sure! Just don’t get any paint on that 97X sweatshirt, it’ll bring down the…” Jul 4, 20:44
Andrea J McKiernan on The Future is forever: “I still wear my 97X sweatshirt when I’m painting. I have some amazing memories of those times!” Jul 4, 14:46
You done said…