Watchlist: Why watch Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5
George Orwell wrote the book 1984 in 1948, and it was published the following year. Genre-wise, it’s been branded as science fiction (earlier in its life), dystopian future fiction, political fiction, social science fiction.

Sitting here in 2025—some seventy-seven years after publishing—I venture to say that it has never been more relevant a story than now.

And the new documentary presents that story well. (There’s a link to the trailer at the end of this article.)

Okay, so documentaries aren’t always the first thing you reach for on movie night. But trust me: Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is different. It’s smart, stylish, and a little bit chilling in the best way. Here’s why you’ll want to check it out:

1. It Feels Weirdly Now
   This isn’t dusty history. Orwell’s worries about truth, lies, and power line up almost too well with the world we’re living in. You’ll catch yourself thinking, “Wait… are we already in 1984?”
2. It Actually Looks Cool
   No endless talking heads here. The movie mixes Orwell’s own words (voiced by Damian Lewis) with sharp visuals, real-world clips, and a moody vibe that keeps you hooked.
3. It Leaves You Thinking
   This isn’t popcorn entertainment, but it is the kind of film that makes you want to text a friend afterward and say, “Wow, we need to talk about this.”

⭐ Bottom line: If you’re in the mood for something thought-provoking and a little haunting, Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 is 100% worth the watch.
Watch the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGMEOdPxpWs

You can’t always get what you want

I arrived late to the fan club that adores The Rolling Stones.

Country music was my genre of choice in the 1950s,1960s, and 1970s. Americana, traditional values (meaning, “how I grew up,”) and a genre in which women finally could become stars, not just backup singers.

Have you ever realized you missed out on what the general populace identifies as your group?

Well, I do. I completely missed the 1960s. I never marched. No drugs except nicotine and alcohol.

I was editor of the college newspaper when one day someone burst into the offices to report that someone lowered the flag to half-staff.

My most radical act was to grab a camera, race downstairs, out the front door, to the flagpole, where I used up my entire roll of film. Thirty-six frames of a flag at half-staff. I took a lot of ribbing for that.

So, cool I was not. Then, or today. Only now I hold a different world view. A view that treasures honor, truth (facts,) justice for all. A world where love reigns, where everybody always has enough. 

That includes the creatures around us, and the eco systems that make life sustainable. I believe in God, though many believe otherwise.

I’m also prone to ear worms, those little bits of a song that you just cannot stop singing. So, while visiting family in Milwaukee this past week, I subjected them to two ear worms.

First was, “Here comes Peter Cottontail” sung relentlessly to acknowledge the rabbit we witnessed ravaging the still-green tomatoes at season’s end.

The second ear worm was the title of today’s blog: “You can’t always get what you want,” from Mick Jagger’s and Keith Richards’ 1969 all- time rock hit.

At its most basic level, the line is kind of a “no-duh” statement. I could amend it to read, “You almost never ever get what you want.” This would be closer to being accurate, but the meter’s off, and the message more dreary than the original.

For me, the saving hope  of this song and of life itself are its closing words:

But if you try sometimes
Well, you just might find
You get what you need.

MPT+

Who did you tell?

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

These wise words come to us from the late poet Mary Oliver.

They’re as good a place as any I know of to lead the way to an appreciation of wonder.

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

A shooting star. Remember when you first saw one of those? Who did you tell?

A magnifying glass transports sunlight to dry leaves and, voila, creates fire.
Who did you tell?

A mated pair of birds can interlace their wings and offer their fallen offspring a ride to freedom.
Who did you tell?

Wonder awaits us at nearly every turn.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Wonder and philosophy. Christopher Campbell explores their relationship today in a new podcast episode of The Wonder Files.

“Thin places” are recognized by most world religions as “real.” While the name and concept are often known to us through ancient Celtic Christianity, the idea is not singularly Christian. Most of the world religions acknowledge that there are places and moments where humanity’s now and God’s now intersect.

In my podcast today, The Wonder Files, I talk about thin places, going into some depth regarding what they are, and how we may find them. I then share a personal thin place from my life.

Please check out The Wonder Files on your favorite podcast link. It also is available on podomatic.com. At the upper right on the pages, click “Listen to Podcasts,” then search for The Wonder Files. It’s free! You can also find a link on my website, livingthesedays.me

Also, here is a link to how other faith and spiritual community’s align with this.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition there are a number of scriptural references to the “reality” of God being with us. Here are a few such references:

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. Genesis 28:16.

God called to him from within the bush… “take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:4-5

I saw the Lord, high and exalted… Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah 6:1-3

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son. John 1:14

There He was transfigured before them… A voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!’ Matthew 17:2-5

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? … your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.’ Psalm 139:7-10

Revelation 21:3 – Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them… God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are…

This lovely nursery rhyme is likely familiar to most of us. A charming relic of our own childhoods, or perhaps recycled through grandchildren, and great-grands.

For me it’s also a bonafide ear worm, a catchy piece of music or melody that gets stuck in our heads and repeats involuntarily. I find myself humming the tune even as I write
this.

I grew up in the idyllic 1950s America. Summers in the suburbs offered lots of bike riding and playing with neighbors. Just be home by dark, parents would say. We thought we were astonishingly free. Little did we realize we had a whole network of parents watching over us.

It was a childhood filled with fairytales and wonder. We were free to imagine.

I shall always be grateful to my parents for the bedroom ceiling they painted. Odd, you may think, but I am very serious.
Against a backdrop of light, almost imperceptible, yellow, my parents adapted the stippling paint technique. They wadded up newspaper, dipped a piece in red, green, or blue paint, then pressed the wad to the ceiling.

When done, we had a ceiling full of unique and irregular shapes. We stared at them to wind down toward sleep. Pointing excitedly, “Do you see the green rhinoceros? Right there!” “That’s not a rhino, that’s a buffalo.”

We lived in a fantasy world where we both could be right, when buffalos and rhinos both roamed the US. And they could be green, blue, or red. The next night, the same splotch might become Lassie or Rin Tin Tin.

It was all possible in the wonderland that was our childhood ceiling.

My podcast, which debuts today, is all about recognizing and celebrating the wonder in our lives.

I’ll bet you that, once you start looking, you’ll see that it’s everywhere!

Check out the podcast at livingthesedays.me

‘Shall we make a new rule of life…always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.’ J.M. Barrie, The White Little Bird. 1902.

Be kinder more than necessary
Those are words to live by. No one loses the argument, no one loses the fight. Everyone wins at the “soul level” if our focus is to be kinder than necessary.
A side note: It is in The White Little Bird that Barrie introduces the character Peter Pan, though the Peter we would recognize is more fully developed in his writings over the next several years.

It is difficult for me to imagine an argument against “more kindness.”

“Be kinder than necessary” aligns well with the goals of major religions. We can debate, I suppose, as to how much kindness may be necessary. But if in a quest for precision I feel compelled to drag out the scales or the yard stick, I may be missing the big point.
Maybe the call is really about being kinder than my first impulse, kinder than I may think is sufficient, kinder than if I think Someone is watching.
For those of us awash in the deepening muddy trenches of U.S. American politics, being kinder than necessary (however we define it) just might be a good place of focus. Being kind does not require the surrendering of other important values. It simply suggests we keep one toe in the pool of shared human values while we do. 

SPECIAL NOTE
Stay tuned for my podcast, launching soon. The Wonder Files will debut in late September on most platforms where podcasts air. It also will be available on livingthesedays.me, this blog’s website.

My new friend Phil

A few weeks ago we hadn’t a clue that the other existed. Now. Phil writes to me daily,
but has yet to answer any of my emails.
I suspected Phil might not be “real,” which was confirmed when his “boss” wrote to say Phil is not able to answer email, but that they are working on getting him those privileges.
It all began when I responded online to a job opening for a chaplain at a local hospital. Phil was quick on the draw getting back to me. I hurriedly uploaded a current resume that clearly outlines my fields of experience: journalism, private school administration, and ministry.
He was excited, he wrote, noting that he had many things that were right up my alley: occupational therapy, medical assistant, surgeon, and…you get the point. Today I got more: medical director, neurosurgeon.
Apparently the only thing he picked up from my application and resume was the word “hospital.”
When I reached out to correct this gross misunderstanding, I learned that Phil can’t reach back.
So, whichever employers are being represented by this online recruiter, they are not being served well. Of course, neither am I and I have no recourse—but then neither have I paid any
money.
This is a pretty good example of an AI failure. I imagine Phil was programmed for key words, such as hospital, without nuance. It can probably be fixed, but how to even tell anyone?

AI.
We can fear it.
We can worry about ethical uses.
We can pretend that it has nothing to do with our lives.
We can stomp our feet and threaten it.
We can try to just wait it out.
My strategy is to embrace AI, mostly because it intrigues me. Also, realizing it likely is not going away, I may as well try to understand what I can.
As for me & Phil, the end is in sight. One-way communication has never been a successful game plan for relationships.

Kerr County Texas: When is the price too high?

More than one hundred lives were lost in Texas flooding that began July 4. Eighty-six in Kerr County alone. And apparently that’s not the final count.

We’ve read or seen numerous accounts of loss and sorry, bravery, heroics, tenacity, and love.

Most of us became aware of the devastation when the Guadalupe River breached its banks and, in effect, demolished a girl’s summer camp–and much else.

Families are devastated. What happened is unthinkable. Unimaginable. You drop your child off for a summer respite—and you never see them alive again. How does that happen?

The blame-game has begun, I’m sure. Agency to agency. Parents to agencies. Maybe even parent to parent in cases where there wasn’t agreement on sending their child in the first place.

Attorneys are circling, I’m certain, and lawsuits will strangle the courts for years to come.

But if there’s a lesson for the future, we may find it, not in the courtrooms of tomorrow, but in meeting rooms of the past. Specifically from 2017.

The Guadalupe River has a history of severe flooding. So in 2017, Kerr County applied for a grant to fund a million-dollar state-of-the art advance warning system.

No grant was forthcoming. So, proponents sought funding from Kerr County’s budget. Denied as being too expensive. 
I bring this up, not to vilify leaders of the past, but to inspire leaders now and in the future.

Sure, it’s important to be wise with public money. But how could public money be better spent than on saving lives from a well known treacherous river?

Here’s the full, AI verified story of the 2017 Kerr County plan to install a modern floodwarning system along the Guadalupe River—and why it never materialized:

What actually happened in 2017?

   •   January 2017: The Kerr County Commissioners Court unanimously approved applying for a ~$975,000 FEMA grant (later cited as $980K or $1M) to develop a comprehensive flood warning system—including river gauges and sirens—in “Flash Flood Alley”.

   •   Mid2017: An engineering study (funded by the county at a cost of $50,000) recommended this system, estimating implementation would cost $750,000–$1M.

   •   The proposed system was modeled after tornado siren networks in nearby Comal County, plus upgraded flowgauges……cited as vital for monitoring and warning folks downstream at camps and river crossings.

Why it wasn’t approved?

   •   Grant application denied: The FEMA grant—and a subsequent application after Hurricane Harvey in 2017–18—were both rejected, as those funds were prioritized for coastal and Harvey affected communities.

   •   Local funding roadblocks: With no federal funds, commissioners considered investing local dollars but ultimately shelved it. Budget constraints, taxaverse sentiment,
and resident resistance—especially concern over disruptive sirens—were cited.

   •   One commissioner famously joked that sirens might drive him back to drinking, reflecting community pushback .

More (or less) about truth

Photography, in its purest form, is as close as we can get to an eye-witness account without actually being present.

It is for good reason that photography has been a staple of journalism for decades, After all, it is said that one photograph can “replace a thousand words.”

Just try to describe in words that awesome moment in World War II history when U.S. Marines planted the American flag on Iwo Jima. Joe Rosenthal’s award-winning photo was etched on the minds of a generation. It tells the story that thousands of words cannot capture.

Or try to replace with words astronaut Bill Anders’ 1968  photo of the moonrise over the Earth. The first time we saw “this fragile earth, our island home.”

Yes, photographs have captured history for years to come. And will continue to do so.

AND.

Photographs can be manipulated so that they distort the truth.

In the 1994 murder trial of football hero O.J. Simpson, two national news magazines handled his jailhouse photos differently.  Newsweek ran the photo on the cover, without serious editing. Time carried the same photo, seriously doctored to make the suspect appear more menacing. The magazine was widely criticized for this, and comparing the two photos was a buzz around newsrooms for months to come.

All of this pales with comparison to what Artificial Intelligence can do now. I have gotten to where I trust very little of what I see. What a shame.