6/27/2026

 Saturday, June 27, 2026

 1905 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was established at "The Continental Congress of the Working Class" in Chicago, Illinois;

1950 The US sent 35 military advisers to South Vietnam

1977 A 5-4 Supreme Court decision allowed lawyers to advertise

2018 Joseph Crowley was defeated in New York by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

2019 US Supreme Court ruled the Constitution doesn't prohibit partisan gerrymandering, allowing a ruling party to redraw electoral boundaries

2025  Donald Trump announced the suspension of the trade talks with Canada, also announcing new tariffs on goods crossing the Canada–United States border.

In bed at 9:15, up at 4:15; 0439 140/73/57 102 204.4, 0445 140/70/55; 58/70/55, sunny day ahead 

Morning meds at 6 a.m., and Eliquis at 7 a.m. and 6:15 p.m.

That strange man J. D. Vance made the news again by not only praising Richard Nixon for his "political genius," but also for pooh-poohing Watergate as only worthy of a 12 hour news cycle, and for this:

"It's not only that he got out of Vietnam, but he got out from a position of strength.   It's one thing to tuck tail and run; it's another thing to clearly define an objective, to accomplish that objective, and then to ensure that you don't allow "mission creep" to transform a victory into a defeat."

Vance must not have studied Vietnam War history at Ohio State or at Yale.  Is there anyone else anywhere who believes that the US pulled out of Vietnam "from a position of strength"?  Plus, Nixon had "a clearly defined objective" of winning the 1968 election when he used his partner-in-crime Henry Kissinger to get the South Vietnamese to withdraw from the Paris Peace Conference, thereby subotaging LBJ's efforts to end the war.  Then, Nixon kept the war going  from 1969 until 1973 when we withdrew, tucking tail and running, setting the stage for the inevitable fall of Saigon in 1975.   By the time we withdrew from Vietnam, America was at war internally, with riots in most of our cities, massive political protests and demonstrations on college campuses and in our cities, and bombings, including the Sterling Hall bombing on the UW-Madison campus.  On top of all that turmoil, between 1972 and 1974, the Watergate scandal, that J. D. Vance now dismisses as insignificant,  developed and also tore the country apart, with the pro-Nixon and anti-Nixon contingents despising each other.  Other than the Civil War, it was the worst period of polarization in the country's history up to the Trump Era, of which Mr. Vance is now a chief apologist.

Excerpts from Why Old People Cry, by Roger Rosenbalatt in this morning's NYTimes:

Old people cry a lot. I will see a sweet child in the street, watch a news story about a heroic rescue or catch sight of a peony or of a full moon, and my eyes will be awash with tears. Whatever it is that I am feeling seems expressible only this way. People weep for joy or sorrow. I do neither, consciously.   Something comes over me . . . .

Why do I tear up so often? I think it has to do with the past, how much past has built up inside me all these years. . . . And how suddenly the present becomes the past. Lifelong friends, here yesterday, gone today. . . So many things lost in a life, my life, yours. So much left to articulate yearning.  . .  Is that why I tear up? Because I’m so overwhelmed with life as I approach the end of it that I’m at a loss for words and all I can do is cry?

Whatever happened to your life long ago, whatever carousel you were on, reminds you of yourself, who also happened long ago. So you’re tearing up for all that is gone, all that monumental past, vast and variegated. These days, I have so much past behind and within me, it’s as if it bubbles over.

Whew!  I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one.  I can get overwhelmed with emotion and even sense my tear glands activated watching and listening to a concert or other performance, or seeing children pouring out of elementary school at the end of a school day, or seeing a dad or mom walking their children down the street, holding their hands.  With the small children, is it joy I'm experiencing, or fear for their futures?  All of that.

America and Israel.  One of the lead stories in the online edition of this morning's NYTimes is headlined "Israelis See Their Friendship With the U.S. Slipping Away."  The story related, in large part, to the victory of three patently anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian candidates in recent elections in New York City, "in the most Jewish city in the world, after Jerusalem.”  More broadly, 

"Americans’ sympathy for the Palestinians exceeded their sympathy for Israel for the first time in a New York Times/Siena poll in September. And 60 percent of Americans said that they held unfavorable opinions of Israel in a Pew survey in April, up from 42 percent in 2022."

I tried to sort out my own views on Israel a year ago today.  It wasn't easy: 

My journal entry on June 27, 2024 headed "Wikipedia, the ADL, and Israeli-Palestinian Relations:  My beliefs then, my beliefs still.

Wikipedia's editors have classified the Anti-Defamation League as “generally unreliable regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”  Wikipedia's volunteer editors wrote that the ADL is unreliable when it comes to the conflict “due to significant evidence that the ADL acts as a pro-Israeli advocacy group and has repeatedly published false and misleading statements as fact, unretracted, regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict. The general unreliability of the ADL extends to the intersection of the topics of antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict.  The ADL expressed “concern and dismay by Wikipedia’s attack on ADL’s reliability on the topic of antisemitism and other issues of central concern to the Jewish community.”  The letter also accused Wikipedia of “stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community.”

According to another story in this morning's WaPo, the Israeli government blames the UN for the food shortages, increasing starvation, approaching famine, and difficulty in distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza.  

The worldviews of Israel and strong Israel supporters are radically different from that of the rest of the world.  The former accurately see Israel as a small democratic nation surrounded by enemies, the most powerful of which - Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and multiple militias -  seek to destroy it as a nation-state entity.  The feeling of constant existential vulnerability has predictably grown since October 7th.  Much of the rest of the world sees Israel as a strong, thriving, nuclear power, with one of the world's strongest militaries, engaged for decades in military occupation, racist and fascistic oppression, and ethnic cleansing if not apartheid, and now war crimes if not genocide against indigenous Arab Palestinians.  Because Israel is a self-created and self-defined Jewish state, populated mostly by Jews, and supported by most diaspora Jews, the relationship between the Jewish state and the Jewish nation, tribe, family, or people, i.e., Jews generally, is a subject always open to debate, often fierce debate.  I've been reading two books recently (and currently) about the issue.  The first is a collection of essays by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State (1992).  The second is What Shall I Do With This People: Jews and the Fractious Politics of Judaism (2002) by Milton Viorst.

Leibowitz was an Israeli polymath, a deeply observant Jew, and a Zionist who was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1903 and moved to Mandate Israel in 1935 where he lived till his death in 1994.  Isaiah Berlin said of him:  "It is not so much his intellectual attainments and achievements as a thinker and teacher that have made so profound an impression on me . . . as the unshakeable moral and political stand which he took up for so many years in the face of so much pressure to be sensible, to be realistic, not to let down the side, not to give comfort to the enemy,  not to fight against current conventional wisdom . . . Of him I believe it can be said more truly than of anyone else that he was the conscience of Israel . . .  "  Milton Viorst was a journalist and a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs widely published in national and international journals.   Both writers address issues concerning the relationship between Jews and the Jewish state of Israel and, more basically, the issue of who is a Jew.  To Leibowitz, a Jew is one who practices halakhah, who observes the commandments found in the Torah and in the Oral Law.  "Apart from [the institutions of halakhic practices], Judaism does not exist."  He makes the point that other than halakhah, there is nothing, no commonality, that makes worldwide Jewry a definable, unique "nation." Viorst starts his book relating one of my favorite jokes about the inherent fractiousness of religions, about the Jew stranded on an island who builds his own town, but with two synagogues, one to pray in and one "I wouldn't set foot in!"  The title of his book comes from Moses's exasperated rhetorical question to God [Exodus 17: 4-6] when the Jews he led over Sinai were ready to stone him because of the hardships they were suffering.  Mostly it is a polemic against Jewish religious fundamentalism and religious nationalism and messianism.

It is in large measure this question of Jewish identity and the relationship between Jews, however self-defined and others-defined, and the State of Israel, that makes it difficult to assess the State of Israel, its governments, and its history, especially concerning the treatment of Arab Palestinians.  To many in our world, Israel, after 1967 and more especially after October 7th,  has become a pariah state, a state like South Africa under apartheid.  The response of many Israelis and their supporters is to call their critics antisemitic, biased, or simply bigoted against Jews.  Israel = Jews collectively and Jews collectively = Israel and therefore, opposition to Israel's policies and practices = hostility to Jews.

The situation is complicated by the remembrance of the Holocaust, the Shoah, the attempted annihilation of Europe's Jews not only by the Nazis but also by so many non-German, willing accomplices.  To be a Jew in this dangerous world is, I suspect, to be naturally and predictably at least somewhat wary, self-protective, watchful, and on the lookout with a tendency to "circle the wagons" when outside threats appear.  How these characteristics must be magnified in the case of Israeli Jews surrounded by enemies with both the will and the means to kill them and their children.  I, not a Jew,  not an Israeli, can never fully appreciate this.   Nonetheless, the tendency to circle the wagons when criticized too often leads to blame-deflecting, blame-shifting, and scapegoating, to a refusal to admit that Israel, like every other country, and Jews, like other people, can be guilty of very bad conduct.  How often have I thought, when hearing one excuse or denial or another from the Israeli government or IDF, 'I can't believe my own government, why should I believe Israel's?'  If Israeli Jews believe that every criticism of their actions springs only from the bigotry of antisemitism, they are relieved from the challenge of trying to assess the criticism honestly, to examine their consciences.  It also fosters a deep "us and them" culture, Jews and Gentiles, friends and foes.  Once we are relieved of the burden of self-assessment, of examining our consciences, our behaviors are prone to become only more offensive.  I think it was particularly perverse that Israel is blaming the United Nations humanitarian agencies for the inability to get humanitarian aid to the increasingly starving, increasingly diseased people of Gaza when all the evidence from journalistic and human rights agencies attest that the main causes of the problem are Israeli.

Like the Wikipedia editors, I do not believe the ADL is a reliable reporter on Israeli-Palestinian relations.  Nor do I believe AIPAC or the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Christians United for Israel, Hadassah, the Jewish Agency, or similar groups deeply devoted to supporting and defending Israel.  I do not believe Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing, racist coalition government and I do not believe the IDF.  Knowing what I know of my own government's duplicity (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, the Afghan Report, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, spinmeisters, , . . .), how can I believe Israel's?

Furthermore, I can't believe that conflating opposition to Israeli policies and practices concerning Palestinians with antisemitism is: "good for the Jews."  How does tarring me and others opposed politically and morally to the oppression of marginal minorities with the slur of 'antisemite' or bigot help Jews generally?  How does it help the many Jews, in Israel and in the diaspora, who support the Jewish State's legitimacy and right to exist but are also opposed to major Israeli government policies and practices?  Although the numbers are dwindling, there is still a Left and a peace movement in Israel and a larger one in the diaspora, and they, like their opponents in and out of Israel, rely on or at least aspire to the support and goodwill of non-Jews like me.

My thoughts are not very coherent or logical; my thoughts about Israel, at least since its rightward turn with the election Menachem Begin and a Likud government in 1977 often are not.  But I hope it helps to try to write them down and see the non sequiturs in black and white so I can be like Flannery O'Connor who wrote to her friend: "I don’t have my novel outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again."

I've written elsewhere in these journal pages of Yeshayahu Leibowitz's arguments about Jewish "nationhood" being grounded only in halakah, or the observance of Jewish law found in the Torah.  He makes a pretty good case and I wish I had an index or could do a word search of four years' worth of journal pages, but I don't and I can't.  I need to pick up my collection of his writings again to see again how he justifies the right of Jews, mainly European Jews, to a nation-state of their own in land occupied by Arab Palestinians for centuries.

Surprise, surprise - the fruits of entrusting negotiating with the Iranians to those crack international negotators J. D. Vance, Jerod Kushner, and Steve Witkof.  More from the Times, Vague Language of U.S.-Iran Deal Comes Back to Haunt Peace Efforts:

The memorandum that the two sides agreed to calls for Iran to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. Crucially, it leaves “arrangements” and “best efforts” undefined.

Iran appears to have interpreted that language to mean that it can determine which route ships must take. Hours before its attack on the container ship, Iran had warned ships that the only route through the strait was through its waters, trying to stop vessels from using an alternate, U.S.-backed route on the southern side of the strait that hugs the coastline of Oman.

The interim deal “leaned on deliberately flexible language because that was probably the only way to get it over the line,” said Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris. “But flexibility only holds while both sides attach similar meanings to the same vague provisions.”

The vagueness of the interim agreement has led both sides to try to define facts on the ground to their advantage, before any uncertainties are resolved in a final deal, she added.

6/26/2026

 Friday, June 26, 2026

1968 Iwo Jima was returned to Japan by the US

2003 The Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

2015 The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 same-sex marriage is a legal right across all US stat

2015 US President Barack Obama sang "Amazing Grace" as part of his eulogy for the 9 victims at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston

2025 Three Palestinians were killed and many others were injured by Israeli settlers in the village of Kafr Malik near Ramallah in the West Bank.

In bed at 9, up at 5:20; 0540 144/77/56 117 204.2, 0555 135/72/55; 56/67/53, partly sunny day ahead.   

Morning meds at 9:35 a.m., and Eliquis at 7 a.m. and p.m. Trulicity injection at 12:30 p.m.

Lonesome Dove.  I had not expected this novel to contain as much humor as it does, but I am really enjoying it.  Early this morning, I read chapter 37, which relates the story of Fort Smith's Deputy Sheriff Roscoe Brown's encounter with Farmer Louisa Brooks and her transactional attitude towards the institution of marriage on the frontier.  I can't help smiling and chuckling while reading it.  I picture Marjorie Main as Ma Kettle as Louisa, and Percy Kilbride as Pa Kettle as Roscoe. . . I'm learning why this saga is 862 pages long: it has many stories going on at the same time, Call & Gus heading to Montana, Jake Spoon & Lorena Wood heading to San Francisco, July Johnson searching for the fugitive Jake Spoon and then his runaway wife Elmira, Roscoe Brown searching for July Johnson, Elmira Boot Johnson searching for Dee Boot, and I'm only 1/3rd into the story.  And then there are the stories of the minor characters!

I couldn't help wondering whether, when Larry McMurtry came up with the name "Louisa Brooks" for Roscoe Brown''s lusty farm lady, he had in mind the beautiful, erotic, and notorious  Hollywood actress, flapper girl, and later call girl Louise Brooks, star of G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box.

Another reason I'm enjoying this novel is the light it sheds on the harshness of life in the Old West, especially for cowboys and doubly especially for cowboys on a cattle drive.  I've made several drives out West, first in moving from Brunswick, GA to Yuma, AZ, to report to my first PCS, later to drive my Dad twice from Milwaukee to Phoenix, and twice with my daughter on camping vacations to American and Canadian national parks.  I've always been struck by the great distances to be covered, the great breadth of the continent and the nation.  And, as I cruised along in comfort at 70 or 80 miles per hour, I always contemplated what life must have been like for explorers, pioneers, settlers, early trappers and hunters, and soldiers.  I had some sense of it from my readings, but Lonesome Dove makes the hardships, discomforts, and dangers almost tangible, and also the widespread early lawlessness.  I enjoyed ch. 46 today, about the relationship between Call and Maggie.  Quite a character analysis.  The novel is very much plot-driven, but it's also loaded with character studies.

6/25/2026

 Thursday, June 25, 2026

1867 1st barbed wire patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio

1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn

1950 North Korea invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War

2025 A preliminary assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency found that Iran's nuclear program may have only been set back by a few months after the U.S. airstrikes, contradicting previous claims made by Donald Trump that the facilities were "obliterated".

In bed at 9:15, up at 4:45; 0500 204.2 145/82/51 139; 57/72/57 rainy, cloudy.

Morning meds at 8 a.m., and Eliquis at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Anniversaries.  First, Barbed wire: I think of the two little boys in Danang, holding on to the barbed wire that separated "us" from "them" in more ways than one,  and wonder whether they survived the war, where their loyalty lay when I took their photo, and where it lay as the war progressed and ended. whether they were affected by years of living next to the air base with all of its Agent Orange and other pollutants.  The memory of those two little boys, with the shorter one's arm around the taller one's shoulders, has stayed with me for 60 years.  I have two drawings of them hanging on the wall of my bedroom, on my Vietnam art wall.

"Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense. / Something there is that doesn't love a wall, / That wants it down.’  Robert Frost, Mending Wall.

Second, Custer's 7th Cavalry was wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.  I've visited the battlefield twice, each time struck by its layout, its history, and mostly by the individual markers where soldiers' usually naked and mutilated bodies lay when the relief forces arrived.

Third, the start of the Korean War.   I was born before the entry of the U.S. into the Second World War, service in which so badly affected my father, my mother, my sister, and me.  The Korean War was the first of our many wars of which I was aware, starting before my 9th birthday and ending, in a way, on July 27, 1953, when an armistice agreement was signed.  South Korea's president refused to sign the agreement and no peace treaty has ever been signed.  How many other wars has our country fought since Korea?

Lonesome Dove.  I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the saga, still enjoying it and hoping I have the mental stamina and persistence to get through another 600 or so pages.  

Geri reminded me to pick up Andy's mail this afternoon.  I had forgotten on Tuesday and Wednesday, unlike me, but maybe not anymore.😨

I managed to bake a loaf of banana bread this afternoon, using only 2 very overripe bananas.

6/23/2026

 Tuesday, June 23, 2026

1960, the first contraceptive pill was made available for purchase in the United States

1996. Archbishop Tutu retired as head of the Anglican Church in South Africa

2025 Russian forces launched a large-scale drone and missile strike on Kyiv, damaging residential areas, hospitals, and sports infrastructure, killing nine people and injuring at least 33 others.

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:40; 0600 150/76/54 xxx 204.0, 0610 148/76/53; 55/70/52, sunny/

Morning meds at 8:35 a.m., and Eliquis at6:48 a.m. and p.m.

Lonesome Dove.  I'm 80 pages into the 862 pages of this novel and enjoying it very much.  It's the first book of Larry McMurtry's that I've read and it's easy going.  I love his description of the characters: Gus, Call, Lorena, Pea Eye, Newt, Jake Spoon et al.  All the women who have appeared or been referred to are whores, or "sporting women."  Lorena is the town whore of Lonesome Dove, and a strong character who has been hardened by early life of sexual abuse both by her family and by the men who 'rescured' her from her family.  She is an easy character to like and admire.

I've always enjoyed Western movies, not only in my youth but throughout my life.  I know that most of them, especially those made when I was a child, were Christian nationalist fantasies in which there were easily identifiable good guys and bad guys, in which the cowboys and settlers were always the good guys as against any Indian, (or Mexican or bandit).  Ditto the pioneers and settlers.  I also enjoy reading and learning the history of the Europeans's Westward expansion, the real history, not the fantasy stuff.  It's exciting and depressing, a history of great ambition, accomplishment, and endurance, and of great exploitation and injustice.  I think the only Western novel I've read, before Lonesome Dove, was another great story, True Grit, Charles Portis.  It also was a great movie, with John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn and Kim Darby as Mattie Ross, seeking the killers of her father.  The film was remade in 2010 with Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld.  The original is better.

AI and the potential for chaos.  The Five Eyes intelligence network (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, & New Zealand) has issued a report that warns our government and business computer systems and records are all vulnerable to breaches by AI in the hands of bad actors, or others, within months, not years.  The report warns that government and businesses must act now to protect against this threat.  Will they?  Can they, even if they wanted to?  I doubt it.  Is there any reason to believe that our government under Donald Trump has either the will or the capacity to take on the regulation of industrial, technological behemoths who are developing AI platforms?  I often get the heeby-jeebies thinking that the retirement savings we have accumulated over our lifetimes is not real money, but rather 1s and 0s in a computer bank somewhere.  Same for our banking and mortgage records, social security records, VA records, etc.  It's foolish to fail to recognize the threat of the AI programs that are becoming more powerful - and unregulable - every day.  I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.  I've lived almost 85 years, and I've never felt more vulnerable.

 Anniversaries.  I list Desmond Tutu because I had a cheap thrill many years ago when Tutu visited Marquette University to receive some award and I found myself standing next to him in a small elevator at the Student Union.   More thrilling than once riding in the same elevator with Lou Rawls in the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver or often dealing blackjack to Martha Raye at the Officers Club in Danang when she visited with a USO show.

And the Pill!!!  The beginning of the Sexual Revolution of the 60s and of Women's Liberation.  Somehow as a traditional Catholic lad I missed all that.  I reached adulthood in the 60s (August 1962), but I was irretrievably a child of the 50s.  Alas!  You better not sleep with a girl unless you intend to marry her!  And once married, forever married.  Many of those born just a few years later lived in a world of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll.  I lived in the world of Patti Page, Doris Day, and June Allyson.   Some grew up on Playboy and Penthouse, I grew up on National Geographic and 8 pagers..  In Catholic schools, sex education consisted of Father Burke  coming into talk to the boys in the 7th and 8th grade about not spending too much time in the the bathtub or shower, and to remember that our bodies were 'the temple of the Holy Ghost,: and that girls were "an occasion of sin", or ever a "proximate occasion of sin"  and that "impure thoughts" and even worse, "impure deeds" were mortal sins that could result in spending eternity in everlasting Hellfire, deprived of the Beatific Vision.  Could one grow up with a healthy attitude toward sex and sexuality with that kind of conditioning? images  lyrics Mom

6/24/2026

 Wednesday, June 24, 2026

1901 First exhibition by Pablo Picasso, aged 19, opened in Paris

1967 Pope Paul VI published the encyclical Sacerdotalis coelibatus

1982 Supreme Court ruled the president can't be sued for actions in office

2022 Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a 6-3 vote

2025 Donald Trump told reporters that Israel and Iran "don't know what the fuck they are doing" as both countries continued to launch attacks despite U.S. claims of a ceasefire.

2025 At least 44 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces who opened fire on people waiting for aid trucks in Gaza.

In bed at 9;20, up at 6:20; 0635, 132/76/56 xxx 204.0; 60/54/71/54 rainy 

Morning meds at 9 a.m., and Eliquis at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.

If You Love America, Cringe for It.  That is the title of Bret Stephens' op-ed in yesterday's NYTimes.  An excerpt:

To exist as a sentient American in the age of Trump is to live in a perpetual cringe — morally, aesthetically, intellectually, politically. If the administration were a play or film script, it would be neither farce nor tragedy but instead a kind of absurdist travesty, “Waiting for Godot” meets “Pulp Fiction” meets “Dumb and Dumber.”

However much we may disdain him, the president has the rest of us on the hook, as the face and voice of a country that ought to know better. Trump’s angry visage draped between the exterior columns of the Department of Justice? That’s us. His gilded, meretricious redecoration of the White House? That’s us. His repeatedly avowed admiration for Vladimir Putin? That’s us. His laughable claim about having achieved regime change in Tehran? That’s us. His Mafia-like threats against NATO allies? That’s us. His indescribably vain (and pathetically fruitless) effort to affix his name to the Kennedy Center? That’s us. His venal family profiting off his presidency in ways both transparent and tacky? That’s us.

. . . 

Here, then, is our American challenge: Let’s not be afraid to cringe. Ronald Reagan predicted, correctly, that the Soviet Union would end up on the ash heap of history; now it’s our turn to risk winding up on the ash heap of idiocy.

So let’s not look away from the parts we played in bringing America to this moment. Let’s remember who we once were, because it’s what we may yet be again — if only we feel the sting of our present shame. [My empahsius added]

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

I think what hurts us old timers so much in watching the evil buffoonery going on in the White House and throughout much of the federal government is that we remember.   We remember Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, even Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, even Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.  We remember when America was strong and rich and generous.  We remember when America was the envy of much of the rest of the world.  We remember when we had some, even a lot of, respect for our presidents, even those we voted against.  I hated Nixon for various reasons, but, until Watergate, and except for his conduct of the Vietnam War, he represented the U.S. with some dignity and gravitas.  I was not a fan of Reagan either, but he also represented the country with dignity and gravitas.  I've never been a fan of Bill Clinton's, despite voting for him twice, but again, except for his problem with lust, he acted presidential.  I have always wondered whether George W. Bush had the smarts to be a good president and to resist the leads of Cheney and Rumsfeld, but I thought he was a decent human being at heart.   

Who can find anything good to say of Donald J. Trump?  Consider the Boy Scout Law:  A Scout is:

Trustworthy,

Loyal,

Helpful,

Friendly,

Courteous,

Kind,

Obedient,

Cheerful,

Thrifty,

Brave,

Clean,

and Reverent.

Which of those qualities of CHARACTER can we truthfully apply to Trump?  Only clean, and only in the physical, corporeal sense.

 Consider the qualities of a mensch:

A mensch embodies qualities such as integrity, kindness, responsibility, and respect, making them a person of noble character and moral strength.

Integrity: A mensch is known for their strong moral principles. They act honestly and uphold their values, even when faced with challenges. This integrity earns them the trust and respect of others 

Kindness and Compassion: Mensches are compassionate individuals who show kindness to others. They are sensitive to the feelings of those around them and often go out of their way to help others in need 

Responsibility: A mensch takes ownership of their actions and responsibilities. They are reliable and accountable, ensuring that they fulfill their commitments and obligations 

Respectfulness: Respect for others is a hallmark of a mensch. They treat everyone with dignity, regardless of their background or status, fostering an environment of mutual respect and understanding .

Humility: A true mensch does not seek recognition or praise for their good deeds. They act selflessly and are often modest about their contributions, focusing on the well-being of others rather than their own accolades .

Altruism: Mensches often engage in acts of kindness without expecting anything in return. Their altruistic nature drives them to contribute positively to their communities and support those who are less fortunate 

Which of these qualities do we find in Donald Trump?  NONE.  He is the exact opposite of all of them!  Donald Trump gives the lie to the notion that there is no perfectly bad person.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's famous quote from The Gulag Archipelago has it that:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained” 

He never encountered Donald Trump. 

Today has been largely wasted.  I read some more of Lonesome Dove, and I'm enjoying it, especially all the humor in it, but I'm wondering whether I'll have what it takes to get through all 862 pages.  McMurtry does seem to have quite a bit of insight into the character of his characters and into the harsh conditions of life in the Old West.  I'm not getting much accomplished today.  I slept about 9 hours last night (with several pit stops), but still fell asleep for 2 semi-long naps this morning.  I'm wondering what's going on with my old carcass.  

6/22/2026

 Monday, June 22, 2026

1633 Galileo Galilei recanted his heretical position that the Earth orbits the Sun.

1941 Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union during World War II, the largest military operation in history

1944 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the"GI Bill of Rights"

1970 President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required the voting age to be 18 in all federal, state, and local elections

1977 Former US Attorney General John Mitchell started 19 months in federal prison for perjury regarding his involvement in the Watergate Scandal

1978 Neo-Nazis called off plans to march in Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois

2025 US joined the Israeli offensive against Iranian nuclear facilities, bombing three sites

In bed at 9:05, awake at 2:50, up at 3:20; 0335 144/76/55 xxx 206.2, 0345 127/76/54; 55/67/54, mostly sunny day ahead. 

Morning meds at 7 a.m., and Eliquis at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Mrs. Dalloway.  I finished it around dinnertime yesterday.  It was a hard read, but worth reading.  I especially enjoyed the sections dealing with (1) Elizabeth Dalloway's tutor, Doris Kilman, a born-again Christian filled with hatred, resentment, and jealousy of people better off than she is, especially Clarissa Dalloway, and (2) Septimus Warren Smith's psychiatrist Dr. Sir William Bradshaw.

A principal theme of the novel is Faulkner's famous line, "The past is never dead.  It isn't even past."  It's a story of a persisting, lingering mid-life crisis in Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh, and of his lost, lingering first love for her.  A story of a life of trivialities.  A story of our inability to know one another.  It's a precursor of Elizabeth Strout's stories of loneliness.  It's a critique of English society and culture and a rejection of Fulton Sheen's argument that Life is Worth Living, at least for some.  It's a look at one form at least of shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD and of the death drive.  There is a lot packed into this novel of no particular plot.

The novel's immediate setting is one summer day in London in the early 1920s, 100 years ago, but the foundational setting is Bourton,  the country house of Clarissa's wealthy, upper-crust family, where Clarissa spent her youthful summers, where she first loved but then rejected Peter Walsh and chose Richard Dalloway, and where she had a crush on the vivacious, free-spirited Sally Seton.  Bourton is where Clarissa made the decision that shaped the rest of her life: to reject Peter's emotional, romantic passion for her and towards life, and to partner up with Richard - staid, steady, kind, upwardly mobile, responsible, reliable, a member of the English Establishment.  Quaere whether Clarissa's choice was a matter of "free will" or rather inevitable, i.e., determined.

Peter reminds me of myself and my history of carrying a torch for Charlene Wegge for nearly a lifetime, in the sense of never entirely losing the pain of rejection.  At the very end of the novel, as Peter sits with Sally Seton, now Lady Rosseter, she tells him that Clarissa had cared for him much more than she ever cared for Richard.  "No, no, no, said Peter - she had gone too far."  It pains him still, at age 52, to think of it.  His relations with Clarissa, he says, "had not been simple.  It had spoilt his life." The closing lines of the novel show his still-bleeding heart: 

What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself.  What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?

It is Clarissa, he said.

For there she was.

The novel strikes me as a hoity-toity version of Johny Cash's I Still Miss Someone:

 I go out to a party / And look for a little fun

But I find a darkened corner / 'Cause I still miss someone

Oh, I never got over those blue eyes / I see them everywhere

I miss those arms that held me / When all the love was there

I wonder if she's sorry / For leavin' what we'd begun

There's someone for me somewhere / But I still miss someone

Oh, I still miss someone

On the other hand, Clarissa, although she seems self-satisfied and fulfilled by her life among the 'swells' of English society, and to be fulfilled by her life of throwing parties and advancing William's career as a MP, identifies with Septimus and with his choice (?) to kill himself.  What does this tell us about the meaningfulness of her life?

I started reading the book not because I was interested in Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, or Sally Seton, but because I was interested in the war veteran, Septimus Warren Smith.  I stayed interested in him throughout the novel, and in his poor Italian wife, Lucrezia, who suffered with him.  They reminded me more than a little of my mother and father, not because of the suicide, but because of the veteran's loss of belief in humanity.  Homo hominis lupus.   When I started writing this note, I thought of the novel as a period novel, because it was set a century ago, but the themes or subjects that Woolf addresses are timeless and universal, including those represented by Septimus and Rezia.  The effects of war, and of violence generally, on those traumatized by it.  I wonder too about her disdain for 1920s medical and psychiatric practice, from her descriptions of Dr. Holmes ('there's nothing the matter with you') and Sir William Bradshaw, and his 'treatment' of his patients by solitary confinement.  I wrote much more about Septimus and Dr. Bradshaw in this journal two days ago.

Anniversaries.  First, Galileo was forced to recant his theory of heliocentrism, i.e., that the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa.  It took 359 years for the Church, which rejected heliocentrism based on Holy Scripture, to acknowledge that Galileo was correct and the Roman Inquisition was wrong.  While the two situations are not at all alike, one involving science and fact, the other morals and opinion, I am reminded of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae in which he condemned birth control, other than by 'rhythm' or 'natural family planning', as sinful.  The culprit behind Paul's rejection of overwhelming scientific authority was Cardinal Wojtyła, who would become Pope John Paul II, who argued that the Church had to protect its magisterium or teaching authority.  To accept artificial birth control after long condemning it as sinful would support the argument that the Church didn't know what it was talking about:

“If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti Connubi was promulgated) and in 1951 (Pius XII’s address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). 

“It should likewise have to be admitted that for half a century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now he declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved” [Emphasis added by me.]

Cardinal Wojtyła’s warning took root in Paul VI’s thinking, for in the ensuing encyclical, Paul wrote:  “However, the conclusions arrived at by the Commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining this serious question personally.  This was all the more necessary because, within the Commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church.” 

Second, the anniversary of the GI Bill reminds me of how much my position and status in life owe to government financing and the nation's desire for a large and lethal military force: the NROTC scholarship to get through college away from home and the Vietnam GI Bill to get through law school.  If I had received that assistance for other than military service, it would be called "socialism" and disparaged.   

I took an uplifting ride in the country this afternoon, after dropping off 4 sturdy maple chairs at St. Vincent de Paul outside of Port Washington and picking up some more birdseed at Walmart's in Saukville.  Hy. 57, to Jay Road, west to Ozaukee Hy. E, north to Hillside Road, west to Camp Awana Road, south to Ozaukee Hwy., east to Hwy. I, south to Cedar Sauk Road, east to Hwy. O, south to Hwy. 60, east to I-43 and home.  Breathtakingly beautiful scenery, rich farmlands, many gorgeous homes, many interesting homes, corn only ankle-high in some fields, mid-calf in others, soybeans and alfalfa starting in others, while some lie fallow.  Thousands of magnificent trees, billions of wildflowers, white and red clover, wild daisies or asters, dame's rockets, bright yellow something-or-others.  I reflected that after I die and am buried, the corn and soybeans and alfalfa will continue to grow.  The birds will continue to build nests and protect their young.  All and everything will carry on on this glorious planet that is barely a speck of dust in the Universe.  I thought of more GM Hopkins;

                                                                            God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I started Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove this afternoon.  At 862 pages, this should keep me busy for a few days.

 

6/21/2026

 Sunday, June 21, 2026

Summer Solstice

1788, The US Constitution came into effect when New Hampshire was the 9th state to ratify it.

1879, Frank Woolworth opened his 1st successful "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store." 

1945, the US defeated Japanese forces on Okinawa.

1963 Cardinal Montini was elected Pope Paul VI, the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church, succeeding John XXIII

2025 Pakistan announced that it would formally nominate Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his mediation during the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict.

In bed at 9:15, up at 4:32; 0445 135/78/55 108 206.0, 0500. 136/78/55;  55/66/53, cloudy.

Morning meds at 7:15 a.m., and Eliquis at 6:45 (?) a.m. and p.m.

Losing my marbles.  Yesterday I wasted my weekly expensive injection of Trulicity, forgetting to take the protective cap off the pen before triggering the spring mechanism.  I also pulled in front of an oncoming car.  This morning I can't remember whether I took my morning dose of the blood thinner I'm to take twice a day to ward off blood clots moving up to my brain or into my lungs, causing a stroke or an embolism after the catheter ablation.  Should I swallow another, in case I didn't take one a few minutes ago, or is the possibility of double-dosing worse than missing my morning dose?  I'm not willing to risk double-dosing a medication like this, but I asked ChatGPT and got this:

Because you may have already taken it, taking another tablet would mean 10 mg at once. While a single accidental double dose is not usually life-threatening for most people, it does increase your risk of bleeding, and at nearly 85 years old that risk is more significant. . . .  Because you're taking Eliquis to prevent blood clots, missing one dose is generally less risky than taking an unnecessary extra dose, especially when you're uncertain.

Since I know a bit about your medical history: 

You've previously told me you're almost 85 and have diabetes and a heart rhythm condition. Those factors make it especially important to avoid accidental double dosing if possible.

May I ask two quick questions?

What time do you normally take your morning Eliquis?

About what time is it now where you are?

That will help me give the most appropriate advice about today's dose.

This is spooky stuff.  This AI platform already knows a ton of personal information about me, and it learns more every time I ask it another question.  That means the people behind the screen, like the Wizard of Oz, also have access to a ton of information about me and I must assume that the federal government has precisely the same access.  The federal government under the control of people like Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth, which is to say, demons, maleficents, miscreants.  Add to this list any person or entity with the capabilty of  hacking into the system.  

So I asked: "Do you sometimes feel like Big Brother in 1984?, and got this:

That's a thoughtful question.

No—I don't have feelings or a sense of identity, so I don't feel like Big Brother or anyone else. But I understand why the comparison comes to mind.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Big Brother represents an all-seeing state that constantly monitors people, often without their consent, to control their behavior and thoughts.

I'm designed quite differently:

I don't observe people in the world or watch what they're doing.

I only know what you choose to share with me in a conversation, along with any memories you've explicitly allowed ChatGPT to save.

I don't make decisions about people, enforce laws, or direct surveillance.

My purpose is to answer questions, explain ideas, and help with tasks.

That said, your question touches on a real issue. As AI systems become more capable, many people worry about privacy, surveillance, and the concentration of information. Those concerns are important, and they're the subject of ongoing debate among technologists, governments, ethicists, and the public. Orwell's novel remains relevant precisely because it encourages readers to think critically about how technology and power can be used—or misused.

So while I don't resemble Big Brother in intent or function, the questions Orwell raised about privacy, autonomy, and information are still very much worth asking.

I'm not reassured. 

International Dad.  Andy texted me Father's Day wishes from Canada early this morning, while Sarah and Christian called me from Germany in a FaceTime call as I parked in the Sendik's parking lot later in the moring.

Mrs. Dalloway.  Some foreshadowing of Woolf's own life and death?  At her party, on learning from Sir  . . Dr. Bradshaw of the suicide of Septimus Warren Smith:

Death was defiance.  Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone.  There was an embrace in death. . . "If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy," she had said to herself once, . . .  Or there were the poets and thinkers.  Suppose he had had that passion, and had gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet to her obscurely evil, without sex or lust, extremely polite to women, but capable of some indescribable outrage - forcing your soul, that was it - if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it now), Life is made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that? . . . . . She felt somehow very like him - the young man who had killed himself.  She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away.