10/24/2926

Saturday, October 24, 2026

1954 President Eisenhower offered aid to the Prime Minister of South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm

1962 US UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson demanded that the USSR UN representative answer regarding Cuban missile bases: "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over"

1963 Anti-Kennedy "WANTED FOR TREASON" pamphlets were scattered in Dallas

2021 Elon Musk made $25 billion in one day, pushing his estimated worth to $255.2 billion, likely making him the richest person ever, according to Forbes

2025 Six people were killed in a U.S. missile strike on a suspected drug-running boat in the Caribbean Sea.

2025 The US imposed sanctions on Colombian president Gustavo Petro, his wife and son, and on the Interior Minister, accusing them of involvement in the global drug trade amid worsening relations between both countries.

In bed at 9!0, up at 4:30; 0440 202,6 120/72/64 99; 49/64/48, cloudy 

Morning meds at 6:30  a.m.  Entresto at 5:30 a.m. and p.m.

Brewers won Game 1.  I went to bed at my target bedtime of 9 p.m., with the Brew Crew leading 2-1 at the top of the 6th inning.  I kept the sound off the the television as I watched the first 5+ innings.  As much as I hope the Brewers win the series and am interested in every game, the night games are a disruption to my sleep habits, which I try to avoid.  I don't like the stress of the games either, which is why I keep the sound muted.  I suppose the stress of these games is part of what makes them enjoyable for the millions watching and thousands attending them, but for this old guy, it's taxing and I try to minimize it.  I have all the games recorded, so I could just watch them after they are completed, knowing already who won and who lost.  That's what I'll do with innings 6 through 9 of last night's game this morning.  I thought another stress distraction was reading during commercial breaks All That's Unseen, which is getting more complicated and dramatic with Sam and Emilee into "domestic discipline," i.e., spanking for the greater honor and glory of God, but it still took me more than an hour to fall asleep last night despite my dutifully going to bed at 9.

Speaking of All That's Unseen, I'm approaching the midpoint of the memoir.  The chapters I've just completed describe the religious turmoil Emilee experienced and suffered from in her late adolescence.  As I read along, I thought how easy it is for me to characterize her experiences as a little wacky because she was a "hillbilly" (although, unlike J. D. Vance, she never characterized herself that way) and a Pentecostalist, one of the 'holy rollers,' screaming, wailing, and "speaking in tongues."  I also wondered automatically how anyone could be so dumb as to fall for that crazy religion, but then I thought, automatically too, of my own struggles with religion when I was a kid and reflected that my experiences as a Catholic weren't all that different from Emilee's as a Pentecostal.  I wrote about some of my struggles in the chapter of my memoir that I titled Raised in the Bosom of the Church.  I forget where I got that "bosom of the Church" language, but in that chapter I wrote:

    Growing up Irish American Catholic in the 1940s and 1950s in Chicago was a schizophrenic experience.  While we received occasional infusions of “God so loved the world . . .” the main teaching of the Church, which is to say the professional God-guys, was fear of eternal damnation.  The Church touted the Little Flower and St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds when it needed a little romanticism and sentimentalism, but its regular indoctrination came right from the same Calvinistic hellhole that Jonathan Edwards drew from when he wrote his “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon.  The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. There was precious little difference between 16th and 17th century Puritan moral theology and the Irish Catholic moral theology of the mid-20th century.  Damn near every sin more grievous than disobeying your mother was a mortal sin and if you died with one mortal sin on your soul, the eternal fires of Hell awaited you.  Do you know how long eternity is, boys and girls?  Imagine holding a lighted match under your finger for one second.  For ten seconds.  For ten minutes!  Ten hours!! TEN THOUSAND MILLION GAZILLION YEARS!!!!!   And that’s not one one trillionth of one one trillionth of ETERNITY!    And, to make growing up more interesting, any boy or girl could get into this kind of trouble as soon as they reach “the age of reason” which the God-guys decided was 7 years old.  This teaching was enough to keep a pubescent boy awake at night praying for no wet dreams, especially before he fell asleep.

    At least if one did slip into a sin of the flesh meriting burning in Hell for all eternity, the sin could be forgiven by coming alongside Father Devereaux and being grappled.  One sin and only one sin was unforgivable: hating the Holy Ghost.  I believe I learned this in the 5th or 6th grade from one of the Sisters of Providence who had it on the highest authority:

"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."-- (Matt. 12:31-32)

    As soon as I learned of this unforgivable sin and that I must never say “I hate the Holy Ghost”, I was constantly pursued by the Evil One tempting me to say “I hate the Holy Ghost.”  I was a 10 or 11 year old neurotic haunted by the soft siren call “Go on, say it.  Say you hate the Holy Ghost.  Go on, say it.”  I still remember the terrible day I was dispatched by my teacher, Sister Mary Chalkdust, to take the wastebasket downstairs and empty it.  All the way down the back steps at St. Leo Grammar School I struggled against my obsessive wrestling against thinking the words “I hate the Holy Ghost.”  No.  Don’t say it.  It’s unforgivable!  No use.  I thought the words in a complete sentence: “I hate the Holy Ghost.”  I was done for and I hadn’t even kissed a girl yet. 

    There was another bit of spiritual and cognitive dissonance we were faced with.  All of us Clausen and Cummings cousins were sent to Catholic schools and packed off to church for mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.  Failure to attend mass was of course a mortal sin and remember that lighted match and gazillions of years.  But none of the adults in our family went to mass!   What did that mean?  How could that be?  Were my mother and father and grandparents and uncles all going to Hell?  My father was in his own personal Hell already, but my mother?  Grandma?  Grampa?  Uncle Jim?  The fires of eternity loomed?  What was I to make of this?  It was pretty clear to me that my father and probably my uncles and grandparents thought all that church stuff was a bunch of bullshit.  I suspect that whatever religious faith my father may have had drowned in blood on the black sands of Iwo Jima.  But my mother was Catholic through and through, a real believer.  That’s why she insisted over my father’s objections that Kitty and I go to Catholic schools.  If I were to believe what the nuns and priests told me (and not believing it was itself a Sin Against Faith, ) my mother, the best and most important and most loved person in my life, was in a state of mortal sin, lacking Sanctifying Grace, and doomed to Hell unless she was lucky enough to get to confession before she died.   With my rebellious and tumescent temple of the Holy Ghost coupled with my self-professed hatred of the Holy Ghost and my mother’s skipping Sunday mass, it was clear we were both doomed.  At least we would be together in eternity, along with Grandma, Grampa Dewey, Grampa Denny, Uncle Jim, Uncle Bud, my father and who knows who else.

    I can now half-laugh at the absurdities that were beaten into my head and my heart as a child under the spiritual authority of Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Stritch, Monsignor Malloy, and the Sisters of Providence, but of course it wasn’t one bit humorous as I lived through it.  Along with the horrors of living each day in this world with my father’s abysmal unhappiness and alcoholism, I had the Church doing all in its power to convince me that there was no hope for me (or my family) even in the next world.  I cannot think of all that hellfire and damnation brainwashing that we went though other than as, at best, the sick visions of some deeply neurotic people and, at worst, as willful child abuse by those who knew they were speaking untruths.   The deeply neurotics included many of the priests and nuns as is evidenced in Karen Armstrong’s wonderful biography about her life in a convent Through the Narrow Gate, Andrew Greeley’s Uncertain Trumpet, and by other writings about life within the clerical and religious castes.  The child abusers included many others, popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns and brothers, who were willing to toe the party line of the official Church for career reasons and/or for social control reasons knowing that what they said was pure bullshit.   

So who am I to look down my nose at Emilee Hackney and her Pentecostal co-religionists?  I also wrote this:

I mentioned earlier that the Church was the greatest influence on Kitty and me other than our family.  It would be hard to overstate the centrality of the Church in our lives in the post-war, pre-Vatican II era.   Mondays through Fridays we were in the care of the Sisters of Providence, with prayers and religion classes every day of the school week. Every piece of school paper we turned in had “JMJ” (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) and a “+” on the top of the page.  Friday afternoons during Lent and Advent were for Stations of the Cross and Benediction. Saturday was Confession day.  Sunday of course was Mass.  Baptisms, First Holy Communions, Confirmations, marriages and funerals were all occasions for churchgoing and family gatherings.  There were four ‘daily masses’ Monday through Saturday mornings, 6:30, 7:15, 8:00, and 8:45, and those of us of the male persuasion (girls weren’t allowed and still aren’t in many parish venues) who were able to learn the Latin (Ad Deum mumble mumble . . .) served as altar boys at these masses for three years, 6th, 7th and 8th grades.  On weeknights there were various “Devotions” during the year: benedictions, novenas, 40 hours adoration, stations of the cross and so on.  There were weekend retreats for men and separate ones for women.  Women who had given birth were “churched” after weekday morning masses.  Marian devotions were huge: devotions to Our Lady of Fatima and to Our Lady of Lourdes and to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, devotions relating to the Miraculous Medal, the May Crowning of the main statue of Our Lady, and of course rosary beads were prayed by everyone.  During Lent and Advent we fasted and abstained as directed by the Church.  Throughout the year, we abstained from meat on Fridays, forming fish fry and macaroni and cheese habits that for many of my generation have lasted a lifetime.  On top of all the liturgies and devotions, there were also many social groups organized around the parish: the Holy Name Society for men only, Altar and Rosary Society for women only, the Happy Death Society, the Men’s Sodality, the Women’s Sodality, St. Vincent de Paul Society and so on.  Finally, there were parish bowling leagues, basketball and softball leagues, the Catholic Youth Organization boxing and other sports tournaments and weekly bingo games. 

    Dayenu.  As if the liturgies and devotionals and social organizations were not enough to set us apart and to ensure the centrality of the Church in our lives, there was also the shunning of people and things beyond the control of the Church.  Going to a wedding or a funeral in a non-Catholic church or synagogue was forbidden.  (Attending a regular worship service of course was unthinkable, tantamount to apostasy.)    Attending public schools rather than Catholic schools was forbidden if there was a Catholic school available and in Chicago there was always a Catholic school available (if you weren’t African-American.)  Socializing with non-Catholics was discouraged.  Marrying ‘outside the Faith’ was strongly discouraged, with both the Catholic and the non-Catholic who failed to convert made to jump through hoops to ensure that any children would be baptized and raised Catholic.  Dating non-Catholics?  An occasion of sin.  There were plenty of good Catholic girls at Mercy High School and Mother MacCauley taught by the Sisters of Mercy, at Visitation taught by the Sinsinawa Dominicans, and at the many other Catholic girls’ schools.  We met the Catholic girls through common Catholic friends, or because we went to Catholic elementary school together, or at Catholic socials, like the weekly chaperoned ‘sock hops’ at St. Sabina parish just west of St. Leo parish.  When we met another Catholic, we identified ourselves by parish, not by neighborhood.  It was no accident that my first three girlfriends, Shirley Jankowski, Maureen Boyle, and Charlene Wegge (rhymes with “Peggy,”) were all Catholic.  We shared a common culture: Chicago Catholic.

Emilee wrote that she went to church Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, and on Sunday.  For us Catholics, it was religion classes Monday through Friday in Catholic schools, confession on Saturdays, and Mass on Sunday.  In my altar boy years, 6th through 8th grades, I served daily morning Mass Monday through Saturday plus the Sunday Mass.  So again I say, who am I to look down my nose at Pentecostalists, or any other religion that relies on intense indoctrination (brainwashing) of children for its permanence among adults? 

BTW, the photo of Emilee Hackney on the dust cover of the memoir immediately reminded me of Dorothea Lange's iconic 1936 photo of Florence Owens Thompson, a 32-year-old mother of seven, at a migrant workers' camp in Nipomo, California, during the Great Depression.

The eyes staring off into an unseen distance, the unsmiling mouths, the emotional ambiguity of the photos.  The two women led very different lives, facing very different challenges, but each represented, in her own life, the burdens of womanhood even for, and especially for, women in their adolescence.

 

 

10/23/2026

 Friday, October 23, 2026

1943 First Jewish transport out of Rome reached Birkenau

1973  Nixon agreed to turn over White House tape recordings to Judge John Sirica

1983 Suicide terrorist truck bomb killed 243 US personnel in Beirut

1991 Clarence Thomas was sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice

2025 Donald Trump announced all trade negotiations with Canada were "terminated" following an advertisement featuring former president Ronald Reagan released by the government of Ontario

2025 The United States rules out Israel's plan to annex the West Bank following a Knesset vote, while several other countries oppose the plan, calling it a violation of international law.

2025 A review by National Public Radio revealed that there have been at least 20 deaths in ICE custody this year, making it the deadliest year since record-keeping began in 2004. 

In bed at 9, up at 6:10; 204.0 120/68/68 100; 52/66/51, DENSE FOG MORNING, mostly cloudy day.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Entresto at 6:50 a.m. and 6:45 p.m.

Reminiscing: The World Series starts tonight in Milwaukee.  It's a great thing for Milwaukee retail and service businesses. Each home game is expected to have an economic impact of $10-$15 million, so with at least 2 home games guaranteed, total impact = at least $20-$30 million.  A 7-game series would mean 4 home games, or $40-$60 million.  Beyond the economic impact, the Series is a shot in the arm for poor old Milwaukee.  On the national scene, we tend to be pretty much ignored, lying in the shadows of Chicago to the south and Minneapolis to the west, despite all the great things about the city that I've come to appreciate more the older I get and the longer I live here.

There was a time when Milwaukee was a great city in its own right.  Milwaukee's population peaked in 1960, at 741,324 residents. By the latest Census Bureau estimate, for July 2025, the city had fallen to 562,407 residents.  That represents a loss of 178,917 people, or 24.1%, over 65 years.   Unlike the city, though, the metropolitan area has experienced substantial long-term population growth, about 23%, not a substantial population loss.  One particularly revealing statistic: In 1960, the city of Milwaukee contained approximately 58% of the metropolitan area's population. In 2025, it contained only 36%.  The primary reasons have been increasing suburbanization after WWII,  decreasing manufacturing employment, and demographic changes in household size, birth rate, etc.  

As a near lifelong Leftie, I've long been blaming Bill Clinton and NAFTA for Milwaukee's demise, and NAFTA certainly hurt Milwaukee, but there were other causes too for decreased manufacturing jobs, including automation and corporate restructurings.  In any event, Milwaukee is a far different city today than what it was in 1959 when I moved here from Chicago as a freshman at Marquette, when the city was near its peak population.  The only figures I found compared manufacturing jobs from 1967, when I returned to the city from the Marines, to 2017.  In 1967, the figure was 118,600; in 2017, it was 27,126, a loss of 91,474 jobs, or 77% of its manufacturing employment.

When I first came to Milwaukee, Blatz Brewing, located in downtown Milwaukee, had just been acquired by Pabst Brewing, which moved all its brewing operations to the Pabst site, north of the courthouse.  Pabst was still going strong, as was Schlitz, both of which are now shut down, and Gettleman, ditto.  Now, in our city, which was once the Beer Capital of America, there is only Miller.

Also gone are A. O. Smith, which manufactured auto frames; American Motors, which manufactures auto bodies; Cutler-Hammer, electrical controls and equipment; and very recently, Master Lock, owned by the Soreff family, shut down its plants in the 31st Street industrial area.

When I was in law school between 1967 and 1970, our building was not air-conditioned.  On warm days, the windows were opened to ambient air.  If the winds were from the west, we smelled the Red Star Yeast Company on S. 27th Street;  if from the south, we smelled the Milwaukee Stockyards in the industrial Menomonee Valley; and if from the northeast, we smelled the Ambrosia Chocolate Company at 5th Street and Highland Avenue.  The Chocolate Company moved to what was Waukesha County in 1992.  The Stockyard moved to Reeseville, WI,  in 2004, and Red Star shut down its operations in 2005.  The law school itself moved into its modern new building next door to the old one in 2010, and of course, it is air-conditioned.

I confess to missing the "old Milwaukee" that I knew from 1959 on, but I don't mean to suggest the city and area have 'gone to hell in a handbasket.'  There seems to be constant building and growth in the parts of the metro area that I traverse.  One of the central teachings of the Buddha is that everything in life is subject to change; everything is impermanent.  So it is and so be it.  I sense it every day in my own body and life.  There will be great excitement throughout the World Series here and in Tampa Bay, and when it's over, it will be over, and we'll all move on.  I hope I enjoy it while it lasts, and that the Brewers win it.  If they do, great.  If they don't, still great, just not so great.  It's been great seeing so many Milwaukeeans so excited, so enthusiastic, about local happenings.  We live in a great and beautiful city with a long, proud history.  Go, Brewers!  Go, Milwaukee!!

10/22/2026

Thursday, October 22, 2026

1962 John F. Kennedy made a live television address about Soviet missile bases in Cuba and imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis

1978 Pope John Paul II was inaugurated as Pope

2018 A pipe bomb was sent to George Soros' New York home address, the first Democrat to receive a series of pipe bombs in the US

2019 Top US diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testified that President Donald Trump tied aid to Ukraine to demands that the country open an investigation into the Biden family

2020 Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a record $3 billion to end a probe into its role in the 1MDB corruption scandal to regulators in the US, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia

In bed at 8:30, up at 4.  204.2 117/69/68. 99; 48/66/47, sunny day

Morning meds at 6:30 a.m.  Entresto at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. 

               Why I should not read the NYTimes online while taking my blood pressure

Let's Make a Deal: photo accompanying headline: Putin Nears a Prize: Restoring Ties With the U.S. While Giving Up Nothing, story by Valerie Hopkins.

Now, exactly a year after the oil sanctions, Mr. Putin has never been so close to his goal of normalizing relations with Washington without having to make any compromises on Ukraine.

Over the past week and a half, Mr. Trump has set aside years of U.S. foreign policy by openly embracing Mr. Putin and easing the economic pressure on the Kremlin. At the same time, he has vilified President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the putative American ally trying to defend his nation against a Russian invasion.

. . . 

Ever since Mr. Trump returned to office, Russia has sought to separate the conflict in Ukraine from potential business agreements and closer diplomatic ties with the United States. The Trump administration held back, even as it slashed aid to Ukraine, largely continuing a Biden administration policy of refraining from economic deals with Russia until Mr. Putin stopped the war.

The White House now says such deals will help Russia see the benefits of peace.  

There have been 14 American presidents during my lifetime.  Which have been the most impactful?  FDR and Johnson for what they added to social security (with small s's); Trump in a league of his own for what he has taken away.  Which has been the most impactful overall?  FDR or Trump?  The builder or the destroyer?  FDR's addition lasted for the better part of a century, until Trump.  How long will Trump's destructive effects survive him?  Long after I'm dead.

A Random Thought: Too Much and Never Enough.  That's the title of Mary Trump's book about her uncle Donald.  It seems to me the thought describes a whole class of extremely wealthy and powerful figures, who always strive to increase their already copious wealth and to preserve it from the 'depredations' of government taxation.  If they have millions, they want more millions.  Billions, more billions.  Their wealth is already enormous in comparison to most of God's children, but it's never enough.  I've got shoes, you've got shoes, all God's children got shoes. . .  One wonders what their view of God and religion is, what their philosophy of Man is, what their Weltanschauung is.

I filled in my absentee ballot today, voting for the Democratic candidate for all of the elective offices, whether I know anything about them or not, and voting "no" for each of the 3 Republican-proposed constitutional amendments.  I told Geri it's become "against my religion" to vote for any Republican for any public office.  I suppose it's been against my religion for decades since I haven't voted for a Republican for president since 1964, when I (gulp!) voted for Goldwater against LBJ, a huge mistake in judgment.   I think I have voted for one or more Republican candidates for Wisconsin governor in years past, but not since the Scott Walker era.  This year I voted for Crowley for governor over Tiffany, a troglodyte, though I've predicted since he got into the race (dropped out and opted in again) that he doesn't have a chance.  I hope I am wrong, but the only politician from Milwaukee County to become governor was Scott Walker in 2010 and 2014, a conservative Republican.  The only Democrat was the mayor of the City of Milwaukee, George Peck, who was elected governor in 1890.  Another huge hurdle is that Crowley is BLACK!  Wisconsin has never elected a Black governor.  We did have a Black lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, but he got elected to the office (with no power) on the coattails of Tony Evers when he defeated the then-incumbent Governor Scott Walker in 2018.  However, in 2022, Barnes was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate but lost to incumbent Republican Ron Johnson.  Black + Milwaukee = loss in any statewide election.  I hope I'm wrong.

 Book Hound.  I counted the books I've read this year since CBG recommended Theo of Golden in mid-February: 36 books in 35 weeks.  I went years without reading any books at all because of my eye problems and other medical problems.  Quite a turnaround.  Thank you, CBG, for getting me back in the game! 

heo of Golden - Allen Levi

The Last Sweet Mile - Allen Levi

The Solace of Open Spaces - Gretel Erich

The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Portrait of the Artist - James Joyce

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans

84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

And Every Morning the Way Home gets longer & longer - Fredrick Backman

My Friends - Fredrik Backman

The Seven Good Years - Etgar Keret

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott

Oh, William - Elizabeth Strout

The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout

My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

Lucy By The Sea - Elizabeth Strout

Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout

Stoner - John Williams

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

Buckeye - Patrick Ryan

Everything Happens For A Reason - 

Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

Man In The Holocene - Max Frisch

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Breakup - Kurt Andersen

Switzy - Emma Cline

Every Effort - Barbara Mullen

American Scoundrel - Kai Bird

The Nerd Reich - Gil Duran

Anti-Zionism - Benjamin Moser

Israel: What Went Wrong - Omer Bartov

36 All That’s Unsaid - Emilee Hackney

Hallelujah!  I spent an hour and a half in my basement "atelier"😀 starting a painting of granddaughter Lizzie.  The drawing stinks: eyes not right, no nose, and mouth still all wrong.  Still worth giving it a whirl.

 

   

10/21/2026

 Wednesday, October 21, 2026

335 Roman Emperor Constantine the Great ruled that Jews were not allowed to purchase and circumcise Christian slaves

2018 Julia Louis-Dreyfus was fittingly presented with the Mark Twain Prize, comedy's top honor, at a ceremony in New York

2020 the parents of 545 children who were separated at the US-Mexico border cannot be found, according to the American Civil Liberties Union

In bed at 9, awake at 4:35, up at 4:55; 0510 203.0 121/78/63 99; 44/67/43, sunny day

Morning meds at 7 a.m.  Entresto at 5:30 a.m. and p.m.

All That's Unseen and Israel - What Went Wrong?  I've started Emilee Hackney's memoir even though I've only started Bartov's book.  I'm a bit concerned that Bartov's book will only confirm the bias confirmation I got from Moser's book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.  Bartov's first chapter is titled "Israel's Forever War," and I'm sure it will confirm my notion that the State of Israel has never known a moment of peace since its inception and my suspicion that it never will unless it abandons Zionism in some manner.  I'm also concerned that I've become too concerned with Israel, a bit monomaniacal about it.  It's probably foolish to think that I can shift my focus away from Israel with next week's election so near.  If Netanyahu is re-elected, I'll say, ' All hope is lost,' but I lost hope some time ago.  Even if he loses, are any of his opponents in favor of resolving "the Palestinian Question" by any solution anywhere close to fair to the Palestinians?  I don't think so.  In any event, I've wanted to get back to reading novels after reading so much non-fiction lately: The Breakup, Every Effort, American Scoundrel, The Nerd Reich, and Anti-Zionism.  Emilee Hackney's memoir may provide me with a transition (though I still want to read Bartov's book).

Yalta II.  Putin has suggested a summit meeting with Xi Jinping and Orange Julius.  Orange Julius has said, 'Barkis is willin'. The purpose of such a meeting would be, according to Putin, the settlement of the Ukraine War.  Real purpose: to divvy up the world among the 3 superpowers: Putin gets Europe, Xi gets the Pacific region, and Julius gets the Americas.  That's clearly how Trump sees the "real world," in terms of 'spheres of influence.'  He's long been ready to sacrifice Ukraine, Europe, and NATO to Putin and Russia, and I suspect he feels the same way about Xi and the Far East, especially Southeast Asia.  Will it happen?  We'll have to wait and see, but I don't see anything stopping Trump from doing anything, at least in terms of foreign affairs, whether he wins the midterm elections in 2 weeks or loses them.  If he wins, the Republican legislators will continue to bend over for him, as they always have, and the Republican Supreme Court will do the same because of its deference to the President's constitutionally 'plenary power' in the realm of foreign policy.  If he loses, he will be even more reckless and self-willed in the face of Democratic resistance and obstruction.  Either way, the public, the nation, and the world lose.  God help us, but we know S/He won't.

Having written this morning that I was going to shift my attention away from Israel and Zionism, I quickly demonstrated my fecklessness by reading the 1st chapter of Barkov's Israel: What Went Wrong.  I was wrong about the subject of chapter 1 being Israel's long history of wars with its neighbors and with Palestinian resisters of the occupation.  It's about Israel's long history with Gaza, going back to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the Jews and the Philistines.  A couple of passages caught my attention, the first being a speech by Moshe Dayan, long considered a hero in America because of his achievements in the Six-Day War (and his eye patch).  

 On April 30, 1956, Moshe Dayan, then IDF chief of staff, gave a short speech that would become one of the most famous in Israel’s history. He was addressing mourners at the funeral of Ro’i Rothberg, a young security officer of the newly founded Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was established by the IDF in 1951 and became a civilian community two years later. The kibbutz was located just a few hundred yards from the border with the Gaza Strip, facing the Palestinian neighborhood of Shuja’iyya. Rothberg had been killed the day before, and his body was dragged across the border and mutilated before being returned to Israeli hands with the help of the United Nations. Dayan’s speech has become an iconic statement, used both by the political Right and Left to this day:

Yesterday morning Ro’i was murdered. Dazzled by the calm of the morning, he did not see those waiting in ambush for him at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast accusations at the murderers today. Why should we blame them for their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been dwelling in Gaza’s refugee camps, as before their eyes we have transformed the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers had dwelled into our own property. We should not seek Roi’s blood from the Arabs in Gaza but from ourselves. How have we shut our eyes and not faced up forthrightly to our fate, not faced up to our generation’s mission in all its cruelty? Have we forgotten that this group of lads, who dwell in Nahal Oz, is carrying on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, on whose other side crowd hundreds of thousands of eyes and hands praying for our moment of weakness, so that they can tear us apart—have we forgotten that?…

We are the generation of settlement; without a steel helmet and the muzzle of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads and dig water wells. Millions of Jews who were exterminated because they had no land are looking at us from the ashes of Israeli history and ordering us to settle and resurrect a land for our people. But beyond the border’s furrow an ocean of hatred and an urge for vengeance rises, waiting for the moment that calm will blunt our readiness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call upon us to put down our arms …

Let us not flinch from seeing the loathing that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who dwell around us and await the moment they can reach for our blood. Let us not avert our eyes lest our hands grow weak. This is the destiny of our generation. This is the choice of our lives—to be ready and armed and strong and tough. For if the sword falls from our fist, our lives will be cut down.

The following day, Dayan recorded his speech for Israeli radio. But something was missing. Gone was the reference to the teeming refugees watching the Jews cultivate the lands from which they had been evicted, who should not be blamed for hating their dispossessors.

To me, Dayan's speeches, both the one delivered at Rothberg's funeral and the one delivered on the radio, represent the essence of Zionism. 

 The other passage that struck me was this:

During the few hopeful years of the Oslo peace process, people in Israel began speaking of making it into a “state of all its citizens,” Jews and Palestinians alike. The assassination of Rabin in 1995 put an end to that dream. Will it ever be possible for Israel to discard the violent, exclusionary, militant, and increasingly racist aspects of its vision as it is embraced there now by so many of its Jewish citizens? Will it ever be able to reimagine itself as its founders had so eloquently envisioned it—as a nation based on freedom, justice, and peace? It is difficult to indulge in such fantasies at the moment. But perhaps precisely because of the nadir in which Israelis, and much more so Palestinians, currently find themselves, and the trajectory of regional destruction their leaders have set them on, I pray that alternative voices will finally be raised. In the words of the poet Eldan, “There is a time when darkness roars but there is dawn and radiance.” (p. 57).  Kindle Edition. 

It tends to reinforce my long-held view that Israel passed its 'tipping point' in 1995 with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the subsequent rise of Benjamin Netanyahu.  It makes me wonder whether the U.S. has passed its tipping point and, if so, when.  Was it, as I'm inclined to think, 2016 with Trump's winning of both the Republican nomination for president over many more qualified opponents and the general election over Hilary Clinton, also much more qualified.  Or perhaps, after 2001 with George W. Bush's War on Terror ushering in illegal detentions, wider surveillance, 'enhanced interrogation,' the invasion of Iraq, and his re-election against John Kerry despite our knowing that our casus belli, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was pure bullshit.  

All That's Unseen.  I read some more of Emilee Hackney's memoir this afternoon.  Its subtitle is "An Appalachian Memoir" and I recalled that I ordered it from the library because I knew it was about the author's growing up in poverty and in a fundamentalist, pentacostal religion.  I hoped it might be as interesting and engaging as two other memoirs I've read and really enjoyed: Sarah Smarsh's 2018 Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth and Tara Westover's 2018 Educated.  So far, Hackney's memoir doesn't seem to be as good as those two, but I'm only 50 pages into it.

Nonetheless, I'm already moved by the narrative of her family's poverty and almost losing their home.  It calls to mind my family situation when my Dad returned from the war.  I'm remembering not having enough money to buy food and getting food "on the cuff" from Mr. and Mrs. Kelly's little grocery store, of my parents' not having a checking account or credit card and paying utility bills by money orders from the neighborhood 'currency exchang,'  of my Dad's arguing with my Mom over the $1.50 per month tuition at St. Leo Grammar School, of buying clothing on Dave Fein's credit from a clothing store on Roosevelt Road, even the clothing I needed to go away to college, of the 4 of us living in the roach-ridden, one bedroom basement apartment.  I'm looking forward to reading about Emilee's experiences in her pertacostal church and how she liberated herself, or was liberated, from her early challenges. 

A favorite drawings, of our daughter-in-law Nikki, from a photo I took.

10/20/2026

 Tuesday, October 20, 2026

1998 Comedian Richard Pryor received the first-ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

2015 Vice President Joe Biden confirmed he will not run for President in 2016

2025 A severe Amazon Web Services outage occured in the United States, affecting many apps and websites. 

In bed at 9:10, up at 5; 203.2 1212/74/65 109; 47/63/44, dense fog early, then sunny all day.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Entresto at 5:45 a.m. and p.m.

It is a foggy morning in Bayside, reminding me of the morning 45 or 50 years ago when I heard the foghorn at Milwaukee's Lake Park lighthouse moaning throughout our East Side neighborhood, causing me to scramble out of bed, grab my Nikon camera, and get to the park to take this photo of a favorite crabapple tree.  A wonderful experience, a wonderful memory, a wonderful photograph.

A Rant: Despicable, loathsome, reprehensible, repulsive.  What words most accurately describe the current president of the United States?  Can I think of any other president in my lifetime, which began in the first year of FDR's 3rd term, who could be described personally by these words?  I was very angry and disappointed by Obama in some ways (the aftermath of the financial meltdown), as I was by "W" (the financial meltdown, Iraq, etc.) Clinton (NAFTA, Lewinsky), H.W. Bush (“By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all”), Reagan (Iran-Contra, Ed Meese), Nixon (where to begin?), and Johnson (Vietnam), but I don't remember thinking of any of them as personally despicable, loathsome, reprehensible, and repulsive, with the possible exception of Nixon.  Even considering Nixon, Trump stands out in a class by himself.  Nixon signed a lot of great legislation during his shortened presidency (expanded federal regulation in environmental protection, workplace safety, education, and health in addition to all of his malefactions.  What great accomplishments do we credit Trump with?  Slashing eligibility for Medicaid and Obamacare?  For food stamps? Reducing taxes on big corporations and billionaires while exploding the national debt?   Flooding the streets of America's "blue" cities with military troops?  Providing ICE roughly $75 billion in supplemental funding over five years—about seven and a half times its normal annual budget and turning a blind eye to its agents' depredations of both American citizens and immigrants?.  He has striven to destroy democracy and faith in democracy.  He has flagrantly ignored the nation's laws.  He has filled the most powerful federal offices with "yes men," rather than persons qualified and dedicated to carrying out the statutory missions of those offices.  He has demeaned the stature of the office of the presidency by his behavior and his language.  He has increased his own wealth, and that of his children and his company, immensely by dint of his public office.  He has sucked up to dictatorial tyrants and alienated our democratic friends and allies.  He has almost destroyed NATO, which has prevented wars in Europe for about 80 years. 

In 1988, New York’s Spy magazine, by its editors Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen, famously described Trump as "a short-fingered vulgarian,"  a person with coarse, vulgar manners despite his wealth and celebrity.  Have we ever had a more vulgar person than Trump as our president?   I suppose the closest we could come would be Andrew Jackson, who hailed from the early Tennessee frontier, but so far as I know, no one accused him of rape, as E. Jean Carroll did with Trump.  He's not reported as having slept with a sex worker, like Stormy Daniels, while his wife was tending her infant son.  Bill Clinton, of course, had multiple accusers of sexual assault that put him in a league with Trump, and I've never held a high opinion of his character, but he didn't publicly demean his high office by publicly and deliberately using words like "shit," "bullshit," "ass," "damn," and "hell."  He didn't encourage violence in his campaign rallies or offer to pay the legal bills of supporters to beat the shit out of opponents, or encourage an insurrection.  No, Trump is in a class all by himself as a vulgarian in the Oval Office, singularly despicable, loathsome, reprehensible, and repulsive. 

From Israel - What Went Wrong, 2026, by Omer Bartov:

Taking in the full picture, seven million Jewish Israeli citizens in effect now rule over seven million Palestinians, of whom two million are Israeli citizens whose rights are restricted in myriad ways by the state, while three million Palestinians in the West Bank and two million in the Gaza Strip have practically no rights at all. In the view of most Jewish Israeli citizens, those Palestinians do not even have the right to have rights. One can say that Israel was a full democracy for only six months, between December 1966, when the military rule imposed on the Palestinian citizens of the state after the war of 1948 was lifted, and June 1967, when Israel came to occupy territories to which many of the Palestinians expelled in 1948 had fled, most importantly the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. p. 20, Kindle ed.

Israel claims to be a Jewish and democratic state.  It is neither.  Why do we still support this regime?

On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in its advisory opinion to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was illegal: “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power,” noted the court, “through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” Consequently, the ICJ ruled that “Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.” 

The country most responsible for allowing the continuation of this undertaking was and remains the United States, without whose constant military and political support the fighting would have ended much sooner. The United States could have worked instead toward a deal that would have enabled the return of the hostages, the removal of the Hamas leadership from Gaza, the installation of a different Palestinian authority in the territory, and the launching of a political process geared toward resolving the conflict through negotiations rather than violence.  (pp. 25-26). Kindle Edition.  

[Re: the war on Gaza] The country most responsible for allowing the continuation of this undertaking was and remains the United States, without whose constant military and political support the fighting would have ended much sooner. The United States could have worked instead toward a deal that would have enabled the return of the hostages, the removal of the Hamas leadership from Gaza, the installation of a different Palestinian authority in the territory, and the launching of a political process geared toward resolving the conflict through negotiations rather than violence. (pp. 25-26).. Kindle Edition.  

Why are we politically and militarily joined at the hip with such a nation?  What does it say about us? 

Eastern bluebirds, a favorite of mine from 1957, when I turned 16 and was dating Maureen Boyle and listening to Marvin Rainwater sing his hit song on the radio - Gonna Find Me A Bluebird.

Gonna find me a bluebird

Let him sing me a song

Cause my heart's been broken

Much too long

Gonna chase me a rainbow

Through a heaven of blue

Cause I'm all through cryin' over you

There was a time my love was needed

My life completed, my dreams come true

Then came the time my life was haunted

My love unwanted, all for you

Gonna find me a bluebird

Let him sing me a song

Cause my heart's been broken

Much too long

Gonna chase me a rainbow

Through a heaven of blue

Cause I'm all through cryin' over you

I thought of this old favorite this morning as I watched a small flock (5, 6, or probably more) of bluebirds enjoying seeds and suet from our feeders, more bluebirds than I had ever seen together.  

This is one of my favorite photos from the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight on October 10th.  The squirrel was resting on top of one of the long horizontal panels listing the dead soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen killed in the Korean War. I can't say why it strikes me, but I suppose it is for the same reason I'm so fond of a photo I took of a robin resting atop a headstone at Wood National Cemetery.  Also, it reminds me of a self-portrait I stored under a basement stairway in our house outside Saukville.  When I retrieved it for our move to Bayside, it had a white streak on it which I think is mouse poop.  I left the poop as it was, a reminder that sic transit gloria mundi.

 

10/19/2026

Monday, October 19, 2026

1517 Martin Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation

1992 The Catholic church apologized for its treatment of astronomer Galileo Galilei after 359 years

1999 Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation

2000  John Paul II declared Thomas More as "the heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians."

2019 House members voted to formalize impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump

2023 Kenyan President William Ruto held a state banquet for King Charles III in Nairobi, whose speech acknowledged that “the wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret” 

2025 Thousands of Haredi Jews gathered at the Israeli consulate in New York City to protest against the potential conscription of yeshiva students to the Israel Defence Forces, exempt since 1977.

In bed at 9, up with alarm clock at 5;  122/72/64 99 202.2; 44/36/64/44, sunny morning, cloudy later.

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

LTMW this morning,  I spotted Ghasson and Athena again, same route, same routine, including Athena's sitting down on the cold asphalt at the end of County Line Road, and staring wistfully back to where they had walked, to, Ghasson's patient waiting, and then the pat on the shoulder to signal, 'OK. Time to go home.'  I'm wondering whether Athena has a love interest down County Line Road.

A ride in the country.  I drove out to Holy Hill this morning, before Geri's expected return around noon.  County Line to River Road to Mequon Road to I_41/45 to Holy Hill Road to Holy Hill.  Then Holy Hill Road to Washington County K to Good Hope Road (its western terminus?) to Port Road and home.  Beautiful countryside, with the trees starting to turn colors the further I drove away from Lake Michigan's warming influence.  I had forgotten how very hilly Holy Hill Road is, approaching the shrine, and how very forested the approaches and Holy Hill itself is.  I drove past the side road that leads to the beautiful Fox and Hounds Restaurant where I dined only once, and enjoyed the charcroute garni á la Heiliger Huegel (Holy Hill).  Once at the shrine and friary, I drove in as far as I could, but opted not to climb the steps to go into the church.  I'm struck yet again by how beautiful Wisconsin's countryside is.  A million thoughts crossed my mind during the drive, including wishing my sister or my Dad could have been with me to see what I was seeing.  A little bit of old guy survivor blues.  I was also struck once more by what a very rich country we live in, how many very well-off people there are - not just the very wealthy, another topic, but what we call "middle class.  How many beautiful homes I see on my country rides!  How really poor we were all those years we lived in that 3-room, one-bedroom apartment at 7303 S. Emerald Avenue in Englewood.  Memories, memories, wonderment, wonderment. Some sadness and hurting compassion, but much gratitude..  

More evidence of US complicity in Israel's crimes and violations of human rights.

@realDonaldTrump.  To the Great People of Israel:

Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its 51 year old chant, “Death to Israel, Death to America! We will destroy the Little Satan and the Big Satan.” What Country can survive when things such as this are allowed to be said, because eventually, they always end up being true? It would have been only a question of time until Iran would have put that ominous phrase into effect, but they have been systematically destroyed, both Militarily and Financially, and unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job. If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so. Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself. Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived! I have watched Bibi under the most trying of times. Normal men or women in such situations would have wilted under the pressure — But Bibi did not wilt, he actually got stronger, and maintains that same Strength today. This is the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel, a Country for which it has done so much. Please let this Letter serve to represent my Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel. BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Our deep complicity in Israel's wrongdoing is why I focus on its wrongdoing, rather than the wrongdoing in so many places by so many actors other than Israel.  It's not anti-semitism; it's anti-Zionism.  I have struggled with the Zionism/anti-Zionism issue for a long time, certainly a lot since October 7, 2023, and Israel's response to Hamas's murderous outrage.  I started keeping this daily journal at the end of July in 2022, about 14 months before October 7th.  I wonder whether I wrote anything about Zionism or Israel between 2022 and October 7th.  If I did, I suspect it related to Israel's government and the IDF's and settlers' treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. (I don't think I have the energy to review all my journal entries over those 14 months, or the 3 years since, to analyze what I've written.). I have finally (?) come to the belief that Zionism was wrong-headed ab initio, from the beginning, at least Zionism as it came to be implemented in the 1920s and 1930s and as it came to fruition in the 1940s with the Nakba and the establishment of the Jewish State that exists today.  I have resisted this conclusion mainly because of I have so many Jewish friends, dear friends, who have visited Israel, admire and love it.  I fear losing near-lifelong friends, friends who are dear to me, important to me, if I speak honestly about my thinking about Israel, at least the Israel of Likud, of Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu.  Fortunately, Israel has become, like abortion and religion, something that is almost never discussed by polite people.  In any event, I feel a bit like Luther at the Diet of Worms, and all I can say is:  “Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God. Amen.”

Some things I hate in America.  (1) Political ads.  (2) Pharmaceutical ads.  Stay tuned.