Monday, November 24, 2025
1922 Italian parliament gave Benito Mussolini dictatorial powers "for 1 year"
1948 "Bicycle Thieves", Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica, starring himself and Cesare Zavattini, was released (Honorary Academy Award 1950)
1979 Senate report proved US troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic chemical defoliant Agent Orange
2015 Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder of 17-year-old African American Laquan McDonald in 2014
2020 My TIA or ocular migraine
2021 Three men were found guilty by a jury of felony murder of black runner Ahmaud Arbery, with Travis McMichael also convicted of malice murder in Brunswick, Georgia
In bed at 8:40 and up at 5:20. Painful right hip during the night. 36°, w/c 28°, high 50°.
Meds, etc. Morning meds at 9:10 a.m.
Email message to JS reporter James Causey:
I want to thank you for your essay about preserving family histories and taking advantage of family elders as the prime source of those histories. When I retired more than 20 years ago, I went to work on a memoir, relating the story of my life up till the time my children were born. The first part of it was some genealogy and family history as far back as I could trace it, which wasn’t very far: grandparents on my mother's side and great-grandparents on my father's. They were almost all immigrants. I wrote the memoir for my son and daughter, and especially wanted them to know something about my parents, their paternal grandparents. My mother died when my children were very young, so they never knew her. My father lived in Florida most of their life, and they didn’t know him. Plus, he was taciturn. As I wrote the memoir, I realized how little I knew about either of my parents’ early lives and how much I wished I did know. My Dad was a World War II vet who was one of the Marines on Iwo Jima. He came out of the war with no Purple Heart but a bad case of PTSD, which stayed with him most of his life. Even though I was a former Marine myself and a Vietnam vet, we were never close, largely because of the effects of his PTSD after the war, when my sister and I were children, until he was 75 and I was 55. He never talked of the war and his experiences in the Marines, and the rough years after the war. My sister and I used to joke, ruefully, that the family motto should have been what my father often actually said, “The less said, the better.” Both of my parents are long gone now, and I very much wish I had made it a point to learn more of their early lives while they were alive. I hope at least some and hopefully many of your readers will follow your good advice and tap their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles on Thanksgiving and on any other day that’s available to learn and preserve their family backgrounds. Actually, though one has to be discreet about it, it’s a good idea to learn more of the background stories of our good friends, too. Most of our knowledge of our friends is only superficial, though each one of them has a unique and interesting history. Again, thanks for the great article and great advice. /s/
. . . . . . . . . .
This Thanksgiving, honor the painful memories with the good | Opinion
Growing up, my Thanksgivings weren’t just about the food; they were about the history lessons my elders shared. Make sure you capture their stories.
Check out this story on jsonline.com: https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/columnists/james-causey/2025/11/23/thanksgiving-family-history-racism-voting-milwaukee/87326184007/
The photograph opposite my note to James Causey is of my cousin Christine Klaer, widowed young and left to raise her three children alone, my Grandpa Dewey Clausen, Grandma Charlotte, and my Uncle Jim Healy, who became schizophrenic some time after his father, my Grandpa Denny, died when I was 11 years old.
In this morning's NYTimes, 5 Questions to Ask Your Elders Over the Holidays -Interviewing loved ones brings you closer and offers a window into the past, by Dana G. Smith. Excerpts:
For the person being interviewed, the experience can help with “a sense of life completion and a sense of being heard and understood and being able to tell their story,” said Dr. Ira Byock, an emeritus professor at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine specializing in palliative care.
1. ‘Did you ever get in trouble as a child?’
2. ‘What did your childhood bedroom look like?’
3. ‘What was one of your favorite trips?’
4. ‘Who were the loves of your life?’
what are they most proud of? Is there anything they regret? Who were the loves of their life? What were their major heartbreaks or disappointments?
5. ‘Tell me that old chestnut again.’
As I read the two stories in this morning's JSOnline and the NY Times, I threw a little pity party for myself, feeling sorry that no one asks me the kinds of questions that are discussed in the stories. When I gave copies of my memoir to my daughter, my son, and my sister, none of them asked me anything about anything in the memoir. Ditto when I provided copies to Tom and Caela, and to CBG, although CBG commented on what a strong woman my mother was, and made a point of returning it over lunch and a long conversation. Then I thought: how many questions have I put to any of the persons dear to me about their lives, their histories, their challenges, their this-es and their that-s? I did try to do it with my Dad, after a 13-year estrangement, but his resistance to talking about his past (a resistance shared by his sister, my Aunt Monica) was obdurate, and I think I have inherited some of his taciturnity. Years ago, on Marco Island, both Ed Felsenthal and Cam Wakeman told me how "aloof" I was during our shared college days and, on reflection, I had to agree with them. It was an 'aloofness' I shared with my Dad and the Clausen side of my family ("the less said, the better"), coupled with a sense of feeling out of place among so many people coming from happier and wealthier families than mine. But I digress . . . The point I wanted to make was how little we really know of one another and I suppose it's because we don't really try. Mea culpa.
A meaningless factoid: Mike Bohren, the judge who originally sentenced Morgan Geyser to 40 years confinement in a mental hospital for the "Slender Man" stabbings, and who ordered her released to a group home in January of this year, whence she escaped this week, was a law student of mine many years ago. Geyser was captured in Illinois yesterday. I'm a bit surprised that Mike Bohren looks the same now as he did decades ago in law school, except for his hair and mustache having turned gray.
Mount Mary to offer 3-year degrees in digital marketing and cybersecurity next year. The degrees will require 95 credit hours of study, rather than the 120 hours required for other degrees. MM will be the only university in Wisconsin to offer a 3-year bachelor's degree. Their decision to do so invites the question of why colleges and universities have almost uniformly required 4 years of study, 120 credit hours, to earn a bachelor's degree. Why are 2 years required for an associate's degree? Why are 4 years required for a medical degree and 3 years for a law degree? I believe all of these requirements are mostly for the benefit of the educational institutions, rather than their students or the public. Higher education is Big Business and suffers from all the sins of other organizations in terms of self-serving policies, circling the wagons when attacked, etc.
Terry Moran worked for ABC for many years, a top-notch reporter. He was on Charlie Sykes' podcast this morning on YouTube, and I watched the entire interview. Moran was fired by ABC on June 8th of this year for placing on Twitter (or X) the following:
"The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that's not what's interesting about Miller. t's not brains. It's bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He's a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.
Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred is only a means to an end, and that end his his own glorification [sic]. That's his spiritual nourishment."
Moran's tweet was impolitic and unwise, but true. We can see Miller's world-class hatred just by looking at him.
Text exchange with LOA:
On Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 07:31:42 PM CST, Lawrence Anderson wrote:
Did you see the “60 Minutes” episode on Russian war crimes tonight? If not, take a look. Don’t know where or when, but some day those assholes are gonna answer.. Just hope our uniform guys aren’t standing there with them.
On Nov 24, 2025, at 5:38 PM, Charles Clausen wrote:
I missed it but will try to find it. Those Russian military folk are pretty nasty. I'm recalling how at the end of WWII, the Germans were desperate to do anything to keep from falling into the hands of the Russians. I'm thinking too of a former Marine I med years ago who had gove back to Vietnam after the war. He told me the Vietnamese loved the American tourists, but hated Russians. Go figure. . . . . . I see Hegseth and his apparatchiks are trying to go after Mark Kelly for that 'unlawful orders' video. I hope nothing comes of it, but I wish Kelly and the others hadn't made the video. Trying to figure out what orders are lawful and which are unlawful can be a near-impossible job even in good circumstances. My hunch is that when a Marine decides not to obey an order that seems wrong, it's not based on any legal analysis or judgment, but on the Marine learned at home, in church, or in Sunday school. It's based more on notions of personal sin and morality than on "unlawfulness." . . . . . If I don't see or hear from you again before Thursday, I wish you and Jan and all your dear ones a blessed Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for our long friendship and for introducing me to your terrific wife. She's a treasure. So are you.
awrence Anderson
To: me
Mon, Nov 24 at 5:41 PM
Thanks, Buddy. Have a nice Thanksgiving too. S/F
Charles Clausen
To: Lawrence
And, BTW, the Japanese were arguably worse than the Germans when it came to war crimes against civilians, witness the Rape of Nanking (or Nanjing).
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