Sunday, September 27, 2026
70 The walls of the upper city of Jerusalem were battered down by the Roman army
1066 William the Conqueror's troops set sail from Normandy to conquer England
1590 Pope Urban VII died 13 days after being chosen as Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history
2020 Details of President Donald Trump's tax returns were released by the NY Times, showing he paid $750 in income tax (2016 & 2017), revealing "chronic losses and years of tax avoidance"
2025 Donald Trump ordered the deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, saying he has directed defense secretary Pete Hegseth to secure the "war-ravaged" city.
In bed at 8:35, up at 5:35; 118/72/66 107 204.4; 48/67/48, Dense Fog, dissipating by 10 a.m., partly cloudy day ahead.
Morning meds at 7 a.m. Entresto at 6:30 a.m. and p.m. I missed yesterday's evening dose.
One year ago today, Geri took me to the ER at the VA hospital with a very swollen, bright red left lower leg, infected with cellulitis. The ER docs had me admitted to the hospital as an in-patient, the fear being that the cellulitis might develop into sepsis or turn out to be MRSA. Neither of those life-threatening conditions happened, thank God. That was my first in-patient admission to the hospital, to be followed by another this March, 5 days each.
Yesterday was another beautiful autumn day. I took a ride up to Harrington Beach State Park in north-east Ozaukee County. It's the side of an old limestone quarry which is now a lake and a mile of Lake Michigan lakefront. I didn't go into the park itself, but skirted it's boundary on County D, which leads to another stretch of lakefront. As I crested a hill on County D, I had a wide view of Lake Michigan and thought how true it is to call it an "inland sea." I have lived near it my entire life, except for my years as a Marine. On the way back to Milwaukee County, I drove along Ozaukee County LL, which overlooks to new data center rising north-west of Port Washington. It seems even more immense (and monstrous?) from LL than it does from I-43. It sits on 642 acres of land and is expected to by used by Oracle and OpenAI. Oracle is providing the cloud/AI infrastructure, while the computing capacity is intended substantially for OpenAI workloads. OpenAI (Sam Altman) owns ChatGPT, of which I have been become a regular user, regarding which I note the following, from the closing thoughts in The Nerd Reich:
We must also hold ourselves accountable for the degree to which we have ceded our freedom and lost our way in exchange for technologies that mask danger as convenience. . . So, we each have responsibility to radically reevaluate our own complicity in their power. Why do we spend our lives staring at our tiny screens? . . . The truth is, the tech fascists are right again: Most of us have already become transhuman, mind-melded with our machines in an endless cycle of poisonous dependency. . . We must rethink our relationship with technology, which means rethinking what it means to be human. Durán, Gil. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (p. 262). Kindle Edition.
I've started thinking about this already, but need to do a lot more. To what extent am I making myself dependent on ChatGPT?
My campaign against doom and gloom. I received a handwritten note from a good friend, who was also aformer student of mine at the law school, and later a colleague at our law firm. I don't mention his name because I haven't asked his permission to copy his note in this journal and, although I don't think this is the case,, he might not want his name associated with the note in cyberspace. I keep the note on a table next to my bedroom recliner, in a copy of the written project he and I worked on together half a century ago. It warms my heart each time I see it,, or even think of it. I include it here to remind myself of what I have to be thankful for, despite all the bad news that besets us:
Churck,
It is hard to believe that nearly 50 years have elapsed since we worked on this project.
I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to learn from you and then gain your lifelong friendship. No one had a greater influence on my career that you, and in many ways my personal life as well.
While geography will separate us soon, I know that we will want and need to stay in touch regularly.
With fond regards, /s/
Another favorite poem, by Emily Dickinson:
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power
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