Tuesday, August 18, 2026
1963 James Meredith became the 1st Black graduate from the University of Mississippi
2025 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several other European leaders meet with U.S. president Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C. to discuss pathways to peace negotiations for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In bed at 9 with a swig of NyQuil PM for back pain, awakened by alarm at 6:20; 0635 112/71/60 105 202.0; 65/80/63, cloudy.
Morning meds at 6:30 a.m. Eliquis at 6:20 a.m. and no more.
Visit with Dr. Singh this morning. He reported no PVCs, premature ventricular contractions, from the EKG that was done before our meeting and none after the ablation. He took me off the Eliquis blood thinner, put in an order for an echocardiogram to make sure no damage was done to my heart valves during the ablation, and said we were finished, i.e., no follow-up visit necessary. Good news all around. Fingers crossed the echocardiogram will also be OK. The photo is of a golden Sikh turban, one of which Dr. Singh wears every day, including in the electrophysiology labs in which he performs catheter ablations. During the procedures, however, the turban is covered by a sterile headpiece
The Secret History. I am a little more than halfway through this 500+ page novel and the more I read it, the less I'm enjoying it. First, there's the problem of improbabilities. These 20-year-old college students talk to one another like seasoned adults, indeed very erudite, sophisticated adults, especially Henry, their ringleader. The conversations are often just unrealistic and unbelievable. Second, and not unrelated to the first, psychopathy. This Greek Gang, Julian's acolytes, all participate in the most cold-blooded conspiracy to murder one of their own, with malice aforethought. Having spent more than 250 pages learning about them as weird, idiosyncratic, but by no means criminal college kids, seeing them turn into the coldest-blooded murderers just doesn't work for me. Perhaps it's just my naïvité, but I don't think I've led that sheltered a life. Believing this plot line would be like believing that Adam orAron in East of Eden could be a cold-blooded, premeditated murderer of a friend who was himself obnoxious, but not evil. In an earlier journal entry about this book, I stated that Henry, the chief conspirator and brains of the scheme, was the most likeable character in the story. That may show what a bad judge of character I am, or how unlikely it was that he would become the main villain in the story, or maybe both.
It's impossible not to believe that Hampden College is, in some measure, based on Donna Tartt's experiences as a student at Bennington College. Tartt doesn't paint a flattering picture of this college, or of its students. Tartt started college at Ole Miss, but transferred to Bennington after one year, much as Richard Papen, the narrator of The Secret Garden, did. Her father owned a gas station, as did Richard's. Was she intending Richard to be some sort of alter ego for herself? If so, she sure created an unlikeable, dishonest, morally weak alter ego. The book makes me wonder about Donna Tartt's own personality. She's famously private, putting out one novel every 10 years or so, living on a farm in Virginia, and doing few public appearances. She's barely 5 feet tall and dresses in a suit and tie in her public appearances. I've seen a few videos of her on YouTube interviews, and she's very personable, but of course we know that psychopaths can be extremely personable. On the other hand, she is a convert to Catholicism and has written that "faith is vital in the process of making my work and in the reasons I am driven to make it". Perhaps this will become clearer to me if I manage to finish the novel, but it hasn't been in the first 300 pages, and I'm struggling to move on through it.
From this afternoon's NYTimes, the beginning of a long-anticipated crash???
Investor angst over stubborn inflation, unsustainable government deficits and rampant spending on artificial intelligence helped send borrowing costs to multiyear highs across the world this week. The yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond rose on Tuesday to 5.3 percent, its highest level since 2007. Similar bonds in Canada, Japan, Germany and elsewhere also traded at their highest yields in at least a decade.
The yields help determine interest rates for corporate debt and consumer loans, like mortgages, and their rise is adding to everyday citizens’ concerns about affordability that have taken hold both domestically and abroad. That is a problem for government leaders, including President Trump, whose administration has vowed to stop rising costs across the American economy.
Investors have worried for some time that increasing government spending could lead to a serious predicament, in which the government still needs to borrow money but investors are unwilling or unable to lend it. Matt Eagan, a portfolio manager at Loomis Sayles, said that “everyone knows” that fiscal spending is unsustainable. The government’s total debt is approaching $40 trillion, up roughly $5 trillion in two years. “You are on a bus called the 30-year bond and there is a cliff coming, but you don’t know if it is 100 meters away or 100 miles away,” he said. “You are hoping you can get off the bus before it crashes. That is the conundrum we face.”
Everything Trump has done, but especially his tariff policies and the war in Iran, has made the impending crisis worse and more imminent.
From this afternoon's Wall Street Journal:
Bonds Are Getting Hammered, and Wall Street Says the Rout Won’t End Anytime Soon
With yields on 30-year U.S. Treasurys at 19-year highs, investors predict a new era in the bond market. And it looks a lot like 2007.
Publicly held U.S. debt is now at about 100% of GDP, nearing records set after World War II. That debt load makes the country more sensitive to rate moves. A mere 0.1 percentage-point rate move above forecasts in all rates would add $379 billion in net interest expenses, according to the CBO.
“The issue is not so much the rising interest rates,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “The issue is the deficit. If we can only be concerned about one thing, that one thing should be the 10-year deficit outlook.”
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