1/2/2026

 Friday, January 2, 2026

1845 US President James K. Polk announced to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West, a widely held belief termed "manifest destiny"

1942 The World’s 1st self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occured in the world's 1st nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago, overseen by Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd

1954 US Senate censured Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor & disrepute

1968 US President Richard Nixon named Henry Kissinger as the security advisor

2014 Stephen Hawking claimed that Artificial Intelligence could be a "threat to mankind" and spell the end of the human race

2018 Israeli police recommended that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife be charged with fraud and bribery

2020 US Attorney General William Barr said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, despite claims by Trump

Music to my ears, delight to my eyes, solace to my soul

In bed around 9, awake a little after 3, moved to LZB until 4:10, when I got up & made some coffee.  Thinking of Emmylou Harris singing Precious Memories and this morning's visits with Cardiology, Urology, and the Gold Clinic for my long-delayed Covid vaccination.  13/+1/20/12.

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 1 p.m.   

As I travel down life's pathway

Know not what the years may hold

As I ponder, hope grows fonder

Precious memories flood my soul

 

Precious father, loving mother

Glide across the lonely years

And old home's scenes of my childhood

In fond memories appears

 

Precious memories, how they linger

How they ever flood my soul

In the stillness of the midnight

Precious sacred scenes unfold

Our historically bad times.  I started out the day, as usual, reading (some of) the New York Times, focusing on the lead editorial, Donald Trump is the January 6 President, a powerful condemnation of Trump's time in power.  It is also an indictment of Mitch McConnell, Republican politicians, especially those in the House and Senate, Merrick Garland, business leaders, conservative media, the Supreme Court, and the political thugs Trump has appointed and Senate Republicans have confirmed to powerful leadership positions in his second administration.  Despite the powerfulness of the damning truths related in the body of the editorial, it ends weakly:

The Jan. 6 era turns five years old on Tuesday. The anniversary will always be a mournful one for America. The nation’s challenge now is to ensure that the day is ultimately viewed as it initially was: as an aberration. Americans must summon the collective will to bring this era to an end and make certain that the violence, lawlessness and injustice of Jan. 6 do not endure.

Huh?  How?  Trump has three more years in office.  If he dies or leaves early, we have J.D. Vance to look forward to, younger, smarter, perhaps not as thoroughly wicked as DJT, but still politically pernicious.  Thus, even an impeachment or a series of impeachments by the next Congress, probably likely, and a conviction by the Senate, very unlikely, will not bring this era to an end.  

The editorial made me think of other historically bad times I've lived through in this country: the McCarthy witch-hunts in the 50s; JFK's assassination, the urban riots and violent acts against the Vietnam War in the 60s; Watergate in the 70s; the War on Terror with its renditions, secret prisons, and torture, and disastrous invasion of Iraq in the 00s; the financial crisis in 08 and the election of Obama leading to the creation of the Tea Party in 2010, and ultimately the Trump-led creation of the MAGA movement into fascism and autocracy.  I'm reminded of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by William A. Galston, on December 30th, "America's 25 Years of Decline," in which he points out, inter alia, 

At the conclusion of the 20th century, America’s leadership was uncontested. We had the world’s strongest economy and most powerful military, bolstered by an unequaled system of alliances. Americans from the bottom to the top enjoyed rising real incomes. The federal budget ran a surplus for four consecutive years, from 1998 to 2001. Despite their differences, the political parties were able to reach agreement on important issues, including on fiscal policy, education, welfare, the environment and protecting Americans with disabilities.  . . . 

In January of 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the budget surpluses of President Bill Clinton’s second term would continue throughout the next decade, totaling $5.6 trillion and erasing the national debt. Nineteen months later, the CBO predicted that big tax cuts, higher spending and lower economic projections would eliminate the surplus for 2002 and several years thereafter. As it turned out, fiscal 2001 was the last time the federal government ran a budget surplus, and the chance that the debt will ever be erased is slim.

Only a 'cock-eyed optimist' can fail to see that America has been on a long downhill slide, dropping us at last into this Era of Trump, from which we will not recover in my lifetime, perhaps not in the lifetimes of my children.  Woe, alas.

Busy morning at the VA, first an entire hour with the Holter monitor specialist from 8 till 9, then the urology nurse had me pee into a big funnel and then lie down for an ultrasound on my bladder to see how much urine I retained.  Then a half-hour with "Dr. P" (😀) to discuss my fulguration, meatontomy, buried schwantz, etc.  Finally, off to the Gold Clinic and Amy Janusz for my Covid vaccination.  On the way home, I stopped at Blick's to pick up a square pre-stretched canvas, 24" X 24".

Driving through the old 3rd Ward, I experienced again the new love I have developed in the last few years for Milwaukee, its architecture, and its history.  The east side of downtown Milwaukee, downtown proper that is, toney, upper crust.  It lies between the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan, in old Juneau Town.  It's where many of the "swells" lived and where the most important financial, commercial, and legal institutions were or are located - the First Wisconsin National Bank, Marshall & Ilsley Bank, Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, Foley & Lardner, Quarles & Brady, Alexander Mitchell's building, and the Milwaukee Grain Exchange.  Just south of this silk stocking district lies the old 3rd Ward, where Milwaukee's historic ethnic neighborhoods, Commission Row, warehouses, port activities, and blue-collar life are still visible.  When it was Little Italy, Our Lady of Pompeii Church was the center of social, religious, and civic life for the bustling neighborhood.  The church was sacrificed for the building of I-794 and is now remembered on a plaque attached to a boulder under the freeway.  The freeway, fully completed only in 1977, itself is being considered for demolition. South of the freeway, there are still many old buildings standing as evidence of Milwaukee's past as well as newer buildings giving witness to the area's current popularity both as a place of residence and as an entertainment and shopping center.  Blick Art Supplies is located there, across from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, the successor of Milwaukee's Layton School of Art,  occupying a large former manufacturing (?) building.  A short distance east of MIAD's home is the almost new Baumgartner Center for Dance, home of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, of the foundation board of which I was formerly a director, treasurer, and briefly, president, but that's another story.  I love this old neighborhood, even more than I did when I was practicing law and often eating at the wonderful Broadway Bar and Grill in the heart of the neighborhood.

I started a painting after many months of inactivity, and I promptly made a careless mistake.  I was hoping to find a 16" X 16" canvas at Blick, but no luck, so I bought a 24" X 24".  I'm scaling up from an 8" X 8" print of a Christlike (?) image, and I'm starting out using grid lines, as usual.  I should have spaced my grid lines on the canvas 3 inches apart, but spaced them 2" apart, wasting a lot of time, but no permanent damage.