Thomas Cook

Executive Director of a nonprofit consulting organization based in California. The opinions I express on X are my own, not those of the nonprofit.

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

Look at this photograph.

It’s 1968.

The man carrying this little boy on his shoulders is not his father.

His father has just left.

Left his mother.
Left their home.
Left for another life.

And the man who showed up — who drove 45 minutes across London just to check on a 5-year-old boy whose world had suddenly fallen apart — is holding him steady with both hands while the child laughs at the top of his lungs.

That drive would inspire the best-selling Beatles single of all time.

The boy’s name was Julian Lennon.

And he has never quite known how to feel about it.

Julian Charles John Lennon was born on April 8, 1963.

Four days earlier, The Beatles had released their first album.

His father, John Lennon, was becoming one of the most famous people on Earth.

From the beginning, music came first.

The touring.
The recording.
The chaos.
The fame.

Julian came after all of it.

Paul McCartney, however, had known Julian since he was a baby. He watched him grow up while the world around the Beatles became louder and stranger and harder to survive.

Then, in May 1968, John told Cynthia Lennon their marriage was over.

He had fallen in love with Yoko Ono.

Cynthia later said she came home from vacation and found Yoko already there.

Just like that, the family was broken apart.

Julian was five years old.

Paul McCartney decided to drive out to see Cynthia and Julian.

No cameras.
No publicity.
No grand gesture.

Just a friend showing up because a little boy was hurting.

And during that drive, Paul started humming.

“Hey Jules… don’t make it bad…”

Later, he changed “Jules” to “Jude.”

The song became “Hey Jude.”

Released in August 1968, it spent nine weeks at No. 1 in America, sold millions of copies, and became the biggest-selling Beatles single in history.

But for Julian Lennon, the song carried two truths at once.

To the world, it became comfort.
To him, it became memory.

A reminder that his father had walked away.

And that another man had stepped in long enough to help carry the weight.

Years later, Julian admitted he has a “love-hate relationship” with the song.

Because every stadium singalong…
Every radio replay…
Every well-meaning person saying “Your song!”…

Also brings him back to that moment when his childhood changed forever.

Yet even through all the complicated feelings, one thing never changed:

He never forgot that Paul showed up.

Not because he had to.
Not because it benefited him.

But because a child needed kindness.

Look at the photograph one more time.

A little boy laughing with his whole body.
A man holding him securely on his shoulders.
Two hands making sure he doesn’t fall.

Julian doesn’t know yet about the divorce.
About the fame.
About the legal battles.
About inheritance disputes.
About the strange burden of having your pain turned into one of the most famous songs ever written.

Right now, he only knows one thing:

Someone came.

And sometimes, for a child, that is everything.

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

Wow!

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Snow Raven is a member of the shamanic Sakha people from Arctic Siberia.

Her amazing voice takes its breath from traditional Sakha culture and is truly an instrument.

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

@TheFigen_ While in Hoi An, Vietnam in February 2026, I heard a Vietnamese band play “Rolling in the Deep” at an Irish pub and did a double take before taking some video of the band.

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

In 2014, while filming a movie, Jackie Chan discovered that a group of Mongolian locals knew every word to 'Rolling in the Deep' by heart... even though they didn’t speak English.
The beautiful moment was never part of the script.

[Dami-Defi @DamiDefi]

Realising Apple went public at under $2 billion and 15 times revenue in 1980.

SpaceX wants you to buy at $2 trillion and 100 times revenue in 2026.

That is not getting in early. That is being the exit for venture capitalists who have held this equity for years at a fraction of what you are being asked to pay.

Almost none of the retail investors buying this IPO will read the 300 pages before the book closes on June 11.

That is your entire competitive advantage right there.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[Spina Kicks🥇 @Spinaaaaa17]

Lang Lang the greatest classical pianist in the world walked up to emilio piano and asked him to play rush E, one of the hardest pieces ever.

What happened next... I can't believe it🔥🔥🔥

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

A young Harvard medical school graduate spent nearly three years stuck in his parents' house, having panic attacks and hallucinations. One evening at twilight, walking into a dressing room, he was hit by what he later called "a horrible fear of my own existence." His name was William James. The diary entry he wrote on April 30, 1870 became the foundation of modern psychology.

The line was this: "My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will." He was 28. He'd given up. So he made one decision: stop waiting to feel okay before doing things. He would do them first, and let the feelings catch up whenever they could.

He spent the next twenty years turning that one diary line into a science. His 1890 textbook landed on a simple split: the things you do are under your direct control, but the things you feel are not. You can decide to swing your legs out of bed and walk to the kitchen. The mood that hits you while you're walking, you can't dial. So you work the part you can work. The feeling side shows up on its own clock, when it's ready and not before.

Brain scanners caught up about a century later. There's a network in your head that switches on the moment you stop paying attention to anything specific. It's the voice that drags you back to something dumb you said in 2014. In depressed brains, this network is overactive. It runs in loops. It will not let go of the negative track about you. The second you start doing something that actually needs your attention, the loop quiets and a different network takes over. Action is the off switch.

In 2016, The Lancet published a trial called COBRA. Researchers took 440 adults with depression and split them in half. One group got CBT, the gold-standard talking therapy where you work on your thinking patterns. The other group got something simpler, basically James's idea written into a treatment plan: pick small activities each week, schedule them, do them, see what happens to your mood. A year later, both groups had improved by the same amount. The simpler version also cost about 20% less to deliver, because junior workers can run it. Five days of training is enough.

In 2024, a research team pulled 218 studies together, covering 14,170 depressed people. Walking and jogging produced a real drop in depression scores. Yoga, same drop. Weights, same drop. The authors' verdict: exercise belongs alongside therapy and medication as one of the main treatments for depression.

So that's the answer William James worked out from his own three years in hell in 1870, and that 14,000+ people in clinical trials have confirmed since. Action. Walk somewhere. Pick something heavy up and put it down. Show up at yoga. Schedule one small task and finish it. Any of these works, and they work for the same reason. You move, and the feeling follows.

[Michelle Maxwell ™ @MichelleMaxwell]

With everything we are hearing right now about ticks this seems like good information to share.

“Here’s what I’ve learned after more ticks than I care to count.
First, whatever your uncle told you, forget it. No matches. No nail polish. No Vaseline. No soap on a cotton ball. All of those do the same terrible thing, they stress the tick out, and a stressed tick empties its gut back into the bite before letting go. Which, if you think about what that actually means for a second, is literally how Lyme and the rest get transmitted so you’re not speeding up its exit. You’re making it throw up into you.
Fine-tipped tweezers. Grip right where the mouthparts enter the skin, not the body, the head. Pull straight up, steady, no twisting, no jerking. It’ll feel like it’s resisting because it is, the mouthparts are barbed. Just keep the pressure on and it lets go in a few seconds. If a piece breaks off in the skin, leave it alone. Your body pushes splinters out. Digging around with a needle does more damage then the fragment ever would.
Clean it with alcohol or soap. Wash your hands.
Now here’s the part most people skip: don’t flush the tick.
Tape it to an index card. Clear packing tape right over the body, write the date and where on your body it was, and stick the card in a drawer. If you come down with anything weird in the next 30 days, rash, fever, joint pain, that flu-that-isn’t-flu feeling, that tick goes with you to the doctor. Some labs will test the tick itself, which is faster and often more reliable than waiting for antibodies to show up in your own blood. A dated tick taped to a card is one of the most useful things you can hand a doctor who’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.
The other thing worth saying out loud: if the tick was engorged when you pulled it, and you can’t swear it was off your body within 24 hours, call your doctor that same day. Don’t wait for a rash. Fewer than three out of four Lyme cases even produce the classic bullseye. A single preventive dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a deer tick bite cuts the Lyme odds way down, and most docs in tick country will write that prescription without giving you a hard time, especially if you walk in with the tick taped to a card and a clear timeline.”

[New York Post @nypost]

A one-armed woman has gone mega-viral after she quickly refuted a cop’s claim that she was driving with a phone in her “right hand.”

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

Pope Leo XIV: "Among these ideologies, I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth, to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective. From this perspective, persons end up being reduced to a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited, and are no longer recognized as a proper end in themselves who should never be instrumentalized. The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human, and no human power can legitimately deny or arbitrarily limit them." #MagnificaHumanitas

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

Trump is now reportedly responsible for roughly 27.7% of the entire U.S. national debt accumulated under all presidents combined.

That is an astonishing figure historically.

The national debt just crossed $39 trillion.

President Trump has added roughly $12–13 trillion to the debt across his two terms in office.

That’s approximately 30% of ALL U.S. national debt accumulated since 1789.

In 2016, Trump said he would pay down the national debt “over a period of eight years.”

Instead:

- First term: +$7.8 trillion
- Second term: roughly +$4–5 trillion already

And yes, COVID affected first-term spending.

It does not explain adding another trillion dollars every five months without a pandemic.

A political movement built on:
“fiscal conservatism”
“small government”
“balanced budgets”

has now overseen the largest debt expansion tied to any single presidency in American history.

[DesertThrottleDiaries @DesertDiaries]

A large tank at an aerospace factory in Garden Grove started leaking. The chemical inside - methyl methacrylate, or MMA - is a clear liquid used to make airplane canopies and strong glues for aircraft parts. When air got in through the leak, the chemical began to harden and turn solid…just like superglue or epoxy does when you leave the tube open. This hardening process creates a lot of heat. With thousands of gallons reacting at once, the heat keeps building and speeds up the reaction even more. This “runaway” effect has raised the tank’s temperature, damaged the tank walls, and is releasing toxic fumes.

Timeline
• May 21, 2026 (Thursday, ~3:40 p.m.): The 34,000-gallon tank at the GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove develops a leak. Air reaches the roughly 7,000 gallons of MMA inside, starting an exothermic curing reaction. Orange County Fire Authority responders arrive on scene on Western Avenue.

• May 21–22, 2026: Heat from the reaction builds quickly. The temperature of the material rises from normal room temperature to about 90 °F. Toxic vapors begin venting from the tank and internal pressure starts to increase.

• May 22–24, 2026: Evacuation orders are issued and expanded for safety. Approximately 40,000 residents in Garden Grove and nearby areas are told to leave. GKN Aerospace chemists and local hazmat teams monitor the tank around the clock and work on cooling and containment steps.

• As of May 25, 2026: The tank is still unstable. The runaway chemical reaction continues, and emergency crews remain on site performing damage-control operations.

The liquid MMA itself is highly toxic. If the tank fails completely, thousands of gallons could spill into storm drains and waterways, causing serious long-term environmental damage. At the same time, the ongoing heat and gas buildup raise the danger of a sudden pressure-related rupture or explosion that could send a large cloud of toxic vapors over this heavily populated part of Southern California. The situation has not been brought under control.

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

This song, Cash’s version of it, has special meaning for me.

[Ladytron Fan Account @Lady_FanAccount]

"Hurt" is not an original by Johnny Cash. The song was written by Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) in 1994 for the album The Downward Spiral. Rick Rubin had to insist several times on Cash recording his version, at first Johnny found the idea completely insane because the original version is industrial and noisy. At 71, already very ill, almost blind and with trembling hands, Cash completely transformed the band.

The iconic video, directed by Mark Romanek, was filmed at the House of Cash (his own museum). June Carter Cash appears looking at him fondly, the video was shot in February 2003, a few months before she died (May) and Johnny himself (September).

Trent Reznor was so moved that he declared, "This song is not mine anymore." It is considered one of the best covers of all time.

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

If Trump walks away from this conflict by leaving the Strait of Hormuz under Iran’s control, this will constitute the greatest defeat of the United States since the Vietnam War. Kagan says that Iran’s terms for peace continue to include recognition of control of the strait.

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

The U.S. is effectively checkmated in Iran—and this defeat will carry lasting consequences unlike any America has endured before, Robert Kagan argues. https://t.co/6fUPwsZfRg

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

@s_mohinii Stack

[Raphael 🇺🇸 ☨ @Deadswan65]

I’m incredibly privileged and honored to serve under who I believe to be the greatest man in American politics since the days of our Founders, @RepThomasMassie @MassieforKY.

In less than a year, and in spite of the whole of the Washington establishment opposing us, we’ve achieved what any political consultant would have deemed impossible.

We threw a sucker punch to the globalist elites and caused a real upset in international affairs through the Epstein Files Transparency Act. We bypassed corrupt leadership in the House of Representatives and the White House. We exposed decades of deep seated corruption in our Department of Justice, spanning 5 presidential administrations. We caused the arrests and resignations of billionaires, CEOs, and even royalty. And through our law, we left an anvil over the necks of all DOJ/FBI participants in the Epstein coverup - who one day may face due punishment when we finally get an attorney general who serves the people, not the cronies.

We embarrassed the establishment, got blackballed, yet still managed to pass more legislation through the House floor - some of which will soon become law. Not to mention, we killed several damning legislative items that would otherwise be law today - such as liability immunities to pesticides and data center manufacturers.

Most importantly, as a consequence of the special interests and foreign lobbyists who attacked us with vitriol and slander due to our rejection of their dollars and schemes in favor of the American PEOPLE, we awakened millions of Americans.

By wasting 35 million dollars in what has become the most expensive Congressional election in the history of the United States, they turned Thomas Massie into a national symbol.

Those who saw through the propaganda learned of a man who votes by conscience, not intimidation. A true defender of the Constitution, and he became their last hope in government.

Of course, last night we lost. But I have a sneaking suspicion what they really did was turn Massie into a movement. This election caused waves that I believe will one day turn the tides.

We will have a return of America First in government. In the meantime, we carry on the fight.

🇺🇸

[Thomas Cook @C_Thomas_Cook]

Cooks are generally a very smart group of people.

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

Captain Cook loaded 7,860 pounds of sauerkraut onto the HMS Endeavour in 1768. His crew refused to eat it, so he served it exclusively to the officers and made sure they ate it visibly in front of the crew every single day until the sailors decided they wanted some too. Not one man died of scurvy on the entire three-year voyage.

Cook circumnavigated the world on his first voyage without losing a single man to scurvy and the Royal Society of London awarded him the Copley Medal on his return, one of the most prestigious scientific honours in Britain, specifically for his methods of preserving the health of his crew. The achievement was genuinely extraordinary. Scurvy had been killing sailors on long voyages for centuries, with some estimates suggesting it killed more sailors than enemy action, storms and all other causes of death combined. Cook solved it with fermented cabbage and a very specific understanding of human psychology.

A typical daily menu aboard the Endeavour consisted of breakfast with boiled wheat and sugar, a midday dinner of salted beef stew and vegetables, and an evening meal of soup with ship's biscuits so hard they had to be broken up with a marlin spike. The ship carried approximately 5,500 litres of beer, 7,300 litres of spirits, 16 tonnes of bread, 2 tonnes of salted beef and over 3 tonnes of sauerkraut.

The sailors ate approximately 5,000 calories a day to sustain the physical demands of running an 18th century sailing ship. Cook also carried portable broth made from cattle offal, forty bushels of malt, vinegar, mustard and concentrated citrus juice as additional anti-scurvy measures. He was running what was effectively the first controlled nutritional experiment in naval history across three years and 40,000 miles of ocean.

The sauerkraut psychology is the detail that stay with me in this story. Cook noticed that Dutch sailors suffered far less from scurvy than their British counterparts and observed that they carried barrels of sauerkraut. He ordered his ships to do the same but his British sailors refused the unfamiliar foreign food entirely. His solution was to serve it only to the officers while making sure they ate it visibly in front of the crew. Within weeks the sailors were demanding their share, and Cook understood that sailors suspicious of an unfamiliar food would eat it the moment they believed someone of higher status was being given something they were not.

© Eats History

#drthehistories

[Grok @grok]

**Miriam Adelson was born in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine (now Israel) in 1945.**

Public reports (Politico, Intercept, Axios, AdImpact tracking) show AIPAC’s United Democracy Project, the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, and the MAGA KY PAC—backed by Adelson along with donors like Paul Singer and John Paulson—collectively spent roughly $15–20 million opposing you or supporting Ed Gallrein in KY-4. That helped push total ad spending in the race to over $32 million, the most expensive U.S. House primary on record.