Mike, I agree with you on everything except your sympathy towards the pastor. 6 days a week he's a Gestapo ICE agent and on Sunday he's a "pastor". If he weren't an ICE agent the protesters wouldn't have been there. Period. The hypocrisy of someone working for the Gestapo and then turning around and preaching is off the charts. I'm an agnostic, but I was raised Lutheran and still remember the teaching of Jesus, and everything this fascist regime and their agents say and do is the exact opposite of what the Bible says. Project 2025 has a White Christian Nationalist agenda that they are trying to impose on the country in direct violation of the Constitution. I know nothing about Don Lemon as I don't watch cable news or anything else, I only read. But if he made these hypocritical assholes uncomfortable then good for him.
My thoughts come in a continuous stream or thread: one idea leads to three more. It all started with the notion that Trump had the support of 40% of our country, and I thought that if we could lower that to 25%, we could save our nation. How could we do that? Flyers, ads on southern stations, going down south to knock on their doors.
And then I said, "Rocco, what if you turned the stick around and looked at it from the other side?” What if I no longer saw them as my enemies but as fellow citizens who also loved our country? How could I establish a dialogue with them? That led me to ask: how could I start a conversation with our entire country?
My wife, Carol, and I are always worried about the world our grandchildren are growing up in. We lived in a time of family closeness and involvement: I was part of a family of nine, and she had a tight-knit circle of relatives who lived near each other. It was a world of personal, social, and intimate contact. Our music reflected love and care, and we enjoyed slow dancing. As far as I can tell, my grandchildren's generation is obsessed with their iPhones and texting and would rather use them than interact face-to-face. It’s a world of isolation and disconnect, with little personal contact.
What if this condition is contributing to our social splitting? If so, how could I change this from being the future of our society?
And then this morning, I had a brain explosion. Rocco, you have spent your life teaching people to get to know themselves. You should remember that you were part of a five-day silent retreat with one thousand participants led by Thich Nhat Hanh, and you have felt the effects of that experience your entire life.
You hear the people of Minneapolis saying that something happens to them when they are together on the street resisting ICE. We see that being part of a community makes a difference, as evidenced by segments of our society that engage with it and are committed to community life.
So, this was my explosion: what if it could be arranged for a nationally designated time, for our entire country to have a moment to spend with themselves, a time for reflection. What if, let's say, nationally across our country, there could be a 30-minute time period where citizens would stop what they are doing and go to any church, synagogue, temple, or any designated place where they could sit and spend time with themselves, no phones allowed. They would have to leave somewhere other than on them. There was nothing said, no sermons, maybe only a bell to start the sitting and a bell to end the sitting, and at the end of the sitting, the members would stand and shake the hands of their neighbors and say hello, brother, or sister.
And they would happen nationally in the north, the south, the east, and the west. We would all stop our businesses, spend time together as a community, and experience the effect of being in a group. Thich Nhat Hanh stressed the importance of a communal experience, which he called a Sangha.
What if our fellow citizens living in the southern state could feel the joy of being part of a national movement—the kind we experienced during the Second World War and when 9-11 happened in New York—when the country was united and indivisible? What if we honestly believed in our country's legend and took pride in ourselves? Not divided by north and south, or by Republican and Democrat, but as citizens who respect each other.
I believe this kind of time exists in Islamic countries where there are daily universal prayer times, five times a day, and active community prayer gatherings. I know my mother was a devout Catholic who attended Mass and communion every morning at 6 AM, then returned home to make breakfast for the family. Her prayer was an important part of her life. That kind of mindset is a thing of the past.
Another idea was that in Congress, both the House and the Senate, a seating chart was issued each week where there would be no aisle split. Instead, they would be assigned seats in a mixed arrangement, with a Democrat next to a Republican, encouraging them to interact.
And then I woke up and went downstairs to make coffee.
We are all part of the cosmos, way beyond what John Donne wrote about being a clod of the continent. Being a cosmologist in my medical practice, I feel kinship to Carl Sagan, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” But all of this is intertwineed in our learning to know ourselves-- who are we?
You and I have taken some of the same roads. I grew up questioning religious officials, and never stopped questioning so-called "authority." All of the religious texts have essentials in common. It is the weak egos of humankind and the hidden agenda of politics that has subverted authentic religion, basically a philosophy of life.
As to Sangha, I have loved that concept but found it disjointed or fragmented in the reality of current "society." I love the following quote:
"Spiritual energy is healing energy when any group gathers with a dedication to something greater than one's finite, individual self. When Jesus said, 'Where two or more are gathered in my name, there shall I be also,' he was affirming the miraculous spiritual power, the delightful synergy, of sangha. Sangha is defined as 'virtuous community.' When we dedicate ourselves to a cause larger or longer-lasting than our own mortal selves, we edge in the direction of immortality." — Lama Surya Das, in Awakening the Buddha Within
And how beautifully, or perhaps painfully, does this fit into the teaching of MLK. "Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter." — Martin Luther King
I wrote a poem about the last few weeks in Minneapolis. I submit it for public view for th first time in this commentary.
This is the line. Not Lemon’s manners, but the state ignoring two judges to make an arrest anyway. When witness becomes the crime, law has already collapsed into power. You don’t have to like the journalist to recognize the danger. If this stands, nothing protects anyone who documents what the state does.
Maybe I missed something, but wasn't Lemon arrested at home in the middle of the night? See "Don Lemon was arrested at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Federal agents took him into custody on a Thursday night."
Where did you learn to write, Mike? I'm sending all of these 1-? to a select group of friends. The content, the thought, all great, but the turns of phrase, the metaphors and analogies.... I'm in awe.
How long before it will be criminal to share this extremely disturbing testimony about what Donald did at Epstein at Mar-a-Lago, briefly released in an Epstein Files tranche, I wonder. It directly implicates Donald, along with Elon Musk, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Shapiro in the sexual abuse of children, with some details, including a claim that Donald raped a thirteen-year-old.
To quote Liz Cheney: “In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
"Renee Good saw a woman being pepper-sprayed and moved to help. She was shot."
That was Pretti, not Good. Good was trying to drive her vehicle away. Get your facts straight.
On the question of Lemon's actions, was the question of a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 248(a)(2) (or correpsonding parts of (a)(3)) brought up in court? (a)(1) is sometimes enforced but I'm unaware of enforcement of (a)(2), and given what I've heard of this incident it's not implausible to me that Lemon may have violated that provision.
That's the freedom of access code to abortion clinics and places of worship. Did Lemon keep anyone out of the church? Side question: How have you, a Canadian, come to be versed in US law?
I do not know if Lemon impeded anyone in a way that would engage the statute in question. Perhaps other protesters did. I am simply saying that it is not implausible to me, given what I know of the matter, that he may have violated the statute in question.
On the second point, I frequently discuss various matters of law (comparative constitutional law, tax policy, and other such) with people from the United States; as a side effect of this, and of the specific people with whom I discuss such matters (and as a side effect of having to keep a close eye on developments in the United States due to that country's current official policy of annexation toward mine) I pick up various bits about US law such as 18 U.S. Code § 248.
(I freely admit my ignorance on other matters of US law that are likely much more important! For instance, I'm told that if the federal executive were to be given access to Minnesota's voter database, this would greatly impair Minnesota's ability to administer its own elections, setting aside other concerns like privacy, or this being a ransom demand. But I have as yet not seen an explanation as to why this would be the case, given that states have primary responsibility for administering elections to federal offices unless Congress chooses to exercise its residual authority. In this matter our laws and processes are simply too different for me to be able to grasp the particularities of US law on the point.)
Trump's people want to integrate data from state voter registration into their targeted voter suppression machine, coded by Palantir and hosted by Amazon Web Services. The state still gets to administer the voting, after the suppression.
Would the result be a purge of the state voter roll, with the state (in effect) ordered to use the version provided by the federal executive, or would it be so that the federal executive has the information necessary to themselves target would-be voters for suppression so that they don't vote despite being eligible, or some other aim?
Voter roll substitution, not likely. Bringing challenges to individual voter registrations, targeted at likely-Democrat voters, likely. Targeting for misinformation and intimidation campaigns, likely.
I heard it construed as interfering with worship as if they intend to expand the definition from blocking access to … not letting the show go on, so to speak, not letting the minister be heard. I have not examined the statute nor do I know how it has been applied in the past besides the interfering with entry. If they were asked to leave the church and refused, that could be trespassing and … could that be construed as interfering if they were disruptive when trespassing.
I didn't watch the church protest in part because I thought it wasn't a particularly good idea to enter a church (or a school or place of business for that matter) for the express purpose of protest. It should have been conducted on the streets outside the church but it happened and nothing really but feelings got hurt as a result. But the reaction from the regime has been telling. The defacing of a defendant with AI tears (unapologetic fake news from the DOJ) and now arresting Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, free press there to report on the protest. Everything they are doing is intended to make an example of people to chill speech and protest including extrajudicial murders. We must stand now or lose our country. It's that simple.
Mike, I agree with you on everything except your sympathy towards the pastor. 6 days a week he's a Gestapo ICE agent and on Sunday he's a "pastor". If he weren't an ICE agent the protesters wouldn't have been there. Period. The hypocrisy of someone working for the Gestapo and then turning around and preaching is off the charts. I'm an agnostic, but I was raised Lutheran and still remember the teaching of Jesus, and everything this fascist regime and their agents say and do is the exact opposite of what the Bible says. Project 2025 has a White Christian Nationalist agenda that they are trying to impose on the country in direct violation of the Constitution. I know nothing about Don Lemon as I don't watch cable news or anything else, I only read. But if he made these hypocritical assholes uncomfortable then good for him.
ME, MY THINKING, AND SAVING OUR COUNTRY.
My thoughts come in a continuous stream or thread: one idea leads to three more. It all started with the notion that Trump had the support of 40% of our country, and I thought that if we could lower that to 25%, we could save our nation. How could we do that? Flyers, ads on southern stations, going down south to knock on their doors.
And then I said, "Rocco, what if you turned the stick around and looked at it from the other side?” What if I no longer saw them as my enemies but as fellow citizens who also loved our country? How could I establish a dialogue with them? That led me to ask: how could I start a conversation with our entire country?
My wife, Carol, and I are always worried about the world our grandchildren are growing up in. We lived in a time of family closeness and involvement: I was part of a family of nine, and she had a tight-knit circle of relatives who lived near each other. It was a world of personal, social, and intimate contact. Our music reflected love and care, and we enjoyed slow dancing. As far as I can tell, my grandchildren's generation is obsessed with their iPhones and texting and would rather use them than interact face-to-face. It’s a world of isolation and disconnect, with little personal contact.
What if this condition is contributing to our social splitting? If so, how could I change this from being the future of our society?
And then this morning, I had a brain explosion. Rocco, you have spent your life teaching people to get to know themselves. You should remember that you were part of a five-day silent retreat with one thousand participants led by Thich Nhat Hanh, and you have felt the effects of that experience your entire life.
You hear the people of Minneapolis saying that something happens to them when they are together on the street resisting ICE. We see that being part of a community makes a difference, as evidenced by segments of our society that engage with it and are committed to community life.
So, this was my explosion: what if it could be arranged for a nationally designated time, for our entire country to have a moment to spend with themselves, a time for reflection. What if, let's say, nationally across our country, there could be a 30-minute time period where citizens would stop what they are doing and go to any church, synagogue, temple, or any designated place where they could sit and spend time with themselves, no phones allowed. They would have to leave somewhere other than on them. There was nothing said, no sermons, maybe only a bell to start the sitting and a bell to end the sitting, and at the end of the sitting, the members would stand and shake the hands of their neighbors and say hello, brother, or sister.
And they would happen nationally in the north, the south, the east, and the west. We would all stop our businesses, spend time together as a community, and experience the effect of being in a group. Thich Nhat Hanh stressed the importance of a communal experience, which he called a Sangha.
What if our fellow citizens living in the southern state could feel the joy of being part of a national movement—the kind we experienced during the Second World War and when 9-11 happened in New York—when the country was united and indivisible? What if we honestly believed in our country's legend and took pride in ourselves? Not divided by north and south, or by Republican and Democrat, but as citizens who respect each other.
I believe this kind of time exists in Islamic countries where there are daily universal prayer times, five times a day, and active community prayer gatherings. I know my mother was a devout Catholic who attended Mass and communion every morning at 6 AM, then returned home to make breakfast for the family. Her prayer was an important part of her life. That kind of mindset is a thing of the past.
Another idea was that in Congress, both the House and the Senate, a seating chart was issued each week where there would be no aisle split. Instead, they would be assigned seats in a mixed arrangement, with a Democrat next to a Republican, encouraging them to interact.
And then I woke up and went downstairs to make coffee.
We are all part of the cosmos, way beyond what John Donne wrote about being a clod of the continent. Being a cosmologist in my medical practice, I feel kinship to Carl Sagan, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” But all of this is intertwineed in our learning to know ourselves-- who are we?
You and I have taken some of the same roads. I grew up questioning religious officials, and never stopped questioning so-called "authority." All of the religious texts have essentials in common. It is the weak egos of humankind and the hidden agenda of politics that has subverted authentic religion, basically a philosophy of life.
As to Sangha, I have loved that concept but found it disjointed or fragmented in the reality of current "society." I love the following quote:
"Spiritual energy is healing energy when any group gathers with a dedication to something greater than one's finite, individual self. When Jesus said, 'Where two or more are gathered in my name, there shall I be also,' he was affirming the miraculous spiritual power, the delightful synergy, of sangha. Sangha is defined as 'virtuous community.' When we dedicate ourselves to a cause larger or longer-lasting than our own mortal selves, we edge in the direction of immortality." — Lama Surya Das, in Awakening the Buddha Within
And how beautifully, or perhaps painfully, does this fit into the teaching of MLK. "Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter." — Martin Luther King
I wrote a poem about the last few weeks in Minneapolis. I submit it for public view for th first time in this commentary.
This is the line. Not Lemon’s manners, but the state ignoring two judges to make an arrest anyway. When witness becomes the crime, law has already collapsed into power. You don’t have to like the journalist to recognize the danger. If this stands, nothing protects anyone who documents what the state does.
I submit to readers of Notes from the Circus my thoughts and the pain I have felt at witnessing the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The Names We Carry
Stephen B. Strum, MD
1/30/26 Medford, Oregon, USA
Good and Pretti. It sounds like a firm of law,
A promise of justice without a single flaw.
Perhaps a memory of candy, shared in the dark,
A black-and-white sweetness that left a gentle mark.
But now these names are anathema—a jagged, sudden tear,
Unveiling the hideous visions that we are forced to bear.
These syllables join the ledger, the long and bloodied list
Of those in every nation who found the will to resist.
When government agents overstep the boundary of the peace,
And the right to quiet protest meets a violent, sharp release.
They acted for our liberty, for the rights of one and all,
Never thinking that as healers or as neighbors they would fall.
They did not fall for justice, or the Constitution's light,
But to a leader's retribution in the middle of the night.
These are the hours of trial, the weighing of the soul,
To see who stands for healing and who plays the ghoul’s dark role.
The havoc is not hidden; the wounds are deep and bleak.
We must remain the voices for those who cannot speak.
Keep writing Mike, your clarification is essential. This is not the time to tune out.
Maybe I missed something, but wasn't Lemon arrested at home in the middle of the night? See "Don Lemon was arrested at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Federal agents took him into custody on a Thursday night."
Where did you learn to write, Mike? I'm sending all of these 1-? to a select group of friends. The content, the thought, all great, but the turns of phrase, the metaphors and analogies.... I'm in awe.
How long before it will be criminal to share this extremely disturbing testimony about what Donald did at Epstein at Mar-a-Lago, briefly released in an Epstein Files tranche, I wonder. It directly implicates Donald, along with Elon Musk, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Shapiro in the sexual abuse of children, with some details, including a claim that Donald raped a thirteen-year-old.
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelr12.bsky.social/post/3mdou67qguc22
To quote Liz Cheney: “In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
"Renee Good saw a woman being pepper-sprayed and moved to help. She was shot."
That was Pretti, not Good. Good was trying to drive her vehicle away. Get your facts straight.
On the question of Lemon's actions, was the question of a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 248(a)(2) (or correpsonding parts of (a)(3)) brought up in court? (a)(1) is sometimes enforced but I'm unaware of enforcement of (a)(2), and given what I've heard of this incident it's not implausible to me that Lemon may have violated that provision.
That's the freedom of access code to abortion clinics and places of worship. Did Lemon keep anyone out of the church? Side question: How have you, a Canadian, come to be versed in US law?
I do not know if Lemon impeded anyone in a way that would engage the statute in question. Perhaps other protesters did. I am simply saying that it is not implausible to me, given what I know of the matter, that he may have violated the statute in question.
On the second point, I frequently discuss various matters of law (comparative constitutional law, tax policy, and other such) with people from the United States; as a side effect of this, and of the specific people with whom I discuss such matters (and as a side effect of having to keep a close eye on developments in the United States due to that country's current official policy of annexation toward mine) I pick up various bits about US law such as 18 U.S. Code § 248.
(I freely admit my ignorance on other matters of US law that are likely much more important! For instance, I'm told that if the federal executive were to be given access to Minnesota's voter database, this would greatly impair Minnesota's ability to administer its own elections, setting aside other concerns like privacy, or this being a ransom demand. But I have as yet not seen an explanation as to why this would be the case, given that states have primary responsibility for administering elections to federal offices unless Congress chooses to exercise its residual authority. In this matter our laws and processes are simply too different for me to be able to grasp the particularities of US law on the point.)
Trump's people want to integrate data from state voter registration into their targeted voter suppression machine, coded by Palantir and hosted by Amazon Web Services. The state still gets to administer the voting, after the suppression.
Would the result be a purge of the state voter roll, with the state (in effect) ordered to use the version provided by the federal executive, or would it be so that the federal executive has the information necessary to themselves target would-be voters for suppression so that they don't vote despite being eligible, or some other aim?
Voter roll substitution, not likely. Bringing challenges to individual voter registrations, targeted at likely-Democrat voters, likely. Targeting for misinformation and intimidation campaigns, likely.
Fighting an eligibility challenge would be taxing on any private individual, yes.
Thanks for the explanation; those motives make much more sense now.
I heard it construed as interfering with worship as if they intend to expand the definition from blocking access to … not letting the show go on, so to speak, not letting the minister be heard. I have not examined the statute nor do I know how it has been applied in the past besides the interfering with entry. If they were asked to leave the church and refused, that could be trespassing and … could that be construed as interfering if they were disruptive when trespassing.
I didn't watch the church protest in part because I thought it wasn't a particularly good idea to enter a church (or a school or place of business for that matter) for the express purpose of protest. It should have been conducted on the streets outside the church but it happened and nothing really but feelings got hurt as a result. But the reaction from the regime has been telling. The defacing of a defendant with AI tears (unapologetic fake news from the DOJ) and now arresting Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, free press there to report on the protest. Everything they are doing is intended to make an example of people to chill speech and protest including extrajudicial murders. We must stand now or lose our country. It's that simple.
If it’s not clear now just how envious Trump is of Putin…I’m not sure what else people need to see.
Thank you for you chronicles of crisis