Cogitating Ceviche’s Week in Review (25-23)
June 9, 2025 - June14, 2025
Discussion via NotebookLM
Editor’s Note
From supersonic free falls to subversive fables, this week’s lineup invites readers to consider motion in all its forms—spiritual, civic, historical, and literal. These eight selections challenge modern passivity with stories of resilience, satire, and reflection. Whether guiding children through screen culture or decoding 17th-century wit, our authors deliver calls to wake up, read deeply, and think harder.
Articles of the Week
Raising Readers, Not Consumers: How Christian Parents Can Counter Screen Culture
June 9, 2025
By: Calista Freiheit
Freiheit urges Christian families to recover the cultural and spiritual practice of reading in a screen-saturated era. She outlines strategies to foster attentiveness, character, and critical thinking by building a counter-liturgical home life around shared books and limited media.
Simón Bolívar in the 21st Century: Navigating the Path of Democracy and Global Politics
June 10, 2025
By: Conrad Hannon
Hannon maps Bolívar’s vision onto today’s fractured democracies. Witty, historically grounded, and rich in political insight, this entry critiques populism and power vacuums while proposing that liberty still demands discipline—and that the Enlightenment’s civic architecture deserves a reboot.
Caitlin Clark Is the Chazz Michael Michaels of Basketball
June 11, 2025
By: Conrad Hannon
With signature irreverence, Hannon compares Clark’s hoop charisma to Will Ferrell’s flamboyant skating icon. It’s a send-up and salute to how spectacle, persona, and performance are reshaping women’s sports—with Clark as its dazzling, sharp-shooting protagonist.
The Odyssey
June 11, 2025
By: Gio Marron
Marron channels the eternal pull of Homer’s Odyssey, tracing the poetic power of homecoming, identity, and survival. Rendered with literary care, this reflection invites readers to consider their own epic paths—threaded with cunning, memory, and divine interruption.
Humans as the Fastest Animals on Earth? Felix Baumgartner's Supersonic Case
June 12, 2025
By: Conrad Hannon
Hannon narrates the 2012 supersonic skydive as both engineering marvel and meditation on human ambition. Blending physics, courage, and existential wonder, it’s a reminder that speed doesn’t silence the soul—it sometimes exposes it.
Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695): The Fabulist Who Tamed Kings and Mocked Courts with Talking Animals
June 13, 2025
By: Conrad Hannon
Hannon’s homage to La Fontaine is sharp and erudite. It revisits the French satirist’s animal parables as timeless, politically subversive art—where the fox, the lion, and the court jester all wear masks to speak truths the throne won’t.
The Silence of Motion: Seeing Stillness at 600 MPH
June 14, 2025
By: Conrad Hannon
Here Hannon contemplates the paradox of stillness in velocity. Air travel becomes a metaphor for modern disconnection—and a rare occasion to reclaim interior quiet amid societal acceleration.
The Cipher of Rue Royal: A Mimi Delboise Mystery
June 14, 2025
By: Gio Marron
Marron unveils Mimi Delboise, an elegant, skeptical sleuth navigating Paris’s layered enigmas. Blending noir cadence with character depth, this mystery teases secrets in architecture, dialogue, and urban memory.
Quote of the Week
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." — Ronald Reagan
Thought-Provoking Questions
Raising Readers, Not Consumers
What stories shape your family's moral imagination?
Are you parenting readers or consumers?
How can faith communities revive reading as a cultural anchor?
Simón Bolívar in the 21st Century
Would Bolívar survive today’s politics—or be canceled?
Is national unity compatible with pluralism?
What modern leaders echo his contradictions?
Caitlin Clark
How much of athletic greatness is spectacle?
Are women’s sports evolving past the need for “humble heroism”?
Who gets to shape their myth—and why?
The Odyssey
Where is your Ithaca?
Can tradition teach resilience without nostalgia?
What monsters do you name as metaphors today?
Felix Baumgartner
What drives humans to test the edge of life?
Can awe be engineered?
Does speed equal progress?
La Fontaine
What animals best represent today’s political types?
Is satire still effective in an irony-soaked age?
What truths can only be told through allegory?
Silence of Motion
When did you last encounter stillness?
What motion masks meaning in your life?
Can speed ever be sacred?
Rue Royal Mystery
What clues do cities hide?
How do characters reveal their truths indirectly?
Is justice found or constructed?
Additional Resources
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Bolívar: American Liberator by Marie Arana
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Fables of La Fontaine (Penguin Classics)
The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King
Final Reflections
Every article this week reclaims attention—attention to history, mystery, silence, and soul. As noise rises, these voices offer discernment, challenge, and grace. Continue the dialogue—offline and in depth.
Authors' Calls to Action
Calista Freiheit: Replace 30 minutes of screen time with a family read-aloud.
Conrad Hannon: Revisit a classic text with today’s headlines in mind.
Gio Marron: Take a long walk—notice which streets feel like stories.
All: Share, subscribe, and invite someone new into the conversation.
Thank you for your time today. Until next time, stay gruntled, curious, and God Bless.
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