Richard Knott

Gleaning from the Humanities, I highlight ideas on individuality, life's evanescence, ecstasy and the abyss. Along with excursions on art and love.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

I submit that authentic selfhood is both the bloom out of and the counterpose to the Nevermore of death--that abyss within ourselves.

[Rep. Pramila Jayapal @RepJayapal]

Republicans want to give an additional $70 BILLION to ICE and CBP, with no guardrails, oversight, or constraints.

The American people do not want to see their neighbors being terrorized and killed in our streets at the hands of these agencies.

[Laiken Jordahl @LaikenJordahl]

BREAKING: DHS just waived all environmental laws to blast border barriers and roads through Big Bend National Park.

This marks the first time in American history the feds have gutted dozens of laws to push industrial-level construction through a national park.

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

Republican-appointed judge: “The Court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders.”

[Q The Storm Rider @Q_TheStormRider]

JUST IN: Reporter Catherine Herridge testifies that CBS News locked her out of the building and seized all her files, says she was working with sources to "expose government corruption."

Nothing at all going on here, folks.

"CBS News’ decision to seize my reporting records crossed a red line that I believe should never be crossed by any media organization."

"Multiple sources said they were concerned that by working with me to expose government corruption and misconduct they would be identified and exposed."

"CBS News locked me out of the building and seized hundreds of pages of my reporting files, including confidential source information."

FOLLOW ME, THE NEXT DROP WILL BE SHOCKING.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

https://t.co/gdOBEAF6G9

[Richard Knott @509knott]

https://t.co/gHof7GP6sG

[TheRealCherokeeOwl 🦉 @CherokeeOwl]

She wasn’t supposed to be there.

Female journalists were banned from D-Day. Her own magazine gave the assignment to her husband — Ernest Hemingway.

But Martha Gellhorn didn’t wait for permission.

On June 6, 1944, she bluffed her way onto a hospital ship, locked herself in the bathroom until it sailed, then helped carry wounded soldiers ashore at Omaha Beach — one of the only civilians, and the only woman correspondent, to do so in those first brutal hours.

When the military arrested her, revoked her credentials, and tried to sideline her? She went AWOL in 48 hours and kept reporting anyway.
Battle of the Bulge. First into Dachau.

Wars on six continents for six decades.

Hemingway got the cover and the Nobel.
Martha got the truth — and refused to be anyone’s footnote.

“I followed the war wherever I could reach it.”

Real courage doesn’t ask for an invitation.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

--translated by
Daniel Mendelsohn

[Richard Knott @509knott]

The Odyssey
Book 11

[Richard Knott @509knott]

Her words. I was brooding deeply, for I wanted so much to hold my
Mother--to embrace her shade although she was dead and gone.
Three times I rushed forward, and my heart urged me to hold her,
Three times she slipped from my arms like a shadow or a dream
And flew off.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

@TheMitchMitchem @musumba_guy @Dale_Chu @JonHaidt @andersoncooper @AC360 Don't know what's wrong with phasing kids in gradually, as they mature.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

PELLEY: “Bari Weiss was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of Trump. It was never enough.”

He says she demanded 60 Minutes make Minnesota protestors look more violent and “describe Renee Good as driving toward the officer” despite video🤔 — “callously” firing correspondents

[Richard Knott @509knott]

@Telegraph A nation's character is also developed by the critical moments in its history. Who in the West today does not owe something to Churchill? I feel it, as an American, just as I am touched by the quote on this note. The British can be so proud, just as we all are so grateful.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

@LizzyStarrrdust A profound question for Freud, though, who held that civilization itself cannot arise without sexual repression--shame being a mechanism for such repression.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

@LizzyStarrrdust As late as the 1960s, many states had fornication laws, criminalizing consenting adult sex outside of marriage. Doctors then who prescribed the pill to single women risked their medical licenses.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In the 1990s, Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard made a groundbreaking discovery that challenged everything we thought we knew about how forests work. While studying managed forests in British Columbia, she noticed something puzzling: when birch trees were removed to promote the growth of valuable Douglas firs, the firs did not flourish as expected, they actually struggled and grew more slowly.

Determined to understand why, Simard traced the movement of nutrients using radioactive carbon isotopes. What she found was astonishing. Trees were actively sharing resources through vast underground fungal networks known as mycorrhizae. These delicate, thread-like fungi connect the roots of different trees across the forest floor, forming a complex web that allows the exchange of carbon, water, nutrients, and even chemical signals, sometimes between entirely different species.

She discovered that older, larger trees often serve as central "hubs" or "mother trees," supporting younger saplings by redistributing vital resources and helping the entire ecosystem remain resilient. When these key trees are removed, the underground network weakens, and the health of the remaining forest declines.

Simard’s research overturned the traditional Darwinian view of forests as battlegrounds of ruthless competition. Instead, she revealed a far more sophisticated reality: forests operate as highly cooperative systems where trees communicate, support one another, and even warn neighboring trees about threats like drought, disease, or insect attacks.

What appears to the human eye as a silent, still forest is, in truth, a vibrant, interconnected living network, built not on isolation and rivalry, but on deep connection and mutual aid.

[Richard Knott @509knott]

@Lalisamano327 @Celebrityhaze How could it be fake if she's showing?

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.

The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.

And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.

Record-breaking temperatures.

A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.

The response?

Yank out the instruments and walk away.

That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.

For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.

The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.

That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv

[Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez @repdeliaramirez]

When we fight, we win!

Thanks to our advocacy and work, the courts struck down the Trump administration's orders to stop processing visas and asylum cases.

Providing refuge to the tired and persecuted is a fundamental promise of our nation. We must protect it.