2/18/2026

 Wednesday, February 18, 2026

1970 Chicago 7 defendants were found not guilty of inciting to riot

2001 FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died

2014 Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 began as protesters, riot police and unknown shooters took part in violent events in the capital, Kiev, culminating after five days in the 

2025  Senate confirmed businessman Howard Lutnick as the Secretary of Commerce in a 51–45 vote.

In bed at 9, up at 6 with a bloody nose, right nostril.  46/37/54/37.  

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Kevzara injection at 10:30 a.m.  One more to go, on March 18th.  That will, hopefully, end the more-than-a-year on Prednisone starting on May 14, 2024, and more than a year on Kevzara injections, which I started bi-weekly on January 25, 2025.  Kevzara lists a retail price of $2,238 per injection pen, with various special deals offered.  I have no idea what this bi-weekly medication would have cost me if I had not received it through the VA.  Ditto Trulicity, which I inject every week and which retails at about $500 per injection, or $26,000 per year.  How fortunate Geri and I have been that my significant medical expenses over the last almost 10 have been covered by the VA, for which I thank Abraham Lincoln ('to care for him who shall have borne the battle') and Ed Felsenthal, my lifelong good friend, now gone since June, 2024.

Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi.  Bits and snatches:

Chapter 21:  "But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as 'good [art]'.  If it makes us better somehow, maybe that's what gives it value." 

Text to CBG:

I’m on chapter 26 of the book and am enjoying it quite a bit.  I don’t know whether “enjoying” is the right word.  It’s accurate enough, but the various passages are stirring up so many thoughts and muted emotions that “enjoying” doesn’t capture all the feelings I experience reading it.  I closed the last message to you with the concluding line from “The Great Gatsby,’” and sure enough, as the plot continues I find myself beset with self-referential thoughts, remembrances, reminded of myself in Tony the bookseller, a Vietnam vet, and Asher the artist, with his interest mainly in faces, in people rather than places, and in Theo himself, with his recognition that every individual we encounter in life has a history, a story, including losses, sorrows, and regrets.  yet we pass by one another like ships in the night.  I’m reminded of the man I saw at Sendik’s a few months ago, with a T shirt that read “Everyone you encounter is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”  We try to protect ourselves by keeping those battles secret, our own and others.  I used to joke with my sister, though with a little bitterness, that our family motto should have been “The less said, the better,” one of my Dad’s frequent sayings.  I was surprised to read that Allen Levi was a lawyer before he turned to writing, and song writing.  Surprised too that he never married and apparently has no children, and that he lives with his father “family acreage” not far from Fort Benning, GA.  Three years of legal education and years of practicing law appear not to have wrung the humanity, sensitivity, and insight out of him.  I’m so thankful that you led me his novel.  When I’m done, I want to read his memoir about his brother.