Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I will, with God's help. Grievously, America has become a nation that does not care about how people are treated - - fairly, justly, kindly, with dignity; and apparently most Americans approve of that. I hope not. Now and then something that someone writes is a dart, bullet, or arrow hitting the heart of an issue. This essay is exactly that.  T90      IS ANYTHING MORALLY OBVIOUS  ANYMORE? The public reaction to the violence in Minneapolis suggests that we  have held on to our sense of universal truths. By  Gal Beckerman February 16, 2026 The Trump administration has backed down in Minnesota. Last week, Tom Homan, the border czar, announced that the surge of federal agents into the state—3,000 officers—was ending. He framed this mostly as a mission accomplished: They had come to round up illegal immigrants, and the job was done. But even Homan had to g...

Stormy yesterday morning, we stayed in and caught our church service online. Being able to do everything at home online is one of the interesting positive developments of covid.  My experience in it all includes that I never again have to wander, pushing a shopping cart/walker, around a store looking for a widget. I can order it online, including from that same store. Or if for some reason I MUST go to the store, I can go already having searched online to find exactly what aisle and shelf that widget is displayed on in the local store.  ++++ Watched the Bay early this morning as a mix of white wading birds, and a large flock of white ducks of some kind, fished for their breakfast in a small area just below 7H porch. They were in a place that from my porch looked black bottom with sea-grass, instead of a sandy bottom, maybe two or three feet deep there. The water is perfectly clear and I watched ducks underwater, streaking about as they pursued fish, minnows, or maybe tiny mull...

++++++ Chevrolet is one of my all Time favorite car makes and I've owned a passel of 'em. Robert likes the previous iteration (1949 to 1952),  +++ and I do too, but if someone offered me my absolute first pick it would be a Chevy I never owned, a 1953 Chevrolet 210 two door sedan, the one above - - except that any dedicated car person recognizes its major, devaluating flaw, that somewhere along its life someone changed the top choice perfect 1953 taillights  to 1954 Chevy taillights.  But it's nevertheless an ideal car, the two door sedan design for 1953 and 1954 is neat, clean (without the extra gunk on the BelAir model), perfectly balanced, and I'd want mine with power steering and power brakes, but the three-on-the-tree stick shift instead of the two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission that some people liked to deride as Weaklingglide. Parked next to the '53, the other perfect Chevy I'd want in my garage would be a 1955 two door sedan also a clean series ...

Today is the eighty-first anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War Two. Much more so than Hamburg, it has been a hot moral topic ever since, and I remember my surprise and anger with my Ethics course professor at the Univ of Michigan when in class one day, probably this anniversary date, he railed vehemently against our military action as atrocity and war crime.  In fact, his Business Ethics course required a researched term paper, and I wrote mine on the subject, taking strong issue with his view. Because my vehemence was equal to his, but in the opposite direction, I, rather defiantly, expected a bad grade; but he graded my paper A, and also my grade for the course, which surprised me again, but impressed me to find that he was a scholar of integrity who welcomed argument, disagreement as integral to human relationships.  That was Spring semester 1963. Since then, America the Beautiful has come a long distance in the direction of Evil and has finally...

hot & black, 3:33 AM 61° 95% way too dark early Thursday, but WOW is the coffee good this morning!  And who'd believe a doddering nonagenarian can learn something? Everyone knows that some foods are unhealthy, and hotdogs are at the top of the list, but a little research - - reading and personal taste-test - - reveals which brands are better anyway. From a lifeTime of only Oscar Meyer I sorted it down to three: SRF wagyu beef franks, Hebrew National kosher all beef, and Sabrett.  Sabrett because if you buy a hotdog from a NYC street vendor it's sure to be Sabrett. Last week I bought a package and with my coffee this morning I ate just a plain Sabrett wiener cooked 60 seconds in the microwave: much more flavorful than Oscar Meyer ( Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener,  That is what I'd truly like to be-ee-ee.  'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener,  Everyone would be in love with me), but a bit salty.  My experiment put Snake River Farms wagyu frank...