It’s Maundy Thursday in many Christian churches, in honor of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, and commanding them to love one another. We can tell who uses this commandment to become better, and who hates us all with the fire of a thousand suns. So I won’t belabor the point, but will just show the love, and the karma of hate, and the pointing and laughing, and the wonder, as usual.
I invite our WineRev to preach further, and to provide capacious (capacious I say!) foot washing facilities at today’s gathering.
Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, among other names,[note 1] is the day during Holy Week that commemorates the Washing of the Feet (Maundy) and Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles, as described in the canonical gospels.[1]
It is the fifth day of Holy Week, preceded by Holy Wednesday (Spy Wednesday) and followed by Good Friday.[2] "Maundy" comes from the Latin word mandatum, or commandment, reflecting Jesus' words "I give you a new commandment."[3] The date of the day will vary according to whether the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar is used. Eastern churches generally use the Julian system.
The complete mandate is
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Gospel of John, chapter 13
Authorized KJV
Good News Links
We had multiple lists of such links, which I have combined and sorted here. This gives all of our authors regular access to it. I sometimes run through all of them and add a story from each one to a GNR.
Vineyards Are Laying the Groundwork for a Regenerative Farm Future
Good News on Global Child Deaths, Clean Cooking, and Conservation in the Southern Ocean
Restoring the Gombe Forests
Globetrotting Black nutritionist Flemmie P. Kittrell revolutionized early childhood education and illuminated 'hidden hunger'
Get Ready for the Solar Eclipse Over North American Coming Soon
Columbus, Indiana, where I live, is in the zone of totality.
The Case for Optimism: Rejecting Trump’s Poisonous Pessimism (An Early Articulation of Hopium)
The future of healing: 3D printing skin directly onto open wounds
Lab-Grown Diamonds Are Making It Big
In part as a way to avoid conflict diamonds and sanctioned Russian diamonds.
Friendly Mentors Help Ukrainians Find Their Footing in Vilnius
The capital of Lithuania.
Thailand moves to legalise same-sex marriage
Ever wonder why people 100 years ago died so much younger? It's these 14 reasons.
An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.
Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.
Indigenous leaders saved Guatemala’s fragile democracy
The Heroes Fighting for Public Education
Bad News for Them
#DementiaDon and LOCK HIM UP were trending on X while I was writing this GNR.
…PRISON.
Trump again lashed out at the judge this morning, accusing him of suffering from "an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome" and calls the gag order imposed on him "unConstitutional."It's time to stop playing with that dangerous lunatic and hold him accountable, before someone gets hurt.
Trump Official Accused of DOJ ‘Coup’ Plot in Bar Hearing (1)
- Jeffrey Clark faces possible disbarment over Trump election efforts
- Top DOJ officials refused to sign off on letter attacking voting results
Ex-Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark violated ethics rules in a bid to help Donald Trump challenge the 2020 election results, a DC Bar official said in a hearing Tuesday.
…PRISON.
Trump again lashed out at the judge this morning, accusing him of suffering from "an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome" and calls the gag order imposed on him "unConstitutional."It's time to stop playing with that dangerous lunatic and hold him accountable, before someone gets hurt.
MyPillow Evicted For Nonpayment
MyPillow is facing a court-ordered eviction from a Shakopee warehouse after the property's landlord showed the company owes more than $200,000 in rent.
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
Novel cancer vaccine offers new hope for dogs — and those who love them
A Yale researcher developed a vaccine that can slow or halt certain cancers in dogs. And it could be used to treat humans in the future.
'Dogs suffer greatly from their cancers.’ So a Yale researcher developed a vaccine.
Funny or Fuggedaboudit
OK, now listen up.
This is history. Not an excuse for pie flinging. Got that?
Closeout Music
P.D.Q. Bach - Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz
Professor Peter Schickele, piano
The Greater Hoople Area Off-Season Philharmonic
Walter Bruno, conductor
The manuscript of the Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz was discovered, interestingly enough, on the beach, wedged in between a piece of flotsam and a piece of jetsam. The title of the opera refers to Alphonse Einstein, a 17th century philosopher and mathetitetician who came from an extremely large family, which led him to develop his Theory of Relatives. He is known principally for his great equation, the first formulation of which was e=mbcs; he later decided to do without the bs, resulting in the simplified e=mc, which still stood for energy equals matzoh balls in chicken soup. Later still he created the final version, e=mc², adding the raised "2" to indicate that this constituted a square meal.
P.D.Q. Bach took Einstein's discovery that time is curved to mean that if you constructed an opera so that each scene lasts 24 hours, then no matter how long the opera is, it will end at the same time it began. He would seem to have blown the chances of this happening by writing an overture (he anticipated Wagner by decades in calling it a prelude) of less than ten minutes' duration, but it may be that some adjustment was necessary to allow for intermissions. The manuscript of the rest of the opera has been lost, which is probably just as well, since P.D.Q. intended a performance of Einstein on the Fritz to fill up, in his words, "that boring stretch of time between leap years."
The plot is not as complicated as that of most operas:
Einstein feels a sneeze coming on in Act I, and takes his handkerchief from his pocket. In Act II, he realizes that he is not going to sneeze after all, and he puts his handkerchief back in his pocket in Act III.
In spite of the universality of its theme, P.D.Q. obviously worried that the opera might not engage the interest of frivolous 18th century audiences; he planned, therefore, to add an epilogue in which Einstein goes down to Hades to bring back his cousin Sophie, avenges the murder of his brother at the hands of Tsar Ivan the Inside Trader, slays the dragon guarding the entrance to the Golden Cave, seduces the Count's daughter on the eve of her wedding, and unites Italy.
Parody of Einstein on the Beach, composed by Philip Glass.