September 29 – October 1, 2026
Sorry, folks!
This post somehow became duplicated and scrambled while I was working on it, so I am starting over with one cleaner version. There is certainly enough happening in the world without my blog adding to the confusion!
I am also going to try something a little different here—giving readers links to the articles I am talking about instead of copying so much of the articles themselves. That should make the blog shorter and perhaps easier for everybody to follow.
Meanwhile, the leaves are starting to change color here again in West Virginia. Fall has arrived whether the rest of us are ready for it or not.
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The very greatest president ever?
Donald Trump certainly likes being called the greatest. But the people who actually study American presidents don't quite agree with him.
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project, a survey of presidential scholars, gave Trump a score of only 10.92 out of 100—the lowest score of all the presidents evaluated. Barack Obama, whom Trump so often criticizes, ranked seventh. That certainly is quite a difference between how Trump sees himself and how presidential scholars see him. Presidential Greatness Project study
And Americans themselves don't seem terribly happy right now either. A new AP-NORC poll found that 65 percent of Americans blamed Trump's policies more than outside factors for persistently high prices, while only 17 percent approved of his handling of the cost of living. Groceries, gasoline and everything else still have to be paid for no matter what politicians tell us. AP: Most Americans blame Trump for high prices as midterms approach
Another long-running Trump matter also came back into the news this week. A civil jury had found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. Trump has now ended his fight over that $5 million verdict. Quite a lot of legal trouble for somebody who spends so much time telling us how wonderful he is. Trump ends court fight over the E. Jean Carroll $5 million verdict
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And what has happened to the Kennedy Center?
This one especially caught my attention after living in Washington for so many years.
The Washington Post examined 15 years of Kennedy Center financial records and found that the institution was financially stable when Trump took control, but donations and ticket revenue subsequently plunged and the Center has been borrowing money and drawing down reserves.
Why take something that belonged to the whole country and turn it into something so politically identified with one person? Artists and audiences apparently have been asking themselves the same question. Washington Post: The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over. Then its finances collapsed.
Then there are the new television ads praising Trump that look remarkably like campaign advertisements even though taxpayers are paying for them. Money intended for Customs and Border Protection has been used for these advertisements, drawing criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.
If something is really a “public service announcement,” shouldn't the public service part be rather more obvious? Report on taxpayer-funded pro-Trump advertisements
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Immigration, Israel and the Middle East
Here is another story that seems particularly strange. The Trump administration is trying to deport Yehonatan Ovadia, a Hasidic Jewish religious teacher, because of his participation in a protest against Israel's actions in Gaza. His attorney called the suggestion that Ovadia is antisemitic absurd. Immigration enforcement seems to be reaching into an ever-widening variety of political disputes. Trump administration seeks to deport Hasidic Jew who protested Israel
Meanwhile, nearly all Senate Democrats supported a measure that would have required the State Department to report on Israeli settler violence and human-rights conditions in the West Bank. It failed 51-47. Washington Post: Senate blocks West Bank reporting measure
Gaza has certainly not recovered, nor does that look likely in the foreseeable future. And now reports that Benjamin Netanyahu may have received warnings before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack have become an issue in Israel's election. Netanyahu denies having had advance knowledge of the attack, but Israelis understandably want to know what their government knew and when it knew it. Washington Post: Reports about Oct. 7 warnings dominate Israeli election
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Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings — history keeps getting more complicated
Here is something entirely different, although it concerns another American president.
New research involving DNA recovered from a lock of Thomas Jefferson's hair has added evidence connecting Jefferson directly to descendants of Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman with whom historians have long concluded he fathered children.
It is rather remarkable that a single lock of hair preserved for two centuries can still tell us something new about American history. The Times: Thomas Jefferson's hair and the Sally Hemings descendants
And the story is hardly just ancient history for the people involved. Jefferson's white and Black descendants are still wrestling with questions about ancestry, slavery, belonging and even who is recognized as part of the Jefferson family. ABC News: Thomas Jefferson's descendants wrestle with a complicated family legacy
History has a way of refusing to stay conveniently in the past.
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A few other things that caught my eye
A huge Kelvin wave of warm Pacific water is moving toward California and could raise coastal water levels before an El Niño winter. As if California needed another thing to worry about! USA TODAY report: Massive Kelvin wave headed toward California
And a recent nor'easter uncovered wooden wreckage on Nantucket that may belong to the Warren Sawyer, a three-masted schooner that ran aground there in December 1884 while carrying cotton and scrap iron from New Orleans to Boston. Happily, contrary to something I had written earlier, the crew was rescued. More than 140 years later, pieces of the old ship are still emerging from beneath the sand. AP: Experts investigate Nantucket shipwreck remains
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Measles is back
This is much less charming.
Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, yet Pennsylvania is now dealing with a very large outbreak. State officials reported 890 cases across 39 counties by late September.
I find the retreat from routine childhood vaccination terribly disturbing. We already know how to prevent diseases such as measles. Children should not have to rediscover the consequences because adults have decided to distrust vaccines that have protected generations of children.
New York Times: Pennsylvania measles outbreak grows to nearly 900 cases
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And here is a gray wolf
After all that politics, here is something considerably better to look at—a gray wolf looking back at us from the wilds.
Rather than trying to summarize all the different federal and state wolf rules here, readers who are interested can find the current information directly from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Wolf protections are different in different parts of the country, which is one more reason a link is probably better than my attempting to squeeze all of it into the blog.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Gray Wolf Recovery
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Finally, something good to eat
And after presidents, politics, measles, wolves and shipwrecks, we certainly deserve something pleasant.
Here is something from this week's menu at Goodness, my older daughter's food service in Florida:
HOT HONEY MUSTARD SHREDDED SALMON BOWL
Yum.
And that seems like a much better place to stop for today.
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