Quotes July 18, 2025

“At this point, Sergeant Bellavia, armed with a M249 SAW gun, entered the room where the insurgents were located and sprayed the room with gunfire … Seeing a Jihadist loading an RPG launcher, Sergeant Bellavia gunned him down. … Sergeant Bellavia then came under fire from the insurgent upstairs and the staff sergeant returned the fire, killing the man. … Sergeant Bellavia pursued, but slipped on the blood-soaked stairs. … Sergeant Bellavia put a choke hold on the wounded insurgent to keep him from giving away their position. … In the wild scuffle that followed, Sergeant Bellavia took out his knife and slit the Jihadist’s throat.”
Silver Star citation for David S. Bellavia, Iraq
 
 
 
 
“I’d learned a lot in the Army. I knew that above all things in the world I had to become so big, so strong that people and their hatred could never touch me.”
Sammy Davis, Jr.
 
 
 
 
“Hooah!”
Pretty much the entire U.S. Army.
 
 
 
 
“They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards.”
Gen. Creighton Abrams
 
 
 
 
“9/11 changed the entire direction of my life.”
Fred Wellman, who had served as a helicopter pilot in the Army and rejoined after September 11 to serve as a public affairs officer.
 
 
 
 
“It took me another 18 months to convince my wife to let me join the Army National Guard. We had two small children, so it was a very hard decision
for her.”
Joel Bottem, a veteran who rejoined after 9/11
 
 
 
 
“It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.”
Zell Miller
 
 
 
 

Music July 18, 2025

Heather Headley performs the National Anthem before the 2025 Home Run Derby!
 
 
 
 
An Armed Forces Day Salute | The U.S. Army Field Band
 
 
 
 
Pershings Own: “Summerland” by William Grant Still
 
 
 
 

907 Updates July 17, 2025

Condolences

KTUU: Mary Shields, Iditarod trailblazer, dies at 80

 
 
 
 

Alaska Native News: House Passes Legislation Supporting Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans; This Day in Alaskan History-July 17th, 1897 and more ->
 
 
 
 

Fairbanks News Webcenter 11: LIVE: Evacuation statuses downgraded, burn suspensions lifted throughout Alaska; Land transfer to NANA Regional Corporation finalized; New world record set during first day at WEIO Colton Paul breaks own record in scissor broad jump and more ->
 
 
 
 

KSTK: Law enforcement confiscates “ghost gun” at Wrangell Airport and more ->
 
 
 
 

KFSK: Police chief’s lawsuit against Petersburg Borough ends with $70,000 settlement and more ->

 
 
 
 

KUCB/KMXT: Magnitude 7.3 earthquake shakes Sand Point and triggers tsunami warning for Southwest Alaska and more ->
 
 
 
 

Delta Wind: Council hears from landowner about right-of-way issue and more ->

 
 
 
 
KINY: Alaskans Now Have Clearer Path to Request Government Investigations and more ->

 
 
 
 
Homer News: Local author Brian Smith writes about history, family and felines The author of three self-published books, Smith is now working on the final installment of his trilogy.
In “Golden Boy: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Diary of My Life,” local author Brian Smith explores not only his early childhood growing up in Anchorage but also his artistic journey as a filmmaker and screenwriter over his 60 years of life. He writes about everything, from his experiences of the 1964 earthquake as a child to his artistic growth over the years.

“There are huge hunks of me, my heart and soul on every page,” he said, during a June 23 interview. “It’s brutally honest, but it flowed. I didn’t even outline it, and I outline everything.”

Learn more ->

 
 
 
 

Quotes July 17, 2025

You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you.
Josh Shipp, motivational speaker
 
 
 
 
Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.
Michael J. Fox
 
 
 
 
We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.
Marianne Williamson, author
 
 
 
 
You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.
Timber Hawkeye, author
 
 
 
 
If opening your eyes, or getting out of bed, or holding a spoon, or combing your hair is the daunting Mount Everest you climb today, that is OK.
Carmen Ambrosio, author
 
 
 
 
Maybe life isn’t about avoiding the bruises. Maybe it’s about collecting the scars to prove that we showed up for it.
Hannah Brencher, author
 
 
 
 

Music July 17, 2025

This song is for all the friends we’ve lost and the people who tried to save them.

ANGELS – Sons of Legion (Acoustic Performance Live from the Barn)
 
 
 
 

FYI July 16, 2025

  • Filed under FYI

On This Day

1212 – Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: After Pope Innocent III calls European knights to a crusade, the forces of kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal defeat those of the Berber Muslim leader Almohad, thus marking a significant turning point in the Reconquista and in the medieval history of Spain.
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Islamic history as the Battle of Al-Uqab (Arabic: معركة العقاب), took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the Reconquista and the medieval history of Spain.[13] The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre and Peter II of Aragon, in battle[14] against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The caliph al-Nasir (Miramamolín in the Spanish chronicles) led the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the Almohad Caliphate.

Read more ->

 
 

Born On This Day

1486 – Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter (died 1530)[19]
Andrea del Sarto (US: /ɑːnˌdreɪə dɛl ˈsɑːrtoʊ/, UK: /ænˌ-/, Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del ˈsarto]; 16 July 1486 – 29 September 1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. He was known as an outstanding fresco decorator, painter of altarpieces, portraitist, draughtsman, and colorist.[1] Although highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori (“without errors”), his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

Read more ->
 
 

FYI

 
 
NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day
 
 
EarthSky News
 
 
This Day in Tech History
 
 
This Day In History
 
 
Interesting Facts
 
 
Word Genius: Word of the Day
 
 
Wise Trivia
 
 

Nice News: The Annual Beluga Cam Is Now Live — And You Can Join the Ranks as a Citizen Scientist

 
 
 
 

By Colin Marshall, Open Culture: The Story Told on the Famous Bayeux Tapestry Explained from Start to Finish
 
 
By Open Culture: A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert
 
 
 
 

Frederick Dreier, Outside Magazine: It Turns Out Chihuahuas Are the Best Trail Dogs Two years after our colleague argued the merits of the tiny dogs, a glacier rescue in Switzerland adds considerable clout to his take
 
 
 
 

CutterLight: Moose Pie & Malbec – a New Adventure
 
 
 
 
Worth listening to.
The FieldCraft Survival Channel: The Death of Fieldcraft Survival
 
 
 
 
Mike Ritland: The Border Breach You Haven’t Heard About – CCP Covert Ops on U.S. Soil | Mike Drop 248
 
 
Mike Ritland: Mix – Robert Plant – Everybody’s Song (Official Music Video) The Shocking Truth About Missing Children in America
 
 
 
 
Jack CarrUSA: From Chicago Prosecutor to FBI SWAT: A Conversation with Jon Dubin
 
 
 
 
Joe Rogan Experience #2350 – Ryan Callaghan
 
 
 
 
A friend shared their thoughts on Paul’s ticket prices…

 
 
 
 

Recipes

Food Talk Daily: Cheese Slaw – A Favorite Summer Dip

 
 

Food Talk Daily: CHOCOLATE HAUPIA CREAM PIE (TED’S BAKERY COPYCAT)
 
 
Simply Recipes: I Make This 4-Ingredient Dessert All Summer Long
 
 
Just the Recipe: Paste the URL to any recipe, click submit, and it’ll return literally JUST the recipe- no ads, no life story of the writer, no nothing EXCEPT the recipe.
 
 
DamnDelicious
 
 


 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

E-book Deals:

 

BookGorilla

The Book Blogger List

BookBub

The Book Junction: Where Readers Go To Discover Great New Fiction!

Books A Million

Digital Book Spot

eBookSoda

eBooks Habit

FreeBooksy

Indie Bound

Love Swept & The Smitten Word

Mystery & Thriller Most Wanted

Pixel of Ink

The Rock Stars of Romance

Book Blogs & Websites:

Alaskan Book Cafe

Alternative-Read.com

Stacy, Carol RT Book Reviews

Welcome to the Stump the Bookseller blog!

Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.

Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder. Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?

907 Updates July 16, 2025

KTUU: Anchorage Assembly criminalizes camping in certain public areas; Anchorage Police abate homeless camps at Russian Jack Park The effort involved firefighters who put out several blazes believed to have come from unattended campfires; ‘It really is a miracle’: Dog lost camping found by good Samaritan pilot A 10-year-old lost Soldotna dog was reunited with his owners this week after being found by a pilot in a rural part of Southcentral Alaska and more ->
 
 
 
 

KTOO: City proposes code change to make it easier to arrest people without housing in Juneau and more ->
 
 
 
 

KYUK: Racers compete in Bethel’s first traditional triathlon and more ->
 
 
 
 

Alaska Native News: James White Pleads Guilty to Murder of 5½-Week-Old Baby; Lawana Barker Sentenced for Drug Distribution Homicide; This Day in Alaskan History-July 16th, 1916 and more ->

 
 
 
 

Fairbans News Webcenter 11: ASYMCA-owned thrift stores offer Alaska’s military spouses a ‘network of support’; Arctic Gardens: Aphids, sawflies and other pests and more ->
 
 
 
 

KUCB: The June salmon harvest in the southern Alaska Peninsula was the worst in 4 decades and more ->
 
 
 
 

Delta Wind: Grant award adds library activities and more ->
 
 
 
 

KINY: Juneau’s proposed changes to city code could increase arrests of unhoused residents; Elizabeth Peratrovich Mural restoration is complete in Downtown Juneau and more ->
 
 
 
 

Simple Living Alaska: Mix – Robert Plant – Everybody’s Song (Official Music Video) Drying & Smoking Sockeye Salmon | Dip Net Fishing the Copper River

 
 
 
 

Quotes July 16, 2025

Rhetorical questions have great power.
David Gergen,
US presidential adviser, political commentator, editor, writer
1942-2025
 
 
 
 
I’ve always said there’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams.
Aung San Suu Kyi,
politician, diplomat, writer, social activist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
 
 
 
 
I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.
Kurt Vonnegut
 
 
 
 
Pull yourself together and use what you have.
Betsy Cañas Garmon
 
 
 
 
Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams.
S. A. Sachs
 
 
 
 
Our lucky star is the one that happens to be in sight when we are having a bit of luck.
Henry Stanley Haskins
 
 
 
 
Reminder:
Never get discouraged at difficulties… When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
 
 
 

Music July 16, 2025

Bryan Race: When Music Was Magic – Classic Rock Hits of the 1970’s
 
 
 
 

FYI July 15, 2025

  • Filed under FYI

On This Day

1240 – Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeats the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva.
The Battle of the Neva (Russian: Невская битва, romanized: Nevskaya bitva; Swedish: slaget vid Neva; Finnish: Nevan taistelu) was fought between the Novgorod Republic, along with Karelians, and the Kingdom of Sweden,[2] including Norwegian, Finnish and Tavastian forces, on the Neva River, near the settlement of Ust-Izhora, on 15 July 1240. The battle is mentioned only in Russian sources,[3] and it remains unclear whether it was a major invasion or a small-scale raid.[4][5] In Russian historiography, it has become an event of massive scale and importance.[6]

Read more ->

 
 

Born On This Day

1359 – Antonio Correr, Italian cardinal (died 1445)
Antonio Correr (15 July 1359 – 19 January 1445) was a Roman Catholic cardinal who was appointed cardinal by his uncle Pope Gregory XII during the period of the Great Western Schism.

Read more ->
 
 

FYI

 
 
NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day
 
 
EarthSky News
 
 
This Day in Tech History
 
 
This Day In History
 
 
Interesting Facts
 
 
Word Genius: Word of the Day
 
 
Wise Trivia
 
 

When you’re out there panhandling in the river, occasionally you get a gold nugget.
David Gergen,
US presidential adviser, political commentator, editor, writer
1942-2025

David Richmond Gergen (May 9, 1942 – July 10, 2025) was an American political commentator and longtime presidential adviser who served during the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.[2] He was later a senior political analyst for CNN[3] and a professor of public service and the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen was also the former editor at large of U.S. News & World Report[4] and a contributor to CNN and Parade Magazine. He was twice a member of election coverage teams that won Peabody awards: in 1988 with MacNeil–Lehrer (now PBS News Hour), and in 2008 with CNN.

Learn more ->
 
 
 
 

By Colin Marshall, Open Culture: The Entire History of English in 22 Minutes

 
 
 
 
TLDR: Meta’s AI pivot 🤖, ChromeOS Android merger 📱, AWS agentic IDE 👨‍💻

 
 
 
 

DataByteGo Newsletter: Stop Wasting Time: Here’s How to Prepare Data for AI the Smart Way

 
 
 
 
By Ernie Smith, Tedium: Selling More Than The Drama A new Commodore device hit pre-orders this week after weeks of rumors. But retro is nothing if not its irrational haters.

 
 
 
 

North to the Future: An Offline Adventure through the Changing Wilds of AlaskaBen Weissenbach
Grand Central Publishing, Jul 15, 2025 – Nature – 320 pages
Hailed as a “worthy successor” to John McPhee (Kirkus Reviews), Ben Weissenbach —a digital native with little prior wilderness experience—embarks on a series of scientific adventures across the wilds of Alaska with some of the state’s most distinguished and audacious researchers.

At the age of twenty, college student Ben Weissenbach went north to Arctic Alaska armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What met him there was a world utterly unlike the 21st century Los Angeles in which he grew up—a land of ice, rock, and grizzlies seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities.

There’s Roman Dial, the larger-than-life ecologist with whom Ben walks and rafts a thousand miles across Alaska’s Brooks Range. There’s Kenji Yoshikawa, the reindeer-herding permafrost expert who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his off-grid homestead, where temperatures drop to -49 degrees Fahrenheit. And there’s Matt Nolan, the independent glaciologist who flies him to the largest glaciers in the American Arctic.

As these scientists teach Ben to read Alaska’s warming landscape, he confronts the limits of digital life and the complexity of the world beyond his screens. He emerges from each adventure with a new perspective on our modern relationship to technology and a growing wonder for our fast-changing—ever-changing—natural world.

 
 
 
 
By Craig Medred: National decay

 
 
 
 
Jake Wynn – Public Historian: A speech documents the early history of Williamstown, Pennsylvania | 1876
 
 
Jake Wynn – Public Historian: Recollections and reflections on growing up in Williamstown, Pennsylvania | 2025
 
 
 
 

Workplace Coach Blog: When You Can’t Turn Your Brain Off at Night
 
 
 
 
NSFW
Joe Rogan Experience #2349 – Danny Jones
 
 
Daylight Computer

 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 

Recipes

Simply Recipes: Alabama White Sauce Is the Perfect Companion for All Your Grilled Meats
 
 
Taste of Home: Garbage Bread
 
 
Taste of Home: I Recreated the Disney Blue Ribbon Corn Dogs So You Can Have a Taste of Disney at Home
 
 

Simply Recipes: The Creole Spaghetti Recipe I Learned from My Dad

 
 
Just the Recipe: Paste the URL to any recipe, click submit, and it’ll return literally JUST the recipe- no ads, no life story of the writer, no nothing EXCEPT the recipe.
 
 
DamnDelicious
 
 


 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

E-book Deals:

 

BookGorilla

The Book Blogger List

BookBub

The Book Junction: Where Readers Go To Discover Great New Fiction!

Books A Million

Digital Book Spot

eBookSoda

eBooks Habit

FreeBooksy

Indie Bound

Love Swept & The Smitten Word

Mystery & Thriller Most Wanted

Pixel of Ink

The Rock Stars of Romance

Book Blogs & Websites:

Alaskan Book Cafe

Alternative-Read.com

Stacy, Carol RT Book Reviews

Welcome to the Stump the Bookseller blog!

Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.

Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder. Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?