Thursday 17 September 2026

I don’t know where September went. It’s half over. I can hear the train whistle in the background, about a mile away. About the same distance it was from our house when I was growing up. It’s the same old train whistle too, just the same, familiar noise.

My daddy used to complain that the train whistle kept him up all night. I don’t know how many times it went through town in a day or a night, but it seemed like a lot. I can’t count the times I sat in a car with my mother waiting for the train to go through, or back up, or pull forward. It went right through the center of the town, such as it was – one main street and several side streets. And people put their cars in park and got out and visited between cars for the half an hour or forth-five minutes it took to get the train ready to leave again. Miss Rochelle was the worst. she would get out of the car and we would have to wait and wait after the train moved, and sometimes even blow the horn to get her to stop talking and get back into her own car. She never resented it. She would laugh, as if she thought her own behavior was so very funny. It was infectious. Most people couldn’t help laughing along with her, even if they were in a hurry to go somewhere. That was just Miss Rochelle.

I know I bought apple juice for something and in my mind thre is a photograph of rosemary in it. So…..Apple Rosemary cocktail recipe – ¼ c. water, ¼ c. honey, 3 sprigs rosemary, ½ c gin, ¼ c. lemon juice, ¼ c. apple juice. Boil water, honey and rosemary, turn off heat steep 10 min, cool to room temp. combine gin, lemon, apple and syrup mixture in small pitcher, strain into glasses and serve over ice. Refrigerate leftovers.

News Notes

ISRAEL

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES

· Book: “Hashem Ori” written by the father of a hostage killed in Gaza.

· The former Attorney General who gave permission to indict Netanyahu will most likely take the stand in Netanyahu’s trial in the coming weeks. He will most probably do so only weeks before the election. (Jerusalem Post, 9/17/26)

· The Israeli army has terminated the service of the Gaza Division intelligence officer during the Octoer 7, 2023 attack. Professional errors, failures and command responsibility were cited.

· Sardines are good for you. That’s good news because we are traveling to Spain.

· A judge in Minnesota appointed by George W. Bush with 20 years of experience on the bench wrote in a January order: “ICE is not a law unto itself.” Judge Schiltz clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in the 1980s and has had close ties with the conservative legal establishment for decades. Events in Minnesota’s federal court “created a grave threat to the rule of law,” he said (NYT, 9/17/26).

· Under Pete Hegseth there have been 1) purges of senior military officers on an unprecedented scale; 2) new restrictions on where officers can study and what thoughts they can express in academic papers, 3) polygraphs aimed at ferreting out leakers or intimidating those tempted to share sensitive information, 4) long deployments, 5) shortfalls of critical middile interceptors, 6) climates of mistrust in the top ranks. Hegseth was determined to raise standards and liberate the military from “left-wing agenda.” His aim has been to restore a “warrior ethos” (that includes testing testosterone.). He has fired or blocked the promotions of as many as 80 generals and admirals. Key leadership positions hae gone unfilled for months. Hegseth views education as a “conduit for corrupting, liberal ideas” (NYT wording).