reminding the world of its values … that seems like a radical stance
Adapted from the article, A point of resistance’: the Normandy village that said ‘non’ to Pete Hegseth by Ashifa Kassam (The Guardian, 6/14/2026) where Ms. Kassam writes:
“I think our statement helped people to come out from the woodwork,” Richard said. “If it gave others the courage to speak up and say that they think the same, that they’re not OK with the ideology of the Trump government, that’s a good thing.”
The sentiment was echoed by [Julia , member of the Langrune en Commun, a residents’ association]Breen, who said she was proud to be part of an association that had emerged as a small “point of resistance” against those who had looked to protocol as a reason to remain silent in the face of someone who “promotes rhetoric that is bellicose, racist, supremacist and imperialist”.
She was swift to add, however, that what they had done in Langrune-sur-Mer was far from extreme. “It’s crazy that resistance today is just about reminding the world of its values,” she said. “And that doing so seems like a radical stance.”
As Edmund Burke really said, When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Doesn’t this just sum it all up?
It’s crazy that resistance today is just about reminding the world of its values.
lacks transparency accountability and proper oversight
Adapted from the opinion piece, Science Should Not Be Subject to Loyalty Tests by Melissa L. Finucane, a professor of social and behavioral science at Stony Brook University where Dr. Finucan writes:
The Office of Management and Budget has called for a rule change that would impose restrictions on the kinds of research that can be funded and give political appointees the final authority to deny federal funding for research deemed inconsistent with presidential priorities.
Such a revision is necessary, the agency said, because there is a “lack of transparency, accountability and proper oversight” in the way federal funds are dispersed.
It IS 2026 correct?
I am in the United States of America correct?
The Office of Management and Budget has called for a rule change …
that would impose restrictions on the kinds of research that can be funded …
and give political appointees the final authority to deny federal funding …
for research deemed inconsistent with presidential priorities.
Way back when I was lucky enough to attend one the world’s great universities (just ask them).
I was also lucky enough on my first day as a student to be assigned to a Professor who had to look over my course choices and ‘advise me’ on my choices.
He looked over my proposed class list and in a somewhat heated way told me that I was indeed at one of the world’s great universities and that I had better take advantage of that and take a variety of classes in different fields so that I experience what the university had to offer.
Which is why I ended up taking freshman Astronomy as a Junior.
I mean I wasn’t stupid.
I wasn’t going to take some 400 level survey course on fast breeding nuclear reactors.
So there I was, with 300 freshman in a very steep lecture hall, learning how to identify the constellations.
The Professor was this guy right out of central casting for an Astronomy Professor.
He was of indiscriminate age, shaggy black hair, glasses, about 5 ft tall, flannel shirts and some old as dirt pants, hiking boots and something that may have been a calculator hanging from his belt.
He would stand there and lecture like he was talking to you rather than teaching you.
And he loved the stars and the science of the stars and science in general.
He loved science so much that at least once a week he would some point about science in the news and then add a comment about ‘so long as those church goers don’t get involved’ or even “which ought to get those Christian’s worked up.”
After a while I waited after one lecture until the hall ended up and I walked up to the Professor, introduced myself, told him how much I enjoy his class but I had to ask, what was driving this, as I would later learn to call it, suspect animus about Christians?
I identified myself as a fundamental evangelical Christian and said I certainly was concerned about anything I was learning in Ann Arbor, in fact, I said I found the challenges I came across as reaffirming for my faith and I could still accept all that I was learning.
He looked at me for a bit and decided I wasn’t a threat or trying to trap him and he explained that he was aware of too many situations where science was stopped by political decisions and he was dismayed (this was during the Reagan era) about the growing influence of the Moral Majority.
“Whole fields of study are not allowed in the Soviet Union and it could happen here,” I remember him saying.
We ended up chatting for about 20 minutes and ever after that when he came into the lecture hall he would catch my eye and nod but he continued with his comments.
I enjoyed the class a lot and learned how to navigate the heavens for one semester at least but I think of that encounter whenever I hear of situations where restrictions for learning for any reason are put in place.
This latest is just one of so many straws being piled on that poor camel.
Too word out to be angry I guess I am just sad.
Science controlled by presidential priorities (not wanting to imagine the priorities of that man currently in office).
It’s been tried before.
There was this one country where physics was considered a Jewish Science deemed inconsistent with governmental priorities and a lot of science was abandoned and left to others to explore.
want majority to turn their backs, that is all that’s necessary
In the New York Times opinion piece, The White House’s Latest Provocation Is ‘Grotesque and Terrifying and Juvenile’, opinion piece writer, M. Gessen writes that the White House’s Latest Provocation is:
… a White House web page, posted last Thursday. And the scary creatures in question aren’t extraterrestrials; they’re the other kind of aliens — the immigrant kind, the kind hunted by ICE.
With phrases like “They do not belong here” and “Deport them all,” the page struck me as an incitement for Americans to commit acts of violence against immigrants.
But Benjamin Valentino, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, thinks that the purpose of the page is not to get Americans to do anything:
It’s to get them to do nothing, while the government commits its campaign of cruelty against millions of people just trying to live in peace.
“They want a majority of the population to turn their backs,” he said. “That’s all that’s necessary.”
I started this bit of nonsense back in 2019 and what I wanted to do was showcase what I thought was use of words and word play worth mentioning both in current news writing and in literature.
I never intended to fall in political commentary and to tell you the truth, I would love to get out of that business and back to showcasing what use of words and word play worth mentioning both in current news writing and in literature.
But I cannot turn my back on what is happening when you read that the Department of Justice states in Federal Court, that in their opinion, the president of the United States, or at least that man currently in office, could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty if he wanted to.
society cannot help the many poor, cannot save few who are rich
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required–not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
Let’s rephrase that for today.
President Kennedy was looking around the world because in 1961, the status of the United States wasn’t questioned and he could confidently say, To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves.
Today, this nation has turned its back on those people in the huts and villages of half the globe.
But those people shouldn’t feel left out.
As this nation has turned it back on it’s own people.
For today we can say, To those people here at home, struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required–not because it’s woke (whatever that means) to be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.
You might ask, why should we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves?
Mr. Kennedy had it right and that message doesn’t change.
Because it is right.
Geez oh Pete and BOY HOWDY.
So simple.
Because it is right.
On this nations moral compass with what is right pointing in one direction, we sure seem to be locked in to 180 degrees the other way.
That assumes, of course, anyone of those folks working so hard to take care for the few who are rich havn’t tossed their moral compass away.
And don’t forget the warning.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
I admit, that man currently in office and his administration seem to be doing okay for themselves right now as the work to save the few who are rich and turn their back on the many poor.
But as Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
And deep down, I have to believe, them folks working so hard to save the few who are rich, they know it too.
Mr. Milton did say , “To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n,” and maybe thinking that is what gets those folks working so hard to save the few who are rich, and maybe the rich themselves, thinking that, thinking that Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n is what gets them through their day.
Thinking that Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n lets them look at themselves in the mirror when they get up.
No disrespect to Mr. Milton but in response I point out something Garrison Keillor said when he talked about those folks who don’t learn anything new until the day they die.
Those folks?
They learn a whole lot of the stuff the next day.
Inaugural Address, Kennedy Draft, 01/17/1961 – National Archives
date when high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us
On January 10, 1961, John F. Kennedy was invited to address the Massachusetts State Legislature. The next speech he would give would be in 10 days in Washington, DC when he was sworn in as President of the United States.
President Elect Kennedy, looking ahead to the next four years, saying ” … our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions …”
Here is what he said.
History will not judge our endeavors–and a government cannot be selected–merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us–recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state–our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we truly men of courage–with the courage to stand up to one’s enemies–and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one’s associates–the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?
Secondly, were we truly men of judgment–with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past–of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others–with enough wisdom to know that we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?
Third, were we truly men of integrity–men who never ran out on either the principles in which they believed or the people who believed in them–men who believed in us–men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?
Finally, were we truly men of dedication–with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.
Courage–judgment–integrity–dedication–these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State–the qualities which this state has consistently sent to this chamber on Beacon Hill here in Boston and to Capitol Hill back in Washington.
For a historical exercise, shall we ask these four questions of the current administration?
Well, why not?
First, are they truly people of courage?
No, not as I understand the word courage.
Secondly, are they truly people of judgment?
No, not as I understand the word judgment.
Third, are they truly people of integrity?
HA!
No.
Just recently, I can give you 1.776 billion reasons and earlier, I had another 11,000 reasons to say NO to integrity. It is to laugh just to ask this question.
This last question is tricky.
If we ask, are they truly people of dedication?
They people of this current administration are certainly dedicated to the cult of following, blindly, that man currently in office.
But if we ask the complete question, are they truly people of dedication–with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?
I think that once again, the answer is no.
An honor mortgaged to no single individual or group?
HA!
Compromised by no private obligation or aim?
HA!
Devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?
DOUBLE HA!
Courage–judgment–integrity–dedication.
It’s like sadly remembering the life and times of our childhood when the everyday things of our lives, a long summer break in summertime, the sound of Ernie Harwell’s voice in summertime, the excitement of summertime in summertime are gone forever.
Here is the twist.
Somewhere deep inside myself, I cannot write these people off.
I feel that deep in their hearts, they know what they are doing and what they are giving up and what they are throwing away.
I feel sorry for them.
I feel sorry because at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us–recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state–their success or failure, in whatever office we may hold.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required
