Despite all the scientific education of our schools and all the
scientific publicity and propaganda that have gone into our
journals, the fact remains that the average man in the street,
while he may have some knowledge of the results of scientific
invention and discovery as they impinge on his daily life, has
no idea whatever of the internal concepts of science and of the
task of the scientist. For him, the scientist is exactly what
the medicine-man is for the savage; namely, a mysterious
ambivalent figure, who is to be worshiped as the carrier of
recondite knowledge and the agent of recondite powers;
and who is at the same time to be feared, even hated, and
to be put in his place. The medicine-man may be a power,
but he is a very acceptable sacrifice to the gods.

—Me trying to explain to my mother why I don't have a job rn

Whatever your views on the Ukraine conflict happen to be, I can guarantee non of the men you lionise would have rejoiced over the angst and pain of a father watching his 30 year old daughter being blown up.

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to winter chill
The lonely redbreast pays!
Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:—
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed
Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;
Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes;
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,
And passion's feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,
And they like Demi-gods are strong
On whom the Muses smile;
But some their function have disclaimed,
Best pleased with what is aptliest framed
To enervate and defile.

...

...

Not such the initiatory strains
Committed to the silent plains
In Britain's earliest dawn:
Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale,
While all-too-daringly the veil
Of nature was withdrawn!

Nor such the spirit-stirring note
When the live chords Alcæus smote,
Inflamed by sense of wrong;
Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre
Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire
Of fierce vindictive song.

And not unhallowed was the page
By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage
The pangs of vain pursuit;
Love listening while the Lesbian Maid
With finest touch of passion swayed
Her own Æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore
The wreck of Herculanean lore,
What rapture! could ye seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious, tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides.

That were, indeed, a genuine birth
Of poesy; a bursting forth
Of genius from the dust:
What Horace gloried to behold,
What Maro loved, shall we enfold?
Can haughty Time be just!

[September, 1819 — Wordsworth]

US history (study recap)

[credit: Artiox]

[Edmund Gwerk]