Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have often thought about Martin Luther King's age--that he was only thirty-nine years old when he was assassinated in 1968.

In his relatively short life--a life of immense courage, and vision--he had changed the world. 

Today, his birthday was commemorated in the U.S.   

Had he lived he would, on January 15th, have turned ninety-seven years old.

He gave his last speech the night of April 3, 1968.  He would be shot the next day, while standing on an outside balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, near the room in which he was staying.

During his speech, the night before, he spoke about the subject of age, of longevity.  He had faced the possibility of death, of assassination, for years. I have watched the concluding part of the April 3rd speech many times, in recent decades.  Its suggestion of possible mortality--his mortality--remains haunting.

He said, at the end of the speech:

Well I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! 

So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man!  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcJWWBIro00

The fears, and the threats

To add to the ongoing fear, and the trauma, experienced by residents of Minneapolis (and beyond), particularly following the terrible killing of Renee Good, President Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, in order that he can send the military into Minneapolis, to police the city.

He certainly loves making threats.  The threats are endless--day after day, month after month. His is a presidency governed by threats.

He wrote on his social media platform on Thursday that he wanted to "stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E..."

The insurrectionists.

I got an email on Thursday from The Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump, pro-democracy organization.

The title of the email was: "The insurrectionist wants to use the Insurrection Act."

Five years ago

President Trump's administration has created a page on the White House website about the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, five years ago today.

The President continues to claim that the election of 2020 was stolen.  He talks about it constantly.

The new web page, published today, says this about former Vice President Mike Pence, in a timeline of the events of January 6th:

Vice President Mike Pence, who had the opportunity to return disputed electoral slates to state legislatures for review and decertification under the United States Constitution, chooses not to exercise that power in an act of cowardice and sabotage [bold type added]. Instead, Pence presides over the certification of contested electors, undermining President Trump's efforts to address documented fraud and ending any chance to correct the election steal. 

The web page also says this:

As events unfold, President Trump repeatedly calls for peace, tweeting support for law enforcement and releasing a video telling supporters "go home in peace" while reiterating love for them and election concerns. He consistently promotes non-violence despite the attack on attendees and emotions running high. 

Trump, of course, released the video, referred to above, hours after the assault on the Capitol began.  During the attack, he had ignored pleas from Congressional Republicans, and others, to step in and act.  He watched the rebellion on television, apparently enjoying what he saw.  Notably, he never tried to get in touch with his Vice President, who was at the Capitol, and whose life was threatened by rioters ("Hang Mike Pence!").

I wrote this, in a 2024 post:

In February of 2021, Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, of Washington, recounted an angry phone call on January 6th between Mr. Trump and then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy; Mr. McCarthy, news reports at the time indicated, later shared details of the phone call with certain members of the House Republican caucus. 

I referred to the following 2021 news story:

“When McCarthy finally reached the president on Jan. 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was Antifa that had breached the Capitol,” Beutler said...“McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”

CNN reported that multiple Republicans confirmed the contents of the phone call.

A New York Times story, today, concerned Trump's continuing efforts to distort and recast the events of January 6th.

The Times reporters wrote:

A New York Times review of Mr. Trump’s public statements found more than 150 instances in the past year in which he falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election, portrayed Jan. 6 rioters as victims and denigrated investigators of the Capitol riot.

His campaign to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 was often overshadowed by major policy moves: Sweeping tariffs on goods across the globe, troops dispatched into American cities, missile strikes on foreign lands.

But time and again, he would come back to 2020 — often unprompted.

“They didn’t assault,” Mr. Trump said of the Jan. 6 rioters on Feb. 9. “They were assaulted.” In reality, more than 150 police officers were injured during the Capitol violence.

The web page published today by the White House says the following:

The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as “insurrectionists” and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump—despite no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government. In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection [the bold type appears in the White House text] by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters, all while Pelosi’s own security lapses invited the chaos they later exploited to seize and consolidate power. This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role in undermining democracy.

The use of the term "gaslighting," in the above paragraph's last sentence, is, to say the least, rich.

Good wishes for 2026

A recording, for the new year, of "Auld Lang Syne," by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, from 1947.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adwni-Jt8qQ&list=RDadwni-Jt8qQ&start_radio=1

Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, and "The Christmas Song"

On this Christmas Eve, here are two versions of "The Christmas Song," written in 1945 by Mel Torme and Bob Wells.  

The song, below, is performed by two of the greatest of American vocalists: Rosemary Clooney, and Nat King Cole.

The performance by Ms. Clooney, as noted in the YouTube description, is from a 1956 episode of her 1956-1957 TV program, The Rosemary Clooney Show; the program was seen in syndication.  At the start of the video, she refers to Bob Wells and Mel Torme (Mr. Torme, the description indicates, appeared on the telecast).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAC-TxY7Glg&list=RDVAC-TxY7Glg&start_radio=1

Nat King Cole and his Trio made the first recording of "The Christmas Song" in 1946, though this first version, according to Wikipedia, was not released until 1989.  Mr. Cole subsequently released three other recordings of "The Christmas Song"--another in 1946, one in 1953, and another in 1961.  Wikipedia notes that the 1961 recording "has become the most popular/familiar version" of the song.

The video, below, is not dated, though I am guessing it is from one of Mr. Cole's NBC-TV programs, which, like Ms. Clooney's syndicated show, aired weekly in 1956 and 1957.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8eWaR8ONvw&list=RDA8eWaR8ONvw&start_radio=1

Here, too, is the Wikipedia page about "The Christmas Song":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Song

Merry Christmas!

American Carnage

The America (and really, the world) that Donald Trump is seeking to alter becomes, each day, darker, more distressing, more disorienting. 

What he has been doing to immigrants in the U.S., for example, is wrenching, in its sense of cold disregard; its cruelty; and the short shrift, in countless instances, given to due process.

And of course, since September, there has been the utter absence of due process in the blowing up of boats in the Caribbean, and in the Eastern Pacific.  And--no clear evidence provided to the country as to who has been killed in the more than twenty boat strikes. Were all of the 80-plus people killed drug couriers?  Or, maybe, were only some of them? 

Then, on December 1st, Trump, the putative drug fighter, gave--mystifyingly--a pardon to the former president of Honduras, convicted in the U.S. in 2024 of being part of an effort to smuggle drugs into America.  In a June 2024 statement, Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said this: "As the former two-term president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez had every opportunity to affect positive change for his country.  Instead, Hernandez helped to facilitate the importation of an almost unfathomable 400 tons of cocaine to this country..." Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison.  Now, Trump has set him free.

And: this past Thursday, the Trump administration released its 2025 National Security Strategy. 

A December 5th New York Times story about the document had this headline: "Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy."

It secondary headline read: "President Trump’s new National Security Strategy describes a country that is focused on doing business and reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians."

Times reporter Anton Troianovski wrote this:

President Trump has shown all year that his second term would make it a priority to squeeze less powerful countries to benefit American companies. But late Thursday, his administration made that profit-driven approach a core element of its official foreign policy, publishing its long-anticipated update to U.S. national security aims around the world.

The document...describes a world in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them. Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash.

“We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world,” it says, “without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

Russia has already expressed its praise of the document's aims.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/us/politics/trump-national-security-strategy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7E8.PajL.itNpPdazgR7J&smid=url-share

Interview with writer John Green

The following is a very interesting interview, for the New York Times's Sunday magazine, with writer John Green, who is no doubt best known for his YA novel The Fault in Our Stars. The book was published in 2012, and has sold more than twenty million copies.

Mr. Green is also the author of the 2025 non-fiction work, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.

The interviewer is The Times's David Marchese, who is one of the two alternating hosts of the paper's regular feature "The Interview"; the transcripts of the interviews appear, along with videos of the conversations. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/magazine/john-green-interview.html?smid=url-share

The videos are also available as podcasts, on various platforms (including YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts).

Lulu Garcia-Navarro is The Interview's other host. 

While I have read a number of "The Interview" features, this is the first time I have watched the video version--a video, for what it is worth, that I found to be particularly vivid, and absorbing.  Some of the most compelling aspects of the interview concern Mr. Green's experiences with anxiety, and the several months he spent, as a young man, working as a chaplain at a hospital for severely sick children--and the effect that working at the hospital had on the course of his life.

Here is the link to the YouTube page for "The Interview"series:

https://www.youtube.com/@theinterviewpodcast