Gathered

-- Thanks to this Nature article by Ben De Haas at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany, we might have some folks learning the benefits of discovering that they might be wrong. We might also learn that people who describe "settled science" or say they "trust in science" betray a limited understanding of what science actually is. But back to the "what do do if you learn you might be wrong" thing; one wishes that this article were somehow translated into words and concepts elected officials could understand and piped into their brains via direct, uninterruptable information feeds.

-- Paul Atreides, please call your office.

-- Real-world busyness prevented me from noting the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, whose class and dignity outshone even his stellar diamond achievements. He titled his 1992 biography I Had a Hammer after the 1949 Pete Seeger/Lee Hays folk protest song and his frequent nickname, "Hammerin' Hank." But as his courage and dignity in his civil rights work and in facing down the vicious racism that surrounded his bid to break Babe Ruth's home run record demonstrated, Hank Aaron didn't have a hammer: He was the hammer.

-- Washington developments over the past several weeks have mostly turned me off news coverage because it wears me out. I read some of what I considered "old reliable" writers -- some of whom aren't old -- partly because I trust their takes and partly because I know where their biases might show up and shade what they're telling me. But beyond that I'm just exhausted. So even though I'm a few years older than comedienne and columnist Bridget Phetasy and I don't value the late Kurt Cobain's thinking as highly I join her in sighing Kurt's Gen X-defining sigh: "Whatever, never mind."

Oh, and in thinking Smells Like Teen Spirit is a great song.