9/10/2026

Thursday, September 10, 2026

1943 German troops occupied Rome and took over the protection of Vatican City

1984 First episode of the daily TV game show "Jeopardy!" with Alex Trebek as host

1991 Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on Clarence Thomas' nomination to SCOTUS

2019 US President Donald Trump fired his third National Security Adviser, John Bolton

2024 Second debate between new candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, with most commentators giving Harris the win

2025 Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University

2025 European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced intention to seek sanctions against and a partial suspension of trade with Israel, while also immediately suspending certain bilateral funds, citing the ongoing Gaza Strip famine as the reason.

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:55; 0610 202.2 114/69/73; 59/75/59, cloudy morning, sunny afternoon.

Morning meds at 9 a.m.  Entresto at 6:35 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

This beautiful creature is a tiny mushroom (or toadstool) I found in the grass between our front driveway and the street on July 19, 2022.  I was struck by its elegance, perfection, and beauty, so I took this photo of it.  I've often looked at it, and often printed it on pages of my journal.  I printed it today to remind myself that the world is full of beauty, of bounteous little miracles, like this mushroom and even the blades of grass all around it.  Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem about it: The world is charged with the grandeur of God.  It's about how we lose touch with all the beauty that surrounds us. And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; / And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil / Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.  I turned to the photo and to Hopkins' poem because I was so downhearted reading the news and opinion pieces in this morning's papers.  We need to remind ourselves that the world is indeed charged with grandeur, that we are daily surrounded by little miracles and everyday saintliness, despite what happens in Washington, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, or last night in Dallas.  

Trumpapalooza in Dallas featured lies and fear-mongering.  Democrats running for Congress were “evil.” They were “communists and anarchists.” And they wanted to turn the country into “a socialist hellscape.”  “I call it the Bolshevik Revolution in the Democratic Party,” said Representative Steve Scalise, the House majority leader. “Let’s make sure that when we wake up the morning after Election Day we know we did everything we could to defeat socialism.” This is from the guy who reportedly referred to himself as "David Duke [KKK leader] without the baggage."  “The radical left is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century — to import the misery of failed workers’ paradises like the Soviet bloc, Caracas and Havana,” Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told the crowd.  By the time Trump took the stage, at the end of the evening, the narrative of Democratic extremism had been woven into nearly every aspect of the six-hour program.  If they win, he warned, Congress would be controlled by a “communist caucus.”  “When you vote in this election, you can tell these far-left lunatics and fanatics that America is not for sale,” said Mr. Trump. “We do not negotiate with communists, with socialists, or with radical left lunatics.”  “This is a battle for the heart of our nation,” shouted Senator Tim Scott, the head of the party’s Senate campaign arm, from the stage. “The Democrats’ extreme candidates will rip that heart out of our chest. They hate our culture. They hate what it means to be American.”

And we wonder why the right-wingers are so heavily armed, why they have stockpiled ammo, why the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, et al., stand ready to start (or continue) the civil war that Kurt Andersen predicted in The Breakup.

Another lollapalooza at the Trumpapalooza: “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them,” Mr. Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”  Total cost: $1.3 million.  Possibility of congressional authorization?  0%.  He emulates one of his heroes, Napoleon Bonaparte: 'If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.'

Switzy.  This is a terribly depressing novel, but I must have known that going in.  It's about an old guy heading to Switzerland for his own physician-assisted suicide.  But it's more than that.  The novelist attempts to show us the world through the eyes and mind of a man suffering from pretty severe Alzheimer's.  In a very large measure, he has lost autonomy in his old age.  He has lost his mind, but he has retained enough of his marbles to be aware of his own diminishment and incapacity.  We share in all the disappointments and regrets as he thinks back on his life, all complicated by his dementia.  It's not a pleasant read.  I misplaced my wallet and Volvo key yesterday (?) and spent the morning acting like an idiot, looking in the same places, over and over. I found them by happenstance this afternoon in my bathrobe pocket.