Bright spots on the rainy, cloudy, miserable day were contacts with my kids. P. and N. called on the cam early and it was so good to see them. N. is giving a painting exhibition at a large hobby show, and showed me the picture she'll paint. A. called after a race in the rain. Ellen and I caught up with each other and I saw her garden, which she has shaped up so nicely by weeding and adding new plants and furniture. Mike may still be in Cebu, the Philippines, on vacation, as I didn't hear from him.
Other than that, ran a few errands, did wash, and just generally hung out (not the wash--me. Ha!) Talked to Dee G., the one who bought my childhood home, and we made tentative plans to meet for lunch the week after next; will call to firm up then.
Wider: Jeff Riggenbach's new book, Why American History Isn't What They Say It Is: An Introduction to Revisionism, includes a number of thought-provoking ideas and citations, including Peter Novick on historical "facts":
"...all of them are necessarily arranged, in different ways. Selection, centering, and arrangement are inherent in the process; and are typically decisive in determining the sort of picture which emerges. [3]
And yet, to say all this is barely to have scratched the surface of the problem. For before the historian can select, center, marginalize, or arrange the facts, he or she must first ascertain the facts. And this is by no means as unproblematical a matter as at first it might seem."
This is from LewRockwell.com, the Libertarian site. I'm not of that persuasion for a variety of reasons, but a lot of their ideas are similar to mine and I enjoy the articles I read there.