New Orts #85

August 31 MMXXV

We are living in a moment of existential dread and alienation caused by the savagery of social media, the ugliness of our politics, the AI takeover, our melting planet, a winner-take-all economy and a sense of social isolation that still hasn’t recovered from the dark times of the pandemic. We’re losing the connection to nature that has defined our species for 2 million years. At the same time, we are losing our connection to each other and to our communities — what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the art of associating.” In short, we are losing our sense of what it means to be human — and the challenge of our time will be to recover what we have lost.
— Dana Millbank, in the Washington Post, July 25, 2025

Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.
— Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Letter to Christian Goldbach, April 17, 1712

You are unique, just like everyone else.
— George Carlin (1937-2008)

When we Americans are done with the English language, it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.
— Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)