Monday, January 12, 2026
1962 Operation Ranch Hand began, a US Air Force operation to spray South Vietnamese forests with defoliants such as Agent Orange
1966 LBJ said the US should stay in South Vietnam until communist aggression ends
1967 Louisville, Kentucky draft board refused exemption for boxer Muhammad Ali
1971 US grand jury indicted Rev Philip Berrigan & 5 others, including a nun & 2 priests, on charges of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger
1991 US Congress gave George H. W. Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq
1995 The murder trial against O.J. Simpson began in LA
2010 Earthquake devastated Haiti, killing approximately 160,000 and destroying most of the capital
In bed at 9:30, up at 4:20. 27/15/40/27. Sunny, partly cloudy day.
Meds, etc. Morning meds at 7:30.
My Facebook posting today:
Charles D. Clausen shared a memory.
It was 15 years ago that Barack Obama spoke at the memorial assembly for those killed at Gabby Giffords's 'Congress on the Corner' gathering at a supermarket parking lot in suburban Tucson, AZ. I read Obama's speech again today; it's available online. It was indeed extraordinary oratory and rhetoric. I encourage my friends to read it to be reminded not of the tragic shooting, but of the healing that can come from words spoken by a president intent on healing. As I read the president's words, I thought I would repeat some of them here, but there were too many eloquent, loving, heartfelt expressions to pick from. If you have the time, read them, remember, and do what you can to return our nation to a place where such words are welcome.
15 Years Ago January 12, 2011
Shared with Your friends
Charles D. Clausen
is struck once again by the extraordinary oratory and rhetoric of our President. Not in any narrow sense but in an ability to capture a moment in the hearts of his listeners and to give that moment expression. Tonights's address may be his finest, better than the Inaugural, better than Grant Park, better than the 2004 Democratic Convention. I get very mad at him at times but still, what a man.
Here are just a few excerpts from Obama's speech that illustrate how different he was from the current resident in the White House:
But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -– at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -– it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. (Applause.)
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “When I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.
For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future.
. . .
As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.
. . .
They believed -- they believed, and I believe that we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved life here –- they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that’s entirely up to us.
And I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed.
Imagine -- imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that some day she, too, might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council. She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.
As has already been mentioned, Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called “Faces of Hope.” On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child’s life. “I hope you help those in need,” read one. “I hope you know all the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart." "I hope you jump in rain puddles.”
If there are rain puddles in Heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on this Earth -- here on this Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and we commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.
May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.
Who Shall Deliver Me, a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
All others are outside myself,
I lock my door and bar them out
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.
I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
If I could once lay down myself,
And start self-purged upon the race
That all must run! Death runs apace.
If I could set aside myself,
And start with lightened heart upon
The road by all men overgone!
God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:
Myself, arch-traitor to myself;
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.
Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me,
Break off the yoke and set me free.
I came across this poem in 2020 or 2021 when I was regularly making entries in my "Live in the Time of Covid" watercolor sketchbooks, where I included parts of it. Is Rossetti's poem a fancy expression of the notion that we are usually our own worst enemies? Is it a cry for relief from religious scrupulosity, to which she apparently was prone? She was an Anglo-Catholic, taken up with the Oxford Movement. She was also attached to her brothers' Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whence John Everett Millais's extraordinary, stunning, eye-popping Ophelia painting we were privileged to see at the Tate when we visited London a million years ago.
Telephone conversation with "Andy" at Badger Railing about a proposal to install a railing on the front stoop.
Geri had lunch with Helen Samson at Harry's in Shorewood. Helen is the daughter of Elise Samson, Geri's long-term friend, who suffered for years with Parkinson's Disease before dying last year. Geri and Helen have attended demonstrations together, and Helen delivered a big, expensive taffy apple to Geri at Christmastime. Although Elise is no longer with us, Helen and Geri remain intergenerational friends. Their get-together for lunch today reminds me of what an active social life Geri maintains, and of what an isolated life I lead. My own fault, my bad, but alas.
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