Ken Burns on America's continuing revolution

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/these-united-states-ken-burns-on-americas-continuing-revolution/

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Gotta have❤️

Dodgers in seven. Take heart from Bart, Jays fans, and look forward to spring.

"Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, & it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops." - Bart Giamatti.

Humphrey-Carter-Gandhi, 7 deadly sins

Good news

Hopes & dreams

Masks

https://substack.com/@philoliver/note/c-172074098?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

"All great things must first wear monstrous and terrifying masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity." Nietzsche

"All they lacked was a past"

...British philosopher, Galen Strawson, who claimed to have no sense of himself as a continuously evolving being—a creature whose self consisted of a coherent story about accumulating memories and distinctive traits. Strawson was, for that reason, uninterested in his past. He acknowledged that his life had shaped him, but he believed that whether or not he consciously remembered it didn't matter to who he was now, any more than it mattered whether a musician playing a piece could call to mind a memory of each time he'd practiced: what mattered was how well he played. What was important, Strawson felt, was his life in the present. He liked to quote the third Earl of Shaftesbury, a British philosopher of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, who had felt the same way:

The metaphysicians … affirm that if memory be taken away, the self is lost. [But] what matter for memory? What have I to do with that part? If, whilst I am, I am but as I should be, what do I care more?

Nick wasn't sure he agreed with Strawson, and he certainly didn't feel, as Strawson did, that his memory of his own life was unimportant, but he found the argument somewhat comforting. He still longed to relive important moments in his life, but it was easier to think about this experience as just one of many he hadn't had, like paragliding, or visiting Peru, than as a void at the core of his self. Many people believed that their selves were made up largely of memories, and that the loss of those memories would be a self-ending catastrophe. But he knew now that there were also thousands of people like him, who had work and marriages and ideas and thwarted desires and good days and bad days and the rest of it. All they lacked was a past. ■

Just nov3 '25

"Ultimately, he thought, selves were not important"

Someone had told Isabel about a British moral philosopher, Derek Parfit, who had no imagery. He had few memories and little connection to his past, although he felt strong emotions about people and ideas in the present. Parfit believed that a self was not a unique, distinct thing but a collection of shifting memories and thoughts which intersected with the memories and thoughts of others. Ultimately, he thought, selves were not important. What mattered was the moral imperatives that drove everyone, or ought to—preventing suffering, the future welfare of humanity, the search for truth.

Information Overload, by Stephen Witt
New Yorker, Nov 3 '25

Why Are More Retirees Going Back to College?

Not my retirement dream, but I get why it might be for people who've not already spent a lifetime in academia.

At Arizona State University, residents pay about $500,000 in entrance fees to live on campus and take classes alongside undergraduates.
...For engaged residents like Mr. Weinreber, the teaching assistant, going to school forever — and learning just as much, if not more, from his mentees as he imparts — is a dream.
"I'm not going anywhere" Mr. Weinreber said as he headed off to check in with another student. "I just love it here."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/realestate/why-are-more-retirees-going-back-to-college.html?smid=em-share

"Have you tried taking long walks?"

Which Is Better, One Long Walk or Many Short Ones?

A new analysis is one of the first to study whether spacing steps out or consolidating them was linked to better health outcomes.

"...Those who regularly walked longer than 15 minutes were 80 percent less likely to die from any cause and nearly 70 percent less likely to develop cardiovascular disease over a roughly 10-year period, compared with those who got most of their steps in walks of five minutes or less..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/well/move/long-short-walks-health.html?smid=em-share