9/29/2026

 Tuesday, September 29, 2026

1567 War of Religion breaks out in France as Huguenots try to kidnap King Charles IX

1835 The Treaty of New Echota was signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States

1890 US 7th Cavalry massacred 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota

1908 A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville, Wisconsin

1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed by President Richard M. Nixon

2020 First debate between US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden was held, widely criticized as chaotic and ill-tempered

2023 More than 50 people were killed in two suicide attacks in Pakistan, during celebrations for the birth of the Prophet Muhammad

2025 German airline Lufthansa announced they would cut 4,000 administrative positions by 2030 and replace them with artificial intelligence and digitization processes. 

In bed at 9:20, up at 4; 0410 204.2 119/67/68 111; 52/70/51, cloudy

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Entresto at 5:15 a.m. and p.m.

The handsome fellow in the photo is a Cooper's Hawk, of which we have many in our neck of the woods.  One of them landed on the ground under our bird feeders yesterday, and I suspect that he has been hanging around the neighborhood lately.  I neglected to fill the bird feeders last night and filled them this morning.  Normally, some of our neighboring birds show up not long after I fill the feeders, but not this morning.  A beautiful little chipmunk is in the grass under the feeders, stuffing his cheek pouches with some of the safflower and/or sunflower seeds I spread on the ground whenever I fill the tube and tray feeders.   He competes with the mourning doves, which also like to ground-feed, when they aren't 'setting up shop' on or near the tray feeder above.  I've read that chipmunk cheeks can grow to 3 times the size of their heads when filled with food,  This explains, in large measure, why I don't have to worry about a large accumulation of seeds under our feeders; they are either eaten quickly by the birds or hauled away by the chipmunks.  Yesterday I watched what appeared to be a fight between two chipmunks competing for pride of place in the feeding ground.  The aggressor appeared to jump on the other before they got involved in the more normal chasing activity.  Although Cooper's hawks feed normally on smaller birds, I suspect a chipmunk would be a welcome snack for one, so the little guy I'm watching is running a risk by lling up.

Anti-Ziomism: A Jewish History by Benjamin Moser.  I was struck by this passage in Chapter 1, titled The Sensitive Rabbi - Aaron Samuel Tamares, Poland:

For Aaron Samuel Tamares, the rabbi of the tiny shtetl of Milejczyce, the controversy would define his life and his ministry. Located on the edge of the ancient forest of Białowieża, on what is today the Polish side of the border of Belarus and Poland, even tiny Milejczyce, for Tamares, was sometimes too big. Nearly every day, weather permitting, he would head into the forest, where he composed most of his works. These were not, at first, intended to be read. “Whenever he became upset by an impure event that took place in society,” he wrote in a third-person memoir toward the end of his life, “he fled to the forest and poured his heart out before the innocent trees—and, with their help, put pen to paper.” When he began to publish, he adopted a pseudonym, “One of the Sensitive Rabbis.” It was under that name that he became known throughout the Jewish world. (p. 36).

 Rabbi Tamares reminds me of myself, at least early on in his writing endeavors: sitting alone and writing, "whenever he became upset by an impure event that took place in society.  He fled to the forest; I sit in my Lazy Boy recliner with my laptop.  Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers gotta write.

It is an interesting experience to be reading this book about anti-Zionism and its distinction from and relation to anti-semitism at this time in history, with the State of Israel now held in such low regard throughout the world, and with the Guardian film, NAZA, about Israel's behavior in its war on Gaza attracting so much attention in Israel and the U.S.

Doom and Gloom.  Yesterday I wrote of the book The Nerd Reich: "It was the scariest book I think I have ever read, about the takeover of government by wealthy tech elites.  That sounds preposterous, but we are partway there already with the election of Donald Trump . . ."  Today I watched and read the interview of Bill Gates by Ezra Klein in this morning's NYTimes.  It was the scariest interview I have ever seen.  Gates said that AI is “by far” the most dangerous technology ever created and that the transition into the AI era could be one of the most turbulent periods in human history. That view is consistent with comments he has made in the past few days in other forums.

What seems to worry him most is not primarily a science-fiction scenario in which AI spontaneously becomes evil. His emphasis is more immediate and concrete: AI can greatly amplify the capabilities of malicious human beings. He pointed to risks such as catastrophic cyberattacks, bioterrorism, attacks on critical infrastructure, and potentially mass casualties on a scale that previously would have required the resources of a nation-state. Recent reporting on his remarks says he has warned that misuse could conceivably lead to a billion casualties or more.  Others speak of a real risk of annihilation of the human species.

Gates also believes the danger is compounded by the fact that AI can increasingly replace or exceed human cognition in important tasks, while advancing faster than governments and institutions are adapting. In his own recent writing, Gates says that AI is the first technology capable of replacing and surpassing human cognitive abilities in this way, and that even under favorable circumstances the transition will be exceptionally turbulent.

He was emphatic about governance. He rejected the idea that the AI industry can safely police itself; the episode description characterizes him as calling self-regulation “insane.” He wants government, law enforcement, academia, and international institutions involved in monitoring dangerous uses and setting enforceable safeguards.

I had Gates' comments in mind as I watched the CNN coverage of Donald Trump's meeting with an abundance of AI and Big Tech executives this afternoon.  (In his role of Lord of Language and Names, Trump has changed the term for Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence.)  Trump continues to assert that no government oversight of AI development is necessary or desirable.  He believes in self-regulation, which means no regulation.  He turns for support to the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, who, to me, appears to be in a distinct minority among tech leaders in minimizing the risks of AI.  Elon Musk was in the back row of the big gaggle of Trump and the execs outside the White House while Trump was questioned by the feckless White House press corps.  Geri and I both noted his disbelieving facial expressions as Trump announced his rosy assessment about the non-risks of AI.

I still wonder whether we have already passed the tipping point on AI.  As Donald Rumsfeld ominously reminded us, “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”  Even the AI developers, the experts, don't know what they don't know about what's going on, or has gone on, inside their creations.

We are in deep shit.  Our children and grandchildren, the world's children and grandchildren, are in deeper shit.

 
    

9/28/2026

 Monday, September 28, 2026

1878 Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Quod apostolici muneris (socialism)

1981 1st American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, was born in Norfolk, Virginia

2015 Japan and South Korea reached an agreement over WWII "comfort women"; Japan apologized and paid 1bn yen compensation

In bed at 9, up at 6:45; 0700 203.4  117/74/69  122; 52/69/50, suuny

Morning meds at 8:30 a.m.  Entresto at 7:25 a.m. and p.m.

I finished The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán yesterday afternoon.  It was the scariest book I think I have ever read, about the takeover of government by wealthy tech elites.  That sounds preposterous, but we are partway there already with the election of Donald Trump to his second term.  It was no accident that the tech elites had the seats of honor at his second inauguration, in front of even his Cabinet members; that Christian Nationalist Russell Vought is his Director of the Office of Management and Budget; that Elon Musk and his crew of young technocrats were given extraordinary power to slash federal employees and programs like USAID, etc.; that the president and his family have become active in and enriched by entry into the Cryptocurrency market; or that David Sacks was appointed Trump's Artificial Intelligence and Crypto czar, and co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; that the president has deployed troops to American cities and has created his own "brownshirts" to hunt down non-citizen immigrants; that the president and his minions have flouted the rule of law; and more.  The movement's chief villain is Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance's mentor.  Their intellectual guru is Curtis Yarvin, a brilliant but whacko software program designer/coder and right-wing dabbler and fantasist in political theory.   Their common target is liberal democracy; the goal is a technocratic autocracy, monarchy, or dictatorship.  

The book was slow-going for me at first, and I recommended to Geri that, if she reads it, she start with the last chapter, The Future, then move to the penultimate chapter, The Antichrist, about Peter Thiel's whacko theories, and to the last half or so of the preceding chapter, Apokálypsis, about the purpose of the cryptocurrency movement.  The chapter before that is titled The Unicorn and is about J.D. Vance’s rise from author and venture-capital figure to U.S. senator and then vice president, with particular emphasis on the role of Peter Thiel and the Silicon Valley political network in that ascent. The chapter’s subtitle is “JD Vance and the Road to the White House.”  The author uses “unicorn” in the venture-capital sense: a rare investment that produces an outsized return. His argument is that Vance became, politically, the equivalent of a venture-capital unicorn—someone whose career was helped by money, jobs, introductions, and ideological support from Thiel and allied tech figures, and who eventually reached national executive power.  Chapter 3, “Exit: Balaji Srinivasan and the Network State,” is where the author most directly develops the role of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as political technology, not merely as speculative finance. He argues that crypto fits the broader “exit” project: creating ways for wealthy technologists and their communities to route around governments, national currencies, regulation, taxation, and eventually territorial states themselves. 

I'm glad that I read the book.  It is well-researched and supported.  It is alarming, but not alarmist, and warns of catastrophe without catastrophizing.  On the other hand, it has led me to lead off today's journal entry with this sort of "doom and gloom" entry.

I want to return to my campaign against doom and gloom, to considering some of my favorite things, including poems, like Walt Whitman's Come Up from the Fields, Father.

Come up from the fields, Father, here’s a letter from our Pete,

And come to the front door mother, here’s a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, ’tis autumn,

Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,

Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind,

Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis’d vines,   

(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?

Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds,   

Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.

Down in the fields all prospers well,

But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter’s call,

And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.

Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,

She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly,   

O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,

O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother’s soul!

All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main words only,

Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,

At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah now the single figure to me,

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms,

Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,

By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs,

The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay’d,)

See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,)

While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,

The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better,

She with thin form presently drest in black,

By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,

In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,   

O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw,

To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

But . . . is this even gloomier than The Nerd Reich?  For me, this poem, as much or more than any of Whitman's many others, illustrates his genius, his insight into life's realities, including the centrality of love, his wisdom and compassion.  It touches me deeply, reminds me of my own experience with Vietnam, of my mother crying in the vestibule of their 3-flat as she read my letter telling the family that I was headed there, and of my days as a Marine CACO for North Philadelphia and the northern suburbs.  It gives me heartache, a good heartache, every time I read it.  O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw,  / To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

An eerie coincidence and similarity.  Today I started to read Benjamin Moser's historical and personal book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.  The opening chapter focuses much of its attention on Theodor Herzl, the modern founder of Zionism.  What strikes me as a bit eerie is the similarity between the kind of ideal state envisioned by Herzl in Der Judenstaat and the kind of state envisioned by Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and other techfascists:  From Moser's book:

Herzl’s mind was bursting with novelistic excesses. As he was composing Der Judenstaat, he confided his fantasies to his diary. A sympathetic biographer, Derek Penslar, recalls them: Herzl imagined himself as a great statesman, dictating terms to Hirsch and other wealthy Jews whom he had always envied and despised. He wrote that he would be an all-powerful leader and command unquestioning obedience in the future Jewish state. Bankers’ daughters would be given in marriage to “vigorous young men” for the good of the state and the “self-fertilization of the nation.” A “well-run secret police” would ensure Herzl’s security. The Jewish state would be run by a Herzlian dynasty; his father Jakob would be the first senator of the Jewish state, and his son Hans would be its doge. Herzl envisioned a coronation ceremony with cuirassiers, artillery, and infantry, “marching in gold-studded gala uniforms.” “The doge himself will wear the garb of shame of a medieval ghetto Jew: the pointed hat, the yellow badge…Only inside the temple we wrap a princely cloak about his shoulders and place the crown on his head.” Herzl wept at the grandeur of his own vision and the prospect of crowning his own son as doge. “Love and kisses to my Father-King,” Herzl wrote in a telegram to his son on the little boy’s fourth birthday. Moser, Benjamin. Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History (p. 11). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Herzl, like Yarvin and Thiel, is a fantasist.  They all dream(ed) of make-believe worlds where like-minded people live in harmony under a benevolent monarch or dictator, where all needs are satisfied.   What's so scary is that Herzl's dream came true in 1948, and the people living in his Beatific Vision have been at war ever since.  Yarvin's and Thiel's dream came closer to realization in 2024, when 77,302,580 American adults voted Donald Trump back into power, but instead of a benign dictator, we got a malign dictator.

Reading these fantasists' hypothesizing about Brave New Worlds ruled over by the likes of themselves made me think of a reference I noted about the political scientist Robert O. Hirschman writing about the writings of another political scientist, Adam Przeworski.   In the latter's Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government (2010),  Przeworski writes that politics begins from the fact that interests and values conflict. If they did not—if everyone wanted the same thing—then “anyone could be a benevolent dictator,” but literal self-government—each person living only under laws he personally chooses—is impossible once people disagree. Democracy is therefore a second-best arrangement: collective decisions reflect individual preferences imperfectly, and everyone must sometimes live under laws they dislike.  Hirschman wrote that Przeworski had emphasized a defining feature of democracy: uncertainty. In a democracy, no faction can be sure its preferred policies will prevail; parties and citizens must accept that they may lose today and have another chance later. Hirschman summarized the democratic virtue as valuing the democratic process more highly than getting one’s preferred program enacted every time.  Yarvin, Thiel, and the other techfascists don't value the democratic process at all.  Unlike technology, democracy is messy, sloppy, wasteful, and inefficient.  Thus, they fantasize about their technological Valhallas.  At heart, though, their methods, values, and goals are essentially fascist, and we see this in the real world that they have succeeded in creating by empowering Donald Trump's MAGA movement and government.  [It appears I can't stay away from the doom and gloom.]

                                                     

9/27/2026

 Sunday, September 27, 2026

70 The walls of the upper city of Jerusalem were battered down by the Roman army

1066 William the Conqueror's troops set sail from Normandy to conquer England

1590 Pope Urban VII died 13 days after being chosen as Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history

2020 Details of President Donald Trump's tax returns were released by the NY Times, showing he paid $750 in income tax (2016 & 2017), revealing "chronic losses and years of tax avoidance"

2025 Donald Trump ordered the deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, saying he has directed defense secretary Pete Hegseth to secure the "war-ravaged" city.

In bed at 8:35, up at 5:35; 118/72/66 107 204.4; 48/67/48, Dense Fog, dissipating by 10 a.m., partly cloudy day ahead. 

Morning meds at 7 a.m.  Entresto at 6:30 a.m. and p.m.  I missed yesterday's evening dose.

One year ago today, Geri took me to the ER at the VA hospital with a very swollen, bright red left lower leg, infected with cellulitis.  The ER docs had me admitted to the hospital as an in-patient, the fear being that the cellulitis might develop into sepsis or turn out to be MRSA.  Neither of those life-threatening conditions happened, thank God.  That was my first in-patient admission to the hospital, to be followed by another this March, 5 days each.  

Yesterday was another beautiful autumn day.  I took a ride up to Harrington Beach State Park in north-east Ozaukee County. It's the side of an old limestone quarry which is now a lake and a mile of Lake Michigan lakefront.  I didn't go into the park itself, but skirted it's boundary on County D, which leads to another stretch of lakefront.  As I crested a hill on County D, I had a wide view of Lake Michigan and thought how true it is to call it an "inland sea."  I have lived near it my entire life, except for my years as a Marine.  On the way back to Milwaukee County, I drove along Ozaukee County LL, which overlooks to new data center rising north-west of Port Washington.  It seems even more immense (and monstrous?) from LL than it does from I-43.  It sits on 642 acres of land and is expected to by used by Oracle and OpenAI.  Oracle is providing the cloud/AI infrastructure, while the computing capacity is intended substantially for OpenAI workloads.  OpenAI (Sam Altman) owns ChatGPT, of which I have been become a regular user, regarding which I note the following, from the closing thoughts in The Nerd Reich:

We must also hold ourselves accountable for the degree to which we have ceded our freedom and lost our way in exchange for technologies that mask danger as convenience. . . So, we each have responsibility to radically reevaluate our own complicity in their power. Why do we spend our lives staring at our tiny screens? . . . The truth is, the tech fascists are right again: Most of us have already become transhuman, mind-melded with our machines in an endless cycle of poisonous dependency. . . We must rethink our relationship with technology, which means rethinking what it means to be human.  Durán, Gil. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (p. 262). Kindle Edition. 

I've started thinking about this already, but need to do a lot more.  To what extent am I making myself dependent on ChatGPT?

My campaign against doom and gloom.   I received a handwritten note from a good friend, who was also aformer student of mine at the law school, and later a colleague at our law firm.  I don't mention his name because I haven't asked his permission to copy his note in this journal and, although I don't think this is the case,, he might not want his name associated with the note in cyberspace.  I keep the note on a table next to my bedroom recliner, in a copy of the written project he and I worked on together half a century ago.  It warms my heart each time I see it,, or even think of it.  I include it here to remind myself of what I have to be thankful for, despite all the bad news that besets us:

Churck,

It is hard to believe that nearly 50 years have elapsed since we worked on this project.

I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to learn from you and then gain your lifelong friendship.  No one had a greater influence on my career that you, and in many ways my personal life as well.

While geography will separate us soon, I know that we will want and need to stay in touch regularly.

With fond regards,   /s/ 

Another favorite poem, by Emily Dickinson:

In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much - how little - is within our power 

A portrrait I did of James Joyce from a famous photo portrait by Berenice Abbot

 

9/262026

 Saturday, September 26, 2026

1983 Soviet military officer Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear war by judging a supposed missile attack from the US to be an error

1984 President Reagan vetoed sanctions against South Africa

2019 US income inequality was the widest it has been in over 50 years, with the worst levels in California, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, and New York, according to new census figures

2020  Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg

2023 Donald Trump was found guilty of fraud for inflating his assets in a civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James

2025. Médecins Sans Frontières suspended its activities in Gaza City citing security concerns due to the Israeli offensive

2025  A fire at a South Korean government data center in Daejeon disrupted more than 600 e-government systems after an explosion in a lithium-ion battery triggered the blaze.

2025  Slovakia passed a constitutional amendment stating there are only two genders. Only married couples have the right to adopt, which prevented same-sex couples from adopting, while also banning surrogacy.

2025. Vietnamese activist Trịnh Bá Phương, already serving a 10-year sentence for anti-state propaganda, is sentenced to an additional 11 years after being convicted of writing statements against the Communist Party while in prison.

2025 Former FBI director James Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury on two charges in a prosecution led by Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In bed at 9, up at 6:40; 0700 203.4  124/74/64 117; 54/64/52; sunny morning, mostly cloudy afternoon.

Morning meds at 8:40 a.m.  Entresto at 7:20 a.m. and p.m.

There is plenty of bad news today, and there was plenty of bad news a year ago today (see anniversaries), but I withhold ranting, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and renting of garments as part of my campaign against doom and gloom.

The sky is blue today.  It is often, and perhaps usually, thought that this is a good thing, and indeed it is, but it means the sky is without clouds.  Is that a good thing or a deprivation?    I have become a keen appreciator of clouds ever since my old friend Janine Geske began posting photos of the sunrises she sees each morning from her home on Lake Michigan in Door County.  The sunrises are wondrous on clear mornings, and often more wondrous on cloudy mornings.  It's all good.

Favorite poems.  Two days ago I wrote about some favorite movies, part of my effort to avoid focusing on doom and gloom.  Continuing the campaign, today I'll mention some favorite poems.  I'll start with a poem that is a favorite only inasmuch as it is one that I have re-read so many times.  It's T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  Unlike so much of modern poetry, it's easy to read.  Eliot uses ordinary language and doesn't try to conceal his points.  

Prufrock is a very unhappy guy who worries about growing old, and dying, and about his own meaninglessness and the emptiness of all the people who surround him.  He is intensely self-conscious of himself as a misfit, of not belonging anywhere or to anyone.  He sees social interaction as Kabuki, everyone wearing masks.  "There will be time, there will be time, / To prepare a face to meet the faces you will meet."  Everyone a persona, no one a person.  Prufrock lives in a lonely, unknowable world.  He reminds me of some characters in Elizabeth Strout's novels, unable to fully know, understand, or communicate with others, nor to be known or understood.

It's a tale of indecision or indecisiveness.  [There will be time left] 'for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions, / Before the taking of a toast or tea."  And of fear of what others will say about or think of him:

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

 Why do I enjoy this dolorous poem so much?  I suppose that, in part at least, I sort of identify with poor J. Alfred.  I have considered myself a misfit in many of my life's settings.  I never quite fit in as a typical Marine, nor as an academic on the law school faculty, nor as a lawyer in a private practice boutique litigation firm, nor as one of the faithful filling the pews on Sundays and holydays.  And, like many or most (?) people, I've been concerned about what others think of me.  I'm reminded of one day decades ago when I was teaching at the law school; as I drove to work one day I experienced what I came to call my 'asshole epiphany.'  I would be at a faculty meeting later, and I intended to make a motion that I knew would not be well received by my very conservative elders.   I thought to myself: (1) "They're going to think I'm an asshole," (2) "Maybe I am an asshole on this point," and (3) "So what? So I'm an asshole, so what?"  It was a liberating insight, simply accepting the fact that there are or may be areas in which I am just an asshole, and so what?  But another reason that I enjoy reading the poems is just enjoying Eliot's great mastery of the diction of the poem, the rhythm and meter of the lines. 

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

and

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table; 

You can easily recite these words singsongy, but if you avoid the affectation, the words flow beautifully.

It's a sad poem, a dejected one.  Eliot wrote it when he was 22 years old, in 1911 and 1912, before the beginning of the Great War.  (I grow old . . . I grow old???) Yet it speaks of isolation, alienation, social fraudulence, and meaninglessness as if it were written after the Great War or after WWII by a Beatnik or Existentialist, by a Ginsberg or a Camus.  In any case, I like reading it and probably have read and re-read it more than any other poem.

More happy photos

Nona and Elllis

The Goldberg, the Lowes, and the Clausens

My mother at Kitty's wedding in October, 1967

Andy, Anh, Peter, Lizzie, and Drew

Sarah at Glacier National Park on our second camping trip to national parks

9/25/2026

 Friday, September 25, 2026

1981 Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female US Supreme Court Justice

1986 Antonin Scalia was appointed to the US Supreme Court

1988 Pope John Paul II beatified Friar Junípero Serra (founder of 1st California missions)

1996 Last of the Magdalene laundry asylums for "fallen women" closed in Dublin, Ireland

2015 Caitlyn Jenner officially changed her name from Bruce and her gender to a woman

2017 Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner sentenced to 21 months in jail for sexting underage girls

2017 First-ever woman graduated from the US Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course

2018 Bill Cosby sentenced to 3-10 years for 2004 sexual assault

2018  Donald Trump criticized Globalism and Iran, speaking at the UN General Assembly

2025  The Italian and Spanish navies deployed frigates to assist and protect the Global Sumud Flotilla on its way to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip after it was allegedly attacked by Israeli drones off the coast of Greece.

2025 The Slovenian government formally banned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering the country, linking the ban to his International Criminal Court arrest warrant.

In bed at 9:45, up at 5:15, after half-sleeping last hour; 0630 203.4  127/75/62 117; 57/67/56, a little rainy, cloudy all day

Morning meds at 9 a.m.  Entresto at 6 a.m. and p.m. Trulicity injection at 10:45 a.m.

Continuing yesterday's anti-gloom-and-doom campaign.  Three and a half years ago, on April 23, 2023, I started making notes on my iPhone about why it is that I love my wife.  What was and is it about her that made and makes me want to bond and partner with her, and only her, out of the 8,000,000,000,000 people in the world?  I omitted from my list the obvious but irrelevant point that she is an uncommonly pretty woman, with an uncommonly beautiful face and smile, but I admit that I started my list by noting, of all things, her infectious laughter.  It was listening to her laughing on the telephone during a conversation with one of her many friends on that April day, and realized that her laughter was making me smile, even though I didn't know what she was talking or laughing about.  That moved me to make a note of it on my phone and to start a list of her lovable characteristics.  Here are some of the other items on my list, not listed here in any chronological order or order of importance, but each of them a matter of significance.

She is uncommonly devoted to duty, in all the contexts in which she holds herself to be duty-bound.  As a parent to her children as well as a child to her parents.  As a sister to her brothers.  As a wife to her husband.  As an employee to her employer.  As a volunteer ombudsman at a nursing home.  As a family court mediator and investigator to the court and to the parties before the court.  As a poll worker during elections.  As a volunteer winter hat knitter for children helped by a nearby synagogue.  As a friend to her many friends.  She is responsible, reliable, loyal, loving, and dutiful, and I love that about her.

She is remarkably tolerant and forgiving of my peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, and eccentricities.

A notable example: many years ago, not long after we were married, we took a trip to France. It was in December, sometime before Christmas. We were staying in Paris, but I wanted to make a trip to the village of Solesmes, in the Loire River region in northwestern France, to visit the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre, famous for its monks’ Gregorian chanting.  She agreed to join me.

To get there, we had to rise at what seemed like the middle of the night and walk through the cold and darkness from our hotel to the Gare Montparnasse, where we caught a train that would get us to Sablé-sur-Sarthe in time to reach the abbey for the 10 a.m. Mass. Solesmes lies about three miles from the station, and the plan was simple enough: take a taxi from the station to the monastery.

There were three problems. First, there were no taxis when we arrived. Second, it was raining steadily. Third, there seemed to be no one around to ask for directions.

So we started walking, with me confidently leading the way.

After perhaps half a mile, we finally saw a man on the street. In my halting college French, I asked him how to get to the abbey. He informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. So we retraced our steps and then walked another three miles through the cold rain toward Solesmes.

By the time we reached the abbey, Mass had already begun. Worse, we could not find the entrance. I was ready to give up and retreat to the Grand Hôtel across the road, but Geri persisted. She found a small, inconspicuous door that led into the chapel where Mass was being celebrated.

We slipped in, although the Mass was already half over, and I finally got to hear the monks chanting.

It was lovely, though perhaps less enchanting than I had imagined. By then we were nearly immobilized. After that long walk in the December cold and rain, we stood in a rear pew like a pair of Frankensteins—stiff, wooden, and barely able either to sit or kneel. Our winter coats were soaked, and so were we.

When Mass ended, we repaired to the Grand Hôtel, where a gracious concierge brought us hot coffee, helped us with our wet outer garments, and gave us a place to thaw out, dry off, and rest until the restaurant opened for lunch.

After a superb lunch in the elegant dining room, I returned to the abbey for either Sext or None—I no longer remember which—and listened again to the monks chanting, this time in considerably better physical condition and much better able to enjoy it. Geri, having understandingly heard enough Gregorian chant for one day {and perhaps for a lifetime), stayed at the hotel.

When I returned, the concierge called us a taxi. Ten minutes later we were back at the Sablé-sur-Sarthe station, and eventually back in Paris.

I included this particular memory on my list of reasons why I love my wife because it illustrates a little-celebrated and ill-named virtue: long-suffering—the gracious endurance of hardship, inconvenience, and even provocation without anger or retaliation.

During that entire cold, wet, exhausting misadventure through Sablé and Solesmes, Geri never blamed me, never berated me, and never reproached me for dragging her halfway across rural France in December merely because I wanted to hear some monks sing.

How many people would have been so gracious?

Happy Time Photos

Beautiful Wisconsin farmland: A view from the crest of Hilltop Road in the Town of Fredonia, between Cty E and Camp Awana Road, my current favorite country road drive destination

This is a 24"x 36" canvas on which I hope to paint a halfway decent portrait of my beautiful granddaughter Lizzie using an edited photo of her on the first day of her 3rd year at Nicolet High School.  I'm terrible at drawing, so I have to first put grid lines on the 8 1/2 X 12" printer paper with the photo, and then appropriately scaled grid lines on the canvas.  Even using the grid lines as an aid, I can't come up with a decent likeness, but at least I have a likeness of some human being.  My big challenge with this effort is that, in the photo, Lizzie had her head tilted to her right side, which, for some reason, makes sketching her features much more difficult.

ChatGPT-generated sketch from the photo

9/24/2026

 Thursday, September 24, 2026

1938 Adolf Hitler issued an ultimatum demanding Sudetenland be ceded to Germany

1950 Operation Magic Carpet concluded after having transported 45,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel

2015 Pope Francis became the 1st pope to address the US Congress, naming Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day as his American heroes.

2015 A stampede during the Hajj killed 717 people during the symbolic stoning of the devil

2024 Joe Biden addressed the UN for the last time, calling on Israel and Hamas to come to a ceasefire in Gaza, saying, "I truly believe we’re at another inflection point in world history."

In bed at 9:05, up at 4; 0420  115. 115/69/65. 132  203.4; 57/52/67/57 BEACH HAZARDS, 3-5' waves, dangerous currents, mostly cloudy day ahead.

Morning meds at 7 a.m.   Entresto at 6:45 a.m. and 5:45 p.m.

Thoughts on Iran.  Trump has long been saying that the Iranians are begging to make a deal to end the war; the opposite is true.  Trump is begging to make a deal.  That has seemed clear to me for some time now, but the belief is reinforced by the story in this morning's NYTimes about the US, behind the scenes, trying to "jump-start" negotiations with Iran.  The war, with high gas and diesel prices and total wr costs, is killing Trump politically at home, not only with Dems and independents, but within his own base. It's his tar baby.  Second thought: Trump is accurate when he says the war will end after our November elections.  It will end with Trump fulfilling his TACO reputation.  He will cut a deal with the Iraqis that gives them control of the Strait of Hormuz, plus a bunch of money, either by way of reparations, unfreezing Iranian assets held overseas, or some combination of giveaways that will further hurt the U.S.  We'll know soon enough.

8 Sailor on USS Lincoln attempted suicide during last cruise.  This information was provided to Sen. Gillibrand by SecNav Cao.  Trump and Hegseth both have dismissed concerns about the mental health of sailors (and Marines) having spent more than 300 days at sea with no port calls.  They should try living on a Navy ship at sea, even outside a combat zone, to see what its impact on one's mental health is.

Can I write about anything other than gloom and doom?  I'll try by writing today about some favorite things, starting with movies.   I watched a YouTube video about Woody Allen's list of the 5 greatest movies, which makes the selection process easier.  His ## 3, 4, and 5 were movies that I also think are great (Wild Strawberries, Rashomon, and Bicycle Thieves),  For many years, I had his #5 as my personal #1.  I've watched it many times, which I can't say for Woody's ## 1 and 2, Citizen Kane and 8 and 1/2.

Bicycle Thieves is a Vittorio de Sica Italian neorealist film made in 1948.  It's a film about the human condition, set in post-war Italy.  It is a story of a poor father who relies on his bicycle to earn a living for himself, his wife, and his young son, Bruno.  When someone steals his bicycle, the father and son search for it through the streets of Rome.  He receives no help from the police.  At the end of the day of futile searching, he sees an unattended bicycle, tries to steal it, and is caught by the neighbors and the police.  His son sees his father arrested and publicly humiliated.  The owner of the bicycle declines to press charges; the father is released, and the film closes with the father and son, hand in hand, walking away from the camera toward home. This description doesn't nearly do justice to the emotional depth of this film, which is heartbreaking.  It deals with the effects of the recently ended war on the Italian people. It deals with the effects of poverty and joblessness on individuals and families.  It deals with the wide circle of victims of criminal acts.  It deals with the ineffectiveness of government in protecting us from many devastating harms.  It deals with sacrifice.  It deals with what children learn from watching their parents.  It is about Life writ large, especially among the powerless.  I feel the film pulling my heartstrings just from writing about it.  It's a profoundly powerful, moving film.  I was surprised to find it streaming on HBOMax and will watch it again, probably today.

As I recalled this great movie and started to write about it, I found myself wondering how it would have been received if, instead of featuring the poor Italian family in Rome at the end of WWII, it had featured a poor Black family in Milwaukee or East St. Louis.  I don't pursue this thought because I'm working on avoiding doom and gloom today, but I think too of how my childhood in a 3-room basement apartment on the South Side of Chicago with my war-impaired father after WWII affected me.  

I better stop with my canon of favorite flicks, at least for now, because, over several years, as an inveterate list-maker, I have compiled a list of favorite flicks.  It was one of the things I took up as I became more and more sedentary in my old age.  I stopped adding to it years ago, but it's nevertheless long:

Just looking at the list, I wonder why I hadn't added Bob Fosse's All That Jazz and Out of Africa.  Where is 2001?  The Godfather? Schindler's List?  What else am I missing with my weak memory???

9/23/2026

 Wednesday, September 23, 2026

1955 An all-male, all-White jury found Roy Brant and John William Milam not guilty of the murder of Black teenager Emmett Till in Sumner, Mississippi; the two later sold an interview admitting to the murder

1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered US troops to support the integration of nine Black students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas

2020 President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the US November election at a White House press conference

2025: The United Nations reported that Russian authorities subject civilian detainees in occupied Ukrainian territories to widespread torture, including sexual violence, while also documenting cases of ill-treatment of detainees held by Ukrainian authorities.

2025 Thousands of people across Italy held rallies and a general strike to protest against the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the recent ground offensive into Gaza City.

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:35; 0550 121/74/64 122 203.4; 54/47/65/54, mostly sunny pady; BEACH HAZARDS, 3-6' waves, currents.

Morning meds at 7:30 a.m.  Entresto at 6:20 a.m. and p.m.

This is a gouache portrait of DJT on paper that I did three years ago, with some of his telling quotes written alongside it.  If I had the energy, I would attempt a second one, depicting him as even more monstrous and deranged with quotes from his frightening speech yesterday to the General Assembly at the United Nations.

The United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere — and if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States… We are reasserting American power, including American military power where necessary, in our region and around the world . . . 

Like ISIS, [forign drug cartels] should be killed, exiled, or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we’re doing. To that end, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes on cartel drug boats

 “The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for the Artificial Intelligence — hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence.’”

And to our NATO allies, if Russian aircraft violate your airspace, shoot them down. Simple as that.

No more funding terrorism disguised as humanitarian aid.

We’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolas Maduro

El Salvador’s President Bukele is a hero for locking up our deportees in terrorist prisons.

As you know, [Venezuela]was a 48-minute war, it lasted 48 minutes. And we paid for the war with what we’ve taken out many, many, many times…That’s the old -fashioned way. To the victor belong the spoils, right?” 

 “I have a big decision to make: Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East?  Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations?”

He might as well have stood before the General Assembly and physically torn up the UN Charter, largely drafted by the United States.  As I type this, I feel like Max Mustermann must have felt like in 1932 Weimar Germany, on the eve of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933 and accession to dictatorial power 53 days later.  Eleanor Roosevelt must have wept in her grave yesterday.

More on why I despair, from Tom Friedman's column in this morning's NYTimes:

[W]hen I think back on the biggest disaster stories I have covered — including 9/11 and Covid-19 — I am struck that they have one big thing in common: a failure of imagination. . . .So today, when it comes to the possibility that artificial intelligence, which is falling into the hands of rogue actors and is beginning to manifest a will of its own, could become incredibly destabilizing, my imagination is fully engaged.

Here is what my imagination is telling me. It is telling me that the big A.I. companies in America and China are not being candid with us about how little even they understand the power and reach of the models they have developed, like sorcerers, in their labs. It is telling me that the Trump administration, headed by a man who so often governs by social media post, is uniquely unsuited to the kind of comprehensive, sustained, coordinated governance that keeping A.I. safe demands. And it is telling me that there is so much at stake — economically, militarily and technologically — and so little trust between Washington and Beijing that it would take a miracle for the United States and China to agree on the kind of deep collaboration needed to defuse the most nightmarish threats posed by A.I. . . . 

Stanford political theorist Francis Fukuyama argued in the Substack publication Persuasion on Monday: “A.I. is a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes — and at the moment we have few mechanisms for regulating the bad uses other than the good intentions of the people creating the technology.”

The last time we trusted the good intentions of the tech bros of Silicon Valley, when they told us to “move fast and break things” — regulations be damned — we unleashed social networks that helped fracture our society. I do not trust for one second that these people will put the national interest ahead of their own on A.I. 

More on why I despair.  I am slowly plowing through The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán.  It's very interesting and informative, but scarier than I had anticipated.  What really troubles me is the political affiliation that has occured between the weird tech titans (Thiel, Andreeson, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos), the far-right conservatives, and Trump's MAGA movement/constituency.  I just finished reading Duran's chapter titled "The New Reality," about the cultish and anti-democratic futurist theories of transhumanism, extropianism, singulitarianism, cosmis, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism.  The far-right conservatives, Trump, and the techbros all mean BIG MONEY, and the techbros are the guys who combine BIG MONEY and BIG TECH.  That combo = mind control, thought control, POWER.  The chapter following "The New Reality" is titled "The Unicorn" and is all about J. D. Vance, who represents the nexus between the big tech whackos, the far-right, Trump, and MAGA.   In reading many of Vance's statements, I couldn't distinguish between him and Trump.

“I tend to think we should seize the institutions of the left and turn them against the left, right?” said Vance. “We need, like, a de-Baathification program—a de-wokeification program—in the United States, right?” . . . 

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024, I think he’ll probably win… he will be the president of the United States in January 2025, I think what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people. And when the courts—because you will get taken to court—and when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.’ Because this is a constitutional-level crisis. If we continue to let bureaucrats control the entire country, even when Republicans win elections, then we’ve lost, we’ve just permanently lost, we’ve permanently given up.”

Another passage: 

But once Trump crushed his competitors, Silicon Valley’s right-wing zealots had no choice but to line up behind him. They wanted something in return and put intense pressure on Trump to choose Vance as his VP, with even the reluctant Thiel lobbying Trump in multiple phone calls. The effort paid off. Two days after the failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump announced that he had chosen Vance as his running mate. . . . 

No one could savor the triumph more than [Peter] Thiel, the man who had fished Vance out of obscurity and shepherded his journey to fame, wealth, and power. And with Musk alone spending nearly $300 million—plus major contributions from tech venture capitalists and the crypto industry—Thiel’s public decision to withhold his personal millions hardly mattered. In fact, there was something poetic about Thiel’s decision to keep his financial fingerprints off the campaign that would put his former employee and protégé in the White House. Thiel had already done his job, almost singlehandedly transforming a random Yale Law student into a venture capitalist, a Catholic, a right-wing radical, a US senator, and a vice president. And if Vance manages to succeed Trump, Thiel—his benefactor, mentor, and maker—will become the most powerful man in the world.  Durán, Gil. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (p. 146). (Function). Kindle Edition.  

Many say they hope that Trump will die in office, or be effectively ousted using the 25th Amendment, or be impeached and convicted this time.  I don't share these hopes, because instead of having Roy Cohn/Donald Trump in the Oval Office, we would have Peter Thiel/J. D. Vance.  It's a beggar's choice, but I prefer to roll the dice with Roy/Donald.  Roy had, and Donald has, Achilles' heels.  I'm not at all sure that the same can be said of Peter/J. D. 

Frick and Frack