Do you know Instagram’s “Dust-to-Digital” account? It’s a great collection of clips of superb musicians performing on the street, in houses, at church, all over, everywhere in the world, often using homemade instruments. Try this one featuring young artists. Sound up!
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-06T15:32:01-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/09/06/this-will-make-you-happy/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/08/29/every-day-this-knownothing-lunatic/", "content_html": "\n\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-29T19:31:44-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/08/29/every-day-this-knownothing-lunatic/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/08/15/eccentricity-crisis-sam-buntz-through/", "content_html": "
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-15T10:28:01-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/08/15/eccentricity-crisis-sam-buntz-through/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/08/15/real-genius-talent-hits-a/", "content_html": "Through its educational priorities and excessive fixation on the quantifiable, the U.S. only supports forms of eccentricity that lend themselves to some immediately definable commercial goal, while neglecting any that have to do with pure curiosity. Hence, we’re lobbing gobs of money at the Sam Altmans and Elon Musks of the world, while forsaking interest in reality itself, in what all this stuff actually is. Pure curiosity about nature, the force that motivated Thoreau and Ramanujan, seems liable to languish on the fringes.
\n
\n\nTalent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
\n
– Arthur Schopenhauer
\n", "date_published": "2026-08-15T10:06:10-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/08/15/real-genius-talent-hits-a/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/08/10/saruman-or-adrian-vermeule-as/", "content_html": "\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-10T14:28:18-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/08/10/saruman-or-adrian-vermeule-as/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/08/06/difficult-on-purpose-jonah-goldberg/", "content_html": "As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.
\n
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-06T09:07:28-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/08/06/difficult-on-purpose-jonah-goldberg/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/20/real-casualties-isabella-gonzales-a/", "content_html": "For obvious reasons, I don’t trust Trump with unchecked power. But I also wouldn’t trust Abdul Al-Sayed, or Bernie Sanders, or anyone else with unchecked power. Indeed, the fact that these people tend to believe that obstacles and inconveniences on their quest for ever-more power are somehow illegitimate or unfair is precisely why I don’t trust them with power.
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Isabella Gonzales, a 19-year-old Army private from a Dallas suburb, was one of the three U.S. service personnel killed over the weekend because of Donald Trump’s lack of impulse control. Real death, real grief; not that he cares. But the rest of us should.
\n![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/bd3c7e81f4.png\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-07-20T09:06:21-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/20/real-casualties-isabella-gonzales-a/"
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/19/messi-notwithstanding-this-is-just/",
"content_html": "![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/worldcup.png\")
\nFrom The Athletic:
\n\n\nArgentina standing with their backs to the presentation as Spain players go up to receive their medals.
\n
More from Darron Richman on The Athletic:
\n\n\n… Argentina shamed themselves from beginning to end and even beyond the final whistle. They were an embarrassment.
\n
Oh, and this is nice too. Post-match.
\n![](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/throat.png\")
\n\n\nLeandro Paredes, … pushed the Barcelona defender [Eric Garcia] in the throat.
\n
Finally, this Argentina showreel.
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-19T18:20:08-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/19/messi-notwithstanding-this-is-just/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/18/well-that-didnt-work-or/", "content_html": "Richard Haas:
\n\n\nIt is important to keep in mind that economic shortcomings still constitute the principal weakness of the Iranian regime. There is no reason to give up on the notion that economic pressure can lead to policy moderation or conceivably even regime change down the road. Economic relief for Iran should thus be heavily and specifically conditioned.
\n
The whole thing is worth your time. And Trump’s.
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-18T12:04:07-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/18/well-that-didnt-work-or/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/18/why-am-i-not-surprised/", "content_html": "Like calls to like:
\n\n\nPaxton struck back with Texas heavyweights…. The single $250,000 donation from Jones, the Cowboys owner, dwarfed any individual celebrity contribution to Talarico.
\n
Dallas Morning News, July 18, 2026
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-18T11:46:11-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/18/why-am-i-not-surprised/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/17/the-great-photography-of-gordon/", "content_html": "Via Colossal
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-17T09:00:24-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/17/the-great-photography-of-gordon/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/15/world-cup-especially-for-england/", "content_html": "Especially for England (but for France, too), having to play a stupid 3rd-place game amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-15T16:25:51-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/15/world-cup-especially-for-england/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/14/pedro-porro/", "content_html": "\n\n‘Now, Julian, we don’t want a sermon,’ said Winifred. ‘You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish.’
\nI reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.
\n
Barbara Pym, Excellent Women (1952)
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-10T14:11:54-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/10/only-too-true-now-julian/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/10/skill-nostalgia-or-necessary-calibration/", "content_html": "This may resonate with some micro.bloggers: “The radical reasons why you dream of making things by hand”
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-10T11:02:50-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/10/skill-nostalgia-or-necessary-calibration/" }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/06/subsidiarity-and-repair-too-many/", "content_html": "\n\nToo many essays about [name your American institution (in this essay, it was scouting)] end with the same refrain: It isn’t what it used to be, so I’m leaving. Sometimes, that’s the right decision. Institutions can lose their way, and there are moments when fidelity to conscience requires us to walk away. But increasingly I wonder whether our first instinct has become departure rather than stewardship. Progressives are often criticized for believing institutions can simply be rebuilt from scratch. Yet conservatives sometimes make the opposite mistake: assuming that once an institution has changed, it is beyond salvaging. Both forget that institutions become what people make of them. Stated simply, institutions endure only when people remain long enough to preserve what is good and patiently reform what is not.
\n
Can Scouting Still Raise Boys?, LuElla D’Amico, The Dispatch, July 6, 2026
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-06T15:26:59-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/07/06/subsidiarity-and-repair-too-many/", "tags": ["ideas","citizenship"] }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/07/02/two-from-cataggio-imagining-an/", "content_html": "\n![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/120df37fd2.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-30T20:04:30-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/30/archie-through-the-grass/"
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/28/finished-reading-nonesuch-by-francis/",
"content_html": "Nonesuch by Francis Spufford. A ripping plot, fascinating setting (London during the Blitz), spunky (to say the least) protagonist, and real themes about important things. I enjoyed it enormously.
\n![\"Auto-generated](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/nonesuch.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-28T22:40:27-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/28/finished-reading-nonesuch-by-francis/",
"tags": ["books"]
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/24/from-colossal-animals-and-ornament/",
"content_html": "Animals and Ornament Emerge from Felted Wool in Holly Guertin’s Textiles
\n![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/feltlambofgod.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-24T19:25:32-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/24/from-colossal-animals-and-ornament/"
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/24/no-voice-but-i-removed/",
"content_html": "![\"Pine](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/pxl-20260624-125332185.mp.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-24T12:06:45-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/24/no-voice-but-i-removed/",
"tags": ["faith","colorado"]
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/19/rip-robert-coles-heres-a/",
"content_html": "Here’s a sweet remembrance of Robert Coles, one of America’s great champions of children, written by one of my favorite photographers, Alex Harris. A Wikipedia article about Coles is here.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-19T09:12:21-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/19/rip-robert-coles-heres-a/", "tags": ["ideas"] }, { "id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/16/king-harvest/", "content_html": "
\n
![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/5736/2026/pxl-20260616-213309348.mp2.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-16T16:39:56-05:00",
"url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/16/vacation/"
},
{
"id": "http://JimRain.micro.blog/2026/06/16/finished-reading-a-month-in/",
"content_html": "A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr.
\nWonderful, wistful, lovely book. As economical as a poem.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2026-06-16T13:58:49-05:00", "url": "https://orangejeep.org/2026/06/16/finished-reading-a-month-in/" } ] }“For goodness’ sake,” he said irritably, “I don’t mean that and you know I don’t, you cagey devil. I mean here, Oxgodby, the friends you’ve made, this marvelous summer, the splendid job you’ve done. I mean the lot. You can only have this piece of cake once, you can’t keep on munching away at it. Sad, but there it is!”
\n