The Louvre has the Mona Lisa. but what is the "most treasured" holding of other museums? "It’s Their Mona Lisa" @ironicsans.com
(Plus- Tiepolo)

Hitting the highlights: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/27/the-pieces-i-chose-were-based-on-one-thing-only-a-gasp-of-delight-isnt-that-the-only-way-to-curate-a-life/

Our democracies depend on our picking up the pace of learning: "Can Democracy be Rehabilitated?"
(Plus- Beethoven erases Napoleon)

Devoting ourselves to democracy: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/26/you-live-and-learn-at-any-rate-you-live/

From 18th century bar trick to scientific staple: "The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere" @quantamagazine.bsky.social
(Plus- Norman Borlaug)

Noodling on the normal distribution: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/25/its-the-bell-curve-again/

Comparing and contrasting wealth and expenses: "$Billions" (and "$Trillions") @infobeautiful.bsky.social
(Plus- the Exxon Valdez spill)

Pondering the pecuniary: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/24/a-billion-here-a-billion-there-and-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money/

Printed comics as a genre long preceded the Sunday Funny Pages:"'Lost Literacies' Strips Down the Dawn of Comics" @jstordaily.bsky.social
(Plus- TMNT)

Tell *and* show: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/23/in-comics-at-their-best-words-and-pictures-are-like-partners-in-a-dancer-and-each-one-takes-turns-leading/

An explication of one of the most fundamental of all human needs: "Mattering"
(Plus- Goethe)

Wondering about worth: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/22/what-matters-to-you-defines-your-mattering/

Living faithfully a hidden life: "The Moral Beauty of Middlemarch" @plough.bsky.social
(Plus- The Mill on the Floss)

Valuing virtue: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/21/the-growing-good-of-the-world-is-partly-dependent-on-unhistoric-acts/

Fabulous fruit and vegetables: "Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909)" @publicdomainrev.bsky.social
and Banksy @boingboing.net
(Plus- Isaac Newton)

Live large: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/20/the-bigger-the-better/

The map is not the territory, part xxii- challenging our frameworks and models for thinking and talking about our future.
(Plus- the Mongol Yuan conquer the Song)

Musing on metaphors: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/19/the-metaphors-we-use-deliver-us-hope-or-they-foreclose-possibility/

On the practice of selective enforcement and prosecution: "Corrupt anticorruption" @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy
(Plus- Caligula)

Grapple with graft: https://roughlydaily.com/2026/03/18/everything-is-destroyed-by-its-own-particular-vice-the-destructive-power-resides-within/