8/25/2026

 Tuesday, August 25, 2026

1814 British forces destroyed the Library of Congress, containing 3,000 books

1916 US Department of the Interior formed the National Park Service

1944 German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered Paris to the Free French forces, disobeying Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy the city

1950 "Rashomon," a Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, was released

2017 President Donald Trump pardoned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of contempt of court for racial profiling

In bed at 9:30 and up at 6:30; 0650 203.2 116/76/72 XXX; 61/78/57, mostly sunny days ahead.

Morning meds at 11:50 a.m.  Entresto at 7:50 a.m. and p.m.

January 19, 1946 - August 25, 2026

Rounding the far turn, heading into the home stretch.  For some reason, my 85th birthday seems even more significant to me than my 80th was.  I suppose it's just because I've survived the first half (actually more than half) of my 80s.  AI tells me that only 28% of American men in my age cohort continue to live for 85 years. 72% have already died.   I still have a remaining life expectancy (merely an average, of course) of 5.7 years, which, if I last that long, would get me past my 90th birthday.  I have long thought that I don't want to live that long, and that is still true, but I wonder.   

The other day, I watched a short YouTube interview of Viktor Frankl, author of Man's Search for Meaning, in which he described talking with a patient who complained about suffering from living too long.  He had survived his wife.  Frankl asked him how his wife would have reacted if he had died before her, and the man said she would probably suffer greatly from losing him.  Frankl suggested that he see his long life as the sacrifice he was making to spare his wife that suffering. He said the patient found some comfort in that thought; that it gave his long life some meaning.  I don't know whether or to what extent that story relates to Geri and me, but it did make me think.

Then this morning, I watched a short Charlie Rose interview of William F. Buckley in his old age during which Buckley said that he didn't want to live any longer, that he wasn't about to commit suicide, but that he "was tired of living."  In the interview, Rose asked the elderly Buckley whether he wished he were 20 again. Buckley replied:  “No, absolutely not.”  He said that even if there were a pill that could make him 25 years younger, he wouldn't take it. When Rose asked why, Buckley answered: “Because I’m tired of life.” Rose, apparently somewhat taken aback, asked, “Are you really?” Buckley replied: “Yeah. I really am. I’m utterly prepared to stop living on.”  He went on to speak of the weariness and repetition of continued life and essentially asked what there was left to hang on for.

Rose's interview occurred in March, 2006, in honor of Buckley's 80th birthday.  Buckley's wife Pat was chronically and seriously ill, and died on April 15, 2007, at age 80.  Buckley died in February 2008 at age 82, after suffering from emphysema and diabetes for years.

How often have I thought over the last few years that I'm tired of living, especially when I was sick, and most especially when I was experiencing long-term serious pain and disability?   Old age is such an interesting time of life, not necessarily welcome or pleasant, but nevertheless interesting.  It has, alas, too many burdens, hardships, and indignities, but it has also brought me a keener appreciation of life, of the uniqueness and depth of human beings, their histories and characters, the beauty of the natural world and even of much of people's alterations of it,  not only the trees and birds and bunnies, but also farm fields and farm houses, homes and other sturctures in the cities and elsewhere, all over.  This morning I had a brunch of strained Greek yoghurt and grapes and wondered, marvelled, what's the word?, over the convoluted, sturdy structure of a grape stem!

As I wrote this reflection, Geri had CNN News on in the background.  The regular reporting was interrupted with the announcement that America has lost a national treasure: Dolly Parton has died at age 80.  I knew she had been ill for some time, and that she's been at the dying age for some time, but nonetheless I teared up a little when I heard the news.  I note that her husband, Carl Dean, died on March 3, 2025.  She reduced her work schedule considerably, announcing “I just kind of got worn down and worn out, grieving over Carl…” I have long loved her music and liked her as a human being.  I thought it would be hard not to like her or to love much of the music she wrote and sang.  I think of everything from the iconic I Will Always Love You, which she wrote for Porter Waggoner when she left his show, to the terrific Why'd You Come In Here A'Lookin' Like That. Yesterday I wrote about restarting my daily 'gratitude journal,' and I started out thinking about my gratitude for singers, especially female country singers, and of course I put Dolly at the top of my list.  Today, I'm grateful for the memory of her and grateful that her music was recorded and that I have so much of it available to me, loaded into my laptop and on my favorite playlist on my iPhone.  She was one of a kind, a force of nature, an example of big-heartedness and love of life for all of us, a giant who was barely 5 feet tall and 100 pounds.  The metaphor "a light has gone out in the world' is so true of Dolly.  RIP

And here I am, having outlived Dolly and Bill Buckley by 5 years and still kicking, having outlived my beloved sister by 8 years and my beloved mother by 34 years.  How does this happen?  It reminds us, as JFK did, that life is unfair.

Text exchange with CBG this morning:

Caren Goldberg:  Hi Chuck — I wanted to check in with you and see how you’re doing. We have been traveling and when I get back from my trip over the weekend I’d like to find a time to see you. In the meantime, how have you been doing, how’s Geri, and what have you been reading?

Charles Clausen:  Hi, Sweetie (you know the history of that greeting😊). It is so good to hear from you.  I’m doing OK.  Yesterday was my 85th birthday, Sarah and her husband called from Germany and we had a long chat, Andy came over with a birthday card drawn by my talented granddaughter Lizzie, and a bottle of wine, and Geri grilled a ribeye steak for my birthday dinner.  My heart symptoms remain much improved since the catheter ablation, though I’m going into the VA Thursday for an echocardiogram just to make sure the procedure hasn’t caused any damage, to wit, ‘mitral valve regurgitation’😳😱. The doc doesn’t think so, but he wants to be sure.  Since you and I last chatted, we were visited by my law school buddy for the last almost 60 years, Larry Anderson and his wife, up from Atlanta.  We keep in touch regularly by text, email, and phone.  We were seated alphabetically and Larry usually sat right in front of me in all our required classes.  It led to a lifelong friendship.  Geri has been doing a lot of gardening and is still regularly knitting hats for a project at Temple Emanuel.  I’ve continued my reading binge since Theo of Golden, but I currently having to struggle through Kurt Andersen’s The Breakup, a dystopian tale of America in 2045, after a violence-induced ‘velvet divorce’ between 11 Red states, and the other 39. Before that, I read East of Eden for the first time, Tom Lake and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Buckeye by Tom Ryan, and an interesting memoir by a faculty member at the Duke University. Divinity School, Everything Happens For a Reason, in which she dismisses the truth of what her title suggests.   I’m scheduled for a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight to Washington on October 10th with Andy as my escort/‘guardian’.  I have my fingers crossed that I’m not making a mistake agreeing to go, but I have a few reasons to go ahead and risk it.  Sorry for the TMI, but I’ll look forward to seeing you when you return.❤️

 Charles Clausen:  And, I forgot, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which made me wonder about her life as an undergraduate at Bennington College.

Caren Goldberg:  Happy birthday my dear friend! I can’t believe I missed it but wishing you all the good health and happiness possible! Sounds like it was a great birthday day. I’m so happy to hear you are feeling better and I’m thrilled to hear you’re going on an Honor Flight. I think it will be an amazing experience. You are certainly reading up a storm! I recently read Whistler by Ann Patchett and really enjoyed it. Are you free to meet me on September 1st at Maxfields at 10:45 for a late breakfast, early lunch, brunch type thing?

Charles Clausen:   I watched a long conversation between Ann Patchett and Laura Dern on YouTube this morning.  Very interesting. A favorite author and a favorite actress, each a very likable human being.  And, as it happens, I am free on the 1st at 10:45 and will meet you at Maxfield’s. Looking forward to seeing you. 

A little virtue signaling?  I stopped watching football many years ago.  It was sometime after New England Patriots Daryl Stingley was paralyzed in 1978 by a tackle from the Oakland Raiders' safety, Jack Tatum, a notoriously hard hitter during a pre-season game.  Stingley became a quadriplegic for life and died at age 55.  It was more than a quarter century later that I stopped watching NFL games when it became clear that many players were affected by CTE,  chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disorder linked to repeated blows or impacts to the head, including concussions and subconcussive hits AND when the league, i.e. the franchise owners, refused to admit that playing football was the cause.  In this morning's New York Times, there is this news:

New research shows that 25 percent of all former N.F.L. players who died during a recent six-year period had the degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E. — a tally that does not include the nearly three-quarters of deceased players who were not tested for the disease, which can be diagnosed only posthumously.

“That is clearly a minimum; the true percentage has to be higher,” said David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, just as C.T.E. emerged as a health issue in football. “Whatever it is, the number is astoundingly high.”

Another former OSHA official, the chief scientist Adam Finkel, called it “apocalyptically high,” noting that Russian roulette carries better odds. To him, a risk of 1 in 100 would be an “epidemic.” But 25 percent?  “We never see things that are this dire,” he said..

Yet OSHA has never addressed football, has never made recommendations to make it safer, even as hundreds of former N.F.L. players — workers, with a union — have been diagnosed with C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

“In most cases,” the agency said in a statement, “OSHA does not take enforcement action with regard to professional athletes.” . . . 

But former OSHA administrators said that the N.F.L. is too powerful and football is too popular to be regulated. As a governmental agency under the direction of politicians, OSHA has to pick its priorities.

“I recognized when I ran OSHA that intervention in football, in telling the league to make changes, even if OSHA had the expertise, would essentially be detrimental to the agency,” Mr. Michaels said. “The public would not welcome OSHA telling the N.F.L. how the game has to be played. And that would hurt the agency’s ability to protect workers who desperately need OSHA.”

Mr. Parker said that OSHA was unlikely to act on its own.

“For OSHA to get involved, the ideal situation would be a congressional mandate — not because they necessarily need one legally, but because it would be the best way to ensure that they really had the government’s backing to take action,” Mr. Parker said

There is a scientific hurdle, too. What could OSHA even do to reduce the likelihood of C.T.E.? With some workplace issues, OSHA can make simple solutions to mitigate major risks — increase ventilation in a factory, require protective gear, add safeguards to machinery — without eliminating the essence of the business.

I'm reminded of one of Dolly Parton's great lyrics, one from 9 to 5: It's a rich man's game  / no matter what you call it / and you spend your life putting money in his wallet. 

 

 

 

8/24/2026

 Monday, August 24, 2026

1572 The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants by Roman Catholics began in Paris with the murder by defenestration of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and later spread to the French provinces

1857 The Panic of 1857 began, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history

1941 I was born in Englewood Hospital at 60th and Green Sts. on the South Side of Chicago

1968 France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific

2025. An estimated 300,000 people across Australia, including at least 100,000 in Melbourne, marched to protest the Israeli escalation of the Gaza war and its plans to militarily seize the entirety of Gaza, while also calling for the Australian government to sanction Israel. 

In bed at 9:25, up at 5:15; 0539 203.2 120/77/57 XXX.  54/73/54, sunny.

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

Birthday treats.  It seems that on each of the last few years (at least), my birthday treat for myself has been to take a ride in the country and to shop at either Costco or one of our regular supermarkets, Sendik's or MetroMarket.  I'm a cheap date.  I guess I jumped the gun with yesterday's long ride out to Little Cedar Lake and stopping at Costco to gas up, but I'll probably take another ride and visit another store today.  It looks like another lovely weather day.  I'll probably get a FaceTime call from Germany today from Sarah and Christian and an email in German from Gerhard, which I'll read and respond to through the blessing of Google Translate.  I'm so glad that Sarah married into the Kovacs family and has been so accepted as a family member within it.  I wish I could go visit again, but that doesn't seem possible.  Her hometown of Geretsried in southern Bavaria is only 22 miles south of Munich, 40 miles from Austria, 90 miles from northern Italy, and 120 miles from Switzerland.  I'm thankful for having been able to make two trips there.  The photo is of my German mishpucha at a Kovacs family get-together.  Top to bottom, left side, are Christian, Sarah, Lizzie, and Marcus; right side, Olga, Gerhard, and Aunt Birgit and Uncle Peter.  [Sarah and Christian called around 11 a.m., and we chatted for quite a while.  Andy texted me and will be coming over later. . . He came at 6 with a card Lizzie drew from the whole family & we had a good chat.  Then I had the ribeye steak birthday treat dinner Geri made for me.  I'm a lucky guy.

Email exchange with near-60-year buddy and fellow leatherneck LOA:

On Monday, August 24, 2026,8:00 AM, Charles Clausen

Thanks, Pal.  My Dad saw the flag go up from one of the landing beaches.  He was a radioman assigned to the Joint Assault Signals Company, or JASCO, that was positioned on the beach throughout the battle, a little way from the Navajo code-talkers, and where the corpsmen collected the wounded and dying awaiting evacuation.  He saw some bad shit, shit that stayed with him throughout his life, till he died at 86.  He was discharged in November 1945, and he and my mother suffered a lot from his PTSD.  His PTSD, and hers from a sexual assault/rape in 1947, left an imprint on my little sister and me throughout our lives.  As I wrote before, I can't imagine what went through their heads and hearts when they visited the Iwo memorial, and wonder what I'll experience, or whether I'll just go numb, which is sometimes my reaction to hard emotional experiences.  One of my Navy ROTC buddies, a year behind me, is buried at Arlington, J. Forrest Trembley, who was a backseat driver on a Navy A-6, shot down in 1967 over N Vietnam, but landed across the border in China.  His remains were finally identified in 2004, and buried in Arlington in 2005.  His name, and the name of "Moon Mullen", a Marine buddy and A-4 pilot shot down in Laos in 1966, are on the VN Wall.  "Moon's" remains were never recovered.  His wife, back in Massachusetts, where they lived, wrote a book about her experiences after receiving the telegram from DOD, titled "Every Effort."  It was published in 1986, and I learned about it 20-some years ago when I was writing my memoir, but I've never read it.  I just ordered a used copy of it.  I've always had at least some "survivor's guilt" about Vietnam, which I suppose will be re-triggered by the Honor Flight.  Thanks again for your message, s/f 

On Sunday, August 23, 2026 at 08:40:16 PM CDT, Lawrence Anderson 

     You cannot turn that down The airplane will have a bathroom and there will be old dudes on that trip in the same boat. Wear your depends and bring a couple of extra pair. You’ll be ok. Been to the Memorial a few times. Brings tears to the eyes of this old Marine.   s/f

On Aug 23, 2026, at 8:40 PM, Charles Clausen

I forgot to mention.  I've been selected for a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight to D.C. on October 10th, and I accepted, but I'm having second thoughts about the wisdom of not being near my own bathroom for that long day, about 15 hours, out and back.  It would get me to the Iwo Jima monument in Arlington, which I've never been to and would like to see, among other reasons because my Mom and Dad visited it maybe 50 years ago.  I can't imagine what that was like for each of them, but I would dearly like to follow in their footsteps. s/f

On Sunday, August 23, 2026 at 02:47:57 PM CDT, Lawrence Anderson 

    Song Sung Blue.  Great movie and a great cast. Hard to beat Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Jim Belushi, etc. and the music. Kind of sad though. Sue Thompson had a hit record in the 50’s called “Sad Movies Always Make Me Cry” . Reminded me of that.

    Watched my Brewers beat my Braves the last two days. Still a Brewers fan though. My wife is pissed. I love them but never forgave ‘em for leaving me.

    Don’t forget “West with Giraffes”. It was Jan’s book club selection that sounded good so I read it  Good book. If you like historical fiction you might enjoy Philip Read. He writes a series of books starting with “Berlin Noir”. The protagonist is a guy named Bernard Gunther who is a homicide detective in pre-war Berlin who hates the Nazis. Read is a Brit who makes literary references I’m ashamed to say I never heard of. You might like it. Not “War and Peace, but another good read. Take care Buddy. s/f

 The attitude of gratitude.  I have some bad habits and tendencies, most of which I've had my whole life.  I have a voracious sweet tooth that I've never tried to control; I always give into it.  I love to eat the stuff I like, and regularly eat too much of it, letting my 130-pound high school senior put on 100 pounds, most of it after I got out of the Marines.  There have been a few times when I've gotten regular exercise, but usually nothing more demanding than walking, and usually I'm a couch potato, but on a recliner.  Somehow, I have nevertheless lived to see my 85th birthday, outliving so many who have lived so much more responsibly.  My worst tendency is to let precious friendship wither, lapse, and fade away.  I feel the effects of this most keenly now that I've outlived most of my good friends and live with some geriatric loneliness.  Another costly deficit in my character is an underdeveloped or underpracticed attitude of gratitude, and my tendency to live as Mickey the Mope, especially to get bogged down in Trumpism and politics, where the nation is heading, and all that sorry shit.  I thought of this earlier today as I watched a few YouTube videos of Brandi Carllile, Linda Ronstadt, Allison Krauss, and even Janis Joplin.  I thought to myself, 'What gifts these performers are, what blessings."  I thought of how moved I get by the great variety of music I enjoy, occasionally almost moved to tears by it, tears of joy.  And how accessible that music is to me.  I thought of how moved I now get over so much - the trees all around me, the clouds above me, the farmfield, barns, horses, and dairy cows I see on my drives in the nearby, so accessible country near me,, my daily visitors: so many birds, turkeys, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, even coyotes, and of course my precious wife, children, step-children, and grandchildren, and my dear friends, and good neighbors.  I should be, if not blissful most of the time, at least profoundly grateful for all that I have and have had in my long, full life.  Instead, I too often mope about with "da mizzries."  Mickey the Mope.  Denny the Downer, Moise Pipik as a farbissoner kvetch.  My mother and sister would be ashamed of me, reminding me to "Snap out of it!"  I should start my daily gratitude journal again.  I'll let this entry stand as the first testament of gratitude, for the many, many musicians, artists, performers of all sorts who have not just entertained me, but lifted my spirits and enriched my life.  I'll start just by listing some of my longtime female country favorites, like Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, LeAnn Rimes, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Martina McBride, Roseanne Cash, and the great Patsy Cline.  I should add the one and only Linda Ronstadt and K. D. Lang, though they cover a few genres.  It's a start.

8/23/2026

 Sunday, August 23, 2026

1903 Sixth Zionist Congress: Theodor Herzl declared a Jewish state

1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact and secretly divided Poland between themselves, setting the stage for World War II

1943 Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, ends after 50 days as the Soviet Union defeats Germany; over 10,000 tanks take part, and nearly 250,000 combatants are killed

1946 Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government constituted the German state of Schleswig-Holstein

1958 People's Republic of China resumed bombardment of the Quemoy and Matsu islands in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis

1989 Two million people formed a human chain across Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania in a peaceful pro-independence demonstration against Soviet occupation

2005 Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas and later became a Category 5 hurricane

2020  Black man Jacob Blake was shot in the back by police in front of his children in Kenosha, prompting violent protests

2022 Two men were found guilty of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer 

In bed at 9:15, up at 5:40; 0600 203.2 120/75/63 116; 58/74/58, mostly sunny today.

Morning meds at 8:50 a.m.  Entresto heart meds at 6:35 a.m. and 6:15 p.m.

I started the day visited by 3 wild turkey hens and their 16 youngsters on our front lawn,  a sight that always gives me a boost.  There are only one hen with about 5 chicks, or poults, or juveniles under our bird feeders; the rest are spread across the lawn, heading north.  I've learned that the youngsters are called poults for their first 4 or 5 weeks of life, when they become "jakes" and "jennies"  until they reach maturity, or hens and toms.  Our youngsters are getting pretty big, so I could only guess their age, but they still hang out with their mother hens, so I'm guessing they are still poults, but wow, they grow fast.  Once those visitors were gone, I saw a bit of a tiff under the feeders between a youngish bunny and a grey squirrel.  The bunny is eating whatever seeds the turkeys left, plus some dew-wet grass, and the squirrel got too close.  I would have thought the squirrel would chase away the bunny, but it was the other way around.  Who knew?  Meanwhile, life goes on as usual for our airborne visitors.  This morning, I need to replace the remnant of suet cake, which is still providing some morning sustenance to a red-bellied woodpecker, and to add a couple of mealworm seedcakes to the other feeding stations.  I'm surprised at how popular those seed cakes are.  They don't last long.

Yuma, Phoenix, Tucson, and Water.  My sister and her family lived for decades in the western suburbs of Phoenix.  My niece and nephew still live there.  Our good friends, David Lowe and his wife, Pip Powell Lowe, moved a couple of years ago to a new development north of Tucson.  In 1964-65, Anne and I lived for 14 months in Yuma, in the southwest corner of the state on the border with California, just a few miles from the Mexican border, on the banks of the Colorado River.  I should say, on the banks of the Colorado Puddles, because that's what the river was when we lived there, a series of puddles.  By the time the river reaches Yuma, almost all of its water has been drained by upriver users in California, Nevada, and Arizona (the Lower Basin) and in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and even Wyoming (the Upper Basin). When we lived there, Yuma had a population of about 30,000, and 60,000 in the big county.  Today, the city's population is 106, 923.  The county's current population is just under 225,000.  The water to take care of the city's municipal needs and the county's agricultural needs comes from the reservoir behind the Imperial Dam, 20 miles north of the city.  The water that gets to that reservoir is what's left after satisfying the needs of upriver users in the Lower and Upper Colorado Basins, including Las Vegas, NV, Phoenix, and Tucson.  Phoenix and Tucson divert their water from Lake Havasu behind the Parker Dam, 150 miles north of Yuma, and Las Vegas from Lake Mead behind the Hoover Dam.

I got into all this because of a story in this morning's New York Times about America’s Desert Metropolis Is on the Short List to Lose Water, that metropolis being Phoenix. More statistics: in the mid-1960s, the Phoenix metropolitan area had roughly 800,000–850,000 people. The Census Bureau estimated the Phoenix metropolitan population at 842,000 in 1966, up from 663,510 in 1960. Today, the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metropolitan area has about 5.23 million people. The latest Census Bureau estimate is 5,228,938 as of July 1, 2025.  That's an increase of about 4.4 million people, or more than six times the metropolitan population I encountered in the mid-1960s.  Phoenix is still growing rapidly, Tucson at a much slower pace.  Their governments still encourage population and economic growth, notwithstanding their water supply challenges, and I've long wondered, WHY?  Isn't this insane???  The issues are complicated, and the governments assure their residents that they have adequate plans to meet the water needs of the communities, even with the planned growth, but this old coot is skeptical.  Let's see how the communities do in response to the planned federal cutback in Colorado River supplies.  From today's story in the New York Times:

With the seven states that rely on the Colorado River deadlocked over how to split its diminishing supply, the Trump administration is pushing its own plan to divide the water. The three downriver states — Arizona, California and Nevada — would most likely shoulder the most pain, but no single user stands to lose more than the Central Arizona Project.

Short-term reductions, announced by the federal government on Friday, will cost Arizona roughly one-third of its share of river water over the next two years. But beyond that, a range of cutbacks remain possible.

Under the most severe outcome, the system would be cut off entirely during the driest years, setting off a social and economic meltdown Arizonans shudder to even imagine.

“They are threatening to shut down the Southwest,” said Brenda Burman, the project’s general manager. “It’s not possible to picture it.”

How long before the Southwest states look to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes for water???? 

More old age problems.  I'm wondering whether I may have agreed to the Honor Flight too soon.  I'm wondering about my bowels and bladder, i.e., bathroom needs.  It's a 15-hour day, with about 4 on the aircraft and 11 in D.C.  Is this a reckless undertaking for me?  Bathroom facilities at the Mall?  Arlington?

The beer garden and picnic area overlooking Little Cedar Lake, between the little sand beach area and the piers and boat launch area.

A ride in the country.  I took a ride in the countryside north of Milwaukee County early this afternoon, departing with no particular destination in mind, but ending up at Little Cedar Lake in Washington County, 30 miles northwest of Bayside.  It would take me a good 45 minutes to get there by car, following the most direct route, but I took more than an hour via country roads.  I realized as I drove those roads that this end-of-summer period is southeast Wisconsin's lushest season, unbelievably green, farm fields full of mature crops, mostly corn and soybeans, and roadsides almost overgrown.  So beautiful.  I happened upon Hidden Valley Drive in the Town of Cedarburg, 4 to 5 miles northwest of the City of Cedarburg, lined with new, very expensive, large, modern homes.  It's just south of Hidden Valley Lake, which shows up on maps but isn't visible from the roads nearest it.  The maps also don't show roads into it, a mystery lake, or perhaps an ephemeral lake???  While on Hidden Valley Drive, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle, standing fully upright with no hands on the handlebars and no helmet on his head.  I wondered what he was trying to prove.  I stopped at Little Cedar to use the public restroom, which overlooks the beer garden/picnic area.  Most of the parking lots in what is now Ackerman Park were full.  When I first started coming to Little Cedar Lake to fish with my old pal and fishing partner Doug Wenger or with my kids, the land belonged to Farmer Ackerman, who lived across Highway Z.  We would stop at his house to pay the boat launching fee he charged for his lake access, $3 if I remember correctly.  Now there is no separate fee for launching a boat onto the lake, but the land is owned by Washington County, which calls it Ackerman Park and charges a $7 daily entrance fee.  I have so many memories of visits to Little Cedar with Doug Wenger, my kids, and my grandson Peter.  Little Cedar is where Peter caught his first fish, a little perch maybe 4 inches long.  The photo on my Facebook page is of Peter, me, and that little perch, taken right after the historic catch.  My last fishing outing on my beloved Lund Mr. Pike 16-foot fishing boat was at Little Cedar with Sarah on a belated Father's Day outing.  My recollection of that outing was me using oversized hooks because I didn't want to catch any of the abundant bluegills in the lake, and of Sarah catching a bluegill with every cast of her baited hook.  We wondered whether she even needed to bait her hooks.  Today I saw two guys in a Jon boat fishing the weed patch at the south end of the lake and 4 boys fishing off the pier where Peter caught his perch.  On the way home, I drove up to West Bend and along Rustic Road 52, on Paradise Drive, a favorite drive of mine for the last 25 years since we lived in the Town of Saukville, and Maple Drive, north of Grafton, between Cedar Sauk and Cedar Creek Roads.  Warm memories, an old man's sustenance.  

Geri and I had a long, good schmooze about selling our house and buying a big bi-level condo down the street from us.  More to say about that as developments warrant.

Email to Sarah.  Hi, Sweetie.  I was thinking of you warmly today on my drive through Wisconsin's beautiful late summer countryside, as reflected in one of my journal entries, which I have copied and pasted here:

A ride in the country.  I took a ride in the countryside north of Milwaukee County early this afternoon, departing with no particular destination in mind, but ending up at Little Cedar Lake in Washington County, 30 miles northwest of Bayside.  It would take me a good 45 minutes to get there by car, following the most direct route, but I took more than an hour via country roads.  I realized as I drove those roads that this end-of-summer period is southeast Wisconsin's lushest season, unbelievably green, farm fields full of mature crops, mostly corn and soybeans, and roadsides almost overgrown.  So beautiful.  I happened upon Hidden Valley Drive in the Town of Cedarburg, 4 to 5 miles northwest of the City of Cedarburg, lined with new, very expensive, large, modern homes.  It's just south of Hidden Valley Lake, which shows up on maps but isn't visible from the roads nearest it.  The maps also don't show roads into it, a mystery lake, or perhaps an ephemeral lake???  While on Hidden Valley Drive, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle, standing fully upright with no hands on the handlebars and no helmet on his head.  I wondered what he was trying to prove.  I stopped at Little Cedar to use the public restroom, which overlooks the beer garden/picnic area.  Indeed, most of the parking lots in what is now Ackerman Park were full.  When I first started coming to Little Cedar Lake to fish with my old pal and fishing partner Doug Wenger or with my kids, the land belonged to Farmer Ackerman, who lived across Highway Z.  We would stop in his house to pay the boat launching fee he charged for his lake access, $3 if I remember correctly.  Now there is no separate fee for launching a boat onto the lake, but Washington County owns the land, which it calls Ackerman Park and charges a $7 daily entrance fee.  I have so many memories of visits to Little Cedar with Doug Wenger, my kids, and with my grandson Peter.  Little Cedar is where Peter caught his first fish, a little perch maybe 4 inches long.  The photo on my Facebook page is of Peter, me, and that little perch, taken right after the historic catch.  My last fishing outing on my beloved Lund Mr. Pike 16-foot fishing boat was at Little Cedar with Sarah on a belated Father's Day outing.  My recollection of that outing was of me using oversized hooks because I didn't want to catch any of the abundant bluegills in the lake, and of Sarah catching a bluegill with every cast of her baited hook.  We wondered whether she even needed to bait her hooks.  Today I saw two guys in a Jon boat fishing the weed patch at the south end of the lake and 4 boys fishing off the pier where Peter caught his perch.  On the way home, I drove up to West Bend and along Rustic Road 52, on Paradise Drive, a favorite drive of mine for the last 25 years since we lived in the Town of Saukville, and Maple Drive, north of Grafton, between Cedar Sauk and Cedar Creek Roads.  Warm memories, an old man's sustenance.  

On other news, I've been selected to fly on a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. on October 10th, and Andy has agreed to be my escort/guardian for a day, a requirement for us old guys.  I've read and been told that these charter flights are pretty special experiences, so I agreed to go despite my thoughts that my flying days are behind me.  I still have some pretty serious misgivings, mostly bowel and bladder concerns,  since it involves an out-and-back flights on one day (leave at 5 or 6 a.m. and get back at 8 or 9 p.m.  It entails visits to the war memorials on the National Mall (WWII, Korea, Vietnam) and to Arlington National Cemetery, and the Iwo Jima memorial, which I've never been to, even though it sure has emotional significance for me.   All expenses are paid by the Honor Flight folks, except for the parking fee at Mitchell Field.  If I decide to back out, I want to do it quickly to give some other guy the seat.  The biggest disappointment that I would have in cancelling would be on spending an entire day with Andy since I don't see much of him anymore.  He's always been very involved in his kids after school extra-curricular activities, more so than Anh as far as I can tell, and I suspect his new job also keeps him plenty busy.  When we do have a few minutes together, we're on the move, so this trip would be pretty special. 

I hope you and Christian, Gerhard and Olga, and Marcus and Lizzie and the kids are all well.  Geri and I are well.💗💗💗

Thoughts on the anniversary of Herzl's declaration of a Jewish state in 1903, from my journal entry two years ago this date:

Anti-semitism, Zionism, and Humpty Dumpty.  From the September 2025 issue of Harper's Magazine, excerpts from "An Outrage to Common Sense: On the meanings of anti-Semitism," a review by Daniel May of Mark Mazower's ON ANTISEMITISM:

       "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

                  "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Mazower is the author of many books, including seminal works on the destruction of Salonica’s Jewish community and the infrastructure of Nazi imperial rule. He also happens to be on the faculty of Columbia University, which has been shaken by charges of anti-Semitism and the debate over what constitutes it. As he works to unravel how we arrived at such a state, he is guided by the intuition that Alice’s question cannot be answered without Humpty Dumpty’s. To understand how the meaning of “anti-Semitism” has changed, we need to look at how the word is used, by whom, and to what ends. Who or what gets called “anti-Semitic”? What are the consequences of the charge? How is it that the decline of anti-Semitism as a political force has given way to the fight against it becoming such a profoundly powerful one? We should, Mazower suggests in a characteristically measured tone, “view antisemitism in its historical context as a term that has been used to mean different things at different times.” This is hardly a radical proposition. But the effect of his rather modest aim is something close to revelatory. 

As May's review is a distillation of  Mazower's tome, it is itself revelatory.  My old and feeble brain can't deal with all the issues involved in the terms antisemitism and anti-Zionism.   I struggled with them when I  read some of the writings of Yeshayahu Leibowitz.  Who is a Jew?  In what sense are 'Jews' a 'nation'?  A people?  Are my Jewish friends who are Reform Jews who do not practice Halakah really Jewish, or only Jew-ish?  Today is the anniversary of Theodor Herzl declaring 'a Jewish state' in 1903.  How is the state of Israel, made up of so many 'secular' Jews, atheists, agnostics, and other non-observant Jews, really a "Jewish" state and homeland?   These issues aren't merely academic, intellectual, or theoretical, especially since the Six Day War and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the current issues about "the day after" the Gaza war ends.  Also in terms of who is entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Right of Return.   What is most troubling to me on a personal level is what appears to be widespread identifiction of opposition to a fascist government in the state of Israel with anti-semitism.  Netanyahu always does it, treating opposition to him, and Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich with anti-semitism.  The German Reichstag has done it by legislation.  I can't help but believe that this arrogant attempt to broaden the meaning of anti-semitism will only increase anti-semitism.                   

x

 

8/22/2026

 Saturday, August 22, 2026

1953 Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returned to Tehran

1964 Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at the Democratic National Convention about her terrifying experiences with voter registration as a Black woman in Mississippi

2024 Vice President Kamala Harris acceptsed the Democratic nomination for U.S. President

2025 Four Israeli airstrikes against Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza killed 22 people, including five journalists working for Reuters and AP, according to Palestinian authorities.  Hassan Douhan, a journalist for newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, was fatally shot by Israeli forces in Khan Yunis.

2025  Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Justice to prosecute flag desecration, contradicting constitutional protections by the First Amendment as affirmed by Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, as the the order acknowledged. 

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4:35, up at 4:50; 0505 204.0 118/70/63 115; 63/77/62, sunny day ahead. 

Morning meds at 7:30 a.m.  Entresto at 6:30 a.m. and p.m.  I'm thinking this morning of how much my life is lived in cycles: daily cycle for my morning fistful of pills and capsules, twice daily cycles for my heart meds, weekly cycles for my Trulicity injections, bi-weekly cycles for filling my pill boxes. daily cycles for writing in my journal/blog.  What am I missing?  That I am such a creature of habit is hardly surprising.  I remember though my pre-retirement cycles of getting up each morning, showering, shaving, going to work, and my academic life cycles of class schedules, academic calendars, etc.

The idol and the idol-worshipper at Turnberry golf course in Scotland

(Poseted on FB) Natalie Harp. I'm loving all the attention that is being devoted to the sick relationship between Donald Trump and his $150,000/year sychophantic aide, Natalie Harp.  The attention focused on this couple when Natalie was one of the few people who accompanied Trump in the catering truck in Ankara, Turkey, after the NATO summit meeting in July, in response to a threat of an Iranian attack on Air Force One.  Trump left the Secretaries of State and Treasury on AF1 as decoys, while he and Natalie flew out secretly on another military aircraft.  Attention increased with the widespread attention paid of Sen. Jon Ossoff's gibe impaling Trump about his war on Iran:

While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

Attention further increased with the publication of personal letters sent by Natalie to boss, hero, and idol, Donald Trump, making clear that Natalie is suffering from delusions about Trump and a self-subordinating, obsessive idealization of Trump as her "Guardian and Protector in this Life."  Pathetic, sick behavior.  She reminds me of the "shmoos" in the old Li'l Abner cartoon strips, described in Kurt Andersen's recent novel, The Break-up, thusly: 

Resembling cute sea lions, shmoos asexually reproduced like mad, loved humans and wanted only to serve them, ate nothing, but were delicious to eat, and yearned to be eaten and to have their pelts used as leather or building materials.  When Li'l Abner discovered the shmoos just outdie Dogpatch, he that that "wif these arund, noboady won't nevah havta work no more!" 

Maureen Dowd devotes her weekly New York Times column to the Donald-Natalie relationship this morning, titled her piece "Natalie's Magnificent Obsession," called the relationship pathological, "something really dark and deranged at the innermost circle of Trump’s White House." 

The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, Harp idolizes Trump with a rare fervor. As one of his social media facilitators, she is with him most of the day and often evenings, and she never takes a day off. The Times’s Maggie Haberman calls Harp the “binky” of the man-child president. . . 

But the troubling thing was the tone of Harp’s adoring letters to the man she addresses as “Mr. President,” released by The Daily Beast, in which she talks about her fragile emotional state — forgetting to eat or sleep and getting hurt by others’ critical remarks.

“I want things to always be right between us,” she writes, adding, “I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this Life.” 

 Harp quotes a line from “Pride and Prejudice” to say that it would have been hard to lose her father if she had not had someone so “worthy” to turn to in Trump. “And, I will add,” she signs off, “it is I who is unworthy.”

It’s a perfect (taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s amazing. And he agrees.

How sick.  How pathetic.  And this guy is the Commander-in-Chief of our soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen.  Is it any wonder that our nation has become a (feared) laughingstock of the world. 

The Break-Up, by Kurt Andersen.  I started reading it last night.  I only got about 40 pages into it, but so far it's seems pretty plausible and is very readable.  I'll write more about it later. . . .  By dinner time today, I'm up to page 65 and finding it a bit tedious, not so much the story of the main characters, Asher and Natalie, but the ever-hovering backdrop of the imagined changes in the U.S. by the mid-2030s and mid-2040s. 

8/21/2026

 Friday, August 21, 2026

1955 Emmett Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, to visit relatives, a week before he was murdered

1968 Democratic Convention opened in Chicago, went on to nominate Hubert Humphrey

1968 Warsaw Pact forces completed their invasion of Czechoslovakia by arresting Czech leader Alexander Dubček and forcing him to sign the Moscow Protocols

1991 Latvia declared its independence from the USSR

2014 Israeli airstrike in Rafah killed Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al Atar and Mohammed Barhoum - 3 of Hamas's top commanders   

2018 Michael Cohen, President Trump's personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to charges, including making illegal payments at the direction of Trump to women with whom Trump had affairs

2018 Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, was convicted on eight counts of fraud in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia

2019 Donald Trump said Danish PM Mette Frederiksen is "nasty" to him over his interest in buying Greenland and canceled his trip to Denmark

2025  An Israeli military database indicated that 83% of the deaths in Gaza have been civilians. The Israeli military initially confirmed the database to the media but later disputed it without clarifying their retraction in response to questions from The Guardian.

In bed at 9, unable to sleep, up at 10, back to bed at 11:3-, asleep around midnight, up at 7:40; 0800 203.8 124/75/63  135; 66/75/59, midday rain, wind gusts to 15 mph, 

Morning meds at 10:40 a.m.  Entresto at 8:25 a.m. and p.m.  Trulicity injection at 11 a.m.     

I finished The Secret History yesterday afternoon with mixed feelings about it.  Donna Tartt is a great storyteller; of that there should be little doubt.  She spins a great yarn.  I've seen at least two young reviewers on YouTube (where there appear to be dozens) kvetch that the second half of the story drags, moves too slowly, tends to lose readers' interest.  I thought the opposite was true.  The second half addresses what the collegiate conspirators experience after they murder their classmate and friend, Bunny Corcoran.  I thought it was the more engaging of the two parts of the novel, the part where I always wanted to keep reading, wondering 'and then what happened?'  The story didn't end in any way that I suspected it might, but it ended in at least a plausible way.  I could understand why the principal characters acted the way they did, though I thought that Henry's action at the end was a stretch.  His motivation remains unclear to me.  For me, the novel's main weakness, at least for a commercial novel intended to appeal to a wide audience, is its background setting, if that's the appropriate description, of ancient, pagan, classical Greek mythology and heroic ethics against which the story unfolds.  Julian Morrow, the characters' professor, counselor, and mentor, lauds the Greeks' apotheosis (wrong word?) of "duty, piety, loyalty, and sacrifice," and his students, led by Henry, try to see and mold their worlds in those terms.  I suspect that virtually no readers are very familiar with the ancient Greek worldview and Zeitgeist, so the frequent treatment of it within the novel just makes it harder to get through, even though it is central to understanding the story, at least from the characters' and the author's point of view.  Donna Tartt is a classicist herself, so much of the narrative appears to be her showing off her learning, like me using Latin expressions just so I find some use for the 4 years of Latin I studied in high school - pretentious, but fun, except in the case of a whole 560-page novel with so much showing off.  I'm glad I read it, though it makes me less eager to read her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Goldfinch.  Perhaps I'll try her in-between novel, The Little Friend.

Coming Apart at the Seams

Michelle Goldberg, in this morning's NYTimes:

We are mutually hostile [Red and Blue] communities yoked together in a way that thwarts each faction’s ideals about a decent society. 

For at least the last decade, a florid, aggressive contempt has been a constant in our politics.  Donald Trump, after all, doesn’t just shower liberal cities and states with insults (and, in a demented A.I. video he posted, with excrement).

Kurt Andersen, in the NYTimes, "Has America Already Undergone a Soft Breakup?',  Aug. 9, 2026:

Days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Marjorie Taylor Greene, then still a representative, reiterated her push for legally splitting up the country: “I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.” Polls since 2021 by universities, YouGov and others have consistently found that a third or more of Americans said they expected a civil war during the next decade or so.

A national divorce — let alone a civil war — is, for now, the stuff of fiction. But while loose talk from rabble-rousers has distracted us, the nation has sunk, almost unnoticed, into an unspectacular yet profoundly strange new arrangement. It’s not yet a divorce; it’s more like a bitter, loveless marriage in which the parties stay technically but less and less enthusiastically united because splitting up is too complicated or dreadful or expensive.

 

I've started reading Andersen's book, The Break-up.  I understand that his story suggests that the U.S. might be better off broken apart somehow (without a bloody civil war) than we are now.  I probably agree with him.  I've long wondered whether we would have been better off if the South had won the Civil War.  Slavery would have died someday, just as apartheid eventually died in South Africa, and the forced abolition of slavery by federal occupation of the South only produced a renewed and partially attenuated form of it in the form of sharecropping and  Jim Crow, which persisted until the 1960s, a century after the supposed end of the Civil War.  Quaere to what extent the effects of slavery and Jim Crow persist in our society.  All we need to do is open our eyes, see our cities, and look at racial economic, educational, and crime statistics.  USA! USA! USA!

Stars and Stripes Honor Flight.  I finally made contact, and I'm confirmed on a flight out of Mitchell Field on October 10.  Text exchange with Andy.

Charles Clausen:

Hi, So .  That Honor Flight to D.C. is on October 10, a Saturday.  I haven’t received a call back on it and may be too late for this one, but if not, I need to know whether you think you’ll be able to go with me as my escort.

Andy Clausen:

I have nothing on that day on my calendar. It’s all done in one day?

Charles Clausen:

One day, out and back.

Andy Clausen:

I can go if you go.

Charles Clausen:

Thanks ❤️

Good morning, Son.  I just talked to the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight rep and confirmed our one day drip to D.C.  You’ll be getting a text from her originating from area code 815, which is where she used to live, and which I was wary that it was a scam (but it isn’t).  It is a long day, flying on one of two chartered aircraft..  One leaves at 5 a.m. and returns around 8, the other leaves at 6 and returns around 9.  They provide food all dy and treat all the vets and escorts like kings all day.  Everything I’ve heard about the trips over the years at the VA is very positive and I’m especially looking forward to spending a whole day with you, for the first time in decades and I presumably the last.  You’ll be getting a text from a Karyn in area code 815 very soon.

Andy Clausen:

I got the text and put the day on my calendar.

 

8/20/2024

 Thursday, August 20, 2026

1953 General Fazlollah Zahedi arrested the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in a CIA-supported coup d'état

1968 During the night, 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to put down the Prague Spring

2025  The United States Department of State imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court judges Nicolas Guillou and Kimberly Prost and deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem and Mame Mandiaye Niang over their involvement in cases concerning Israel and the United States. 

In bed at 10:10 after watching 3 consecutive episodes of The Pitt, big mistake, unable to sleep, up at 11 to read more of The Secret History until 11:45, back to bed but unable to sleep, out to TV room, with a cup of hot chocolate and two pieces of buttered toast topped with the cherry jam given to us by LOA and JJA, which is as delicious as I expected, and back to The Secret History; back in bed at 3:30, awake at 6:10, up at 6:30;  o845136/76/62 141 204.0,  0655 122/74/62; 60/76/58, sunny morning, partly cloudy afternoon.

Morning meds at a.m.  Entresto at 7:15 a.m. and p.m.

The Secret History.  As I type these words, I've finished the first 7 of the novel's 8 chapters and am about to start the 8th, which, alas, is more than 100 pages long.  I don't have a clue how the story will end.  Will the miscreant college students get caught by the police or will they get away with their wrongdoing?  If they are found out, will it be because one of them spills the beans, or only through good detective work by law enforcement?  If one of them spills the beans, will it be inadvertently, or intentionally à la Raskolnikov, and who would be the bean spiller?  My guess right now is Charles Macauley, who has turned into quite a drunk, but who knows?  Is Richard, the narrator, writing this book in prison, because he's already been convicted so why not?  Or, it being so damning of himself and his co-conspirators, why would it write it?  The chapter on Bunny's funeral in Connecticut is chilling and almost unbelievable.  The murderers all stay in Bunny's own home, with his parents and siblings.  Henry, the conspirator-in-chief, the group's evil genius, is one of Bunny's pallbearers.  Egads!

Reading the funeral chapter made me wonder again what Donna Tartt thought of her classmates at Bennington College, the school on which Hampden College is based.  Spoiled, rich, pampered, over-privileged, morally bankrupt, yikes!  I compare them to the folks I went to Marquette with in the early 1960s, where I never encountered, or at least never befriended, anyone like these characters.  Most of my pals were in the Navy ROTC, headed for years of active duty in the Navy or Marine Corps after graduation.  They were, so far as I knew, solid citizens and, though not sinless, moral creatures.  The same is true of the Marines I served with in the mid-60s, none of them capable of cold-blooded murder of one of their fellows.  But these characters, holy moly!  I'm glad I stuck with the novel and now am committed to seeing it through to the end. 

Words of wisdom in The Pitt last night.  We watched 3 consecutive episodes of this appropriately-much-awarded television series last night.  It was not a smart thing to do before going to bed, and I suspect doing so contributed to my sleeplessness, though I doubt it as the only cause.  In the dramas, I heard at least 3 bits of wisdom.  The first, which I heard more than once, was "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," said at least once by the attending physician, Dr. Robby, to a young physician serving a residency, and once by the charge nurse to the attending physician himself.  Another was a comment by a patient to an examining physician, "I don't worry.  My mother taught me: worrying won't add a minute to your life."  The third was by a patient in his 80s to his daughter: "We old people know what it is to be young, but no young persons know what it is to be old."  When my Dad lived with us in his mid-80s, and I was sitting in with him during his doctor visits and hospital visits, sharing every day with him, I, in my mid-60s, thought I had some idea what life was like for him, and I surely did, but only some idea.  I now find myself thinking back to those days and trying to imagine what was going through his head and what was happening to his body, and never spoken of.

Bad news.  For the last 8 months, ever since I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, I've started each day taking and recording my weight, blood pressure, heart rate, and glucose count.  Before taking the blood pressure and heart rate/pulse, I have to sit quietly on my bedroom La-Z-Boy, with both feet flat on the floor for at least 5 minutes.  Usually I do so for 10 minutes, during which I listen to the New York Times audio headline stories on my iPhone.  The news, of course, is usually bad, today leading off with the national debt exceeding $40 trillion and inexorably growing.  I thought of this as I read my comments from a year ago today on an Ezra Klein interview in the previous day's Times:

One of my most inconvenient belliefs is about the world is that we know too much about it, and that the human mind is not meant to be stretched over this much threat and danger and tragedy at all times.  I work in the news.  My show is part of this dynamic I'm about to describe, but the news can seometimes be an engine for finding and bringing you whatever is going to most upset you, that is happening literally anywhere on Earth exactly at that moment . . . I think probably the healthy medium was to be able to pick up a newspaper once a day and find out about terrible things happening elsewhere and important things happening elsewhere and sometimes wonderful things, but less often wonderful things happening elsewhere.  As opposed to being with your kids in the park and your phone buzzes and it's just something terrible that you cannot affect.  It's not happening to anyone you know and you definately don't have power over it, but somebody somewhere thought it would grab you to know about it.  It both make you aware of suffering but also, I think it has some other quality, some numbing and exhausing quality that is not healthy. 

 I think of that Vietnam veteran I chatted with in Sendik's yesterday and his complaint or bewilderment over his nephew who kissed off living in America and moved to New Zealand.  He didn't say where in New Zealand he moved to, whether an urban or a rural area, nor how the nephew was supporting himself there, or what it is about life in America that he found so intolerable, but it wouldn't surprise me if at least part of what he wanted to escapte from was what Klien described, constant exposure to terrible news about which one can do nothing.  There is much more about curent American culture, including politics of course, that can make one feel like the man on the bridge in Edvard Munch's The Scream, but Klein has put his finger on a significant cause of modern misery, the daily awareness of human suffering, of death and destruction, about which we can do nothing.  Klein says it tends to make us numb and exhausted, but I suspect it's even worse.  It coarsens us and makes us indifferent to the suffering of others. After a while, it becomes boring.  We can become like Donald Trump when he says of the Ukraine War or the Gaza War, as he did before professing to be concerned about the slaughter in those places, "it's not my problem."  Or, as J. D. Vance said to Steve Bannon during his campaign for the Senate, "I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."  The hard question, for Ezra Klein and the rest of us, is what to do about this dystopian situation we live in, especially we relatively highly-educated, highly-informed individuals who religiously follow 'the news.'

 Both in the world and in the U.S., things have only gotten worse over the last year as we suffered through another Trump administration.  I think, for example, of one small segment of one of the episodes on The Pitt last night, in which big, burly masked ICE agents brought in a detainee from a restaurant raid they had conducted.  Their mere presence caused some of the patients in the waiting room, and some of the hospital employees, to flee the building.  I think too of the horrendous danger from the burgeoning national debt.  The atrocities occurring daily in Ukraine, Gaza, the West Bank, and Sudan, with most of us like ostriches with our heads in the sand.

8/19/2026

 Wednesday, August 19, 2026

1944 Catherine Monica Clausen, God's gift to her family and so many others, was born

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:35, tossed and turned till 4:35 when I got up; 0500 202.8 112/69/64 138; 62/74/62, mostly cloudy

Morning meds at 8 a.m.

I Heard Your Voice In The Wind Today

I heard your voice in the wind today

and I turned to see your face; The warmth of the wind caressed me

as I stood silently in place. I felt your touch in the sun today

as its warmth filled the sky; I closed my eyes for your embrace

and my spirit soared high.

 I saw your eyes in the window pane

as I watched the falling rain; It seemed as each raindrop fell

it quietly said your name. I held you close in my heart today

it made me feel complete; You may have died...but you are not gone

you will always be a part of me. As long as the sun shines... the wind blows...

the rain falls... You will live on inside of me forever for that is all my heart knows.

 On this date in 1944, in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, a beautiful,  courageous, and saintly 21-year-old mother, who was one of God’s gifts to this world,  gave birth to a daughter who was destined to become an image of her mother, beautiful, courageous, and saintly, another of God’s gifts to the world.  When Mother Mary brought the precious daughter home to her little basement apartment, her waiting brother, about to turn 3 years old, is reported to have said “Take her back.  She doesn’t play.”  That was just the first of many mistakes that her almost 3-year-old brother would make in his life, but he learned soon enough that that new sister of his would become throughout 2 long lifetimes, his best friend, his confidante, his soul-sister as well as his biological sister.  He would come to love and admire her as she grew into a woman like their mother: beautiful in so many ways, courageous in so many ways, and saintly in so many ways.  As they grew older and older, with lifetimes of living behind them, the brother would share his belief in the saintliness of his sister with their father, who would chuckle because he sometimes saw her when she was impatient, or ‘bossy’ or angry at one thing or another. The now-old brother would suggest to the even older father that he just didn’t know what real saints looked like.  The saintly sister herself would join in dismissing the idea that she was St. Kitty of Emerald Avenue, and the brother would have to remind her and their father that real saints aren’t God and they are not angels - they are all human beings who get impatient, ‘bossy’, and even angry at times.  What makes them saints was described by Jesus in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of St. Matthew:  I was hungry, and you gave me food.  I was thirsty, and you gave me water.  I was sick, and you cared for me.  I needed a home, and you took me into your home.  So of course the brother, who had made many mistakes in his own life over many years, was not mistaken in describing his sister, whom he loved so much, as a Saint.  Nor is he mistaken in thanking God for giving him the blessing of his beautiful, courageous, and saintly sister, so very much like their dear mother.

Who is the most dishonorable, most unadmirable person in American history?  Not surprisingly, I start the thought with Donald Trump at the top of the list, but that is not to say he doesn't have competitors.  But who? Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) and Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) headed generally recognized corrupt administrations, but they were not considered personally corrupt.  Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, the presidents during the 1850s that led to the Civil War, led administrations that were heavily engaged in political patronage and favoritism, but, like Grant and Harding, they weren't considered personally corrupt.  Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) isn't usually classified as financially corrupt, but his presidency involved serious political abuses and patronage. His principal historical disgrace is his resistance to Reconstruction and his extraordinarily hostile relationship with Congress. He was impeached by the House, although the Senate fell one vote short of conviction.  

Richard Nixon (1969–1974) is in a different category. Watergate involved the abuse of presidential power itself, including the cover-up of the Watergate burglary, obstruction of justice, misuse of federal agencies, and attempts to conceal wrongdoing. The White House tapes provided unusually direct evidence of Nixon's participation in the cover-up.  He also is - or perhaps I should say, was - infamous for his "enemies list." His resignation remains the most dramatic example of presidential misconduct in American history, but notably his misconduct did not include corrupt personal enrichment.

Now consider Donald J. Trump.

He and his businesses have continually benefited financially from his public prominence and presidency.  Consider especially his entry into the cryptocurrency business, his actions as president regarding regulation of this business, and the profits he had made  

He was credibly accused of violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause through payments and benefits involving his businesses, although the relevant litigation largely ended on procedural grounds rather than definitive merits rulings.

His administration was characterized by extensive allegations of conflicts of interest and ethical violations.

He has been impeached twice: first concerning Ukraine and second concerning January 6.  If the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, it's a fair bet that he will be impeached again.

His efforts to overturn the 2020 election produced the most serious allegations of presidential abuse of power since Watergate.

He illegally retained highly classified government documents when he was voted out of office.

In his second term, he has outdone Richard Nixon in terms of using government resources to punish his enemies.

He has betrayed the country he has sworn to protect and defend by deferring to its enemies and weakening its alliances.

What am I missing?  Undoubtedly, a plethora of wrongdoing in the White House, federal departments, and federal agencies that have yet to be discovered, but will eventually come to light after he leaves office.  The damage that this one man has done to this country is literally incalculable. 

My latest exchange with ChatGPT re the Veterans Honor Flight:

Today 4:41 PM - I've received text messages from a number in area code 815 from a person purporting to be from the Honor Flight organization telling me that I have a spot on a flight in October.  I've deleted them as spam.  Today my wife answered a call on her cell phone from the person, again with the area code 815, the Rockford, IL area, saying she hadn't received a response to her text messages and that, although the number carries a Rockford ILL area code, actually she's calling from a suburb of Milwaukee, Waukesha.  Can you help?

Yes. And in light of what I found, I would not assume that this is a scam. There is a very plausible legitimate explanation—but I would verify it before responding to the caller.

The important fact is that Southeastern Wisconsin has its own Honor Flight hub, Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, based in the Milwaukee area. It specifically serves Milwaukee and Waukesha counties and flies veterans out of Milwaukee's Mitchell Airport.

Even more interestingly, Stars and Stripes says that veterans are contacted approximately six weeks before they are assigned to a flight. So receiving a call in August about an October flight is entirely plausible.

The 815 number is not necessarily suspicious.

The caller's explanation—that she has an 815 Rockford-area telephone number but is actually calling from the Waukesha area—is perfectly possible. Cell-phone numbers don't necessarily correspond to where the person lives or works. Someone who moved from northern Illinois could easily retain an 815 number.

More importantly, the organization itself is based in Menomonee Falls and lists a local telephone number: 262-238-7740

That's the number published on the official Stars and Stripes Honor Flight website.  There's another very encouraging detail.

The official site says:  "Now that we've called and given you the good news..."  and describes the process in which the veteran is called when assigned to a flight, followed by email communications concerning required waivers.

So the fact that someone called your wife because she hadn't responded to the text is not inherently inconsistent with how Stars and Stripes operates.  Here's what I would do

Don't call the 815 number back and don't respond to the old text.  Instead, call Stars and Stripes Honor Flight directly at 262-238-7740, using the number published on their official website.

Tell them something like:  "I'm a Milwaukee-area veteran, and I've received several text messages and now a phone call from someone saying that I've been assigned to an Honor Flight in October. The messages came from an 815 number. I deleted the texts as spam. Could you tell me whether I actually have a place on an October flight?"  Give them your name and whatever information you supplied when you originally applied. Don't give them your Social Security number, banking information, passwords, or anything like that.  I would actually be quite interested to hear what they say.

And there is a striking coincidence:  Stars and Stripes' website confirms that it currently flies Vietnam veterans and that the flights are out of Milwaukee.  So if you previously applied for an Honor Flight, the story you're being told is quite plausible.

And you can verify the whole thing through the national Honor Flight Network as well. Its official contact number is 937-521-2400, and it maintains the list of local Honor Flight hubs.

  My advice: call 262-238-7740 tomorrow and ask them to check your name. That's much safer than continuing to communicate with the 815 number, and it should settle the question immediately.

  If you tell me whether you remember applying for an Honor Flight and, if so, approximately when, I can also look into the October 2026 Stars and Stripes flight schedule and see whether the timing fits.

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I don't remember when I applied for an Honor Flight, but it was a long time ago.  In any event, I will call the recommended number tomorrow and follow the advice provided.  This response from ChatGPT came within 2 seconds of my inquiry, almost instantaneously, yet another mind-blowing encounter with AI.