Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JANUARY 19, 2026 – At noon today when I pulled up to my usual spot by the neighborhood entrance into “Little Switzerland,” the car thermometer showed an outside temperature of 4F. My anger temp, however, was still running high. It had skyrocketed during the top of the hour newscast while I was assembling myself for …
JANUARY 18, 2026 – Yesterday evening, we joined our friends Ann and Ravi at nearby Bolé, a gourmet Ethiopian restaurant. Parking was so bad that after letting Beth off at the entrance, I had to drive nearly halfway home to find a spot. The walk from the car back to the restaurant took time, given …
JANUARY 17, 2026 – If I asked you to identify the “most dangerous man in America—ever,” whom would you name? My choice would be five-star General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific Area (his official title during WW II). No dummy, MacArthur graduated first in his class from West Point, though one could …
JANUARY 16, 2026 – As if the record needed to reflect any further the state of winter in the state of Minnesota . . . “Let the record reflect,” as a deposing lawyer will often say (for the record), that ice abounds this year, in both its traditional form and its newly encountered goon-squad configuration. …
JANUARY 15, 2026 – According to Viking lore, to throw enemies off course, Eirik the Red called the (then relatively green) island hanging just below the arctic circle, “Iceland,” and named the glacier covered island now in Trump’s crosshairs, “Greenland.” If Trump couldn’t care less about anything green, doubtless when Marco Rubio informed him that …
JANUARY 15, 2026 – I’ve said before in a post what bears repeating: “By its very nature, the beast of war brings out the very worst and the very best of humanity.” This evening I watched yet another (superb) Norwegian film (see last Monday’s post)—Into the White—that captures this axiom about as well as any …
JANUARY 13, 2026 – If the fascist raiders now on the (ice)-covered ground of Minnesota weren’t a distressing flashback to Germany in the Nazi era—or Norway during the German occupation from April 1940 to V-E Day in 1945 (see yesterday’s post)—we all could laugh at the BlackICE[1]-analog to the Brownshirts of Nazi Germany. Take for …
JANUARY 12, 2026 – Yesterday evening I watched Betrayed, a Norwegian film about the flip side of the courageous Norwegian resistance during World War II, namely the round-up of Jews by Norwegian Quislings` doing the Nazis’ bidding. The film values alone—everything from casting to cinematography to screenplay writing to acting to directing—are topflight, a standard …
JANUARY 11, 2026 – Thursday evening I hosted a rump session of my book club. (Two of our five members were MIA, which might have been a referendum on the host’s book selection, The Man Who Loved China, by Simon Winchester (See my 8/20/25 post – https://writemakesmight.net/ub-and-the-man-who-loved-china/ ). As is so often the case with …
JANUARY 10, 2026 – One central lesson I learned from my periodic forays into litigation over 40-some years of practicing law is that there’s no such thing as the “open-and-shut” case. Even when a defendant you’re suing defaults, you still have to enforce the judgment in favor of your client against what is doubtless a …
JANUARY 9, 2026 – After another day filled with talk about Wednesday’s cold-blooded killing by an ICE agent, I’m in equal parts mad and sad—mad that people in positions of the highest responsibility talk and act so irresponsibly; sad over the loss of our decency and dignity. From the president and his closest minions to …
JANUARY 8, 2026 – When many of us pull one eye away from our newsfeeds, we ask, “How in the world did we get here?” The question is especially freighted with special urgency in the wake of recent ICE actions here in Minnesota. One response I’ve heard (from white libs, mostly) is, “It all started …
JANUARY 7, 2026 – From my earliest days I remember the Morton Salt logo—a long-striding girl walking in a downpour and carrying an umbrella gracefully supported by one arm and under the other arm, an upside-down container of Morton Salt “pouring down” behind her. When I was old enough to read, I puzzled over the …
JANUARY 6, 2026 – At 12:46 a.m. today our time, we received a simple text from our younger son, Byron. “On our way to the hospital!” it read. We knew what that meant: the baby had better wait at least 40 minutes, since that was how long it would take to drive to the hospital. …
JANUARY 5, 2026 – Today, I have two questions (and corresponding answers) for you: QUESTION NO. 1: What do you do when a kid posing as a journalist on YouTube joins forces with his in-your-face-mom to spread a wicked falsehood, thereby upending the lives of countless innocent victims and sinking an already politically damaged vessel …
JANUARY 4, 2026 – Yesterday, our old-fashioned mail delivery service dropped into the mail slot of our old-fashioned house, an old-style letter envelope containing two ancient letters and two postcards of the same vintage as the two very old letters. On the face of one of the postcards was a Post-It Note bearing the handwriting …
JANUARY 3, 2026 – Well, well, well. Remember the “Epstein Files”? Once upon a time they threatened (so said news organizations, at least the ones not yet afraid of censorship) to embarrass, if not “create serious problems” for, Mr. Trump. Exhibit A: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise departure from the party line. But all that is …
JANUARY 2, 2026 – I don’t relish embarking on another anti-Trump bender, but I need a boost of self-generated heat: today’s ski venture (followed by the daily chop-the-ice-off-our-front-steps routine) left me with a mild case of frost-nip. Plus, to be perfectly honest, I’m rather “done with Trump.” Although he’s still an unruly bull rampaging inside …
JANUARY 1, 2026 – Unlike birthdays after a certain age, New Year’s Day brings a feeling of hope, renewal, and opportunity for more accommodating circumstances. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a person express resolve about much of anything when facing a birthday cake loaded with candles—or rather, impoverished of candles because it can’t …
DECEMBER 31, 2025 – With the close-out of 2025, I’d like to underscore the importance of celebrating the victories, not lamenting the defeats. If you share my politics, you’re likely to call me Pollyannaish, and from one valid perspective, I plead guilty as charged. On the other hand, to stay afloat psychologically in this troubled …
DECEMBER 30, 2025 – Throughout my childhood I was dragged to concerts by our parents and grandparents and accompanied by my all-too-willing sisters. Invariably, Dad would grade soloists on their stage presence; that is, whether they engaged in distracting histrionics. When it came to the actual music, no one could rival Dad’s discerning ears, but …
DECEMBER 29, 2025 – As we close in on the end of the year, Mother Nature reminds us that she is still very much in control. Witness yesterday’s weather—a veritable blizzard that interfered with countless post-holiday travel plans. I was ever so grateful that I’d dashed to and back from the Red Cabin the day …
DECEMBER 28, 2025 – I come from a family of characters, who in one way or another have found a relatively clutter-free entrance onto the great highway of life and worked their ways over to the cruise-control lanes of “through traffic.” Good for each of them—for excelling in school and training; for finding their callings; …
DECEMBER 27, 2025 – I remember the time I accidentally crushed an ant on the sidewalk. It registered on my retinas but a nano-second too late for me to rotate my leather-soled dress shoe to avoid the mishap as I rose off the downtown park bench after having finished my Subway sandwich. On my way …
DECEMBER 26, 2025 – I’ve always been fascinated by dreams, probably because by way of my particular mix of brain chemistry, I’ve always experienced remarkably vivid and memorable dreams. If I had another 10 cracks at an undergraduate education, one of them would be in psychology, with a sub-focus on the sub-conscious and un-conscious states …