London Bicentennial (Snippet 10)

 Jack Johnson Jailed in London - 1909

That article is from the Daily Alaskan, Skagway, Aug. 7,1909.

   The story also appeared in the New York Times on Aug. 7, 1909: "Jack" Johnson Fined: Was Charged With Running Down Automobile With His Machine."

   LONDON, Ontario, Aug. 6.-Jack Johnson, the negro pugilist, was arrested here this morning on the strength of a telegram from the Chief of Police at Woodstock, Ontario.

   Johnson is alleged to have gone through Woodstock at an excessive rate of speed in his automobile and to have run down another autoist, smashing his machine.

  He took his arrest quietly and wanted to pay his fine, whatever it might be. It was arranged by telephone that Police Magistrate Love of London should try the case. Johnson was fined $55 and continued on his way to Chicago."

   The car may have been this one:

  The "Galveston Giant" was often in trouble with the law, particularly when he was with white women, three of whom were his wives. There is plenty written about him and there is a Ken Burn's documentary. The Wikipedia entry will keep you busy for the rest of the day. 
   Johnson was in the news more recently. President Trump pardoned him during his first term. Here is what was said in the Oval Office: "Remarks by President Trump at Pardoning of John Arthur “Jack” Johnson" May 24, 2018.

Nature Dies In Darkness

    Events are being cancelled, some news is censored and other sensitive subjects are not broached. There is more silence than there was. People disappear and some things disappear, never having been seen. One of those things is The National Nature Assessment. 
   The assessment was announced on Earth Day in 2022. President Biden issued and executive order to undertake a thorough examination of the state of nature. The evaluation of the environment was to be done by a large number of experts and scientists, who were mostly volunteers. Research was undertaken and hundreds of pages written. A draft of the report was about to be submitted, but, The National Nature Assessment was cancelled by the Trump administration.

   The National Nature Assessment disappeared, but The Nature Record exists. The authors of the Assessment thought their work needed to be evaluated and made public. They did not want the data to disappear. 
   The 800+ pages of the draft is available for public comments and scientific review. "For a chapter-by-chapter journey through the state of nature in America," here is The Nature Record.  It can be read online or downloaded. If you fear that nature is not in good shape and don't want to read about it, skip to Chapter 4: "Bright Spots in Nature."

Samizdat:
   I usually write "Sources", but perhaps that word is now appropriate. For more background see:
   Catrin Einhorn produced two good reports for the New York Times:
1) "Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway: The first full draft of the assessment, on the state of America’s land, water and wildlife, was weeks from completion. The project leader called the study “too important to die.” NYT, Feb. 10, 2026.
  "The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States.
   But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, an environmental scientist named Phil Levin, sent an email telling members of his team that their work had been discontinued.
   But it wasn’t the only email he sent that day.
   “This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the report’s authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”

2) "Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently: A draft assessment of the health of nature in the United States is grim but shot through with bright spots and possibility."
Catrin Einhorn, NYT - March 5, 2026
   "The report’s name has changed from the National Nature Assessment to the Nature Record, to reflect that it is a new, independent effort, but it builds off work that was already underway and most of the authors remain the same. Its scientific review will be conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the same organization that would have reviewed the report had it remained under the auspices of the federal government.    
   The first two chapters that will summarize the sprawling endeavor are not yet written, because the authors are waiting until after this round of feedback. But 13 other chapters are in place.
   The report explores not only actions that harm nature, but also how people are affected by nature and its loss, with chapters on human health, the economy and national security. And throughout, the report highlights solutions and nature’s ability to recover when given the chance."
  For an example of reports on various substacks see:
"Why the Trump Administration Couldn’t Kill the Nature Record: Science has a way of refusing to stay buried", Jeff Nesbit, The Contrarian, March 16, 2026.  

Dyslexia and Decorum

  A lack of the latter was again displayed in what passes for public discourse these days. On a book tour, California Governor Gavin Newsom has mentioned his dyslexia which is covered in his book. President Trump took notice and, with his usual empathy remarked that Newson “said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!”
  I should note that Newsom’s response was also a little less than decorous: “Newsom fired back at Trump on the social platform X, saying, “I spoke about my dyslexia.” “I know that’s hard for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles to understand,” he added.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated a lack of concern for those with dyslexia, among, it must be admitted, a very large number of other groups for which little concern is shown.

Font Fights

    In the Great Reaction and backlash to the somewhat excessive efforts of the DEI folks, there was one you likely missed. It came at the tail-end of last year and involved typeface, which was just typed in a different way and you may not have noticed. For people with various visual disabilities, like dyslexia, the types of typefaces can make a difference.
  Way back in 2023 during the Biden Administration, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a directive that the State Department drop the typeface, Times New Roman and adopt Calibri. Calibri is more accessible it was argued and Blinken said “that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

  On Dec. 9, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive. Marco’s memo has, as its subject heading: “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.” The reaction was immediate.

  On Dec. 10, this response to the Times New Roman directive appeared in The New York Times. Since it is likely you chose not to read this typeface article, given all the other Trump news, much of it is reproduced below, where the issues and arguments are displayed in Arial.

“A Typeface Falls Victim In the Push Against D.E.I.: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Called the Biden-era Move to the Sans Serif Typeface ''wasteful,'' Casting the Return to Times New Roman as Part of a Push to Stamp out Diversity Efforts,” 

 by Mike Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz.
    Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department's official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a ''wasteful'' sop to diversity.
  While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ''radical'' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

   In an ''Action Request'' memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would ''restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work.'' Calibri is ''informal'' when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and ''clashes'' with the department's official letterhead….
  Mr. Rubio's directive, under the subject line ''Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,'' served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.

   Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department's office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

   Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken's move was applauded by accessibility advocates.

   But Mr. Rubio's order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, ''was not among the department's most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,'' the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio called it a failure by its own standards, saying that ''accessibility-based document remediation cases'' at the department had not declined.

  ''Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence,'' Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department's official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)

  Echoing President Trump's call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters.

   Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter.

  Serif typefaces are ''generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,'' Mr. Rubio's order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One.

   Many diplomats are unhappy with changes Mr. Rubio has made to the department's structure and leadership, and have reported badly damaged morale within their ranks. But the Biden administration's move to Calibri prompted some grumbling from some traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Mr. Blinken also changed the standard font size, from 14-point to 15-point, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.”

   
  A few days later there was this follow-up piece in the Times: “Is Times New Roman Better Than Calibri for the State Department?” by Jonatha Corum, Dec.13. Perhaps this is the most important point in it: “I wonder if it’s all a bit of a distraction from what the State Department is actually doing, rather than the font they’re doing it in,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer known for Gotham, Interstate and other ubiquitous typefaces. “But it is an opportunity to talk about what makes things legible.” Perhaps the larger question is not which typeface is best, or the rationale for the change, but whether the clever people in the Trump administration deliberately chose Times New Roman to sabotage Newsom's run for the presidency. One would not want to elect a president who could not read the State Department memos. Or, the hugest question might be, to use a word of the kind often employed by the current President, do you think President Trump has ever read a State Department memo?

Sources: I have provided enough for this typeface topic and you can easily find some on your own. I could offer more, but will just give you the one with the best title: "A New Serif in Town: Trump's Font Culture War" by Will Barker in The Week:UK. CANCON Up here in the north things tend to move at a glacial pace, which has been quickening. DEI mantras arrived here fairly fast, but the Great Reaction is just now beginning and only the most extreme DEI demands have started to melt. On the language front, things seem fairly calm. The Government of Canada has enough problems in sending out memos in the two official languages so font issues are probably on the back burners. It is the case, however, that several new languages, which are very old, have been added and typeface traumas may be in the offing. Fonts for some of the Indigenous languages are being developed, particularly in British Columbia, but there are sure to be complaints from settlers who will not be able to find the characters on their keyboards, which sometimes are now required in official documents. There are many examples. The first one below is an "Acknowledgement" and the second a sign.

“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.”

Operation Epic Fury

 

Basic Numbers
   Given the rather operatic title of this post and the actual Operation, it will seem odd to do a bit of elementary accounting. It also may seem a bit crass to focus on the money being spent, rather than the lives being lost. But, it will be pointed out below that the thousands of technicolour explosions seen on our TV screens are expensive to produce and would strain even the budget of Paramount Skydance and the Ellisons. 
   I am as bad at accounting as I am most other subjects and am only doing this because I happened upon an article based on a list, provided by the US Central Command, of  "assets" being used to support Operation Epic Fury. The citation follows and I will present here, just a list of some of the "assets" which are well described in it: "Warships, Explosive Drones and Stealth Bombers: The High-tech Weapons and Hardware the US is Using to Attack Iran," Brad Lendon, CNN, Mar.2, 2026.
B-2 stealth bombers
LUCAS one-way drones
US warships
Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems:
Fighter jets
EA-18G Electronic Attack Aircraft
Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft (AWACS):
Airborne Communication Relay aircraft
P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft:
RC-135 Reconnaissance Aircraft:
MQ-9 Reapers:
M-142 HIMARS
Refueling assets
Cargo aircraft

   There are other assets being used and there are support assets needed for support for the assets, which also need support.
   One is reminded of Rumsfeld's remark, "because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."
It was made back when Iraq was the issue and the Department of War operated under the dainty name of the Department of Defense.

   Although the costs of employing and maintaining the assets are not provided in the article mentioned, I did find a piece, from which we can know some of the costs involved. It is: " Aircraft Carriers and Stealth Bombers are Expensive to Use," Ryan Cooper, The American Prospect, March 3, 2026.

   Let's just look at the B-2s. The first article provides these data relating to the last time the U.S. totally destroyed the Iranian nuclear bases.

   "The bat-winged bombers, priced at more than a billion dollars each, are the most potent platform in the US Air Force. Powered by four jet engines, the B-2 can carry conventional or nuclear weapons, with intercontinental range and aerial refueling. Piloted by a crew of two, the B-2s usually fly from their home at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, as they did last year when they struck Iranian nuclear complexes in a 34-hour round-trip mission. That mission last June was undertaken by seven of the 19 B-2s in the fleet, with others used for a feint trip to Hawaii. They used the biggest of the US conventional bombs – the 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator – to attack three Iranian nuclear sites." The Cooper piece supplies the numbers US taxpayers will be interested in, especially those taxpayers who are "America Firsters: "CNN compiled a partial list of the ships and planes being used in the bombing campaign. They include B-2 bombers (about $88,000 per hour to operate), F-15 fighters ($25,000 per hour), F-16 fighters ($14,000 per hour), F-22 fighters ($56,000 per hour), F-35 fighters ($17,000 per hour), F-18 fighters ($25,000 per hour), E/A-18G electronic warfare planes ($20,000 per hour), P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance planes ($9,000 per hour), plus several other manned planes, and a large number of drones, all using up an untold amount of fuel and ordnance. All this air power is operating from two full-scale carrier strike groups, each of which costs something like $8 million per day to operate. The military is also chewing through its supply of Patriot ($4 million per shot) and THAAD ($13 million per shot) missile interceptors so fast that it is reportedly considering stripping South Korea of some of its missile defense batteries." The Missouri to Iran round-trip flight for one B-2 is about 34 hours at $88,000 per hour. President Trump and many MAGAS don't trust CNN, the source for some of these numbers, but that may change now that it is owned by the Ellisons. I am sure they have more faith in the Wall Street Journal, but it also reports that all this locking and loading is not cheap:

"Repositioning U.S. military forces to the Middle East before U.S. and Israeli strikes began on Saturday is estimated to have cost taxpayers about $630 million, according to Elaine McCusker, a top budget official at the Pentagon during the first Trump administration who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Moving more than a dozen ships and flying more than 100 aircraft to the region accounts for the bulk of cost, McCusker said. It's likely that these costs incurred before the strikes started could be absorbed by the Pentagon's $839 billion budget appropriation for fiscal 2026, she said.Now that strikes have begun, those costs will increase to account for warplane sorties, aerial refueling, and replacement of the munitions used, McCusker said."

The Bonus: "Friendly Fire" It was also the Wall Street Journal that reported that the three jets shot down by the Kuwaitis cost more than $30 million each. "Kuwaiti Jet Fighter Mistakenly "Downed U.S. F-15s, Initial Reports Say...", by Marcus Weisgerber, Lara Seligman, WSJ, March 4, 2026 and "How Much Does an F-15 Jet Fighter Cost?", Georgi Kantchev, WSJ, March 2, 2026: "The three U.S. F-15 jet fighters mistakenly shot down in Kuwait come at a steep price. The F-15E Strike Eagle model, which the U.S. said was involved in the incident, costs $31.1 million, according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. That price uses 1998 constant dollars, meaning its value would be higher in today's money. The F-15E Strike Eagle is a fighter introduced in the 1980s and designed to perform air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. Newer models of the F-15 aircraft cost close to $100 million.

Source:
  The graphic at the top is from: the Anadolu Agency, about which I know nothing:

"US Offensive on Iran Burned Through an Estimated $779M On First Day," Efe Ozkan, AA, 04/03/2026. 
  For those of you suspicious about some of the sources above, here is a document from the US government, back before the wimpy Department of Defense was renamed. 
SUBJECT: Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Department of Defense (DoD) Fixed Wing and Helicopter Reimbursement Rates effective October 1, 2024. The attached FY 2025 DoD fixed wing and helicopter reimbursement rates are now available on the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) (OUSD(C)) website:

 

Autocracy Watch

    I chose "Autocracy Watch" for a title and when I searched, just now, for that phrase, I learned that it is used by the political scientist, Yascha Mounk. Apparently his "Autocracy Watch"  "analyzes the state of democracy and potential shifts toward authoritarianism in the United States and globally."
   Back in October, 2025, the New York Times introduced an "Autocracy Index" which includes a dozen signposts as indicators of "democratic erosion".  They are worth noting, as is the fact that there seem to be more organizations and institutions "on watch" these days. 

The Autocracy Index
   The 12 "Markers of Democratic Erosion" are listed here:

Stifling speech and dissent

Persecuting political opponents

Bypassing the legislature

Defying the courts

Declaring false emergencies

Using the military at home

Vilifying marginalized groups

Controlling information

Trying to take over universities

Creating a cult of personality

Using power for personal profit

Manipulating the law to stay in power

  The "Autocracy Index" presents these "Markers" and assigns numbers to them.  A zero (on the left side in the picture of the Index below), represents the state of democracy in the U.S. before Trump. Ten on the right side indicates a "true autocracy, such as China, Iran or Russia." The Times will be assessing these markers and moving them as they change. Some have already been moved and unfortunately, they are headed right - that is, in the wrong direction. The screen grab below was done in February, 2026:

  If you are a subscriber to the NYT it will be interesting to note any changes in "The Autocracy Index".  If you are not, I will let you know if there are major developments. But, in any case, it is useful to have a clear list of the markers to which we should pay more attention. 

   A reminder of the importance of following more closely, the threatening political developments was noted in an article this morning. The author writes that many Germans in Berlin in the 1940s witnessed bad things "and yet most people looked away, pretending to see nothing, and carried on with their lives. Why? As is so often the case under autocratic regimes, from Hitler’s Berlin to Mussolini’s Rome to Vladimir Putin’s Moscow, things go from bad to worse in stages. Today’s outrage is tomorrow’s normal. People adapt and get used to it."
(From: "Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today," Ian Buruma, NYT, Feb. 22, 2026.)

Sources:
   More information about autocracies is found in indices related to the levels of democracy. The Economist Intelligence Unit publishes one as does Statista. Their latest one for the U.S., done in November, 2025 noted that:

  "The level of democracy in the United States decreased since 2006. The reasons for this are manifold, but decreasing trust in elected officials, prohibitively high costs associated with running for office, as well as increasing voting restrictions are among the reasons. Nevertheless, the United States remains a democracy based on its index score of 7.85 in 2024. Countries are given a score from 0 to 10 with scores closer to 10 meaning the country is more democratic."

Well Poisoning: 
  On the environmental front things are also not well. This headline, from Feb. 9, and the following more recent ones are all you need for sources:

  "Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation:

A small group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts seem poised to pay off,"

By Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow," NYT, Feb.9, 2026.

and:

   "Trump Order Aims to Boost Weedkiller Targeted in Health Lawsuits

An executive order aimed at ramping up production of glyphosate set off alarms among supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.", By Hiroko Tabuchi and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT, Feb.18,

and:
 "MAHA Moms Turn Against Trump: ‘Women Feel Like They Were Lied To’:

 President Trump’s executive order aimed at spurring production of a pesticide has infuriated leaders of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement", 

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Hiroko Tabuchi, NYT, Feb. 19, 2026.
Maybe this is actually a bit of good news:

   "When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threw his support behind Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House, his corps of health conscious, mostly female, followers embraced the president, who pledged to address Americans’ concerns about “toxins in our environments and pesticides in our food.”

  Some of the women, who call themselves the MAHA Moms after Mr. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement, abandoned the Democratic Party to vote for Mr. Trump.

   But the executive order Mr. Trump issued Wednesday to increase domestic production of glyphosate — a widely used weedkiller and possible carcinogen that has been the target of thousands of lawsuits, including one brought by Mr. Kennedy — stunned and infuriated the activists.

It now threatens to turn the brief MAHA-Trump marriage into a divorce."

FACTLET (19)

 Logorrhea
   Here are the earliest definitions of the word as found in the Oxford English Dictionary:
1902–
Excessive volubility accompanying some forms of mental illness; also gen., an excessive flow of words, prolixity.
1902
Logorrhea refers to the excessive flow of words, a common symptom in cases of mania.
1907 In the case of a man suffering from the insanity known as logorrhea the ideas come rapidly tumbling over each other.

   I looked up the definition of " logorrhea" because it appeared in this piece: "It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea: How Many Polite Ways are There to Ask Whether the President of the United States is Losing It?, By Susan B. Glasser January 22, 2026, The Atlantic. Here is how it was used and the Factlet is in bold:
"Donald Trump is an editor’s nightmare and a psychiatrist’s dream. Amid all the coverage marking the first anniversary of his return to the White House, one story—which did not get the attention it deserved—stood out for me: a Times analysis of how much more the President has been talking and talking and talking. The findings? One million nine hundred and seventy-seven thousand six hundred and nine words in the Presidential appearances, as of January 20th—an increase of two hundred and forty-five per cent compared with the first year of Trump’s first term in office, back in 2017."

   I realize I recently said I would not bring up this 'subject' again, but technically it was brought up by someone else and you have to admit that the Factlet is an interesting one. Here the data are illustrated:

They are from this article, which indicates that Trump is talking far more this term than he did in his first. 

  The article also charts the use of particular words, geographic terms, company names and even superlatives. The article: "How Trump Is Talking Differently in His Second Term," Jonah Smith, Jan. 20, 2026, The New York Times. I am not sure how exactly the tabulations were made, but they seem to originate from this source: Roll Call's Factba.se. 
The Bonus: 
   Here is another interesting Factlet, found in a very good article in The New Yorker. The fact checkers at that magazine are known for their rigorous scrutiny. I wonder how long it took them to validate this statistic?
   "America’s busiest national park isn’t Yosemite or Yellowstone; it’s the Great Smoky Mountains, which straddles the heavily forested border of North Carolina and Tennessee. Half the country can drive there in a day."
   From: "The Backcountry Rescue Squad at America’s Busiest National Park: In the Great Smoky Mountains, an auxiliary team of élite outdoorsmen answers the call when park-goers’ hikes, climbs, and rafting adventures go wrong," Paige Williams, The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2026.
P.S. About the fact checkers, see: "The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department," Zach Helfand, Aug. 25, 2025, The New Yorker.
  The last Factlet was about Menopause. 

Doomscrolling Defined

             Headlines From the Front Page of the New York Times
     There is no escaping this subject, even when you turn to Mulcahy's Miscellany. You will be able to figure out quickly what the subject is, by looking at the following headlines. These are from just one day, today, Jan. 20, 2026. From one front page! There were a few more found on the e-edition of the NYT, where the same subject is involved, if not explicitly mentioned: "We Ask Only That You Don’t Harm Greenland" and "Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home."
    My resolution early in this new year is to not mention this subject again, but you know how difficult it can be to keep one's resolutions. There will be a massive global regret when we realize how much time we all spent on such a subject.

"The Trump Drama Hits Davos"
"Trump Threatens 200 Percent Tariffs on French Wine"
Trump Issues M.L.K. Day Proclamation After Criticism
"Trump’s First Year Could Have Lasting Economic Consequences"
"Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power"
"How Trump Is Remaking America, State by State"
"When Trump Took a Whack at the C.D.C., Atlanta Lost Something, Too"
"Federal Reserve Inquiry Clouds Trump’s Supreme Court Bid to Oust Lisa Cook"
"How Trump Uses the Oval Office to Flex Power on the World Stage"
"‘This Is Trump’s Goon Squad, for Christ’s Sake’"
"After Trump Shut the Border, a Texas Shelter for Migrants Emptied"
"With Threats to Greenland, Trump Sets America on the Road to Conquest"
"European "Leaders Push Back as President Reinforces Greenland Threats"
"Falsehoods Fueled Trump’s First Year Back in Office"

                     The Subject Could Not Be Avoided, Even in Cartoons

And, again, even when not directly mentioned, the subject is obvious.

Acronym of the Year - Already

 FAFO
   Today, the temperature rose several degrees (many more in Fahrenheit) and I have another excuse for not blogging. I couldn't resist doing this post, however, since I can be the second person, early in this new year, to suggest that at year-end, FAFO will be the acronym that will best summarize all of 2026.
  The person who called FAFO to my attention is Professor McWhorter and I am pleased to be able to agree with someone, something perhaps we should all try this year. Here is what he said and he is a linguist - and he is also black since apparently we are still supposed to be concerned about such things.
  "My bet is that we will hear a lot about the FAFO doctrine this year. By December, it will be a contender for a spot on my list of the most important words of 2026."
   I will not bother to define the acronym. You will learn what it means soon enough.

Source:
  "The Normalization oF 'FAFO' Might Be Good For English," John McWhorter, The New York Times, Jan.8, 2026.
(HINT - Hesgeth is involved for those of you who are baffled.)

Photos - 2025

 Sunrise in the East

Sunset On the West

Credits:
1. The top two photographs are by Daniel Pullen and there are more in this article:
"Battling The Sea On The Outer Banks,' Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, Nov.12, 2025.
2. The third photo is from: "2025: The Year in Pictures - Reflections of Turbulent Times," NYT, Dec.31, 2025. The caption:

Jan. 9 Los Angeles

"A house destroyed by the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and engulfed thousands of homes. Once known for its stunning views, the Pacific Palisades area was left unrecognizable by the blaze." Kyle Grillot for The New York Times

3.The photo of the ICE posters is from: "ICE Plans to Spend $100 Million on Influencer-Driven 'Wartime' Recruitment Campaign," The Washington Post, Drew Harwell & Joyce Sohyun Lee, Dec. 31, 2025.
  "An internal ICE document shared among immigration officials details plans to use influencers and geo-targeted ads to rapidly hire thousands of deportation officers."
4.The picture of the rubble of the East Wing is from" "New Images Offer Closer Look at Demolition For the White House Ballroom," Jonathan Edwards, The Washington Post, Dec. 31, 2025. Also lost were many old trees. 

   Pictures Are Worth Thousands of Words, But These Sum It Up For 2025

"Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Awful: A damage assessment of the President’s first year back in the White House", By Susan B. Glasser, The Atlantic, Dec.31, 2025

  "No matter how low one’s expectations were for 2025, the most striking thing about the year when Donald Trump became President again is how much worse it turned out to be.

   Did we anticipate that Trump would come back to office wanting to rule as a king, consumed by revenge and retribution, and encouraged by sycophants and yes-men who would insure that he faced few of the constraints that hampered him in his first term? Yes, but now we know that bracing for the worst did not make the inevitable any less painful. In the future, historians will struggle to describe that feeling, particular to this Trump era, of being prepared for the bad, crazy, and disruptive things that he would do, and yet also totally, utterly shocked by them."

Wisdom from Woody

  "More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

   These days many who are religious see signs of the “End Times", while many more have good reason to believe we are living in the “Grim Times”. I suggest that our era could be characterized as the “Whim Times” since citizens all around the world are affected by the capriciousness of one unstable and powerful autocrat in one country. As Dylan might say, “The answers, my friend, are blowin’ in the whim.”
   “Weltschmerz” might be the word that the Germans or the more learned would use to describe the general consensus held, at least, by the non-MAGA people, that things are not good. Given that things are bad, one might think that the wisdom of Woody was revealed very recently. That is not the case.
   Woody’s thoughtful remark was written at the end of the 1970s, a decade which would not generally be defined, by even the most nostalgic, as one containing a large number of the good old days. Still, 1979, the year of the Woody quote, must have been better than any since, say the inauguration of 2017. While many of the religious are anxiously wondering “What Would Jesus Do?”, I think the much more interesting question is now “What Would Woody Say?”

Source:
(And much, much more since my wife insists you don’t look at this part.)

The quotation is found in, “My Speech to the Graduates,” by Woody Allen, The New York Times, Aug. 10, 1979.

   I wondered if a closer look at his speech and the entire issue of The New York Times on Aug.10, of 1979 might reveal why Woody was feeling so glum. Many of the headlines then were similar to ones found now. Israel was an issue even at that time: “Giving Up Sinai is Deeply Painful to Israelis There” and “Mideast Plan is Offered and Quickly Disclaimed in Bonn,” are examples. Some things were simpler in the summer of ‘79. When the 24,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics announced that “The Girl Athlete” was to be the subject of a seminar at their next meeting, no mention of gender (trans or all the others) was made and the discussions were to be about such matters as athletic injuries. Woody could have been upset about the athletic endeavours of the NY baseball teams since the Yankees lost to the Sox, 5-1 and the Mets to the Cardinals by 4-0.
   Some things were better back then. At least for that one day in August in 1979, there was no mention in the NYT of the crook from Queen's, who in the 80s was to be often referred to as the “short-fingered vulgarian", and in this century to be elected as President of the United States - twice!

   Like Woody, I was around in 1979, but in Canada where maybe things were better than they were for Woody in the U.S. But, I doubt that he ever thought the situation there would be as bad as it is now. He does offer us some additional wisdom at the end of the article which does make one feel better:
“Summing up, it is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock.”
 ----
                               "Making Light of Heavy Things Since 2016"

Lornado

    As you may have noticed, it has been too nice to blog and I am still not ready to do so since I can't think of an easy topic. But, I did run across a sentence in the New York Times on the weekend which began with these words: " I went down to Lornado..." Perhaps I can turn it into a post. 
   Lornado is a good word, I think, and I was unfamiliar with it and had no idea where it was. It sounds rather exotic and one is reminded of the Larry McMurtry novel, The Streets of Laredo.  It is in Ottawa, however, and if W.J. Fields had died there, he still might have said, "I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia." 
   Lornado is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Canada who, this week, is Pete Hoekstra from close-by Michigan. The Time's reporter was on his way there because there is always a big party at Lornado on July 4th. He was curious about how big it would be and very cautious about suggesting that it was not as big as it usually is. You will know that things are not good between our two countries and consorting with the enemy generally frowned upon. It appears that the affair was rather subdued, and the Canadians attending were well behaved. No Bronx cheers were delivered during the Ambassador's remarks.

Lornado the House
   Like the structure on 24 Sussex Drive and many other mansions in Canada, Lornado was built by someone from the United States and the United States purchased the 32 room building and ten acres in 1935. It has been the site of many events and you may have recognized the name from other news stories out of Ottawa.

Lornado the Word
   Apparently the original owner of Lornado, Mr. Soper, was a fan of a novel by R.D. Blackmore. That 19th century work is Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, and from that you will be able to figure out the derivation of the word, "Lornado."

Lorna Doone the Biscuit
   I was familiar with the words "Lorna Doone", but as a cookie or shortbread, and I am not sure why Nabisco chose the name. It does appear, however, that Nabisco is no longer an American company so it is okay to buy some Lorna Doone shortbreads if you wish. 

 

Source:

   We have learned a lot from this post and credit should be given to, Ian Austen, author of, "Celebrating the U.S. in Canada During Turmoil in the Two Countries' Relations," NYT, July 5, 2025. Here is a portion of his piece: 

   "The annual Fourth of July party hosted by the U.S. ambassador to Canada on the park-size grounds of his official residence has long been one of Ottawa’s biggest social events.
   But after months of President Trump belittling Canada’s viability as a nation and threatening to use economic chaos to force its annexation as the 51st state, the idea of gathering to celebrate the United States in Canada’s capital was, well, a bit awkward this year....
   The turnout was decidedly smaller than in past years, and the seating and food stations were somewhat scaled down. Many guests who have attended in past years told me they estimated the crowd was about half the usual size, though there were nevertheless a substantial number of people." 
   An attempt at humour by the Ambassador, did not go over well and is not that funny, but it is telling;   "The ambassador told his guests that he had been going around saying that Mark Carney, the prime minister, was wrong.

“He keeps saying that Canada’s going to be the fastest-growing economy in the G7,” Mr. Hoekstra said, referring to the Group of 7. “That’s not how this works. America and our president do not like being number two, so we will be the fastest-growing economy. We just passed a Big Beautiful Bill yesterday, which is going to energize our economy.”

   He did add his hope that Canada would become the second-fastest-growing economy within the group of industrialized nations."

"YELLOW-BELLIED"

 
Sapsucker, Woodpecker, Flycatcher and Other Assorted Critters...
  They are the names you may have thought of when you saw the title, "Yellow-Bellied." Long ago in England, the words are first found (1674) in a description of the belly of an eal (eel) and, in later years, in relation to various reptiles and some of the birds mentioned above. 
   In the United States, however, the words in the 19th century are attached to those who were determined to be "contemptible, low or mean." By the early 20th one, cowardice was implied and it is to those with no backbone that we now turn our attention.

"Yellow-bellied" As A Taunt
 When I recently saw the words, I thought of taunts rather than birds. "Yellow-belly" is what you were called if you were afraid to jump off the bridge or the barn roof, way back when "bullying" was expected and children not so easily traumatized. You may be surprised to learn that the words "yellow-bellied" were used last week in The New York Times in an article about large law firms lacking backbones, not one about birds. Some of them are pictured below, the ones that were bullied and which now are described as "yellow-bellied." Bullying may be generally frowned upon, but it apparently works well when done by a President. The current one has gone after the firms that went after him, or worked for the Dems, and many have agreed to do pro-bono work for the President if they want to get any work from the government. 
 

Sources:
  The OED is where the definitions of "yellow-bellied" are found.
   There are many recent articles about Trump's bullying of law firms and other entities and there will be more articles about the "yellow-bellied" and most of those won't be about birds.
   The impetus for this post is: "The Website Where Lawyers Mock ‘Yellow-Bellied’ Firms Bowing to Trump: Above the Law, a Legal Industry Website With a Long History of Skewering the Nation’s Most Elite Firms, Has Found a Moment and Plenty of Inside Tipsters,"  Elizabeth Williamson, NYT, May 18, 2025.
  For more mocking and skewering of law firms see, ABOVE THE LAW "which takes a behind-the-scenes look at the world of law. The site provides news and insights about the profession’s most colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments."
  "Fueled by a stream of inside-the-conference-room exclusives, Above the Law delivers a daily public spanking to what it calls “The Yellow-Bellied Nine.” Those are the elite firms who pledged a collective $1 billion in free legal work to Mr. Trump after he signed executive orders threatening to bar their lawyers from federal buildings, suspend their security clearances and cancel their government contracts. In the words of Above the Law, the firms “folded like a damp cocktail napkin” to the president’s demands for “pro bono payola.”...“I’ve always wondered,” he said, “when pressed, would rich liberal lawyers choose to stay rich or liberal? Now we know.”