James Garfield could write a sentence in Greek with his left hand while writing the same sentence in Latin with his right.
At the same time.
Before politics, he was a classics professor. Spoke seven languages. Read theology, philosophy, and mathematics for fun.
Four months into his presidency, he was shot.
The smartest man to ever hold the office.
American Exceptionalism 🇺🇸
Scientists mapped a piece of brain the size of half a grain of rice.
One-millionth the size of the human brain.
It took them a year and over 1.4 million gigabytes to scan it.
They found over 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses, and even some new structures they didn't know existed.
Mapping the entire human brain in this level of detail would require all the data storage generated on Earth in a year + a 140-acre data center.
But the human brain itself can hold up to ~2.5 million gigabytes of information - enough for ~3 million hours of HD video or 342 years of continuous viewing.
It can process roughly 10 quadrillion calculations per second - enough processing power to run over 4,000 high-end gaming PCs all operating at peak ability.
And it only runs on the amount of power needed for a single dim light bulb.
No technology even comes close to doing what the brain can do.
The more we learn about biology, the more complex it becomes.
This is God's Glory on display.
George Washington never went to college. His father Augustine died when George was 11, and the money for English boarding school died with him. His two older half-brothers had already been polished at Appleby Grammar School across the Atlantic. George got Virginia, a demanding mother named Mary, and whatever books he could find at home.
At 14 he tried to escape it all by joining the British Royal Navy. His mother shut it down. So he did the next best thing: he taught himself surveying from his late father's instruments, and at 16 he rode west into the Shenandoah wilderness on a commission from Lord Fairfax, who owned over five million acres of Virginia and needed them mapped.
His teenage journal survives. It is brutal, funny, and absolutely not the voice of a marble statue. On his first night at a frontier inn, he stripped down and climbed into what passed for a bed, only to find "nothing but a Little Straw Matted together without Sheets or any thing else but only one Thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice Fleas etc." After that he preferred sleeping outside by the fire, even when it rained, even when his clothes froze stiff on him by morning.
One journal entry, almost in passing: thirty Native warriors walked into camp carrying a fresh scalp from battle. The teenage surveying party shared their liquor with them and watched them perform a war dance by firelight. George wrote it down the way a modern teenager logs a weird night out.
He swam horses across swollen rivers. He ate roasted meat off forked sticks because "our Spits was Forked Sticks our Plates was a Large Chip as for Dishes we had none." He met German settlers and noted in frustration that they "would never speak English but when spoken to they speak all Dutch." He measured timber in country where almost no English speaker had ever walked.
By 17 he was the commissioned surveyor of Culpeper County, the youngest official surveyor in the colony of Virginia. By 18 he had parlayed the earnings into nearly 1,500 acres of Shenandoah Valley land in his own name, bought outright, while boys his age back east were still reciting Latin in heated parlors.
The man who would one day command the Continental Army, defeat the largest empire on earth, and then voluntarily refuse a crown, did not learn leadership in a lecture hall. He learned it at 16, in a tent, in the dark, hundreds of miles from anyone who could save him.
Stonewall Jackson's arm has its own grave.
After the friendly fire incident, surgeons amputated his left arm and went to throw it on a pile of severed limbs.
His chaplain saved the arm, wrapped it in a blanket, rode to a family cemetery and buried it with a Christian funeral.
Jackson died 8 days later. He was buried 100 miles away.
The arm stayed.
It’s suggested teachers make around 1,500 decisions a day. Split-second stuff, mostly. That’s more than a brain surgeon although I’m not suggesting the decisions are more important. The brain isn’t built to do that for six hours without a cost. It’s called decision fatigue.
“I don’t get why teachers are leaving. They knew what they were signing up for.”
NO, THEY DIDN’T!
And before you say you’re okay with tens of thousands of effective teachers leaving, understand this…America is currently short 400,000+ teachers & it’s only getting worse.
Breaking: Kansas big man Paul Mbiya will return to Kansas for his sophomore season, source tells @247sports
“I’m staying at the University of Kansas.
This decision comes from the heart. Through every challenge, every doubt, and every moment of adversity, I’ve grown stronger. I’m not running from anything — I’m embracing it.
I want my coaches, my future teamates, and the fans to know that I believe in this journey. I believe in who I am becoming. I’m a special player, not just because of what I do on the court, but because of what I stand for.
No pressure can break me. No obstacle can stop me. And no amount of money will ever define me or buy my values.
You can’t buy heart.
You can’t buy loyalty.
You can’t buy what’s inside me.”
I know who I am.
And I know what I came here to do.
Rock Chalk forever.
PMK34
https://t.co/oeLGFOiia4
Kansas fans are excited about grabbing the 3rd leading scorer from a team that went 10-22 last year in the portal. We all gotta take our wins from somewhere.
This season is squarely on Dennis Gates. Top high school recruiting class, Mizzou probably got their top 2 portal targets. It’s time to go get it done.
A teacher’s tone, pacing, and presence shape the emotional climate of the classroom.
Calm speech, intentional pauses, and grounded authority signal safety and focus, inviting students to settle and engage.
No strategy, protocol, or “fancy” method can succeed if the teacher’s own nervous system is dysregulated and chaotic.
Many people genuinely believe teachers have an “easy job” with short hours, summers off, and great benefits.
And yet, over the past 7 years, we’ve seen record numbers of teachers leave the profession while fewer people are choosing to enter it.
Why leave such an ‘easy job’? 🙄