8/31/2025

 Sunday, August 31, 2025

D+299/224/-1238

1928 Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weil's "The Threepenny Opera" premiered in Berlin

1941 "Great Gildersleeve," a spin-off of "Fibber McGee & Molly", debuted on radio

1946 Foghorn Leghorn, a Warner Bros. cartoon character first debuted

1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in a road tunnel in Paris

2023 Two leaders of the Proud Boys were given lengthy sentences for sedition for their assault on the US Capitol - Joseph Biggs 17 years and Zachary Rehl 15 years

In bed around 9, up a 5:10, 54°, high of 71°, sunny all day.    

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 10:45 a.m.

Minnows in the bait bucket: (1) I started the day patiently backing up this laptop which hadn't been backed up for the last four days.  I listened to Ezra Klein's interview of Phillipe Sands about genocide, impressed as usual with Klein's intelligence, erudition, and analytical ability.  Doubly impressed because he was such a 'lousy student' in his school days.  I also emptied and refilled the dishwasher, and filled the bird feeders.

(2) Da boids.  It didn't take long for the tom turkeys to show up.  I hope I haven't created a problem with their patronage.  I notice that the mourning doves tend to roost on the tray feeder.  This doesn't displease me, quite the opposite.  The bluejays have become more regular visitors, as have the crows and turkeys.  I'm wondering when the snowbirds will start showing up.

(3) Besetment is the rare noun form of the verb "beset."  It describes my condition concerning the selling of our house.  It's always at least in the back of my mind, as they say, and increasingly in the front of it.  I pulled up the website of Grandview Homes yesterday and would like to have them give us a quote on our house, but I need to be careful in terms of partnering with Geri on such a momentous matter.

(4) FEMA's Preliminary Damage Assesment from the Big Rain on August 9-10.  Damage assessments found 51 homes were destroyed — 46 of them in Milwaukee County, four in Waukesha County and one in Washington County.  More than 4,500 residential and commercial buildings were damaged. That includes 1,500 homes with major damage, 654 with minor damage and 966 categorized as "affected." In the three affected counties, home damages are estimated at $33 million. Between 0% and 1.6% of residents in those counties have flood insurance, and 90% of affected properties are located outside FEMA-designated floodplains.  In addition to home damages, damage to public buildings and infrastructure surpasses $43 million. That includes more than $34 million in Milwaukee County alone.  During the peak of the storms, about 38,176 homes lost power for an average of 10 hours in Milwaukee.

(5) The Riviera of the Middle East, or 'Thar's gold in them thar hills.'  I had thought DJT's pipe dream of converting the ruins of Gaza into 'The Riviera of the Middle East' was history.  Not so, according to this morning's Washington Post.  

Called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) now distributing food inside the enclave. Financial planning was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group.

And we know who will be first at the trough: Don, Jr., and Eric, with Jerod Kushner. $$$$$$$$$$$

(6) A lovely, emotional ride in the country, through Port Washington, and to Costco.  I took the last exit to Port Washington off I-43, driving down Wisconsin Avenue and then Grand Avenue, admiring all the beautiful homes; then down Highway 32, to County CC to County C and past the elk farm, watching the bulls in full antlers, running, in one corral and the cows and calves in another; then to Costco for a chicken, cookies, Kirkland VO cognac, and, tada!, Rao's eggplant parmigiana.  I got emotional during the Port Washinton and country legs of my outing, wishing as I so often do Kitty and my mother and my father were wish me to enjoy the drive and all the beauty.  In the Costco parking lot, I listened to Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love" and thought of how my mother would want be to be happy, not full of regrets, etc., and had one of those eyes-welling experiences.

(7) Character strengths assessment by questionnaire.  At the Aging From the Inside Out gathering last week, the leader provided us a handout that included a reference to an outfit called VAInstitute on Character.  It's not a part of the VA itself.  On their website, there is a lengthy questionnaire designed to assess character traits.  I took it and here is its assessment of me:

Charles Clausen

Your Free Results, 8/31/2025

Your Top Strengths

1. Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence -Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.

2. Love - Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing & caring are reciprocated; being close to people.

3. Gratitude - Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks.

4. Honesty - Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way; being without pretense; taking responsibility for one's feelings and actions.

5. Love of Learning - Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one's own or formally; related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.

Your Middle Strengths

6. Forgiveness - Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting others’ shortcomings; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful.

7. Curiosity - Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating;exploring and discovering.

8. Humility - Letting one's accomplishments speak for themselves; not regarding oneself as more special than one is.

9. Perspective - Being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that make sense to oneself/others.

10. Social Intelligence - Being aware of the motives/feelings of others and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.

11. Prudence - Being careful about one's choices; not taking undue risks; not saying or doing things that might later be regretted.

12. Spirituality - Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort.

13. Fairness - Treating all people the same according to notions of fairness and justice; not letting feelings bias decisions about others; giving everyone a fair chance.

14.  Judgment - Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one's mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.

15.  Kindness - Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.16 - Perseverance - Finishing what one starts; persevering in a course of action in spite of obstacles; “getting it out the door”; taking pleasure in completing tasks.

17. Teamwork - Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one's share.

18. Self-Regulation - Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one's impulses and emotions.

19. Humor - Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes.

20. Bravery - Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain; speaking up for what’s right even if there’s opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery but is not limited to it.

Your Lesser Strengths

21. Leadership - Encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done and at the same time maintain good relations within the group; organizing group activities and seeing that they happen.

22. Hope - Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about.

23. Creativity - Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it.

24. Zest - Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing things halfway or halfheartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated.

I am not much of a believer in psychological assessment tools that are simply questionnaires.  They are necessarily crude devices.  The person responding to the questionnaire usually can't tell with any near- precision what the words in the questionnaire mean or what time period they may refer to, etc.  This assessment seems particularly unuseful in that it gives no numerical values to the different items in the rankings, e.g., how much difference there is between the differenat rankings, and the different categories of rankings, i.e., top strengths, middle strengths, and lesser strengths.  There's no subtlety or nuance to an exercise like this and the results are pretty useless.  

 

8/30/2025

Saturday, August 30, 2025

D+294/223/-1239

1956 Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened in Louisiana, the longest continuous bridge in the world

2021 America ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan as the last military evacuation plane flew out of Kabul

2022 In Jackson, Mississippi, the city's largest water treatment plant failed, leaving 150,000 people without safe running water and closing schools and businesses

In bed around 10 after a late drowse-off, awake at 4:10, and up at 4:35.  60°, high of 69°, mostly cloudy day.e

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 10:15 a.m.   Injected Trulicity at 10:10 a.m., a day late.

How fortunate I am to have grown old with Geri.  We married in our 40s, energetic, active, strong, knowing nothing of what lay ahead, including some hard times that we had to get through, and now we are in our 80s, an elderly couple, old people.  We have partnered through 38 years, our children are in their 50s, and the oldest grandchild is now off to college.  We are in our 4th home, not counting Lake Mills and Seattle, each one a treasure. We were able to provide a home to my Dad for a few years and to Andy, Anh, and Peter when he was a toddler.  'O fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt!' Aeneas ait, et fastigia suspicit urbis. Vergil, Aeneid, I: 437-438.  I remember Brother Birmingham in our Latin 4 class, emphasizing these lines,  "O you fortunate ones, whose walls are rising," referring to the Carthaginians who had a home while Aeneas had none.  I not only had these lovely homes, but also Geri to share them with.  O fortunatus!  Indeed.

Among men aged 65 and older, about 10% are widowed; among women, the figure is about 30%.  Among those in their 80s, the figures are, of course, much higher.  O fortunati!

Why I  despair.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Pam Bondi is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Kash Patel is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Kristi Noem is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Tulsi Gabard is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Russell Vought is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  Their boss and cult leader, Donald Trump, is a kook, but also a malicious, malignant, and malevolent kook.  The government of the most powerful nation in the world is in the hands of malicious, malignant, and malevolent kooks.   We are living through the destruction of our democracy, imperfect as it is, at the hands of bad people, who are not only bad, but kooky and maliciously so.  We are watching a catastrophe happening before our very eyes, the destruction of the American republic.  Ben Franklin reportedly said that the Constitutional Convention had created "a republic, if you can keep it."  We now know that we were able to keep it for just under 250 years.  It's over, goodbye, brought down not just by the nasty, malicious buffoon at the top, but by the electorate who knowingly empowered him.

Musée des Beaux Arts

BY W. H. AUDEN

December 1938

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, 

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

 

Auden's poem moves me.  It's about disaster, catastrophe, perdition being personal to the loser, the one who experiences it.  It's the opposite of "I feel your pain" and 'love your neighbor."  Icarus fell from the sky, drowned, died, and the world went on,  oblivious.  Is it a disaster or a tragedy if you are unaware of it, or indifferent to it?  So it goes, said  Kurt Vonnegut.  I am reminded of this poem by what I wrote earlier about what is happening to the United States, which, like Icarus, is falling to its death as a somewhat liberal democracy.  God knows there is much to condemn about the U.S. pre-Trump, including the power of Big Money and the powerlessness of everyone else.  My Facebook post on October 5, 2021:

George Carlin and Emma Goldman: they own you

Food for thought from George Carlin:

“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations that've long since bought and paid for, the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and the information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them.”

A bit reminiscent of the notorious anarchist Emma Goldman: 

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." 

That said, what we had pre-Trump was vastly superior to what we have under (a word I use advisedly) Trump.  I bitched and moaned about Barack Obama and Tim Geithner and their response to the financial crisis of 2008, but I missed BO when he was replaced by Trump.  

The main news of the day (and the month, and the year, so far): Our bathroom, basement, and kitchen floor contractor, Chris, arrived at 8:30 this morning with his moisture meter and confirmed our fear that there is moisture under all the vinyl flooring in our basement, and it will probably have to be ripped up and removed.  We paid close to $8,000 to have the floor installed in 2021, and to have it replaced will surely cost more than $10,000, an uninsured loss.  Beyond that, it raised the question of whether it makes sense to replace the flooring when flooding could occur again.  Should we replace it with the cheapest indoor-outdoor carpeting we can find?  But beyond all that is the question that has been looming over us for some time, which is whether we should sell our home and move to someplace where someone else is responsible for maintenance.  I sensed on that Sunday morning, August 10th, that the basement flooding would be a life-altering event in our lives, and Chris's visit confirmed it.  I am 84 and next-to-useless around the house; Geri is 81.  We discussed this very briefly after Chris left, and she discussed it briefly later with David and Sharon, both of whom think we should sell the house.  I dread the thought, as does Geri, but I think this is where we are in life, and we need to address it and all it will entail.

uld SKIP TO CONTENTChriSKIP TO SITE INDEX

8/29/2025

Friday, August 29, 2025

D+ 293/222/-1240

1957  Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond ended the longest-ever U.S. filibuster of 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act

2005 Hurricane Katrina made its second and third landfalls as a Category 3 hurricane, devastating much of the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 people and causing over $115 billion in damage

2022 Worst violence in Iraqi capital Baghdad in years with 30 killed and 700 injured after Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced his withdrawal from politics

Geri's second knee surgery

In bed at 10:30, after a one hour nap between 8 & 9, up at 7:10.  58°, high of 67°, partly cloudy.    

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 11 a.m.  Forgot to inject Trulicity.😪

Charles Dennis Clausen, age 8-, beloved husband of . . . I did write a draft of my own biography  as a rough obituary as part of the Death Dossier I prepared for Geri on the assumption that I will, as the lawyers say, predecease her.  It must, in the nature of things, be like Earl Pickles's.😇  I found it on my old MacBook Pro downstairs and copied it here for future reference.   I brought the dossier upstairs to review and to go over with Geri.   I looked at Tom St. John's obituaries, both the one on the funeral home website, which was also the one in the local newspaper, and thought how sterile it was: a list of relatives and information about visitation, the funeral, and shiva.  No sense whatsoever of the man who lived a life for 78 years other than his having relatives and having died.  I wonder what Tom would have written of his own life, what he hoped to be remember of him: his summa cum laude law degree, his Army service, his clerkship for Judge Myron Gordon, his law practice, his many board memberships, his catalyzing of friendships, his carpentry, his playing basketball despite his lack of depth perception, his Bean's Lake sancturary, etc.  Perhaps it's mere sentimentalism to say he deserved a better remembrance, but he surely did.  I was privileged by Micaela to deliver a eulogy, but I wish I had also been able to write a better obituary for him.  So I'm in sympathy with Earl Pickles and his effort to write his own obituary.  

DRAFT:

CHARLES DENNIS CLAUSEN died in ________ on _______, 202__.  

He was born on August 24, 1941 in the Englewood Hospital on the South Side of Chicago.  He lived in the Englewood neighborhood until leaving for college at Milwaukee’s Marquette University in 1959.  He attended St. Leo Grammar School and Leo High School.  At Marquette, he was a midshipman in the Naval ROTC program and president of the midshipmen’s professional and social Anchor & Chain Society.  

On graduation in 1963, he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the U. S. Marine Corps where he served until discharged as a captain in 1967.  He served in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966 as well as on Okinawa and in Iwakuni, Japan.  Iwakuni was very near Hiroshima and its atom bomb Peace Memorial, which then-lieutenant Clausen visited in 1965.  His time in Hiroshima, service in Vietnam, and his experience as a Casualties Assistance Calls Officer during his last year of active duty, coupled with living with his father’s emotional wounds from his Marine Corps service on Iwo Jima in WWII all contributed to a lifelong aversion to warfare, antipathy toward military adventurism, and deep skepticism toward most assurances from military and civilian authorities about the necessity for and success in military interventions.

After his service in the Marines, Charles Clausen attended Marquette University Law School where he was elected editor-in-chief of the Marquette Law Review and graduated with honors in 1970.  On graduation, he was appointed to the full-time faculty.  He served on the faculty for more than 20 years, most often full-time but also on the adjunct faculty.  When he wasn’t teaching, he practiced law with the firm of Friebert Finerty and St. John in downtown Milwaukee.  After retiring, he engaged in various volunteer activities at Riveredge Nature Center and assisted an occupational therapist who provided hippotherapy, i.e., therapy on horseback, to children with severe disabilities.

Over the years, he served on the governing boards of a number of Milwaukee civic, religious, and not-for-profit organizations including the City of Milwaukee Public Housing Authority, Messmer High School, Esperanza Unida, Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Bar Association.  He served as board member, treasurer and, for a short time, as president of the Milwaukee Ballet Foundation.  For a number of years, he was a member of the parish council of St. Francis of Assisi parish at 4th and Brown Streets in Milwaukee.  After retiring from the law school faculty, he served from 2000 into 2003 as executive director of The House of Peace, a Capuchin Franciscan community center at 17th and Walnut Streets in Milwaukee.

He is survived by his beloved wife Geraldine Aquavia Clausen, his daughter Sarah Clausen [Christian Kovacs], son Andrew Clausen [Anh Hoang Clausen, Peter, Elizabeth, Andrew), stepson Steven Kevil [Nicole Onorato], stepson David Kevil [Sharon Celek Kevil, Ellis], nephew Michael Reck and niece Chrissie Reck, Maricopa County, AZ, children of his beloved sister Catherine Clausen Reck, who predeceased him on March 3, 2022.

I won't have a funeral service to preplan because I've made arrangements for a "green burial" at Forest Home Cemetery.  I do expect that there will be a memorial gathering of some sort and I do expect to provide some last wishes for that event.  I've already put together a box of photos, etc., that I'd like to have displayed, mainly so my grandchildren will have a better understanding of who their grandfather was.

Here is the Chat GPT AI version of the Grok version of my original obit:  Each AI version took about 2 seconds to compose:

In Loving Memory of Charles Dennis Clausen

Charles Dennis Clausen, 81, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, passed away peacefully on [date], 202[3], surrounded by his loving family. Born on August 24, 1941, at Englewood Hospital on Chicago’s South Side, Charles lived a life defined by service, intellect, and compassion—leaving an indelible mark on his community and all who knew him.

Raised in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, Charles attended St. Leo Grammar School and Leo High School before beginning his studies at Marquette University in 1959. At Marquette, he distinguished himself as a midshipman in the Naval ROTC program, serving as president of the Anchor & Chain Society. Upon graduation in 1963, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, rising to the rank of Captain before his honorable discharge in 1967. His service included deployments in Vietnam (1965–1966), Okinawa, and Iwakuni, Japan, where a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial left a lasting impression and deepened his commitment to peace. His work as a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, as well as reflections on his father’s World War II service on Iwo Jima, further shaped his lifelong skepticism of war and devotion to justice.

After his military service, Charles returned to Marquette for law school, where he excelled as editor-in-chief of the Marquette Law Review and graduated with honors in 1970. He went on to teach at Marquette Law School for more than 20 years, both full-time and as an adjunct professor, while also practicing law with the distinguished firm Friebert, Finerty & St. John in Milwaukee. Following his retirement, Charles dedicated his time and talents to volunteer service, including work at the Riveredge Nature Center and in hippotherapy programs providing therapeutic horseback riding for children with disabilities.

Charles gave generously of his time to his community, serving on the governing boards of civic, religious, and nonprofit organizations including the City of Milwaukee Public Housing Authority, Messmer High School, Esperanza Unida, Legal Action of Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee Bar Association. He also served as treasurer and board member of the Milwaukee Ballet Foundation, briefly as its president, and as parish council member at St. Francis of Assisi Parish. From 2000 to 2003, he was the executive director of The House of Peace, a Capuchin Franciscan community center in Milwaukee.

Throughout his life, Charles was known for his integrity, sharp intellect, and unwavering compassion. He was a man of gentle wisdom and quick wit who found joy in meaningful conversation, community service, and, above all, time with his family.

Charles is survived by his beloved wife, Geraldine Aquavia Clausen; his daughter, Sarah Clausen (Christian Kovacs); his son, Andrew Clausen (Anh Hoang Clausen), and their children Peter, Elizabeth, and Andrew; his stepsons, Steven Kevil (Nicole Onorato) and David Kevil (Sharon Celek Kevil, and their son Ellis); and his nephew, Michael Reck, and niece, Chrissie Reck of Maricopa County, Arizona. He was preceded in death by his cherished sister, Catherine Clausen Reck, on March 3, 2022, and by his parents.

A memorial service will be held at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 4th and Brown Streets, Milwaukee, on [date and time]. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to The House of Peace or the Riveredge Nature Center, causes close to Charles’ heart.

Charles’ memory will endure in the countless lives he touched with his love, wisdom, and generosity. He will be deeply missed and forever cherished.

Would you like me to prepare a shorter version as well—something streamlined for a newspaper death notice, while keeping this fuller version for the memorial program?

You said:

Yes 

ChatGPT said:

Here’s a shorter obituary version that condenses the key facts and legacy into a newspaper-style notice, while still honoring Charles’ life:

Charles Dennis Clausen

Charles Dennis Clausen, 81, of Milwaukee, passed away peacefully on [date], 202[3], surrounded by family. Born August 24, 1941, in Chicago, Charles lived a life of service, scholarship, and compassion.

A graduate of Marquette University, he served as a U.S. Marine Corps captain with deployments in Vietnam, Okinawa, and Japan. He later earned his law degree from Marquette, where he was editor-in-chief of the Marquette Law Review, and went on to teach at the law school and practice with Friebert, Finerty & St. John.

Charles devoted his later years to community service, volunteering at Riveredge Nature Center and with hippotherapy programs, and serving on the boards of many civic and nonprofit organizations. From 2000 to 2003, he was executive director of The House of Peace in Milwaukee.

He is survived by his wife, Geraldine; children Sarah (Christian Kovacs) and Andrew (Anh Hoang Clausen) and their children Peter, Elizabeth, and Andrew; stepsons Steven Kevil (Nicole Onorato) and David Kevil (Sharon Celek Kevil, Ellis); and nephew Michael Reck and niece Chrissie Reck. He was preceded in death by his sister, Catherine Reck, and his parents.

A memorial service will be held at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Milwaukee, on [date]. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The House of Peace or Riveredge Nature Center.

Would you like me to make an even briefer version (just a few sentences) for a funeral home website or newspaper death notice, where space is very limited?

A moulting song sparrow, a moulting female cardinal, and a mourning dove walk into a bar . . .  Just a thought that came to mind LTMW at these three birds sharing the goodies on the tray feeder.  

Some wisdom on the T-shirt of a man at Sendik's.  "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."  Maybe not everyone, but a lot of us.  It may be family fractures, work problems, or plaguing regrets over any number of things, but it's good to remember that a good many of us are struggling with something.  Be kind.  Be careful with judgments.  

Legal Education, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  This morning's Washington Post has an op-ed by Lael Weinberger titled "Liberals and Conservatives Agree This ABA Monopoly Must End" about ABA's monopoly control over much of legal education.  There was a similar plea in the WaPo in an op-ed, or letter to the editor, on December 3, 2007, to which I posted this comment:

PBosleySlogthrop

Wow, what a curious set of thoughts. Having practiced law for many years and taught at a private law school for many years, I agree with some of what Mr. Cohen writes. He is correct, I believe that law school tuition is unnecessarily high. In preparing for testimony before a state bar commission on "access to justice," I did a study on tuition increases at my own law school since my student days. Over the period of the study, the consumer price index had quadrupled but tuition had increased ninefold. The quality of the professional education had not increased significantly. Indeed, a pretty good argument could be made that it had decreased because the faculty had become ever more 'eggheaded.' The faculty were not interested much in the practice of law; it was in large measure to escape the onerous demands of the practice of law that they sought refuge in the law school. The curriculum came to include more and more esoteric and liberal arts-type courses that may well have been interesting, but realistically were of rather little value as preparation for the practice of law. Tuition kept going up because of the availability of educational loan money, the students' willingness (probably the wrong word in many cases) to incur very large debts, and the university's practice of skimming off a good share of the law school's profits to support things like the graduate program in the theology department. And let us not forget the American Bar Association's role in the steady increase of law school revenues. The ABA entered into a consent decree with the US Justice Department (before it became corrupted) that (if I recall correctly) essentially admitted a form of price-fixing in its accreditation activities. In sum, there is much to be pretty disgusted about in American legal education.

On the other hand, how are these systemic problems helped by conscripting all law school graduates for two years of required service in 'the public sector'? Do you equate, Mr. C., working for the government with working for, e.g., the Salvation Army? And how many conscripted new law grads would do what many new law grads have done for years, i.e., get a job in government that will give them a leg up in getting a job with those law factories you abhor? A stint with the IRS or SEC or EPA can be turned to good use working for a big firm on behalf of big money corporate interests. Lastly, why do you ignore that substantial sector of the legal practice that serves non-corporate clients, the solo practitioners and small firm lawyers who help people with 'personal plights'? Surely the most legally underrepresented sector of American society is not units of government or not-for-profit institutions, but rather middle-class and working-class citizens who are hard-pressed to afford the services of any competent lawyers. They are the ones paying those inflated prices for products and services that you complain about, Mr. C. How about some help for them while you're conscripting young lawyers?

Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | December 3, 2007 04:46 AM

I tried to repost it, but it was rejected as too long.

More work was done on the driveways today, burying the culvert drain tubes and smoothing the driveways so we can park the cars off the street now.

  

8/28/2025

Thursday, August 28, 2025

D+292/221/-1241 

1939 Chaim Weizmann informed England that Palestine Jews would fight in WW II

1944  Douglas MacGregor Cummings was born.

1945 General MacArthur was named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan

????  Anh Hoang Clausen was born, the first member of her family with birthright citizenship

2024 My 5th fall since moving to Bayside.

In bed around 9:30, up at 4:45.  60°, high of 70°, partly cloudy, wind gusts up to 24 mph today, chilly, beach hazard alert, waves 3 to 7 ft

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at  9:30 a.m. 

We "artistes" can be fussy about our paraphernalia.  My smock is an old, Franciscan-brown, heavy cotton apron that I used at the House of Peace and bought at Fein Brothers on 3rd Street.  I've made a point of  duly covering it with smudges of different paints lest anyone not recognize it as the apron of an "artiste."😊

Text exchange with Peter as he moves into his dorm at MSOE today:

Charles Clausen:

I’m thinking of you today, Peter, and wishing for all good things to come your way as you embark on the great journey ahead of you.  Congratulations on all you have achieved so far and good  luck as you push ahead.♥️

Peter Clausen:

Thank you grandpa I really appreciate it, hope to see you soon!

USA!  USA!  USA! A sick society, a sordid culture.  Children in the United States have been going through regular "active shooter drills" in their schools for the last 25 years.  When I was a child, I recall, very dimly, atom bomb drills at St. Leo Grammar School, and air raid shelter signs in many places, with the John Birch Society warning us of communists hiding behind every tree and Russians lusting for our blood.  Today's children grow up with rational fears of being shot and killed in their classrooms or in church or anyplace where people gather by some random homicidal lunatic who may live down the street.  They know God will not protect them, even in church.  They know that their parents can't protect them.  They know the government cannot protect them, and will not even outlaw the crowd-killing weapons the mass murderers prefer.  An entire generation of Americans has grown up participating in active shooter drills and lockdown drills. What does this do to the mind of a child?  to the mind of a parent?  What does this do to their souls or spirits?  What does it do to their faith in the God whose 'eye is on the sparrow'?  What does it do to their faith in an effective and protective government?  

What does it do to all of us to know that America is beyond a cure for this problem?   It has become common knowledge that there are more firearms in the United States than there are people, i.e., more the 330,000,000.  The best estimates are from about 390 million to 510 million.  How many AR-15-type assault rifles are owned by civilians in America? Based on the most recent data available as of early 2025, the total is likely in the range of 30 to 44 million.  How can anyone truly believe that a nation that is awash in firearms, with perhaps half a billion of them, can solve the gun crime problem with "gun control" laws?  If there are indeed probably at least 30 million assault weapons stored in closets, bedrooms, basements, and attics around America, what kind of "gun control" law would be necessary, enforceable, and effective to keep them from the hands of criminals, short of banning and confiscation?  The Right Wing correctly understands that confiscation is the only effective way of dealing with the ubiquity of guns and assault weapons.  Their anti-gun control, 2nd Amendment propaganda reflects that understanding, all that "You can get my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" stuff.  With all the gun-rights legislation and judicial decisions on the books, no law-abiding government can be expected to fix our gun curse.  Even a right-wing, fascist dictatorship that wanted to disarm America would have a daunting challenge, although it could hit the ground running just from public gun registration records.  Here is the best that the Wall Street Journal's editorial board could come up with this morning after the latest school/church killlings and shooting in Minneapolis:

The question, as ever, is how a civilized society can protect itself from such people. Arming teachers or assigning armed guards to schools can’t be ruled out, though it is all but impossible to protect every church at 8:30 in the morning on a busy workday.

One subject that deserves debate is a more aggressive identification and forced treatment, if need be, of the mentally ill. Most school shooters have been disturbed young men who also shouldn’t have access to firearms. The mental-health lobby and gun-rights advocates may protest, but a society serious about protecting its most vulnerable needs to have this debate.

In other words, our "civilized society" cannot protect itself.  It's hopeless.   We wait for the predictable next school or church shooting, the one after that, and the one after that, and hope that they don't come too close to home.  N.B.  The Minneapolis shooting of Annunciation parish schoolchildren was the 44th American school shooting this year.

Aging from the Inside Out.  I attended this group discussion session at the VA this morning.  I volunteered for it a few weeks ago.  It's a 5-week program run by a psychologist from the VA's geropsychiatry department, i.e.,  mental health specialists for old vets.  I was pretty clearly the oldest vet there, but only by 3 years.  There were 6 of us participating: A.J., Jay, George, Kenyatta, Marvin, and me.  All are veterans, 5 of us Vietnam vets.  There are three Blacks, two Whites, and one Puerto Rican, a very compatible group.  I think I was the only Marine.  A.J. was in the Air Force, and I suppose the other guys were soldiers.  It's a guided, but only loosely guided, discussion group, and today's discussion focused a bit on the roles played in our lives by our mothers and sisters.  It was an enjoyable hour, and I'm glad I signed up for it.  I like talking with other old vets.   In the parking garage, I stopped to take a photo of the precarious spot in the garage's ceiling where a bird had chosen to build a nest and raise two little ones.  Another vet, this one from the Navy, saw me and stopped and chatted with me about an adventure he had on a construction job in Florida years ago, saving the nest of a pair of mourning doves.  Two strangers, but both military veterans enrolled in the VA's health program, and connected by a sense of kinship or fellowship from our time in service.  These kinds of friendly, brief encounters are possible anywhere, but they happen frequently and easily at the VA Medical Center because of that common bond linking all the patients, past service in the military.  There is a spirit there that you don't find in any other hospital or medical setting.

Poblocki Paving tore up the driveways this morning.  It looks like the job won't be complete until Tuesday.😫

So funny.  A neighborhood crow is too big to access easily the suet cakes I have hanging on the shepherd crooks, but he's resourceful.  He lands on top of the crook, picks up the suet cake basket with his stron beak, and then pins it under on of his feet.  This afternoon, the suet cake basket fell to the ground which frightened the crow.  He flew down and warily approached the suet.  Each time he got close, he got scared and backed away, until he finally concluded the suet wasn't going to jump up at him so he could grab a big chunk of suet and eat it.  He was like the dog that chased the car and didn't know what to do when he caught it.  When the crow finished nibbling on the suet, 4 tom turkeys showed up to clean up whatever seeds they could find on the ground.  They ignored the grounded suet.

I finished this copycat of a Roualt yesterday or the day before.  I am a bit disappointed in it, but not enough to trash it.  I learned to be more careful wetting the black watercolor pencil marks.  One problem I am having trying to copy the Rouaults is that he worked in oils and I'm using watercolor pencils, some gouache, and maybe graphite or colored pencils or even a Sharpie.  I have a lot of oil paints downstairs but I haven't painted with any of them in years and wonder if the paints have all dried up in their tubes.  I'd like to try working with oils again but can't get by the problem of a need for decent ventilation because of the solvents.

8/27/2025

 Wednesday, August 27, 2025

D+291/220/-1242

1979 Lord Mountbatten was killed along with three companions, two of them children, by the IRA when his boat was blown up near Sligo, Ireland

2008 Barack Obama became the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States

In bed at 9, up at 4:30.  53°, high of 74°, partly cloudy.

Meds, etc.  Morning meds and Kevzara injection at 8:30 a.m.  

LTMW at 6:30, at the birds showing up at the feeders. They signal the start of another day:  This is the day the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it, Psalm 118.  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a hummingbird looking for nectar on the little feeder Geri mounted on the storm window.  Alas, it is empty, something to tend to today.  On the tray feeder, I see a female cardinal in full moult, looking very ragged.  A red squirrel is feeding in the grass, scrounging for the leftovers after the tom turkeys scarfed up most of what was there yesterday.  A red-bellied woodpecker is on one suet cake while a house sparrow works the other, which I hung above the niger seed tube yesterday.  At 6:43, the full sun is over the treetops across the street and the turkeys have shown up again, but there's not much left on the ground.  At 6:45, good neighbor Ghasson and his pup Athena turn the corner from Wakefield onto County Line, out for their first walk for the day, regular as clockwork.

Some of the words of wisdom from yesterday's cabinet meeting.

Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy:  "There’s only one thing I wish for: that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace, this Nobel award was ever talked about.” 

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor:  “Mr. President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor — because you are the transformational president of the American worker, along with the American flag and President Roosevelt …and I was so honored to unveil that yesterday.” 

Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary: "Sir, as you've said many times, economic security is national security and our country has never been so secure since you. You have brought us back from the edge. You have the overwhelming mandate from the American people.  You are restoring confidence in the government."

Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce:  "This is the greatest cabinet working for the greatest president and I just want to say thank you.  I'm having the time of my life working for you!" 

Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, thanked Trump for saving college football, taking back Labor Day from the Democrats, and reinvigorating Christianity in America.  “The country just feels different. There’s such optimism and love. There’s a faith movement going through—especially with our younger Americans—and for those of us with kids in college, I know we feel it, and I experienced it firsthand last week.” 

My FB comment to a long sharing post by JJA. 

Janice Jenkins Anderson to Jim Homan:   all good and valid points! Without doubt the prevalence of firearms among the population will play a role. Perhaps in that respect, the country is more in the position it was during the Civil War, when so many were personally armed and when the Confederacy was in an economically inferior position.

I think the author’s point about how the US falling to fascism is wholly uncharted territory is well taken. And that will hopefully factor towards changing our result versus the “historical” outcome. His possible solutions or options are by his own admission, extreme however I don’t find his argument about where the country is at this point in time to be simply alarmist. I absolutely believe that this administration is quickly moving to take control in an authoritarian regime, and with Trump’s reelection despite there being a clear playbook (Project 2025) that they are still closely following, many doors toward stopping this fascist takeover have already slammed shut. If you haven’t looked into Curtis Yarvin, he is someone that Vance has followed. Yarvin openly posits that the country needs a “National CEO,” which he admits would be a dictator. The Project 2025 authors followed much of what he preaches.

I also believe that, unfortunately, many people do not know history well enough to understand how quickly our fall to authoritarianism is occurring. This article a is an excellent comprehensive trip through the history of fascist leaders. I fear that too many are the proverbial frogs in water slowly brought to a boil and will remain unaware until it’s too late.

Hope you found the article thought-provoking. We can’t chart a course and solution until we acknowledge and understand the question.

Charles D. Clausen:  I think the principal author's historical analysis is pretty accurate and, as JJA suggests, many of us have been frogs in the ever-heating water, unable to detect or unwilling to admit what is so clearly happening, what has happened already. We are in deep, deep trouble. I appreciate the author's suggesting paths of resistance, and wonder whether some of his ideas might help stem the tide, but I also think of likely countermeasures from a fascist regime and a Dear Leader that treats any opposition or even mere irritants as "treason" meriting the death penalty. I am mindful too that our Supreme Court has effectively immunized the Dear Leader from any liability for criminal acts. Bill Maher has argued that a slow-moving military coup is already underway, and it seems to me that the government's actions since January 20 support his argument, especially the massive ouster of senior military leaders, inspectors general, and other 'guardrail' figures and their replacement with apparatchiks. I wish I could see some effective ways to slow down and stop where we are headed, but I can't. I'm reminded of an old quote from the Italian investigative journalist Oriana Fallaci, "No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it's always the strongest, the cruellest, the least generous who win." In any event, if there is any hope, it must begin, as JJA states, with recognizing and admitting where we are now and where we are clearly heading. 

I'm not alone in thinking there is probably no way out of this situation.  Here is an excerpt from Ezra Klein's interview with policing expert  Radley Balko: 

The other thing we’re seeing is, obviously, the masks. And there’s an anecdote I’ve told a lot over the years about the writer Michael Ledeen, who around 2007 or 2008 was one of the neoconservatives agitating for war with Iran.

There was a series of photos of a cocaine raid in Tehran that came out, and all the officers in the raid were wearing masks. Ledeen wrote at the time: When the agents of the government hide their faces, it speaks volumes about the relationship between the government and the people. He was saying that this is a sign of a totalitarian state. And now it’s just routine. We’re seeing this all over the country.

So I think we’re in a pretty terrifying spiral right now. I have tried over the course of my career to be levelheaded and refrain from expressing things in too dire terms. But I think we have entered kind of the worst-case scenario, and it’s hard to see how we get out of it.

What is the worst-case scenario?

I think the worst-case scenario is that Trump sends active duty military troops into any city that displeases him — any city where there are protests.

During his first administration, we know that he wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act. He wanted to send active duty military in to put down the George Floyd protests. And he openly floated the idea of just shooting the protesters.

To be fair, he said shooting them in the knee. I guess it’s not as bad as it could be. What I think we are seeing right now is Trump is attempting to build his own paramilitary force. They want people whose first and ultimate loyalty in this job is going to be to the president. 

The principal posting was by Karl J Martin, titled "We Live in a Fascist Nation.  What Now? and started

“In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counterexamples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections.

Here's what I found: Once fascists win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once. Ever.

I know that sounds impossible. I kept digging, thinking surely someone, somewhere, stopped them. The actual record is so much worse than you think. 

My last pinnacle?  I have surmounted a significant pinnacle in my life.  I have passed the midpoint between the ages of 80 and 90.  I don't note this passage as anything to brag about, and I don't attribute it to anything I have done to merit a long life, since quite the contrary is true.  I've avoided physical exercise whenever I could: jogging? swimming? Why, when I  could be smoking, drinking, and watching TV?  I've made a point of eschewing a healthy diet and chewing almost all the unhealthy stuff: eclairs, bacon, cheeseburgers with the works - , more, please?.  Nor do I note this pinnacle passage with any hope of reaching the next pinnacle, age 90.  I do not.  A life as long as mine is a mixed blessing, a term I use intentionally.  It's a blessing to be sure, providing more time with loved ones and more time to appreciate the good and beauty in life, of which there is an abundance, despite all the awfulness around us.  But it's also a time of experiencing continuing losses, losses of loved family members and friends, losses of mental and physical capacities, more losses than I can list.  It is a time when one is likely to fear a long, lingering, but diminished life much more than a near-term death.  It is a time when death may look increasingly welcome.

I started thinking these thoughts this morning as I was posting some thoughts on Facebook, wondering why I keep posting on Facebook and why I keep writing at all.  I've thought and written about these questions in this journal more than once, engaging in (or maybe wallowing in a mire of) some introspection or reflection.  There is no single answer to either of those questions.  The answers I have come up with before range from "it's something to do in my otherwise inactive life" to fighting my approaching mortality.  What mostly has me wondering is why I feel moved to post very personal reflections like the very recent one about Kitty calling me "Sweetie," or those about my Dad's PTSD after Iwo Jima, or my apocalyptic rants about Trump, fascism, and the end of democracy.  My FB friends post photos of their cats and dogs, vacation snapshots, and the like, while I'm all sentimentally gushy or engaged in a jeremiad.  Wazupwidat?  I need to give this some thought.

Another mass shooting, during a mass.  A 23-year-old gunman has shot and killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old  during an early morning mass at Annunciation church in South Minneapolis.   He wounded another 14 children from age 6 to age 15, and 3 adults in their 80s.  We are told by Julie Aquavia that the church is a mile or less from the home of Geri's niece, Sue, and her husband, Dave Froelich.  We don't know yet whether the church is their parish church or whether the school is where their children may have gone to school.  Land of the free, home of the brave. 

From this date, 3 years ago:     More in the intro to Moral Man & Immoral Society:

        "As Niebuhr once remarked, it was only an unusual individual who could feel his own power or his wisdom to be such that they could claim to be the center of the world.  As a consequence, most of us make this claim together,  through the community of which we are a part: a tribe, family, religion, nation, race, gender, profession, or church.  Serious sins are mostly communal sins. . . . We make the interests of our relevant group central to our thought and action, and so we give ourselves with all our loyalty and power to our group, to its security and success, and to its conquest and domination of competing groups.  Thus result the social group sins of historical life: sins of class, race, religion, nation, and gender.  These communities support, defend, and secure the individuals within them   - as the social power of men over women aids each man in his domination of women....  "

    Niebuhr wrote MM&IS in 1932, before WWII and Hiroshima, Dresden, Tokyo, and Nagasaki.  It was reissued in 1960, and in a preface to the 1960 publication, he reaffirmed his belief in the main points of the work.  He was a member of the faculty of Union Theological Seminary throughout most of his career.  I find myself wondering about what his thoughts about "God" were in 1932 and in 1960, and what they would be today.

8/26/2025

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

D+291/219/-1243

2018 Archbishop Carlo Vigano, former US Vatican Ambassador, claimed Pope Francis knew of and ignored sex abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

2021 Two bomb blasts from suicide bombers at Kabul Airport, Afghanistan, killed at least 60 civilians and 13 US soldiers amid efforts to evacuate citizens out of the country

e4r

In bed at 9, awake at 4:30, up at 4:53.   52°, high 70°, another sunny day.

Meds, etc.  I took the morning meds at some time, but can't remember when.

I asked AI "To what extent is violent urban crime in America a Black or African American phenomenon?"

From Chat GPT:

1. Patterns in Crime Data: Victimization & Offending Rates: Data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that, in many U.S. cities, Black Americans are both overrepresented as victims and as arrestees for violent crimes compared to their share of the population.

For example, in 2020, Black Americans made up about 13% of the U.S. population but were about 37% of homicide offenders (per FBI data). They were also disproportionately victims: Black men in particular have a homicide victimization rate several times higher than White men.

2. Concentration in Urban Areas: Most violent crime in the U.S. — regardless of race — is heavily concentrated in certain neighborhoods of large cities, often where poverty, unemployment, and housing instability are high.

Many of these high-poverty urban areas have majority Black populations due to the long legacy of segregation, discriminatory housing practices, and migration patterns. That demographic factor contributes to the statistical link between Black communities and urban violent crime rates.

3. Structural & Historical Factors: Poverty and Inequality: Violent crime correlates more strongly with economic disadvantage than with race itself. Communities with high poverty, unemployment, and lack of opportunity — whether majority Black, Latino, or White (like parts of Appalachia) — tend to have higher crime.

Policing and Reporting: Arrest and conviction data can be skewed by where police are deployed and how communities are policed. This means official statistics may amplify racial disparities relative to actual behavior.

Legacy of Racism: Redlining, disinvestment in urban schools, discriminatory hiring, and mass incarceration have created conditions that contribute to cycles of violence in predominantly Black urban neighborhoods.

4. Not a “Racial Trait”: Criminologists stress that violent crime is not inherently a “Black” phenomenon. It’s a social and economic phenomenon that disproportionately affects Black communities because of historical and structural inequities.

For example, in predominantly White poor communities (rural drug corridors, some distressed Rust Belt towns), violence can also be very high — but it’s less visible in national debates because of the smaller scale and geographic spread.

From Grok:

The idea that violent urban crime in America is predominantly a Black or African American phenomenon is a charged and complex issue that requires careful unpacking. Crime statistics often get weaponized, so let’s cut through the noise with data and context, while acknowledging the limitations and nuances.

Statistical Overview:

Arrest Rates: According to the FBI’s 2019 Uniform Crime Report, Black Americans, who make up about 12.2% of the U.S. population, accounted for 26.6% of total arrests, including 51.2% of murder arrests, 52.7% of robbery arrests, and 28.8% of burglary arrests. For violent crimes specifically, Black juveniles comprised 46.4% of juvenile arrests, while White juveniles made up 50.3%.

Victimization Rates: The 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) shows that Black Americans experienced a 37% increase in nonlethal violent victimization (robberies, aggravated assaults, and rape/sexual assaults) from 2022 to 2023, reaching 12.3 incidents per 1,000 people—the highest among racial groups. In contrast, victimization rates dropped 14% for White Americans and 23% for Hispanic Americans. Black Americans were more than twice as likely to be robbed as White Americans in 2023.

Homicide Disparities: In 2022, the murder rate among Black Americans was 653% higher than for Whites, with a historical average (1990–2022) of 569% higher. Black Americans are also 12 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than White Americans.

Intra-Community Violence: Data suggests that 90% of Black murder victims are killed by another Black person, often someone known to them, highlighting a significant intra-community component to violent crime.

Contextual Factors:

Socioeconomic Disparities: Black communities often face higher poverty rates (roughly twice that of non-Hispanic Whites in 2019), lower educational attainment (26% of Black adults hold a bachelor’s degree vs. 40% of White adults), and higher unemployment rates. These economic insecurities can lower the relative cost of criminal activity compared to legal opportunities, as per Gary Becker’s rational choice theory of crime.

Segregation and Neighborhood Effects: Studies, like one from the Journal of Urban Health, show that Black neighborhoods in cities like Chicago have higher exposure to violent crime, even when controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage. Racial segregation concentrates poverty and crime, amplifying exposure to violence in everyday contexts.

Systemic Issues: Historical and ongoing factors like underinvestment in Black communities, discriminatory housing policies, and limited access to credit and economic opportunities contribute to environments where crime can thrive. For example, Black business owners represent only 4.3% of total U.S. business owners, partly due to restricted access to capital.

Policing and Reporting: Only 42% of violent crimes and 32% of property crimes are reported to law enforcement, per the NCVS, with even lower reporting rates (26%) for juvenile victimizations. Victim misidentification of offenders, especially in stranger-to-stranger crimes, can skew perceptions of racial involvement.

Nuance and Limitations:

Not a Monolith: Painting violent crime as a "Black phenomenon" oversimplifies a multifaceted issue. Crime is hyper-local, varying significantly by neighborhood, often block by block. Most Black Americans are not involved in crime, and the focus on race can obscure broader structural issues.

Data Gaps: The NCVS relies on victim perceptions, which can be unreliable, especially for cross-racial identifications. FBI arrest data only reflects reported crimes and arrests, not the full scope of criminal activity, as most crimes go unreported.

Declining Trends: Despite disparities, overall violent crime rates have dropped significantly since the 1990s. Some majority-Black cities under Black mayors have seen dramatic declines in violent crime, challenging narratives of unchecked lawlessness.

Systemic Racism Debate: Some argue that higher arrest and incarceration rates reflect systemic bias in policing and sentencing rather than disproportionate criminality. Others point to socioeconomic constraints as rational drivers of crime, not inherent racial tendencies.

Conclusion:

Black Americans are disproportionately represented in violent crime statistics, both as perpetrators and victims, particularly in urban settings. However, this is not a "Black phenomenon" in any essentialist sense. It’s deeply tied to systemic factors like poverty, segregation, and lack of opportunity, which create conditions where crime becomes a rational choice for some. Crime is also not exclusive to Black communities—White Americans still account for the majority of arrests in many categories—and hyper-local patterns show that broad racial generalizations miss the mark. Focusing solely on race risks ignoring root causes and effective solutions, like addressing economic inequality and community investment. For further reading, check the Bureau of Justice Statistics (bjs.ojp.gov) or FBI crime reports (ucr.fbi.gov).28 𝕏 posts20 web pages 

Why have I more than once written here about crime and race, or more specifically, about violent urban crime and Blacks?  I asked the AI apps, "to what extent is violent urban crime a Black phenomenon?"  I do not believe that Black people are, by nature, or by genetic predisposition, or whatever the more accurate term may be, more violent or more likely to commit violent crimes than any other group..  To the extent that any group may be more predisposed than another group to commit violent crimes against members of other groups, it's Whites rather than Blacks who History would suggest deserve that label, just as it is Europe, and especially Western Europe, that would deserve that shame on a continental or geographical scale.  England, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy were all guilty of colonial crimes against peoples or nations that were militarily and economically weaker than them.  When I ask about violent urban crime as "a Black phenomenon," I mean simply a social problem that is tied significantly more closely to America's urban Black communities than to any other communities, both in terms of perpetrators and in terms of victims.  I believe the answer is "yes" and that that answer is supported by common experience and by available data, accepting the fact that the data is flawed by some of the very problems that contribute to criminal behavior itself, e.g., discrimination, poverty, inequality, and biases.  I raise the race issue for two reasons.  First, to remind myself that when Donald Trump sends in military forces to "combat urban crime," he is talking about getting after Black people and Black communities.  He rails against the perpetrators, who are disproportionately Black, but he doesn't see to it that the soldiers are deployed where the vast majority of the crimes occur and where most of the victims of the crimes live, i.e, in the Black communities.  In Washington, the soldiers patrol not Anacostia, but rather Georgetown, Union Station, Capitol Hill, and the Mall, where (mostly White) people live or are otherwise found.  The second reason I reflect on the issue because it is so thoroughly ignored by the media and government.  When we hear reports of overnight shootings or shootings over the weekend, we know with a high degree of confidence that (1) the shooter is almost always Black, and (2) the victim is also almost always Black.  Criminal violence in our cities, including Milwaukee, especially violence involving gunfire, is indeed a Black phenomenon.  We also know the socioeconomic and other characteristics of the people who commit violent crimes, especially with guns: almost all male, mostly young, poverty, poor education, segregation, single mothers, growing up around domestic and street violence, little opportunity for employment, etc.  We know how to address the causes of violent urban crime, but we are not willing, or able, to address those causes because doing so costs money, a lot of money.  Lyndon Johnson tried to address those causes in his "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" legislation, but the country has been experiencing a White backlash against those programs ever since and is now doing so with a vengeance, literally.  We ought never to forget, however, that Racism is America's Original Sin, and its stain has proved to be indelible.  Trump's armed soldiers are walking the streets of Washington on the pretext of combating violent crime, which is to say, Black crime.  This power play will be used to appeal to Whites as fighting what he called "American carnage," but meant Black carnage.  He will try to use it to appeal to Blacks as protecting them from crime.  His goal is simply to increase his own political and military power inside the United States so as to use it against his opponents, or as he considers them, his enemies.