Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
In 1942 Albert Einstein had just administered a final physics exam to his senior seminar students at Oxford University. A short time later, walking across campus with his assistant, the young man pointed out that the exam he had just given was the exact same exam he had given the same class a year ago at the end of the semester. Einstein responded, “Yes, it was the same exam. But, you see, the answers have changed."
I don’t believe we wake up one day being the person we are going to be the rest of our lives. We develop into that person over time—an accretion of experiences and influences polished by failures and successes, with (perhaps) moments of clarity and fundamental understanding along the way. I grew up one of a crowd in a small house in an isolated town, but I like to think I had a few moments of clarity and fundamental understanding along the way. Still, I often wonder what helped burnish my character more, the fact that I early on discovered the escapist joys of reading or the frequent slaps on the back of my head with my mom’s well-trod Woolworth’s slipper.
This morning finds it moderately warm on my patio, several cats napping on the cooler flag stones, and Chet Baker playing in the background—all the while, I'm ignoring the inevitability of sunrise. It’s moments like this one that reveal that story of Einstein’s exam as more than an amusing tale. Maybe my answers to the same old questions aren’t wrong; maybe they just change as I grow older. But like faith, I’m forced to find comfort in an explanation for which there will never be a proof.
Good morning everyone.
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Enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend.
Friday’s Lagniappe
This week’s highlight from The Bitter Southerner is an example of how youth these days are demanding a say in this world and reminding us that values and moral obligations bridge our entire nation. Enjoy this essay by Valencia Richardson entitled “If Not Me, Then Who?”
“When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he had no way to know it would speak to a generation of teenagers and 20-somethings who spend most of their time on their phones.
I like to think Dr. King was speaking to some distant future, hoping that generations not yet thought of would be called to action, to face injustice when they saw it….
Maybe Dr. King also sought to preserve the memory of his time in jail to speak to all of us who want progress in the South, and to remind us that progress only stops when we stop working.”
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In the event you’re interested, you can find the year-end Top 100 at the link. Yes, Captain and Tennille had the No. 1 song (“Love Will Keep Us Together”) so there really is no explaining taste. I’ve chosen songs that—for better or worse—have a personal connection to me dating back to that time. Oddly enought (yeah, right), each has a long, tedious story behind them; I was 15—what can I say?
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?