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  Today's Food for Thought: Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. —The Buddha

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  Today in History: 1998: South African President Nelson Mandela, at the Canadian Human Rights Monument in Ottawa, unveils a plaque honouring John Peters Humphrey (1905-1995), principal author of the first draft of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. 2004: Nova Scotia becomes the sixth Canadian province to legalize same-sex marriage. 2016: "Lift Every Voice and Sing" with words written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and later set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson...

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  Today in History: 1981: Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman to serve as a US Supreme Court Justice.

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  Born on This Day: Lu Xun, 1881; Dmitri Shostakovich, 1906

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  Today's Food for Thought: The history of woman is the history of the continued and universal oppression of one sex by the other. —Lady Tennessee Celeste Claflin

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  Today's Food for Thought: Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. —George Orwell (Eric Blair)

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  Born on This Day: Ivan Pavlov, 1849; George Gershwin, 1898

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  Today's Food for Thought: There are only three things worthwhile in this world—justice, beauty and truth; and perhaps none of them can be defined. —Will Durant

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  Born on This Day: Confucius (Kong Fuzi, 孔夫子), ca. 551 B.C. (actual date is uncertain)

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  Today in History: 1928: Alexander Fleming discovers a bacteria-killing substance that he later names "penicillin," the world's first antibiotic. It would not be until 1945 that penicillin was available for widespread use, thanks to a laboratory team at Oxford University.

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  Today's Food for Thought: Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. —Desmond Tutu

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  Meanwhile in Canada, https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7361835

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  Today's Food for Thought: What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children, and just an interesting little Channel Four news item. —Tony Benn

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  Born on This Day: Miguel de Cervantes, 1547; Thomas Percival, 1740; Enrico Fermi, 1901

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  Today in History: 1951: The "Sojourners for Truth and Justice," a group of Black women activists, gather in Washington, D.C., to protest against racial violence and prejudice.

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  Outstanding speech by Iceland's foreign minister at the UN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUXOE4G07BU

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  Ugly word of the day: empathic A barbaric word. The root, of course, is "pathos," and the adjectival form is "pathetic." From "pathetic" come "apathetic," "sympathetic," and "empathetic. " “Empathic” is an ugly version of "empathetic." It adds nothing to the language except ugliness. No one yet has dared to replace "pathetic" with “pathic,” or &amp...

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  Patricia Nilsson, investigative reporter for the Financial Times, discusses her book, "Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification of the Internet, the Economy, and Everything Else." Short take: The basic structures of the modern internet, things like e-commerce, affiliate marketing, and live streaming, were pioneered and developed by the porn industry. She also discusses the way that internet pornography has changed actual sexual practices and expanded what sorts of activities—including viol...

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  Today in History: 1905: Albert Einstein publishes "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," in which he describes his special theory of relativity. 2023: Joe Biden visits a United Auto Workers picket line, becoming the first US president to join striking union workers.

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  @hauschke@mastodon.social https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudflare#Controversies

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  Fair Vote Canada: Join the fight for proportional representation. Make every vote count! https://www.fairvote.ca

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  Today in History: 1893: New Zealand becomes the first independent nation to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

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  Today's Food for Thought: The real things haven't changed; they can never change. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong. —Laura Ingalls Wilder

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  Today in History: 1970: The pesticide DDT is banned in Canada, effective January 1st, 1971. 1988: David Lam, an immigrant from Hong Kong, becomes Lieutentant-Governor of British Columbia—the first Chinese-Canadian to hold that office.

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  Today's Food for Thought: I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. —Somerset Maugham

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  Born on This Day: James Baldwin, 1924

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  Today's Food for Thought: Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place. —Pierre Bayle

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  Trump: Iran War was started by lab leak in China President Trump announced today on Truth Social that he has discovered more documents that were covered up by ‘woke’ elements of the U.S. intelligence services. These shocking documents provide clear evidence, the President writes, that the war in Iran was caused by the same lab leak in China that caused the COVID pandemic. Mr. Trump says that he is demanding an explanation from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. He has also instructed the Depa...

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  Born on This Day: Smedley Butler, 1881

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  Today's Food for Thought: Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred. —Vaclav Havel