In Defense of Pope Leo XIV

About 4,000 years ago, a man named Abraham heard a voice in his head instructing him to take his son, Isaac, to the top of a mountain and kill him as a sacrifice.  During the three-day journey, Abraham never thought to question whether anyone else had heard the voice.  Abraham misled Isaac, telling his son that a “lamb” would be waiting at the sacrifice point—all the while knowing that Isaac himself was the intended sacrifice.  It wasn’t until Abraham had tied his son down and was about to kill him that an angel intervened ordering Abraham to stop.  “Just kidding!”

If it became known today that a man was intending to murder his son because a voice in his head told him to, that man would quite properly be subjected to an emergency psychiatric evaluation, and family services would take steps to protect his son.  But because monotheists equate that voice with a deity, Abraham is looked upon as a hero by their flock.

Let’s fast-forward to the 18^th Century.

“I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

“But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.  My own mind is my own church.

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

“I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine.  But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself.  Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

For such apostasy, Theodore Roosevelt condemned the Founding Father as a “filthy little atheist.”  It was doubly unfair.  Paine wasn’t an atheist; he was quite explicitly a deist.  Deism is the belief that a creator or higher power exists but does not intervene supernaturally in the universe or reveal itself through organized religion or sacred texts.  The Age of Reason begins with Paine affirming his belief in one God and his hope for happiness beyond this life.  What he rejected was revealed religion, institutional religious authority, and the divine origin claimed for scripture.

So Roosevelt managed to pack quite a lot of disdain—and theological inaccuracy—into three words.

I would not describe myself as an atheist.  My own religious beliefs hover somewhere between deism and agnosticism.  Why do they hover instead of remaining static?  In my 59 years I’ve learned that absolutism usually amounts to a dead end.  But I do accept the science that estimates the observable universe’s age at 13.8 billion years and its size at roughly 93 billion light-years across.  Any entity that could create something so massive and complex could not be adequately explained by sheep herders thousands of years ago.

Further, biblical scholars will tell you that many of the stories that constitute the Holy Bible were passed down orally from generation to generation before being written down.  The notion that the Bible was, in the words of Carl Sagan, “dictated by the creator of the universe to an unerring stenographer, and so therefore it’s not metaphor or allegory,” as espoused by biblical literalists, is sheer folly that has been rejected by Roman Catholicism, Reform Judaism, and most mainstream Protestant denominations.

Whatever one thinks of the Catholic Church—and of the many scandals that have rocked the Church over the centuries, from the controversy surrounding Pope Pius XII’s questionable non-stance during the Holocaust to the more recent child sexual-abuse scandals—at least the Church has standardized requirements for its clergy.  (One must point out that other religious sects have their own issues with child sexual abuse, including child marriage.)  Before a Catholic priest can take charge of even the smallest parish, he must undergo years of education and formation, including extensive study of philosophy and theology.  In other words, he is expected to understand the historical, theological, and literary context behind what he reads in the Bible.

Let me be clear that I profoundly disagree with many aspects of Catholic doctrine, particularly when it comes to homosexuality and the right of women to control their bodies and become fully participating members of society.  But Pope Leo XIV—the first U.S.-born pope, who began life in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost—should be lauded for standing up to the toxicity of the Trump administration’s policies, particularly with regard to immigration, criminal justice, access to health care, climate change, and war and peace.

It is a bitter irony that some American Catholics are now posting anti-Leo memes and declaring “not my Pope.”  For the Holy Father’s statements on immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized closely reflect the teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth himself. WWJD indeed.

Compare this with many Pentecostal sects. I personally know of a man who was a policeman, retired due to medical issues, then decided to start his own church.  His qualification?  He “felt a calling.”  No theological degree.  No seminary training.  He simply believed God wanted him to preach.  What did he do as he led his little congregation?  He bullied the congregants and ranted on social media, particularly on the subject of homosexuality.  Not that he, or his son, who is similarly homophobic, had spotless sexual histories themselves.  But his toxicity was enough to harm other people, including his own grandson, who was struggling with his sexual orientation.

While I am not an atheist, neither could I be considered a Christian in the traditional sense. I do believe there is ample historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth (or someone very much like him) existed around 2,000 years ago; that he was a Jew who preached a philosophy emphasizing tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation; and that he was crucified by the Roman authorities.  I don’t believe, however, that he was the product of a virgin birth, that he was a child of God any more than any of us are, that he was resurrected after his death, or that wine and bread magically become his blood and body once blessed.  That’s mystical nonsense to me.  Sorry, not sorry.

Thus, my ideas about Jesus of Nazareth and Christianity in general have much in common with those of Thomas Jefferson, a deist like Paine, who had little patience for the supernatural elements of the Gospels and famously took a razor blade to them, creating his own version that preserved the teachings of Jesus he considered valuable.

I favor freedom of religion as espoused by the Founders of this country, particularly Paine and Jefferson. You are free to worship as you want, but you have no right to impose your religious beliefs upon others, either through civil law or through private coercion. That goes equally for all faiths, from Judaism to Christianity to Islam to Hinduism.

I hold firm to my belief that organized religion, as opposed to spirituality, is the greatest tragedy to befall the human race.  History is proof of that.

FDR and his Admirals

 

Franklin Roosevelt was fond of using the quote above, not from false modesty but because his ego was secure enough that he could acknowledge his own blind spots. He actively sought out people who could illuminate them, despising "yes men" who would later write "kiss ass and tell" memoirs.

This stands in marked contrast to the Trump administration. Donald Trump's ego is similarly outsized but underneath lies deep insecurity. Could anyone imagine FDR, if such technology existed in the 1940s, having 3am social media meltdowns?

I won’t review Trump’s first term, from the corruption to his mishandling of the emerging COVID pandemic. His tampering with the military during his second term has led to disastrous results throughout the services. Under the “leadership” of Secretary of Defense/War “Whiskey” Pete Hegseth, Judge Advocates General have been dismissed. An active-duty service member tells me many enlisted find this alarming—JAGs interpret the law and advise on whether questionable orders may be illegal. Hegseth gutted upper ranks, whining they were "DEI," replacing competent officers with toadies or leaving posts vacant.

There is a direct line between that and the disaster unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz, particularly aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: troops unfed, ships falling out of repair, care packages undelivered. More on that shortly. First, some history.

Roosevelt's Team

FDR assembled an unusually strong—and occasionally combustible—group of admirals during World War II. What made them remarkable wasn't uniformity of thought, but competence and shared purpose. That makes the quote above rather apt.

Ernest King became Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet after Pearl Harbor, then Chief of Naval Operations in March 1942. Brilliant, aggressive, and notoriously difficult—there was a wartime joke, attributed to his daughter, that he was "the most even-tempered person in the Navy: he is always in a rage."

Strategically, King ensured the Pacific didn't become a secondary theater. He accepted Roosevelt’s "Germany First" directive but constantly fought for resources to attack Japan simultaneously. Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands campaign owed much to his determination.

His relationship with Roosevelt was fascinating. FDR understood naval affairs unusually well for a president—he had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson—and consequently interacted with senior naval officers with considerable confidence. King was one of the relatively few people formidable enough to push back.

Then there was William D. Leahy, probably the admiral closest personally to Roosevelt.

Leahy had already been Chief of Naval Operations before the war and later became Roosevelt's Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. Leahy's personality was almost the inverse of King's. He was restrained, politically sophisticated and trusted deeply by Roosevelt. As Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, he functioned like today's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sitting beside FDR at wartime conferences, mediating between the president and military chiefs. While King ran the Navy, Leahy helped Roosevelt manage the entire war effort.

The great operational commander in the Pacific was, of course, Chester W. Nimitz.

After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt selected Nimitz to command the Pacific Fleet on the recommendation of Navy Secretary Frank Knox. It was one of the most consequential personnel decisions of the war. Nimitz possessed what King lacked: exceptional skill at managing talented people with incompatible personalities.

Within six months, Nimitz presided over Midway. More importantly, he created an environment where commanders could recover from mistakes—crucial in a war where decisions were made with incomplete intelligence thousands of miles from Washington.

Two of Nimitz's most important subordinates illustrate this.

Admirals Halsey and Spruance.

The Commanders

William Halsey Jr. was the aggressive fighter. "Bull" Halsey became enormously popular with sailors and the public—the commander you wanted when audacity mattered. But his aggressiveness sometimes outran his judgment. His decisions during Leyte Gulf remain controversial, particularly chasing the Japanese carrier force north while leaving Leyte's approaches exposed.

His counterpart was Raymond A. Spruance.

Spruance was cerebral, quiet, and methodical. He commanded the carrier force at Midway despite not being an aviator, making extraordinarily disciplined decisions under pressure. Later he led the Fifth Fleet during major Central Pacific operations, including the Marianas.

One of the Navy's cleverest organizational arrangements was that Halsey's Third Fleet and Spruance's Fifth Fleet were essentially the same fleet.

When Halsey commanded, it was Third Fleet; when Spruance took over, it became Fifth Fleet. Their staffs rotated, allowing one team to plan while the other executed. The system exploited their different strengths: Halsey supplied aggression and morale; Spruance supplied analytical precision.

Richmond K. Turner, less famous than Nimitz or Halsey, was indispensable—one of America's foremost amphibious-warfare commanders, perfecting the extraordinarily complex business of moving tens of thousands of troops, landing craft, naval gunfire, and aircraft onto hostile islands on precise timetables.

Thomas C. Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet operated closely with Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific, requiring considerable diplomatic skill given the tensions between MacArthur's headquarters and the Navy.

The Synthesis

The remarkable thing about Roosevelt's senior naval leadership, then, is how complementary it became:

• Roosevelt chose people and arbitrated strategy.
• Leahy coordinated military leadership around the president.
• King drove naval strategy and demanded resources.
• Nimitz managed the Pacific war and its commanders.
• Spruance provided calculated operational judgment.
• Halsey supplied aggressive offensive leadership.
• Turner mastered amphibious warfare.
• Kinkaid made naval power work inside MacArthur's command structure.

They weren't a harmonious family. King could be spectacularly abrasive; MacArthur and the Navy had serious strategic disagreements; senior commanders occasionally thought counterparts were making dreadful decisions.

But Roosevelt didn't need harmony. He needed competence.

Which brings us back to that FDR quote. He wasn't claiming to be the smartest man in the room. One of his genuine talents was arranging matters so that extremely smart—and very different—people were in the room with him.

Logistics Then and Now

Then there is the question of Naval logistics – the most important of which is feeding sailors. Wars are not fought on empty stomachs. That was true in 1942 and it’s true in 2026.  

Logistical failure is what is impacting ships in the Strait of Hormuz today.

What passes for a meal on the USS Abraham Lincoln

The situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln is the most visible example—a massive aircraft carrier with 5,000 crew. But this is theater-wide, not a carrier problem.

Iranian attacks damaged U.S. Gulf logistics nodes, most importantly Navy facilities in Bahrain. Bahrain had been the regional hub for food, spare parts, personnel, mail, and supplies. The Navy has shifted much support to Diego Garcia—roughly 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman.

This creates cascading problems. A warship doesn't simply "get supplies from America." Fuel, ammunition, food, parts, and consumables move through ports, warehouses, airfields, and replenishment ships. If nearby hubs are damaged, supply ships must travel farther to load and return. That means fewer replenishment cycles, longer delays, more fuel consumed moving supplies, and greater strain on finite logistics ships. Damage to other Gulf facilities compounds this.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz remains dangerous; commercial traffic has fallen sharply—hence high gas prices at home. Moving matériel through what should be one of the world's busiest maritime corridors grows harder.

So the problem can be summarized:

The U.S. still has enormously capable warships in the region, but Iran has attacked the infrastructure sustaining them. The farther the Navy must reach for supplies, the fewer it can deliver. The Lincoln's shortages are one symptom of a larger problem affecting destroyers, support ships, and other forces throughout the theater.

Of course, none of this would be an issue had not Trump decided to attack Iran, which has neither resolved the nuclear issue nor brought about more reasonable leadership in that country.  

WWII Logistics: The Ice Cream Barge

Combat power isn't merely ships and aircraft—it's the ability to keep feeding, fueling, arming, repairing, and crewing them indefinitely. Iran has attacked precisely that connective tissue.

Roosevelt's Navy understood logistics included morale. In the Pacific, sailors spent weeks in oppressive heat, thousands of miles from home, doing exhausting, dangerous work. Something as mundane as cold ice cream carried disproportionate psychological value.

The Navy installed ice-cream-making equipment aboard larger ships. In 1945 it commissioned a refrigerated concrete barge—popularly the "ice cream barge"—capable of producing substantial quantities for distribution to smaller ships and shore installations.

A correction to the mythology: accounts sometimes suggest an armada of dedicated ice-cream ships. The famous vessel was essentially a refrigerated storage/production barge, part of a much larger mobile logistics system. But yes, the United States devoted shipping capacity, machinery, refrigeration, and scarce ingredients to getting ice cream to Pacific sailors. This tidbit of information is one of many reasons why I’m infuriated by armchair warriors on social media complaining that today’s military is going "soft."

The Americans gradually created what amounted to a movable industrial civilization at sea. Fleet oilers brought fuel. Ammunition ships brought shells and bombs. Repair ships and floating dry docks performed substantial repairs without sending vessels back to Pearl Harbor or the mainland. Hospital ships provided medical care. Refrigerated ships brought fresh food. Tenders supported submarines and destroyers. Replacement aircraft, engines, crews, and spare parts flowed westward continuously.

By 1944–45, the Fast Carrier Task Force could remain at sea extraordinarily long periods because logistics vessels came to it, rather than forcing the combat fleet to return to port.

This was an enormous asymmetry between the United States and Japan. Japan built superb ships and aircraft, produced extraordinarily capable sailors and aviators. What it increasingly could not do was maintain the logistical machine required for sustained operations thousands of miles from home.

The United States could.

And it could do it on an almost absurd scale: Here are your bombs. Here are your 16-inch shells. Here's several million gallons of fuel. Here are replacement aircraft and engines. Here's mail from home.

Oh—and we brought ice cream.

That's not frivolous logistics. That's mastery of logistics.

The Right Person

But on a higher level, it goes back to FDR’s ability to put the right person in the right job.  It wasn’t limited to his beloved Navy. 

Consider the first White House conference that a little-known Colonel named George Marshall attended in November, 1938. 

Roosevelt was advocating an enormous aircraft-production program. The other senior officials were generally agreeable. Roosevelt eventually turned to the relatively junior Marshall and asked, “Don’t you think so, George?”

Marshall replied: “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I don’t agree with you at all” and provided a cogent explanation as to why FDR’s idea was not practical.

The room went cold. Marshall later recalled that other participants essentially said goodbye afterward, assuming he had wrecked his Washington career. He hadn't.

A few months later, Roosevelt selected Marshall as Army Chief of Staff, passing over dozens of more senior officers. When Roosevelt told him, Marshall warned: "I have the habit of saying exactly what I think, and that can be unpleasing. Is that all right?"

Roosevelt said yes. Marshall pressed him—essentially saying, You say that now, but I really am going to tell you things you don't want to hear. Roosevelt replied, “I know.”

That's a revealing bit of both sides of leadership. Marshall understood his responsibility wasn't telling the commander in chief what he wanted to hear. Roosevelt understood that an adviser who occasionally irritated him was considerably more valuable than one who reliably agreed.

As for Roosevelt's aircraft production idea: FDR was correct, but premature. After Pearl Harbor, he revived it in his 1942 State of the Union address, calling for quotas so high most thought them unreachable. (After a rough start, the goals were exceeded.) Air power, which Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt had dismissed during World War I, was now crucial to victory—Roosevelt understood that aviation advances had radically changed the situation.

Not that FDR always picked right. His 1938 appointment of Joseph P. Kennedy as Ambassador to the United Kingdom stands as one of history's worst presidential appointments—until Donald Trump took office and appointed the likes of "Whiskey" Pete. 

Virtual Civic Duty in the Age of Social Media

Social media is a conundrum of the early-21^st century, just as AI is becoming the conundrum for the mid-21^st century.

Some use social media to reveal themselves; others use it to conceal themselves.

When it comes to social media, I miss good old Myspace.  It seemed so benevolent and harmless.  Facebook effectively reduced Myspace to virtual irrelevance and devolved from a way to share vacation photos and recipes to arguing about everything from politics to conspiracies to the plotlines of various Star Trek incarnations.  The second leg of the Meta tripod, Instagram, is more photo oriented and increasingly littered with thirst-traps.  That platform has been subject to substantial and well-documented issues with child exploitation.  Then there is Meta’s newest leg, Threads.  Threads was supposed to be Instagram, but with text – but its engagement algorithms often seem to reward outrage.  Unless one manages one’s feed very carefully, Meta is a cesspool of clickbait, misinformation, and general toxicity.

Moderation on Meta is almost nil, and the little that exists is often faulty.  I once posted a Facebook livesteam of myself playing piano works by Eric Satie and was dinged for copyright against another person’s recording – even though the performances were radically different and my upright piano was noticeably out of tune.

In 2011, a different kind of social app emerged in the United States, Nextdoor.  Unlike Facebook, Nextdoor is geographically based.  Accounts are grouped into neighborhoods, which gives account holders a focused way to follow localized alerts (like missing pets), ask for references on things like home repair, or raise concerns about various issues.  In some cases, Nextdoor has been quite helpful.  I found my landscaper via Nextdoor.  We adopted our dog Brownie from a Nextdoor member who needed to rehome him. 

The moderation works differently as well.  Active, guideline abiding members are invited to become part of the review team, who can vote to Keep, Maybe remove, or Remove posts/comments that have been reported as violating Nextdoor guidelines.  In due time I was invited to join the review team.  I’ve never met or even exchanged messages with any of my fellow review team members (although I’ve received a few angry messages from people who didn’t like how I voted).

There are several reasons a post or comment may be reported.  The reporting may be done automatically, triggered by certain words or phrases – indeed, there are words and phrases so egregious offensive the post/comment will be automatically rejected.  But most reporting is done by individual account holders.  My impression is that a relatively small group of members submit the majority of reports.  Among those are members who selectively cherry pick political comments that disagree with their own – citing them as “national politics or religion,” which are not supposed to be discussed outside of dedicated groups.  There is even a member with multiple “sockpuppets” who zealously reports everything he sees as the slightest infraction.  Here is the conundrum: What if the post is from a news source, such as Cleveland.com or a local news channel, and concerns a national or international issue?  These posts are sponsored and taking them down is next to impossible.  Why would we censor comments about a national/international story when the story itself invites comments about that story?  This is an example where the guidelines are open to interpretation.

Interpretation also comes into play when it comes to posts or comments reported as Spam or possible fraud.  There is a particular member, a slight acquaintance of mine, who over-posts – whining about every aspect of modern life she seems ill-equipped to deal with.  This may be annoying, but it does not meet Next Door’s definition of Spam, so I generally vote to keep her posts and comments.

Selfies are not spam.  Thirst traps are against guidelines and I vote to remove them.  Someone who is verifiably local and offering a legitimate service does not constitute spam.  But an account which repeatedly drops the same information with a non-local phone number for a panoply of services, from plumbing to electric, is likely a referral service from out of state - and that’s spam.

Then there are those account holders who live to air their prejudices.  These rear their heads most often when a controversial issue makes the news.  Their posts are often promptly removed via automation – meaning the review team doesn’t even vote on them.  As often as not, the account holder reposts the same content complaining about the “liberal crybabies” who removed the offending post.

This all begs the question: “Hank, why do you perform a job for which you aren’t paid and almost never thanked?”  The only answers I can find for that point to two ingrained aspects of my character: my Advocate personality and my deep ties to the local community – I’ve lived in this area for 47 of my 59 years.  Either that or I’m a glutton for punishment.

Mozart and Shostakovich Symphonies at Severance

Contrasting symphonies from the 18^th and 20^th centuries were on the program at this weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts led by music director Franz Welser-Möst.

First, a personal note: I was returning from a quick trip to Florida yesterday and landed in Cleveland a mere three and a half hours before the concert.  I collected my luggage, raced home, had dinner, and headed to Severance Hall in time for the pre-concert lecture.  What I had not anticipated was that, despite wearing my noise-cancelling Air Pods during the flights, my tinnitus was aggravated by the plane ride.  Accordingly, I had some difficulty hearing high frequencies during the concert.  I was also quite tired.  Fortunately, the concert was made available via the Adella app and I was able to watch again in the morning before writing this review. 

The concert began with one of my favorite symphonies: Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 – the so-called “Jupiter.”  The nickname likely originates with the work’s first publisher, who probably appended it to add to the sales appeal for the work’s first publication a few years after Mozart’s death.  The composer created this work, his last symphony, in a mere 16 days.  It was one of several works composed for a concert in 1788 which apparently never took place, and it appears the work was never performed in Mozart’s lifetime.  The work has a propulsive quality that anticipates what Beethoven would achieve early in the following century.  Welser-Möst’s approach balanced this propulsiveness with Viennese elegance, favoring transparent textures and tempos that were on the fast side, particularly in the work’s second movement.  Welser-Möst injected some humor into the Menuetto’s trio via some naughty rubato – maybe as a reminder that Mozart liked to imbibe. 

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103 – titled “The Year 1905” by the composer, could hardly be more different than Mozart’s.  About the only thing the two works have in common is that they both have four movements – but even this similarity is deceptive as Mozart’s are distinctive while Shostakovich’s are interconnected.  The latter composer’s work is double the length of Mozart’s, uses a much larger orchestra, ends tragically, and commemorates an event: the  Russian Revolution of 1905, which began with the massacre by Tsar Nicholas II’s guards against workers who were delivering a petition protesting working conditions.  Further protests and strikes followed, capped by a mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin, which forced the Tsar to grudgingly accept some reforms which instituted a Constitutional monarchy.  The reforms were watered down over the next twelve years, which led to the 1917 Revolution which gave the world the Soviet Union – a new form of totalitarianism.

As for the Symphony itself, I first became familiar with the work’s opening during Carl Sagan’s 1980 series, Cosmos, and later the soundtrack LP from the series.  The world premiere recording by Stokowski was featured and I eventually bought the complete performance, which imprinted itself in my mind as how the work went.  In retrospect, as the work was new, neither Stokowski nor the Houston Symphony Orchestra had fully assimilated it, and as gorgeous as the 1958 sound was for the time, the interpretation as a whole was sectionalized.  Welser-Möst brought a much more direct, cohesive approach to the sprawling work.  The opening, set on the Square of the Tsar’s Winter Palace, was atmospheric without being blurry, with chaste horn and trumpet solos from Nathaniel Silberschlag and Michael Sachs.   Throughout the movement, Welser-Möst kept the dynamics muted, which made the crescendos of the second movement all the more startling.  This movement, which depicts the brutal massacre of the 9^th of January, was brilliantly brought off; seldom have I heard the climax presented with such controlled, mechanistic violence.  The third movement, titled Eternal Memory, was given a restrained performance, which is unusual in Shostakovich interpretation; but it worked and set the stage for the devastating finale.

Though this symphony was completed in the Soviet Union of 1957, and the orchestra planned for this program months in advance, my mind still made a connection to the events in this country over the past year – particularly the recent murder of a Minneapolis woman at the hands of an ICE officer this past week.  In Lee County Florida, a Donald Trump stronghold, I saw an anti-ICE protest on my way to the airport, and there were larger protests all over the country.  It seems that after the events of the last few months – the increasingly disturbing revelations of the Epstein report; the US intervention in Venezuela, which is entirely about oil; Trump’s threats against Greenland; and the continued oppression of US citizens – that the American people are finally awakening to the growing danger from within. 

2025 in Review

2025 was a year filled with challenges and frustrations, yet with progress on the personal front.

January was a particularly difficult month.  First, the inauguration of Donald Trump and his immediate implementation of Project 2025, which he said he knew nothing of and would never put into action.  As usual, Trump lied and while his lackeys help carry out his perverted agenda, his supporters are either pleased with the turn of events or clueless as to the implications, as those of us with historical knowledge witness the rise of fascism in the United States.  Second, our furnace died during a cold snap.  This necessitated an expensive replacement.  The flip-side is that our natural gas usage has dropped as the new heater is far more efficient.  It’s also quieter.  Third, we encountered some major plumbing issues with our bathroom which required cutting into the living room ceiling to address.  This was not only disfiguring to the ceiling, but it was also expensive.  The good news is that the bathroom is now in the best condition it’s been in since we bought our house in 2008.

The new bathtub drain as seen from the living room. The hole has since been patched.

Later in the year, we also decided on something we’d been putting off for years: getting the ductwork cleaned.  Having peered into the vents and cold air returns, I knew they hadn’t been cleaned recently – it’s possible they were never cleaned from the time the house was built in 1941. The before and after difference was striking not just in the reduction of dust, but in furnace efficiency.  My sinuses appreciated the change as well.  

In February, Daniel and I were able to get away from the toxic atmosphere of the United States for a week in Spain, a country which survived nearly 40 years of fascism.  The trip was memorable enough that it inspired a new composition. 

Outside Sagrada Familia

In March, we returned to Daniel’s native Puerto Rico for the first time since 2013.  It was a lovely trip and, in many ways, was like stepping back in time.  We visited three shopping malls while there, and all three places were busy and cheerful as if we’d suddenly found ourselves in the 1980s. 

A few snaps from Daniel's hometown, Aguadilla.

The food court of Plaza Las Américas Mall.

Our summer was fairly uneventful until September, when we took a quick trip to Minnesota to spend a weekend at the Mall of America.  As with the malls in Puerto Rico, the MoA was active and entertaining – although we didn’t wind up buying much.

At the Museum of Illusions in the Mall of America.

November marked some interesting developments.  Trump and the GOP lost nearly every election.  Although it was an off-year election and the impact was minimal, it’s a hopeful harbinger for 2026.  While on vacation in Palm Springs, we learned that the Supreme Court had rejected the appeal from that lunatic, Kim Davis, meaning marriage equality is safe – at least for now. 

Some snaps from our time in Palm Springs.

 

Throughout the year, our dog Brownie continued to mature and mellow.  He still has his zoomie moments and suffers from separation anxiety.  But several trips to Camp Bow Wow have shown him to be very well-socialized.

Our Brownie...

We attended too many concerts to recount individually.  The most interesting ones are recounted in this blog.  My purchases of recorded music slowed to a crawl, in part thanks to the downsizing of Sony Classical – a mere shadow of what was once a formidable label.  I’ll have more thoughts on that in a future post. 

The greatest highlight of this year was making contact, thanks to my brother Robert, with our uncle John – who, to the best of my knowledge, I’d never met.  John, a former Naval officer, is the last surviving member from my father’s generation of the family and has been a font of information on our history.  He’s also an utterly charming gentleman and a delight to spend time with.

With my brother Rob and our uncle John.

John in his Navy days.  

He eventually rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander

 and served on the USS O'Bannon

I continued the quest I began in earnest in 2021: getting myself into better shape.  After initially hitting a plateau, my weight is once again headed in the right direction – downward.  In November my doctor gave me a clean bill of health: vitals, blood work, all where they should be, although he advised me to try and lose those last 15 pounds. 

Despite the good health news, I did something this year I’ve wanted to get done for quite some time: making my final arrangements.  The helpful staff at Lakeview Cemetery made everything easy: I’ll be cremated and my ashes placed there near my mother’s grave.  I’ve even purchased a headstone.

Planning one's own interment may seem heavy. But it was a pleasure to work with Lakeview Cemetery Memorial Advisor (and fellow Brush High School alum) Petronilla Ragland.

When I tell people about about making my final arrangements, I get the oddest reactions.  But I have a realistic and unsentimental view of death: it’s the one thing that we all have in common.  From personal experience I know what it’s like when a loved one dies unexpectedly.  The survivors find themselves having to make decisions about which they may have varying degrees of confidence.  Did their loved one want this, or another alternative?  Embalming or cremation?  A formal funeral service or an informal celebration of life?  What kind of burial?  What kind of marker did they want?  What, if any, religious symbols?  Last, but not least: How to pay for it?  By making these decisions myself and paying in advance, I’ve relieved my loved ones of the burden of making those decisions, and of the cost.  Further, I have some control over the process while I’m alive – and the legality of what I’ve stipulated will remain in force after I’m dead.  Naturally, I hope the need to carry out these plans won’t come for quite some time.

See you around in 2026.

 

Trump’s gauche vandalism of the Peoples’ House

Donald Trump’s decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House, along with his, ahem, questionable decorating choices within the Oval Office, have left Americans with working eyesight and good taste astonished and appalled.  Trump’s shrinking cadre of defenders have replied by bringing up the Truman reconstruction, secret tunnels, and even President Obama’s rather benign partial conversion of the tennis court (far removed from the actual buildings) into a basketball court.  Much of what they share is, at best, incomplete.  Some of it is flat-out misinformation.

Let’s review the history of the White House.  The President’s House, as it was then called, was constructed between 1792-1800. The builders were a combination of enslaved African-Americans (who quarried the stone used for the construction) and employed whites.  The structure was built to the finest standards for American private residences at the time.  But it was deliberately designed to be modest compared to the residences that heads of state occupied in nations like Britain and France. This modesty pertained not just to size, but to design. The décor was simply dignified rather than ostentatious – a reminder that the new nation was neither a monarchy nor particularly wealthy. 

By the time the building was inhabited, George Washington was already dead.  John Adams was the first President to inhabit the home, and only for the final year of his presidency. 

Even before the White House was constructed, several exterior structures were built, including outhouses for the construction crew and, eventually, the first family and others who spent time at the White House.  Under Thomas Jefferson, colonnades were built on the east and west ends of the mansion. 

British troops invaded the Capital in 1814 and burned the White House.  First Lady Dolly Madison, aware the troops were on the way, famously removed  many of the home’s possessions – including artwork and furniture.  Then she laid out a feast for the approaching troops giving the first family and staff time to escape.  The British enjoyed the feast, then set the mansion ablaze.  The building’s internal structure was essentially destroyed with only the four exterior walls left standing.  As with the original construction, cost was a factor when the house was rebuilt.  The original wooden beams and joints were visually inspected for fire damage and approved or rejected for reuse.  But the engineers of the time lacked both the knowledge and the technology to make an accurate determination as to which pieces were fit for reuse.  They were unaware that even without burning, the extreme heat caused by the fire could compromise the material’s integrity.

The British did it...

The first known photo of the White House from 1846

Over the next century, the building and grounds were renovated numerous times.  Several greenhouses were built at various locations.  In the mansion itself, holes were drilled into the wooden supports to create conduits for indoor plumbing, gas lines, and electric wiring.  These invasions caused further stress on the structure.  

The north portico of the White House during the Lincoln Administration.

Other structures were intended as permanent additions – and these were submitted for design review and were rightly paid for with public funds (the use of private funds would have raised accusations of robber barons trying to curry favor with the increasingly powerful Federal government). 

Theodore Roosevelt’s creation of the West Wing was the most significant addition to the complex up to that time – though it should be pointed out that this change didn’t affect the original building itself.  Neither did Roosevelt’s creation of the first part of the East Wing.

It was Calvin Coolidge’s project to add a third floor to the White House in 1927 which sealed the building’s fate.  For the next two decades, groans and cracking sounds could be heard from within the walls, leading the gullible to believe that the building was inhabited by ghosts.

The West Wing was destroyed by a fire in 1929 and hastily rebuilt.  In 1934, Franklin Roosevelt had the West Wing rebuilt to accommodate the growing administration.  He also collaborated with famed architect Eric Gugler, creating a new Oval Office which has been used by Presidents ever since.  Many of the details remained visible nine decades later: built-in bookcases; hidden doors as well as doors topped with robust pediments; the Presidential seal on the ceiling; the subtle, recessed lighting.  That is, until 2025, when Donald Trump began festooning the room with gaudy accoutrements.

FDR in the new Oval Office in 1934.

In 1942, Roosevelt – with Congressional approval – expanded the East Wing.  Part of this was to conceal wartime tunnels which connected the White House to a bunker underneath the treasury department.  It’s worth remembering that from the time the US entered World War II until the day FDR died, a gas mask was strapped to his wheelchair. 

As ambitious as their expansions were, both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt knew the main building was having troubles.  But they felt little could be done due to the constraints of the Great Depression and World War II. 

Shortly after taking office, Harry Truman noticed significant issues.  As recounted in Robert Klara’s superb “The Hidden White House,” whenever White House butler Alonzo Fields, who stood over six feet tall and was strongly built, walked in the Yellow Oval Room on the second floor, the floorboards would creak and the chandelier in the Blue Oval Room below would sway as its crystals made a tinkling sound.  The floor in another room was beginning to tilt. Truman’s bathtub was starting to sink into the floor.  When a leg of Margaret Truman’s piano crashed through the ceiling of the floor below, Truman knew action had to be taken.  A team of engineers was hired.  They looked behind the walls, under the floors, above the ceilings and delivered their verdict: the building was standing only from “force of habit” and was in danger of imminent collapse. The Truman family moved to Blair House across the street for the duration.

A broken beam under Margaret Truman's bedroom.

Reconstruction

Congress was notified about the situation, and although some Republicans tried to use the issue for partisan gain, most were supportive of Truman’s desire to save the building.  Congress proposed what was the least expensive solution: tear the building down and replace the whole thing.  Truman, who despite his plain-spoken and occasionally profane manner was well-read in history, would have none of that.  He insisted that, no matter the cost, the look of the original White House be preserved.  To do that, engineers found a way to shore up the four outer walls while removing everything within those walls.  Equipment for demolition, excavation, and reconstruction was disassembled, the parts brought in through doors and windows, then reconstructed once inside.  Furniture was removed and stored off-site, the original interior was dismantled with parts labeled and numbered, and what was left was demolished.  Two sub-basements were excavated (partly for support services, partly for security in case of nuclear attack), a new steel frame was built, and the rooms were rebuilt largely based on the original plans.  Through the entire three-year project, Coolidge’s third floor was held in place by steel supports.  The Truman Reconstruction was the first significant building restoration in the history of the United States.  It was far from perfect, mostly because Truman ran out of money before the project was complete.  A decade after Truman returned to the rebuilt White House in 1952, First Lady Jackie Kennedy remarked that much of the décor looked like something out of a Sheraton hotel.  It was she who brought timeless elegance to the building.

Other Presidents have made smaller changes to the White House – mostly a matter of décor.  Presidential families are free to decorate the residence (the top two floors of the building) as they see fit.  Under George W. Bush, Congress approved a major modernization of the White House, renovating electrical work and HVAC, and installing security measures – including a system to detect airborne biohazards – which was carried out during the Obama administration.  Obama also added a basketball hoop to the tennis court and painted the appropriate lines – which is recently causing consternation even though Obama paid for the changes himself and has been out of office for over eight years.  Gee, I wonder why people get worked up over such a minor change, not to mention the tan suit Obama once wore…

This past week, Donald Trump had the entire East Wing torn down to create a vast, vulgar, gilded ballroom.  The welcome center, colonnade, the famed movie theatre, and First Lady’s offices are all gone.  Neither Congress nor the National Park System were consulted – technically a violation of law since the White House complex is part of the park system and federal property.  Who is paying for this: corporations wanting to curry favor with the Trump administration.  Teddy Roosevelt’s nightmare has come to life. 

What about those doing the actual demolition and construction?  Have they been properly vetted by the FBI and/or Secret Service?  Who knows what could be hidden within the walls of the upcoming grandiose monstrosity.

I can’t think of any past president, of any party, who would approve of what has happened to the White House over the last few weeks.  But Republicans nationwide are largely looking the other way.  I’m old enough to remember than despite their deep political disagreements during the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill would regularly get together to have drinks, swap stories, and share a few laughs.  During one such conversation, the Republican President and the Democratic Speaker commiserated on the loss of historical architecture and its replacement with “ugly” modern buildings.  That conversation led to the Rehabilitation Tax Credit, which has made possible the renovation and reuse of many older buildings.

Unlike Reagan, Donald Trump has no respect for historical architecture.  He famously destroyed several friezes from the 1929 Bonwit Teller building to build Trump Tower after he said he would preserve them and donate them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He destroyed Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden for a tacky concrete patio. Now he’s destroyed the East Wing after he said he wouldn’t. This level of contempt for simple beauty is unique in our nation’s history. 

Every previous change to the White House was to enhance or add to the existing sight, respecting the original while increasing functionality to account for modernization and the growth of both our nation and the Presidency.  There was nothing “wrong” with the East Wing to justify its demolition. 

I believe Trump’s more vociferous supporters will stand by anything he does.  He could bomb the White House and they would come up with an excuse to rationalize his every action.  Then there are those who simply lack the respect for our nation’s history and the simple good taste to comprehend that Trump’s gaudy, gilded, bloated addition is the definition of tacky.