7/23/2025

 Wednesday, July 23, 2025

D+257/185/1276

1973 US President Richard Nixon refuses to release Watergate tapes of conversations in the White House relevant to the Watergate investigation

2020 US President Trump says he could send 75,000 federal agents to deal with violence in American cities like Portland, drawing backlash

In bed at 10:15, after watching the concluding episodes of Stick with Owen Wilson, up at 6:20.  70°, high of 87°.  Heat & humidity advisory    

Another favorite drawing: Caren and Rachel Goldberg at the Western Wall.  From a photo Caren posted on Facebook.  I was very pleased with the drawing, but I gave it to Caren with the thought that she (or Rachel) might enjoy it more.  I suppose that was presumptuous since each of them had access to the photograph, the drawing copied.   In any event, Caren still has the drawing and kindly sent me a photo of it, at my request, because I hadn't taken a photo of it before giving it to her.

Breakfast with CBG at Maxfield's at 9:30 this morning until 11, a thoroughly enjoyable visit, as usual, with continuous conversation, mostly about serious matters, but also about Stick.  I lent her a copy of my memoir, which was prompted mainly by our earlier chatting about growing up Irish Catholic, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s great quote:  

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains,—"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless".

Among our topics of conversation was how each of us felt about our grandchildren, and indeed all the children, at least in the U.S.  Caren sees in them hope for the future, while for me, they trigger sadness about the world I will be leaving them (not that it's mine to leave anyone.  In looking at my journal entry on this date last year, I see that I wrote about the film The Hours, with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, and Ed Harris.  I concluded:

It is a depressing movie, reminding me in that respect of Paris, Texas, Midnight Cowboy, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange,  and Calvinist Paul Schrader films like Taxi Driver (screenwriter) and First Reformed and Master Gardener.  From Mrs. Dalloway:

“Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely? All this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?”

“One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.”

I've had similar thoughts.

 I can't get moving today.  All I want to do is sleep.  No energy.

This is news???  The Wall Street Journal reported today that Pam Bondi reported to Trump back in May that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files.   MSNBC and CNN are abuzz with this.😱