Is "basketed" even a legit verb?

A useful reminder about how charts can be visually presented badly, very badly.  Sometimes it's incompetence, sometimes maleficence.

A nice small encomium of praise for Foreign Service Officers, some of the least recognized of public servants, precisely because it is their job to be transparent, messengers of others, not working for themselves.  There's only a few thousand of these people, but they are remarkably educated, terrifically skilled, and exemplars of the kind of "politesse" and "sprezzatura" that from the Renaissance forward have been the ideal for diplomats.  They constitute a worthy elite.

Going to Wittgenstein's hand-built house in Norway, as a kind of "secular pilgrimage". 

Finally, a bit of re-appreciation for the doctrine of total depravity.  "the more I make the salvation of the world a rational, solvable problem, the deeper I seem to sink into futility. But when unreasonable, unremitting human sin is something I expect, then I can face the headwinds of evil without despair. When I believe that human life—including my own—will never be without sin and suffering, I have a greater ability to tolerate pain and horror and to keep on doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly. I can, as Anne Lamott would say, keep singing “Hallelujah!” and looking for grace anyway."