11/12/2026

 Thursday, November 12, 2926

1775 General Washington forbade recruiting officers from enlisting black troops

1933 Nazis received 92% of the vote in German parliamentary elections

1938 Hermann Goering announced he wanted Madagascar as a Jewish homeland

1948 Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was sentenced to death for war crimes

1960 A Military coup against the Republic of Vietnam's President Ngô Đình Diệm failed

2024 Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami as heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency

2025 The United States Mint struck its last penny for circulation, though it will remain legal tender. There were still an estimated 300 billion pennies in circulation, according to the Treasury 

2025 A bill passed Congress and was signed by President Donald Trump, ending the longest government shutdown in American history at 43 days

In bed at 8(?), up at 5:45; 0600 204.2  118/74/70 121; 36/19/43/35, cold and windy day, 18 mph w/ gusts of 31 mph.

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

Dental problems.  I had a meatloaf sandwich on sourdough bread and dark, kettle potato chips for dinner last night.  The chips were thick and dense enough to break the temporary crown on my lower left back molar.  I'm scheduled to have the permanent crown installed tomorrow at 2:30.  The broken temporary crown is sharp and jagged, and of course my tongue drifts toward it regularly.  Also, what remains of the temp is loose and no longer securely adhered.  My dentist is on the clinical faculty at the Marquette Dental School, and I think she works at the Dental School clinic on Thursdays, so she's probably unavailable today.  Looks like I will be eating Malt-O-Meal, eggs, and mashed potatoes between now and tomorrow afternoon, though I'll call her office and leave a message.  Fingers crossed.  

Murdering shipwrecked sailors.  Some time ago, we learned that on September 2, 2025, American military forces killed two sailors who had survived a missile attack on their boat, which was allegedly carrying drugs, illegal for consumer use in the US.  Doing that is a war crime; it is illegal, even under maritime law, under which even shipwrecked pirates deserve rescue.  News reports at the time said the DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the oral order: "Kill them all."  Hegseth denied it and placed full responsibility for the strike on a Navy admiral in charge of the operation.  The government also put out the story that the two survivors were radioing for help that could have attracted hostile armed vessels to the fray.  Yesterday, Admiral Frank Bradley, who was in charge of the Joint Special Operations Command, said that was false, that the men were not radioing for help.  They were helpless on the open sea, clinging to the wreckage of their boat, trying to save themselves from drowning.  There were also reports that the admiral and others discussed for 41 minutes what to do about the two survivors before the order was given to kill them, and that they received legal advice that the second strike on the boat and the survivors was legal. 

This "incident", which to me is a case of murder, was one of Congressman Massie's grounds for impeachment ofPete Hegseth.  I hope that at least that article will be refiled when the Dems take control of the House in January.  I'd like to hear the testimony of the JAG who opined that the order was legal.  I suspect there will be ample grounds to support the conclusion, because, as I used to tell our law clerks, "nothing's simple, nothing's cheap" in the law.  Law is squishy.  Nonetheless, on many matters, we know "in our bones" whether an act is right or wrong.  Consciences are not as squishy as the law is, as words are.  Everything about these strikes on so-called "narcotrafficers" in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific fails the 'smell test.'  The political justifications are what we used to call, back in Vietnam, happy horseshit.  One guy's opinion.

Judge Richard Posner has died at age 87.  Although I can't recall the particulars, I remember walking behind him on a street in Madison one day when he was sitting on a 3-judge panel.  The man was incredibly smart, a polymath.  He was appointed to the 7th Circuit by Ronald Reagan and was very conservative, though not in traditional ways.  What I found most interesting in the NYTimes story about his death was this:

In later years, he drifted left, issuing opinions on voter ID laws, abortion, same-sex marriage and workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation that were markedly liberal.

It made me wonder whether he got smarter in old age, or just squishier.  

The Times story also reveals how squishy the law is.  

Judge Posner called his approach to judging pragmatic. His critics called it lawless. “I pay very little attention to legal rules, statutes, constitutional provisions,” Judge Posner said in a 2017 interview. “A case is just a dispute. The first thing you do is ask yourself — forget about the law — what is a sensible resolution of this dispute?”

Asked in 2017 by The New York Times about his many critics, Judge Posner said they fell into two camps.

Some, he said, simply have a different view of the proper role of the judge. “There is a very strong formalist tradition in the law,” he said, summarizing it as: “Judges are simply applying rules, and the rules come from somewhere else, like the Constitution, and the Constitution is sacred. And statutes, unless they’re unconstitutional, are sacred also.A lot of the people who say that are sincere,” he said. “That’s their conception of law. That’s fine.”

He said he had less sympathy for the second camp. “There are others who are just, you know, reactionary beasts,” he said. “They’re reactionary beasts because they want to manipulate the statutes and the Constitution in their own way.”

He reminds me of lines I quoted in an article I wrote a million years ago in the Marquette Law Review from Ivan Klima's Judge on Trial:

the opportunity to study and reflect on law offered the greatest satisfaction while the requirement to implement it was the saddest or most painful fate that could befall one. The practice of law led either to cynicism or madness. We could see examples of the former all around us, and as for the latter, suffice it to recall Kafka, who, though few realised it, was a Prague lawyer.

I am one of the cynical crowd.  Kafka's The Trial reflected, in advance, what is happening now under the Trump adminsistration. 

 

 

11/11/2026

 Wednesday, November 11, 2026

1918, The Allied nations and Germany signed the armistice ending the fighting in the Great War, which had killed more than 15 million people

1939 Kate Smith first sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America"

1961 "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller was published

2018 On the centenary of WWI Armistice Day, French President Macron urged the world to reject Nationalism in a speech under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

2025 Israeli settlers set fire to dozens of vehicles and other property in Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf in the West Bank and attacked Israeli soldiers who were dispatched to the area, injuring four Palestinians, while four Israelis were arrested.

2025 Colombian president Gustavo Petro ordered public forces to halt intelligence sharing with the U.S. Intelligence Community until the U.S. ceases its military strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea

In bed at 9:30, up at 3, trouble falling asleep & staying asleep; 0350, 115/69/66 204.4; 41/51/51, cloudy, rain in the afternoon. 

Morning meds at 6:40 a.m.  Entresto at 6 a.m. and p.m.

The grotesque travesty at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I shouldn't have, but I watched it again this morning.  Donald John Trump, "the Foot Soldier,: the Vietnam draft dodger, the felon from the Oval Office, with his signature pompadour hairdo, placing a wreath at the Tomb.  It was only a month ago that I was there as a passenger on an Honor Flight for a ceremonial changing of the guard, thinking such mixed thoughts, experiencing such mixed emotions.  I think of standing on the other side of the Memorial Amphitheater last month, and a day later, writing this:

Yesterday, I noticed an inscription high above the western entrance to the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, leading toward the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is a line from the Roman poet Horace (Odes, 3.2.13): Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori — "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."

The inscription dates from the First World War era, before Wilfred Owen's magnificent poem Dulce et Decorum Est had become known. Owen wrote his poem during the war, and it was published posthumously in 1920. In it, he savagely condemned the romantic glorification of death in battle, famously denouncing Horace's maxim as "the old Lie."

There is a powerful retrospective irony in the juxtaposition. At Arlington, Horace's words proclaim the nobility of dying for one's country. Owen, having witnessed the horrors of the trenches, took those very same words and turned them into one of the most searing indictments of the glorification of war ever written.  Sitting there in my wheelchair as an old Marine who had long since come to regret his participation in another war, I found myself much closer to Owen than to Horace.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

My heart is with Wilfred Owen and with those of whom he wrote, and not with Horace or with the militaristic nationalists who decided to put Horace's words at the entry to the Memorial Amphitheater.  That fact colored my whole experience of yesterday's Honor Flight. 

Today I think too of Randall Jarrell's World War II poem, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner:

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Anyone who has attempted to write a poem knows the struggle presented by each word in the poem.  I wonder whether Jarrell struggled between the word "washed" and the word "flushed" when he wrote that poem, each having such different connotations: washing suggesting cleanliness, refreshing, and renewal, and flushing suggesting disposable waste, worthlessness, cannon fodder, "next man up."   

I'll probably continue a tradition and drive through Wood National Cemetery today on my way home from dropping Geri off at the airport, but this old veteran on Veterans Day will not feel like Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Movie after singing America the Beautiful, saying "Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear."

I watched a documentary on forgotten Milwaukee restaurants last night, and it triggered a ton of memories.  Some of the 'biggies' were Sally's Steakhouse at the Knickerbocker Hotel, which closed in 1994.  I loved their tenderloin and deep-fried shredded onions.  It had a well-deserved reputation for mob connections from Sally Papia's relationships with the Balistrieri's and others.  Sally herself spent time in prison for extortion, if I remember correctly.  Snug's at the Shorecrest Hotel, where I had lunch with a student who was trying to have an affair with me, where the table at which we sat was bugged and recorded by the FBI, and audited by good buddy LOA in the USA's office.  Pieces of Eight on the lakefront, where I stopped for a drink after work with TSJ, or with DSB and CSM, but never together.  Frenchy's on E. North Ave., which closed in1975, where I had dinner only once, but which made life miserable for me in my senior year at MU when I drove a Milwaukee Sentinel truck and stuffed paper boxes at bus stops in the middle of the night.  The Sentinel broke a story about what was a scandal in those days: Frenchy's provided free sandwiches to Milwaukee cops.  After the story was published, Frenchy's stopped the practice, and Milwaukee cops started handing out traffic tickets left and right to Sentinel drivers like me.  It was chickenshit, and it affected my attitude towards cops for the rest of my life.  John Ernst Cafe on Ogden Avenue, Top of the Marine, atop the Marine Bank on Wisconsin Avenue and the river,  and the English Room in the Pfister, all of which shut down in 2001.  I had many lunches and dinners at the Ernst Cafe, which advertised itself as Milwaukee's oldest restaurant, and I remember watching Mayor Henry Maier lead the crowd in song at night.  I worked for a few weeks as the "interior glass man" on the maintenance crew at the Marine Bank building between my discharge from the Marines and starting law school in 1967.  Grenadier's downtown, a great restaurant, where I ate only once, maybe twice.  And the greatest: Karl Ratzsch's on Mason Street, which finally closed in 2017.  Oh, that liver dumpling soup!  Oh, that string quarter in the little alcove.  Oh, what a loss.  But then there's Mader's Restaurant on 3rd Street, now MLK Drive, which thankfully is still open.  I took Sarah there for dinner to mark the occasion of her first period, more than 40 years ago.  Now she's 57.  Time flies.

I'm a little surprised that the documentary didn't include another fine German restaurant, Kalt's, on the east side of Oakland Avenue just south of Locust Street, where I would order Weissbrau.  Ditto the Broadway Bar & Grill at 221 N. Broadway in the old Third Ward, where I enjoyed so many lunches.  It was another great one that shut down in 2001, along with John Ernst, the Top of the Marine, and the English Room.  Such a bad year for Milwaukee eateries.  The photo is of the Kalt's building, now an English pub rather than a Kalt's German Gastshaus.

I also remember the great Albanese's Restaurant on the corner of Keefe Avenue and Pierce Street, famous for its homemade pasta.  It bit the dust in 2009, a victim of the Great Recession.  And Pitch's Lounge and Restaurant at 1801 N. Humboldt, famous for its barbecued ribs, and Three Brothers Serbian Restaurant at 2414 W. St. Clair on the south side, both of which, thankfully, are still in business and still owned by the same families that started the businesses.  I'm thankful that some of these Milwaukee institutions are still surviving, though in my old age, I never get to them anymore.  More's the pity.

I drove through Wood National Cemetery on the way home from the airport, not a single person or vehicle among the tens of thousands of headstones on this dark, cold, rainy, dreary day.  Almost spooky.  I thought there might be flags placed at each headstone because of Veterans Day, but none were. (Unless they had all been removed, but not likely.). The weather today matches my subdued mood.

10/10/2026

 Tuesday, November 10, 2026

1775 U.S. Marine Corps was founded

1793 'Fête de la Raison' in France: Catholic churches, including the Notre Dame Cathedral, are ceremoniously de-Christianized and transformed into Temples of Reason 

1940 Walt Disney began serving as an informer to the FBI; his job was to report back information on Hollywood subversives.

1951 1st long-distance telephone call without operator assistance

1954 "Marine Corps War Memorial" was unveiled in Arlington County, Virginia, dedicated to US Marines who died in defense of the US since 1775 (inspired by the 1945 Iwo Jima photo of servicemen raising the US flag)

1969 "Sesame Street" premiered on PBS TV

2012 The final US presidential election results were declared after Barack Obama won Florida to defeat Mitt Romney 332-206 in Electoral College votes

2025  Donald Trump granted pardons to 77 people, including political allies who are accused of electoral fraud-related charges from the 2020 presidential election, including several who have pled guilty

2025. The Senate voted 60–40 to end the 41-day government shutdown and extend funding for the U.S. government until January 30, 2026, sending the bill to the House of Representatives for a vote. 

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:30; 0545 203.4 118/74/70 120; 48/36/61/43, sunny

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

Some thoughts from last year's journal on my Marine history.

Today is the 249th  250th 251st Marine Corps Birthday, a time for Birthday Balls and Birthday Dinners (or "messes") at Marine Corps stations around the world.  I don't know for certain, but I don't think any of the Marines' sister services celebrate their founding as the Marines do.  It's truly a big deal for Marines, as the photo I printed on the first page of these notes suggests.  I have deeply mixed feelings about my time in the Marines.  I am embarrassed, ashamed, and guilty about my service in Vietnam.  I am embarrassed by how stupid, naive, ignorant, and gullible I was in those days.  I am ashamed and guilty for what we did over there, the loss of millions of lives, the terrorizing and crippling of so many others.  What does it say of my moral and ethical sensitivity that I so casually and obediently participated in that lethal endeavor?  That I so casually made Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Dean Rusk my moral and ethical decision-makers? What does it say of my moral and ethical education, more concerned about masturbation and premarital sex, 'impure thoughts and impure deeds' than with capitalism, imperialism, and nationalism?  Pray, pay, and obey - what was expected of good Catholics, and the "obey" part covered a lot of sinful territory.  On the other hand, I spent a total of 8 years in the military, 4 in the Naval Reserve as a midshipman, and 4 on active duty as a Marine officer.  I worked with many good men during those years.  They were not born or natural killers.  They were very much like me: trusting, patriotic, loyal, good citizens doing their duty.  We, like millions of our neighbors, were all caught up in our sense of duty, patriotism, and good citizenship and we deferred to our leaders.  Good soldiers, good Marines, troopers.  I think of Ron Kendall, Ray Mendoza, Bob Hillary, Bill Space, Pete Peterson, 'Moon' Mullen, Pete Powell, Frank Peterson, Phil Swaim, John Boyan, Dick Coffman, Tom Devitt, Jerry Nugent, Pat Townsend, and so many others, fellow Marines, good people, decent human beings.  I think of Larry Anderson, to whom I sent a "Happy birthday, Jarhead" greeting today.  I wonder what role I may have played in his joining the Marine Corps after graduation from MULS.  Happy birthday to all of them.  

New golden stature of Trump on the National Mall, The Foot Soldier

My FB posting:

Last year on this date, I posted this: "Today is the 250th Marine Corps Birthday, and Marines around the world will mark the occasion in various traditional and respectful ways depending on their locations and their missions.  I still think sadly of my friend in Vietnam, Bill "Moon" Mullen, and of this family.  I learned of his being shot down over Laos after I had been transferred from Vietnam to a Marine base on Okinawa.   Remembering it, I  re-experience the feeling of numbness I had when learning of it.   Our government lied to his wife and children about where he was shot down, because it wasn't admitting that we were bombing Laos and Cambodia as well as North and South Vietnam.  I remember my loss of innocence about being repeatedly lied to by our government during that time, which led to a lifelong skepticism, indeed cynicism, about what we are told by the politicians and bureaucrats who control our government.  Just as I can't believe what I am told by our own government, I am just as skeptical, indeed cynical, about information from other governments, including those involved in the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the Israel/Hamas conflict.  It is truly said that the first casualty of war is always Truth, and that applies whether we are being provided information by our friends or our enemies.  All governments lie to us, repeatedly and regularly.  Our current government, of course, is establishing the gold standard in this regard.  We need to be at least skeptical, if not cynical, especially about information provided by those engaged in warfare."

I'm thinking the same thoughts today, especially about our current government establishing the gold standard for lying to its citizens.  I'm thinking of my fellow Marine, "Moon" Mullen, and his children too.  Moon's name is now on the Vietnam Wall, and his widow, Barbara, is now buried at Arlington National Cemetery at his gravesite, which is only honorary for him because his remains have never been recovered.  I think too of our current Commander-in-Chief, who had someone else, probably a Black or Hispanic kid, sent to Vietnam in his place, because of his "bone spurs.'  I wonder if the young man who was drafted in his place ended up with his name on the Wall, one of the 58,281 names inscribed there.  I think too of our current Secretary of Defense and the 2,067,700 men and women who served under his command.  865 American service members wounded. At least 21 killed in Trump's and Hegseth's unnecessary war. Trump says we haven’t lost anyone, calls it a win and brags about making "a fortune" on Venezuela. oil.  Words fail me in trying to characterize these guys.   Words fail me in thinking of how low our country has fallen during my lifetime.  Let's hope that last week's election signals a turnaround, but this old Marine struggles with his leftover cynicism. 

Visit to the VA.  Dr. Cheng at 8, and NP Kali Kisro at 9:30.  I had enjoyable chats with both and saw much of the C-scan of my thoracic spine with Dr. Cheng, seeing the stenosis in my T-9 vertebra, which is probably causing the nasty pain in my right flank.  He prescribed a mild NSAID and advised me not to take it with my morning meds (aspirin).  Kali put through the general surgery consult to see whether surgery for my bladder extending into an intestinal hernia seems desirable.

Wow.  We were blessed with fantastic October weather in Wisconsin. It was the 4th warmest October on record for the state. Much of the state was 6-8° above normal.  It was also one of the state’s sunniest Octobers on record.  My favorite month in Wisconsin.

A Horrible Hunch.  My hunch is that, just as the Nazis frantically strove to kill as many Jews as possible when they knew that they had lost the war, continuing to cram freight trains with their human cargo destined for the extermination camps, the Trump regime, under the leadership of both Trump and Stephen Miller, will accelerate the capture, detainment, and deportation of immigrants.  It will not get better after last week's election; it will get worse because they see their time coming to an end.  Get 'em while we can.

Signs of what to expect over the next two years.  Trump picked Stephen "Sieg Heil" Miller as Chief of Staff.  House of Representatives Republicans picked Jim Jordan as minority leader in the next Congress.

11/9/2026

 Monday, November 9, 2026

1862 General Ulysses S. Grant issued orders to bar Jews from serving under him

1989 East Berlin opened its borders at Checkpoint Charlie when thousands arrived after a bureaucratic error announced that restrictions on travel to the West had been lifted

2018 Amid California forest fires,  President Donald Trump accused state forest management of "gross mismanagement, ' and threatened to withhold funding

In bed at 9, up at 4; 0430 204.0 119/73/68 118; 35/30/56/35, mostly cloudy.

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

Bad back day, a bit out of commission.

One of my favorites, alas.

11/8/2026

 Sunday, November 8, 2026

392 Roman Emperor Theodosius I declares Christianity the state religion

2008 Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested by federal officials for attempting to sell the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama

2014 CIA Torture Report detailed the CIA's use of torture on detainees between 2001-2006

2019 US officials "deliberately misled" the public on the progress of the Afghanistan war, hid that it was a lost cause, according to The WaPo analysis of the "Afghanistan Papers"

2025 The United States announced that it would send no delegates to the 2025 G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, citing accusations of persecution of the Afrikaner minority.

In bed at 9, up at 6; 0620 203.8 120/79/69 118; 39/27/57/39, sunny day ahead. 

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

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.  From my old friend, Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., introduced to me by Prof. John Pick.  While making my coffee this morning, I looked out the kitchen window and saw that our driveway was blanketed by golden ginkgo leaves and that the tree was bare and ready for winter.  Our north lawn is bestrewn with leaves from the berry trees there, plus from other sources, I guess, some still green, others deep maroon, yellow, and brown.  

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

Autumn always brings me back to Hopkins, not Anthony, but Gerard Manley.  When autumn leaves fall, I think of his young friend Margaret, and of myself, and all of us.

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

As I sit in my recliner with my fresh coffee and type these words, the neighborhood flock of wild turkeys eagerly runs up to our feeding station and do their best to cleam the ground beneith it of all seeds and hulls.They are feistier in the early morning than they are later in the day, the larget ones with the whitest heads dominating the others, all smaller and with greyer heads.  Ghasson and Athena walk by, he dressed for winter, both walking at a brisker pace than usual in deference to the 27℉ wind chill temp.  On the way back, mirabile dictu, Ghasson keeps Athena walking so fast she can't sit down at the corner at stare down County Line Road.  She looks disappointed, but Brrr.

 I looked through my journal entries on this date for each of the last 4 years.  Very interesting, how very sick I was during this period last year, how distressed I was 2 years ago after the re-election of Trump predicting "We are going to be hit with a firehose of frightening news day after day now.  God only knows the nasty stuff that will occur once he's in office and criminally immunized by John Roberts and his cronies," and how focused I was on Vietnam 4 years ago, and our brutal interference with "the right of the poor to establish societies based on something other than the interests of the rich."

And speaking of 'the interests of the rich," I watched Margaret Brennan interview Calley Means, former senior White House advisor on MAHA issues.  He created a firestorm during his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast on Friday, accusing now-former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles of blocking needed public health initiatives solely in order to attract campaign donations from big pharmaceutical, tobacco, and food industry lobbyists for the just-completed mid-term elections.  I didn't listen to the Joe Rogan interview, but I watched all of Margaret Brennan's, which reminded me of just how inherently corrupt American politics is.  Government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.  Honest Abe would weep.  So should we.  

I developed a big crush on Margaret Brennan years ago when she was a morning anchor on on of Bloomberg's early morning business shows.  Part of it was because of her thorougly Irish names, a bigger part was her great beauty, and it was completed when I learned how very intelligent and educated she was, including her fluency in Arabic.  She graduated with honors in 1998 from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut. She attended the University of Virginia, graduating with highest distinction in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in foreign affairs and Middle Eastern studies and a minor in Arabic. She also studied abroad at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan, on a Fulbright-Hays Grant.  Brennan began her business news career in 2002 at CNBC as a producer for prominent financial journalist Louis Rukeyser. She wrote, did research, and booked guests for the weekly Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street program and prime-time specials.  I've never lost my crush on her, even after she married a Marine JAG officer.  The drawing is a pencil portrait of her I drew years ago.

Back to the Brennan-Means interview and the Means-Joe Rogan bombshell, our Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson was interviewed by Fox News yesterday after Means's accustions and joined in the accusation of corruption in the Trump administration.  Johnson said that Means laid out “in gory detail” concerning levels of corruption within government, including corruption “within the Trump administration.”  “This is how government operates on a bipartisan basis,” Johnson charged, claiming that it’s “happening throughout government agency after government agency, captured by the very … corporations that are regulated by government.”  H. L. Mencken alerted us back in the 1920s to "the wealthy bounders who now run the United States."  It's only gotten worse since then, and never as bad as under Trump's Republican government.  Marine General Smedley D. Butler told us the truth in his book, War is a Racket in 1935:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

As it was 100 years ago, so it was before then, and so it is now.  As the (in)famous Emma Goldberg infamously but apochrophilly said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."  Whether she said it or not, the thought is just a variation on the theme noted by Thucydides in The History Of  The Peloponnesian Wars:  The powerful do what they will and the powerless suffer what they must.

Images of those who pay, who suffer what they must

11/7/2026

 Saturday, November 7, 2026

1876 President Rutherford B. Hayes and challenger Samuel J. Tilden claimed presidential victory as Tilden (D) won the popular vote, but Electoral College votes were disputed with Hayes (R)

1972 Incumbent President Richard Nixon was re-elected, defeating Democrat candidate George McGovern in a landslide by winning 49 states

2020  Joe Biden was declared the winner of the US presidential race four days after the US election, defeating sitting President Donald Trump.

In bed at 8:35 w/PQPM, up at 6:25; 0645; 203.6 121/73/62 112; 32/49/32, mostly sunny

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Entresto at 7 a.m. and p.m.

PQPM and Dr. ChatGPT, M.D.  I had troubling back/flank pain most of the day yesterday and was worried about sleeping as I went to bed last night, so I followed my buddy LOA's advice & took a slug of PainQuilPM at bedtime and had a super night's sleep.  The same has happened every time I've used it.  It's a really effective OTC drug.  It's because of the generic Benadryl in it.  I avoid taking it regularly because of warnings that it loses its sleep-inducing effectiveness when used regularly.

I checked on the product again with my everyday doctor, ChatGPT, and got a stern warning against its use, especially because of my age and chronic bladder problems.  The Benadryl component restricts urine flow and bladder contraction.  Additionally, the American Geriatrics Society specifically recommends avoiding diphenhydramine in older adults, even though it is available without a prescription, because of the real dangers of dizziness, confusion, or impaired balance when I get up to urinate. Diphenhydramine/Benadryl can cause these effects even when taken only occasionally.  It's like the old line: Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening, but in my case, not safe for someone at your age and in your condition.  Rats!

BTW, it has become clear to me that ChatGPT practices medicine without a license.  It doesn't just provide information, as Drugs.com does, or even Wikipedia.  It asks very pointed questions based on its knowledge of the user's medical conditions and history.  The more you tell it, the more it knows, and the more it asks additional relevant questions and gives advice.  If this isn't practicing medicine, I don't know what is.  It's only a question of time before courts will be required to weigh in on whether this practice violates state or federal licensing laws and whether, and to what extent, it may be civilly liable for claims.  Needless to say, it ALWAYS advises users to check with their personal medical provider, but realistically this isn't always possible or even probable.  In many ways, it does a better job than most personal medical providers in explaining things, offering explanations for advice that doctors and nurse practitioners often don't have time for in their crowded office schedules.  Reliance on AI is already becoming one of the predicted revolutionary changes in health care in our Brave New World.  I can attest to it.

Every now and then I get an urge to drive down to Mundelein, IL, to the cannabis store and to pick up some products.  I've known some folks who swear by their regular use of mj gummies or weed.  I was given some gummies a few years ago and got a tad high, or really just nicely calm, from one of them, and had no reaction to a couple others.  I still have the rest of the 'stash' in a little container, long unused.  Marijuana is still illegal in Wisconsin, thanks to our Republican legislatures, and perhaps that will change with the new legislature.  In any event, I'm still left with the problem of whether it's contraindicated for an oldtimer with heart disease and a laundry list of other medical conditions.  Of course, I'd still be free to say, the hell with it, I'm going to use it anyway, I'm going to die anyway, right?  The problem with the devil-may-care attitude is that I don't want to end up in the hospital again for long stays, or get increasingly invalided while I'm still alive.  Rats, again!

Dead Poets Society.  We watched this film last night, a first time for each of us.

Notable development today: Israel's president asked Gadi Eisenkot to form a government, rather than Netanyahu.  Will he be able to do it?

11/6/2026

Friday, November 6, 2026

945 House Committee on Un-American Activities begins investigation of 7 radio commentators

1978 Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi placed the country under military rule

1995 Israel buried Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir who opposed peace with Palestinians 

2012 Barack Obama was re-elected as US President, defeating Republican candidate Mitt Romney

2018 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (29) of New York became the youngest woman elected to the US House of Representatives

2018 In US Midterm elections, Democrats retook control of the House of Representatives after eight years, and the Senate remained held by Republicans

2024 AP called the 2024 election for Trump

2025: Three people were killed in a United States airstrike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea. 

In bed at9:30, up at 4:20; 0445 115/75/62 117 201.8; 35/22/46/35, cold & windy, 14-26 mph NNW

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Entresto at 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.  Trulicity injection at 6:40 p.m.

Remembering.   The Associated Press declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2024 presidential election at 5:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, November 6, 2024.  That was 4:34 a.m. Central Time in Wisconsin, approximately 9½ hours after Wisconsin's polls closed.   The decisive event was AP's projection that Trump had won Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes, pushing him past the 270 electoral votes required for victory.  An earlier milestone was at 1:24 a.m. Central when the AP called Pennsylvania for Trump. As I recall, I was awake and watching the election coverage when the AP called Wisconsin.  I was stunned.  I despaired.  I dreaded telling Geri the news.  So much for polls and pollsters.  So much for pundits.  I sure wasn't glad that my sister was gone, but I was glad that she didn't have to live through this low point in American history.

LTMW I see that the big flock of wild turkeys is becoming regular early morning visitors to our feeding station.  I spread plenty of sunflower and safflower seeds on the ground when I replenished the feeders yesterday, but it's hard to believe any seeds are left after these big birds finish.  I notice too that they are becoming feistier as the weather gets colder.  Some of these gobblers are a lot larger than others, making me wonder whether they are hens and their still-growing chicks.  Smaller groups of male "Toms," with their distinctive "beards" or chest feathers,  arrive usually later in the day.

We have a long ravine creek that starts up in Mequon and runs through Bayside and back up into Mequon before emptying into Lake Michigan.  It is densely forested, and I suspect that is where most of the big flock of hens and poults roost at night.  We're separated from the creek area only by the lot to our west.  I think that is where they come from for their early morning visits to our yard.

As I typed the words immediately above, I looked up and out my window to see a young white-tailed deer staring at me from the other side.  

A little before 7, I see Ghasson and Athena walking onto County Line Road.  I'll keep an eye out for their return trip, to see whether Athena sits down at the turn back onto Wakefield and turns to stare fixedly (and wistfully?) back down County Line. . .  Ten minutes later, they return.  Athena stops at the corner and looks down County Line, but does not sit down, perhaps because of the 37℉ air temperature and even colder asphalt.  In any case, her stop is much shorter than usual, and she readily turns again and continues the walk home.

Finally, the small perching birds show up at the elevated feeders, mostly chickadees at first, but then the others.  The black-eyed juncos, or snowbirds, are late arrivals and feed mostly on the ground, but alas, the turkeys beat them to all those seeds I spread yesterday.

Facebook this morning:  Honor Flight Columbus.

There is something powerful about viewing the Korean War Memorial from behind the soldiers. It offers a different perspective, one that captures the reality of following fellow soldiers into battle.

Each step forward meant facing the unknown. Fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, and the very real possibility that not everyone would make it home. Yet they continued forward, relying on one another and the bond shared by those who serve.

As our veterans walked this memorial, we were reminded that behind every statue is a story of courage, sacrifice, and brotherhood. We are honored to share this experience with those who understand that reality firsthand.

Charles Clausen:  This memorial is very moving.  I first saw it on my Stars and Stripes Honor Flight on 10/10/26.  The troops in ponchos reminded me of the extreme weather conditions the soldiers and Marines faced in Korea throughout much of that war, from the extreme heat in the battles around Inchon and Pusan to the extreme cold during the battle for and strategic withdrawal from the "Frozen Chosin" Reservoir.  Learning of those engagements lives on in the memory and heart of this old Marine.

President Trump = President Stephen Miller = President Roy Cohn = Fuck you to the electorate & New Congress.  Whenever we fool ourselves that things could not be worse under Trump, Trump reminds us that we will never plumb the depths of his evilness. Susie Wiles is out as Chief of Staff, and Stephen Miller will take over for the second half of his administration.  Miller will run "our" federal government during Trump's "lame duck" years, years of hostile Congressional investigations.  somTrump is our Samson bringing down the temple.  This will be worse than the end of his first term and January 6th.

The drawing is one I did of Miller a few years ago in a Nazi uniform, a shanda fur die goyim.

My FB post, with image drawn by ChatGPT to my specs:

Trump makes Stephen Miller chief-of-staff.  Here's a depiction of his lame-duck years.  I see a bad moon rising.  I see trouble on the way.