1/5 – 7/5/23 – The Cosmic Rose, Woke & Violets

Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: Stunning new images captured of the universe | 60 Minutes
Video interview at 60 Minutes

An Early Deep Dive into the Cosmos with Astrophysicist Brant Robinson at the University of California, Santa Cruz

As NASA’s Webb telescope scours the universe to find light from the first stars and galaxies, it is also capturing the universe like never before. Scott Pelley got an inside look at Webb’s new discoveries. (Watch video interview here)

James Lindsay at European Parliament – Woke Conference
Presentation at Paul Boonefaes

I watch nearly everything from James Lindsay and he is no stranger to this blog. He was one of the three academics who are in retrospect heroes of modern times because they industriously learnt and exposed the radical possession of the ‘Left’ in the Universities and mainstream media in the Grievance Studies Affair.

James Lindsay has since become an advocate for public education about the dangers of Post Modernism and Neo Marxist cults, Social Emotional Learning in our schools and Universities and more broadly the new world order (The Great Reset) orchestrated by the UN.

The above presentation is one of my favourites from him, not just because of its succinctness and James articulation, but the message couldn’t be timelier. “Woke, a culture war against Europe“. This conference was organised by the “Identity and Democracy Foundation“. (Watch full presentation here)

Planting Violets in the Rain – Theodora Goss
Poem at Theodora Goss

Planting Violets in the Rain
by Theodora Goss

The difference between me
and a crazy old woman planting
violets in the rain is — I’m not that old yet.

But there I was, planting violets,
while rain ran down my hair and left water drops
on my glasses. I had been waiting
for the rain to stop, but it had not stopped
for three days, and the violets,
sitting in their cardboard box, roots
wrapped in a damp paper towel, upright
in their plastic bag, open at the top
so they could breathe, were getting impatient.
Lift us out of here, they said. We want
to stretch our toes in the mud,
we want to get cold and dirty,
feel the water on our heart-shaped leaves,
send our purple flowers skyward.
We are delicate, yes, but we are strong —
we were made for storms.
We come back year after year, we invade
your garden with beauty.

What could I say after that?
I was afraid they might invade me,
so I went out in the rain
and planted them, although I was not at all sure
whether I was made for storms,
whether I would come back if a late frost
killed me down to the soil, neither as beautiful
nor as delicate as their nodding stems,
not sure of myself or my ability
to put down roots wherever I was planted,
thinking, if anyone walks by, they will wonder,
who is that crazy woman?

But like them, I was willing
to take my chances.