It may not be the most important story in the world, but it’s a story — and it carries some significance for me. “Rite Aid, Facing Slumping Sales and Opioid Suits, Files for Bankruptcy.” That is a headline from the New York Times. The subheading reads, “The pharmacy chain, one of the country’s largest, faces more than a thousand lawsuits that say it filled illegal prescriptions for painkillers.”

For the article itself, go here.

There was a Rite Aid in my neighborhood. I used it as my grocery store (rather than a pharmacy). The employees were wonderful. The prices were wonderful. When it closed — a year or two ago? — I was . . . chagrined. Maybe even a little emotional.

In the spring of 2020, I wrote a piece — an essay — called “Pandemic City: One man’s experience in New York.” Just an excerpt:

I have come to love the young cashiers at Rite Aid, Pinkberry, and other places. I see them almost every day. They are behind plastic partitions, working their tails off, scrubbing their hands, putting up with all manner of customer weirdness and nervousness. We have formed something like a bond. I feel quasi-parental toward them.

Strange to say, and strange to hear, maybe — but true.

• Lately, I have been thinking a lot about democracy, and so have many others. Not long ago, I wrote a piece on the subject: What is it? What’s it good for?

Below is a bulletin, a message, from a Belarusian. I was rather moved by it.

• “Martti Ahtisaari, Finnish Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dies at 86.” For that obit, go here. I got to know Mr. Ahtisaari a little. I mean, I never met him, but I wrote a history of the Nobel Peace Prize, which of course has a section on him. He won the prize in 2008. Interesting fellow.

He was born in 1937 in Vilpuri, Finland — soon to be a Soviet property called “Vyborg.” Here is Ahtisaari in his Nobel lecture:

I was a child affected by a war. I was only two years old when, as a result of an agreement on spheres of interest between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, war broke out, forcing my family to leave soon thereafter.

The laureate continued,

Like several hundred thousand fellow Karelians, we became refugees in our own country as great-power politics caused the borders of Finland to be redrawn and left my hometown as part of the Soviet Union. This childhood experience contributed to my commitment to working on the resolution of conflicts.

Let me pause for a musical note. In 1893, Sibelius wrote the music that would become the Karelia Suite. The music was commissioned by the Vilpuri Students Association, which was planning a fundraiser.

(And the Kremlin is still redrawing borders, by force.)

In 1960, when he was in his early twenties, Ahtisaari went to Pakistan to work for the YMCA. In 1965, he joined his country’s ministry of foreign affairs, eventually focusing on development aid. In 1973, he was appointed the ambassador to Tanzania.

More from the résumé: In 1977, Ahtisaari began working for the United Nations — which made him its high commissioner for Namibia. In due course, Ahtisaari helped Namibia secure its independence from South Africa. Some referred to him as “Namibia’s midwife.”

“Many boys in Namibia have been named after Martti,” said the chairman of the relevant Nobel committee in 2008. “That must be at least as great an honor as being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

In 1994, Finnish voters elected Ahtisaari their president. He served one term (six years).

Across several decades, Ahtisaari performed diplomatic work in a variety of places — African places, yes, but also Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Indonesia . . . The great theme of his career was: No conflict is beyond resolution.

“Peace is a question of will,” said Ahtisaari in his Nobel lecture. “All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.”

Listen to an earlier Nobel peace laureate, Elihu Root, the U.S. secretary of state under Theodore Roosevelt: “There is no international controversy so serious that it cannot be settled if both parties really wish to settle it. There are few controversies so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion for war if the parties really wish to fight.”

So much to say (at column length, at book length). Maybe I can close with this: The mother of a friend of mine was a close friend of Jeane Kirkpatrick’s. When my friend was young, Kirkpatrick told her, “Try to find employment that involves you in the life of your times. It will give you a more interesting life.”

Martti Ahtisaari certainly had such a life.

• I sometimes say — rejoice to say — “Diogenes, look no further.” Well: Diogenes, look no further. You have Peter Ellis.

• It’s true, what people say: Swimming is good for you.

• Have you seen, and watched, this delightful young man?

• I had to tip my hat to the headline-writer here: “Walt Garrison, a Cowboy Three Times Over, Dies at 79.” Walt Garrison was an Oklahoma State University Cowboy. And a Dallas Cowboy. And a top performer on the rodeo circuit.

For the obit, published in the New York Times, go here. And again: inspired headline.

• A speck of music? For a review of the San Diego Symphony, not in San Diego but in Carnegie Hall, go here. The conductor was the orchestra’s music director, Rafael Payare; the soloist — cello soloist — was Alisa Weilerstein. They are married. (Feel free to say “awww.”)

• Come to Cleveland with me, if you will. As a Michigander, I’m used to the Michigan State Spartans. But there are Spartans in Cleveland — the Spartans of Case Western Reserve University:

• I wasn’t much of a student of physics. (Take that to mean: not one at all.) But this building, in my opinion, looks like what a college building should look like. Makes me want to study — hard.

• Care to study law?

At the top of that building, a passage from Deuteronomy is inscribed: “According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do.”

• As you can see, this building says “Armory.” It was constructed during World War I. It now serves, I believe, as a gymnasium.

• See this windmill, on the Case Western campus? I’m not sure of its utility where energy is concerned. But I sort of like it as an art installation.

• Above, I mentioned a secretary of state under Theodore Roosevelt. John Hay was another one. And this is John Hay High School, in Cleveland:

(In his early life, Hay was private secretary to Abraham Lincoln. I can scarcely imagine a greater privilege.)

• I know that many people get the heebie-jeebies when they see a Ukrainian flag. I don’t. I think it’s admirable to express solidarity with a people under assault. A people fighting for its very right to exist.

• Is this a remarkable-looking church or what?

• This is where a lisper goes to learn golf:

Thank you for joining me, Impromptus-ites. I’ll see you soon.

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