11/17/2025

Monday, NOVEMBER 17, 2025

1894 Serial killer H. H. Holmes was arrested in Boston after being tracked there from Philadelphia by the Pinkertons

1993 US House of Representatives approved NAFTA

2024 Biden approved Ukraine’s use of long-range U.S. weapons inside Russia, reversing policy

2024 President-elect Donald Trump picked senior GOP Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr to lead the agency, "a hero of Free Speech

In bed at 9, up at 5.  

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 6:30  a.m.     

Cardia stress test & echocardiogram this morning.

   Orangeman has something up his sleeve: "Trump urges House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files."  Maybe he has the Senate locked down.  Maybe he, Bondi, and Patel will keep the files locked up because of 'an ongoing investigation,; but we know there's some mischief afoot.   

Extraordinary sky this morning.  I can't describe the stunningly beautiful cloud coverage floating over the county this morning.  I enjoyed it while driving to the VA but couldn't get a photo of it.  Drat.

Posted this on FB on November 5, 2020 as a reply to a FB friend’s posting: 

I texted this to Kitty on 11/5/2020:

 I'm afraid I think that "American values" stuff has always been mythical. Hasn't the most enduring American value been white superiority? And male hegemony? And guns and violence? The evidence of how enduring these real 'values' are in our society and culture is awfully (literally) convincing. As an ancient who has benefitted from white male privilege all my life, as I look back on 8 decades of life in the real America, the most hopeful times were also among the most contentious, the late 60s and early 70s when the government was able to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act and the Medicare Act in 1965, all under President Johnson, and the Environmental Protection Act, the OSHA Act, and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, and other progressive legislation under President Nixon. During much of that time, there were massive demonstrations and even riots in the streets protesting the nation's actions in Vietnam (in which I played a minuscule but guilty role) and our shameful discrimination against our Black fellow citizens. Donald Trump represents the long-simmering pushback against all the progress made in those years and not surprisingly, he can hardly find enough American flags to serve as a backdrop to his fascistic authoritarianism. As Sinclair Lewis wrote: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Or, in Donald Trump's case, a bible.

Anniversaries:  H. H. Holmes was a serial killer whose exploits were the subject of Erik Larsen's 2003 book The Devil in the White City.   The hotel he built across the street from his pharmacy at 63rd and Wallace in my Englewood neighborhood was where he committed some of his murders.  It was a block or two east of where our family friends the Raschke's lived and had a Mom and Pop grocery store.  The hotel was razed sometime after Holmes's crimes were discovered.  Now the site is occupied by a local post office.

NAFTA is in large measure responsible for the crime and poverty situation in Milwaukee.  Shame on Bill Clinton for signing it.  Shame on the Democratic and Republican legislators for passing it.  The best government money can buy.  

A text I sent to Kitty four years ago today:

Good Morning, Sweetheart,

      Two nights ago, for no reason known to me, I lost all the text messages saved on my laptop.  Hundreds, thousands just disappeared overnight.  And now I can’t type new messages so I am now using my phone with my clumsy fingers on the tiny keyboard.  I’m very displeased by this, very very displeased.

    I got a call from Kelly yesterday and I am always eager to hear from her but. She is not very informative.  I wish I could be with you in Arizona but I don’t think it’s in the cards.  I’m not in very good shape myself these days, feeling like I’m 90 years old rather than 80.  Long distance travel just about does me in.

    I am hoping beyond hope that Michael and especially Chrissi will be able to provide all the help you need but this COVID situation sure makes life more difficult for all of you.  I have the sense that neither Jim nor Chrissi is very symptomatic and I sure hope that is true.

    Geri learned yesterday that her good friend who lives across the street is building a new house and will be moving away, not all that far but still not in the neighborhood.  Its a big disappointment for Geri and will be a big loss.

 I hope you are bearing up under all your challenges.  I’m sure you know you are in my thoughts and prayers every day, every night, and every in between time.❤️🙏🏻❤️ 

What a blessing she was to me; what a blessing she still is in my memory.  I'm thankful that I've been able to save years and years of messages we share with each other every morning for so many years.  More blessings.  I'm reminded to back up this laptop again tomorrow as I try to do every Saturday now (wow, that's some awkward sentence.😝)  [Actually, I've gotten better about backing up, doing it every night now.  I dread the thought of losing those text messages between Kitty and me, thousands of photos,  my memoir in digital form, journal in digital form, etc.]  Kitty has been gone about 3 years and 8 months now.  Irreplaceable loss.