9.24.2025 – hard to obey rules

hard to obey rules,
they mean something, I believe …
I thought you did, too

But the difference is, you see in this world you learn a set of rules, or you don’t learn them.

But assuming you learn them, you stick by them.

They may be no damn good, but you’re who you are and what you are because they’re your rules and you stick by them.

And of course when it’s easy to stick by them, that’s no test.

It’s when it’s hard to obey the rules, that’s when they mean something.

That’s what I believe, and I always thought you did too.

From A Rage to Live by John O’Hara,(New York : Random House, 1949).

This little passage by the great (just ask him) John O’Hara kinda more or less sums up my feelings on the current crisis in government we are all living with.

Back in the day when those founding fathers were founding this nation and writing out the rules, they KNEW they had a problem.

They designed a pretty good system where, for the most part, people had a voice in the affairs of the nation and it was all laid out in the rules.

Rules so basic, that the they needed little adjustment, some minor, some glaring, since they were written in to the Constitution and Bill of Rights back in 1787.

Still, when it was finished, signed and published, Dr. Benjamin Franklin issued his famous warning that the people now had, A republic, if you can keep it.

IF … you can keep it.

A warning to be sure but why?

Why?

Because it depended on the people playing by the rules.

Both sides.

Yes, yes, yes, there would be a lot of rule bending to be sure but for the most part the rules held.

Because both sides played by the rules.

And I guess here is where I am the most depressed.

Mr. O’Hara gives some leeway in his discourse on rules, saying … in this world you learn a set of rules, or you don’t learn them.

These folks, all of us, KNOW THE RULES.

Boy, Howdy but a great effort in schools was made to make sure we all knew the rules and how those rules made this country different and why there were important.

Now, those rules may be no damn good, but you’re who you are and what you are because they’re your rules and you stick by them.

And of course when it’s easy to stick by them, that’s no test.

It’s when it’s hard to obey the rules, that’s when they mean something.

That’s what I believe, and I always thought you did too.

That’s where I am with the rules set up by men but I can say the same thing about the rules set up by God.

The rule in the book of Matthew, Chapter 22, verse 39 that states: ‘Love your neighbor’.

More simply, a rule based on the word, love.

Maybe there are those who will say I am taking the rule ‘out of context.’

But I don’t think so.

If fact, I don’t know how you can take Love your neighbor OUT of context, it is that clear and that simple.

You might as well try to take a stop sign out of context.

As David French wrote in his opinion piece, Why MAGA Evangelicals Can Cheer Love and Hate at the Same Time (NYT, 9/24/2025)

If MAGA evangelicals cheer Trump’s hate, if they welcome it, if they adopt it and if they vote for it, then they are responsible for it. His malice becomes theirs.

Love.

Love your neighbor.

Now, this rule may be no damn good, but you’re who you are and what you are because they’re your rules and you stick by them.

And of course when it’s easy to stick by them, that’s no test.

It’s when it’s hard to obey the rules, that’s when they mean something.

That’s what I believe, and I always thought you did too.

9.21.2025 – gallup poll results?

gallup poll results?
half country never even
heard word watergate

You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll?

Half the country never even heard of the word, Watergate.

Nobody gives a shit.

You guys are probably pretty tired, right?

Well, you should be.

Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up… 15 minutes.

Then get your asses back in gear.

We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there.

Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.

Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I’m going to get mad.

Goodnight.

Jason Robards playing the role of Ben Bradlee in the movie, All the President’s Men.

I was 12 years old in 1972.

I had heard of Watergate.

I have always had a problem with this line in the book and the movie, All the President’s Men.

I find it difficult to believe that 50% of the Country had not heard the word Watergate in 1972.

But there it is.

Today, there are people in the news that capture a world wide discussion that I have never heard of.

But I digress.

Its the Watergate story of Nixon versus the Washington Post that intrigues me.

With the passing of Robert Redford, the movie, All the President’s Men, is getting a lot of air time.

Like so many movies of good versus evil, To Kill a Mockingbird, Casablanca, The Diary of Anne Frank, the Hiding Place, I have to ask, who watches these movies and pulls for the other side, who identifies with the other side.

In this movie, All the President’s Men, are some viewers sad for what happened to Nixon?

Or are they sad that Nixon went down, as I view it today, because he played by the rules, at the least the rules that said what he did was wrong.

Democracy only works if both sides abide by the rules of Democracy.

When Nixon was caught outside the rules, he complied with rule of law and the Constitution and he left.

Who knew back then, All he had to do was ignore the rules and the resignation never had to have taken place.

No Gerald Ford moment.

No Gerald Ford quote, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”

It is my fondest hope that once again and maybe soon we hear those words again:

Our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.

Here the people rule.

But ASIDE from all that, are there folks who watch this movie, All the President’s Men, and well …

Or are those folks just smart enough to not watch the movie.

Who wants to waste their time on a happy ending?

BTW – I have more respect in my heart for Corrie Ten Boom than I ever could imagine.

9.20.205 – vituperation

vituperation
and invective failing to
get to the point

A federal judge tossed Donald Trump’s $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, book publisher Penguin and two Times reporters, and said the suit was filled with “vituperation and invective” and violated civil procedure in federal cases for failing to get to the point.

From the article, Judge strikes down Trump’s $15bn lawsuit against the New York Times by George Chidi in the Guardian.

The Judge who tossed the lawsuit wrote:

A complaint is a mechanism to fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically inform the defendants — in a professionally constrained manner consistent with the dignity of the adversarial process in an Article III court of the United States — of the nature and content of the claims. A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response. Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.

This complaint stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements of Rule 8. This action will begin, will continue, and will end in accord with the rules of procedure and in a professional and dignified manner.

The Judge told the President’s lawyers to go back to school and AI most likely and come up with a complaint that meets existing standards and gave them 4 weeks to do it.

It is not over but just one more sign for one side, that we are dealing with a clown car of staffers who couldn’t get a job in a meat marker which is really unfair to folks who work in a meat marker and for the other side, that left leaning commie pinko woke judges are standing in the way of might makes what is right.

Just another brick in the wall.

Still I live for the day to read a historical account of this administration that by ALL accounts, it was filled with “vituperation and invective”, failing to get to the point.

To quote Big Bill:

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth (Act 5 Scene 5).

See all the Thurber Drawings I could identity at Muggs and Rex – Click here!

9.18.2025 – concerted effort

concerted effort
to try … try … to lie to the
American people

In an interview on Wednesday, the Trump-appointed head of the US media regulator, the Federal Communications Commission of the United States (FCC), said Kimmel had made a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people”.

Brendan Carr went on to call Kimmel’s comments an attempt to “play into a narrative that this was somehow a Maga or Republican-motivated person”.

From the article, Explainer: What did Jimmy Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk’s killing? by Jonathan Yerushalmy and Oliver Holmes in the Guardian.

Am I the only one banging there head on the floor until it really hurts?

Mr. Kimmel was taken off the air because he made a concerted effort to try to lie.

Try to lie?

Try?

When the guy in the oval office …

Did you see how that TV Channel in Great Britain complied a show on that feller of nothing but 3 hours of his lies?

A review said Channel 4’s use of facts to correct almost everything the US president has said since taking office in January is a monumental flex. Sadly three hours of him speaking is deadeningly boring.

Three hours of him, not trying to, but actually lying.

And Mr. Kimmel TRIED TO LIE according to FCC.

Well as Carl Fox (Played by Martin Sheen in the Movie Wall Street) said:

I don’t go to bed with no whore, and I don’t wake up with no whore.

That’s how I live with myself.

I don’t know how you do it.

9.17.2025 – character, and the

character, and the
common moral sentiment
were their own safeguards

As long as he was able to maintain that by a broad restoration of individual character war would strengthen his society, Theodore Roosevelt could ignore the problem of power.

He, with William McKinley, Pierpont Morgan, and others of the old consensus, assumed that character automatically controlled power.

The decisions of self -regulating men of character would be right, socially beneficent, indeed altogether irreproachable, whether the issue were a vote, a war, an industry, or a canal.

Character, and the common moral sentiment for which it stood, were their own safeguards against any abuse of power.

The Mirror of war: American society and the Spanish-American War by Gerald F. Linderman (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974).

Along with everything else any cat might drag in, there seems to be a hue and cry against the evils … THE EVILS … of higher education.

The type of place that might teach that character, and the common moral sentiment for which it stood, were their own safeguards against any abuse of power.

Boy HOWDY but do I see why there are those who don’t want anything like that to be taught to college age kids.

Just imagine if a batch of 22 year-olds were dropped into society thinking that character, and the common moral sentiment for which it stood, was important!

I can imagine it.

It was me.

This book was written by Dr. Gerald F. Linderman, the man who gave the 1st real college lecture I ever had the privilege, AND I DO mean privilege of attending.

He taught a survey class of United States History from the Civil War to WW2.

He would stand in front of the class in this huge lecture and at 10 after the hour he would start speaking.

You could soon hear him through out the hall, not that spoke louder but the class would suddenly get less than quiet.

Early on I found out the best seats were in the front rows and I would sit back, spell bound, and listen as Dr. Linderman spun a tale of hero’s and villain’s as he taught the history of the United States.

For the rest of the time I was in college, I took every class I could from Dr. Linderman.

And if there weren’t classes from Dr. Linderman, there was Dr. Fine, Dr. Lockridge and Dr. Lindner.

See, I went to the University of Michigan.

I went to the University of Michigan and I am proud of it.

Sure I like the football team and the basketball team and the big stadium.

But I am here to tell you that if all I could brag about was the 6,000,000 books in the library and the way my mind got opened up by people who understood the value of such a library, I would wear a a Michigan T shirt with just as much pride.

I know, I know, I know, a lot of that comes across as pretty arrogant but if you were there and experienced the challenges, well, all I can say is that it was a pretty special place and it created pretty special people.

Yes I felt I was at one of the top universities in the world.

Yes, I felt I was up against other students who were among the top students anywhere.

Yes, I felt I held my own and if I could hold my own against those students at that University, then yes, I felt I could succeed anywhere.

If that’s arrogance, then so be it.

Because along with those challenges, it was up to you to embrace it.

It wasn’t for everyone

But if you did, the University embraced you back.

There was another student favorite Professor who taught great books by the name of Dr. Ralph Williams.

Each year he would open his class with a welcome speech.

I have done my best to reconstruct this speech from memory.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the University of Michigan!

You have come to a great university, and you come now into a time of extraordinary possibility. This university, vast and varied, is a world unto itself—a place where people from across the globe gather, not only to learn, but to inquire, to explore, and to become.

At Michigan, you will encounter ideas that will challenge you, and people who will expand your understanding of the world. You will study with faculty who are among the best in their fields—who have committed their lives not only to knowledge but to the transformation that knowledge can bring.

And you—each one of you—belong here. Regardless of your background, your accent, your style, your strengths, your uncertainties—you are meant to be here. You have been chosen not only for what you have already achieved but for what you might become.

You are now part of a living tradition, stretching back over 200 years, and yet always reinventing itself. You walk in the same Diag as poets and scientists, as civil rights leaders and Nobel laureates, as people who once stood where you stand, wondering what lies ahead.

My friends—because you are my friends—make the most of this time. Read deeply. Ask questions. Dare to speak. Dare to listen. Reach out to those unlike you, and learn from them. Seek not only information, but understanding. Seek not only success, but wisdom.

And remember: you are not alone here. You are part of a community that believes in you, that hopes with you, and that stands ready to help you grow.

Welcome to the University of Michigan.

Welcome home.

Look, if your college experience wasn’t like this, I am sorry.

I probably had more fun than I should have.

But I grew up a lot as well.

And I can see how an experience like this might scare a lot of people.

Kids, young kids, going someplace where the Professors said:

Ask questions.

Dare to speak.

Dare to listen

A place where people from across the globe gather, not only to learn, but to inquire, to explore, and to become.

I always remembered you are not alone here. You are part of a community that believes in you, that hopes with you, and that stands ready to help you grow.

Scary right?

I sure do understand why some folks would be afraid of places that teach things like that.

Oh geeee whiz.

BTW – As for higher learning, I once was supposed to meet my friend Doug, in front of this building, Angell Hall, on Central Campus. It was winter and I made a bunch of snowballs and hid behind the columns waiting for Doug to come walking up the sidewalk. Standing there, snowball in hand, I heard, HEY MIKE. Doug had come thru the building and came out behind me. Sometimes you can be friends too long.