Tuesday: Hili dialogue

September 22, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: September 22, 2026 and the day of my cataract surgery (I am iatrophobic). As you read this, I will be having the lens of my right eye emulsified and sucked out, then replaced with an artificial lens. I have to admit to some apprehension.

NOTE: Because I have to go home and rest after the surgery, I won’t have time this afternoon to prepare a Hili for tomorrow, and because tomorrow I must go downtown to have the eye patch removed, there will likely be no Hili on Thursday, either. Bear with me; I do my best.

In the Northern Hemisphere it’s also the first day of fall, known as The Autumnal Equinox. which begins at 6:05 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S.

The autumn equinox is one of two days when all points on Earth except the polar regions see the sunrise and set at due east and due west. With few exceptions, all latitudes see almost precisely 12 hours of daylight and 12 of darkness.

I understand it’s a public holiday in Japan.

It’s also Hobbit Day, celebrating the publication of the eponymous Tolkien book on this day in 1937, National Eat Local Day, National Ice Cream Cone Day, National White Chocolate Day, World Rhino Day, and National Elephant Appreciation Day. Here is a hornless rhino (de-horned by rangers to eliminate poaching) and a passel of elephants taken in or near Kruger National Park in South Africa when I visited two years ago. Notice the birds pecking insects off the rhino:

These elephants were digging for water in a dry stream bed:

A mother has hit water and allows a baby to get a drink:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 22 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Just when you think Trump can’t get any loonier, it happens! Now he’s proposed that his huge triumphal arch (the Arc de Trump) is also going to be a military complex, complete with drones and snipers!

President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Sunday that he would convert plans for a Washington, D.C.-area “Triumphal Arch” to those for “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch” at the request of the U.S. military, citing “national security.”

The new plan, he said, is to “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

Reached for comment, a Pentagon spokesperson said the department has “nothing additional to provide beyond the post.” The White House declined to provide additional information.

His post marked a significant change in plans that had already been in progress, as the Trump administration had announced earlier this month that it was preparing to break ground in the coming weeks.

The proposed 250-foot arch project, which would sit in a roundabout between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, has faced legal challenges from veterans and historians. The project area sits on the Potomac, across from Washington.

The arch proposal has already passed key hurdles, though it’s unclear how Trump’s announcement could affect the prior approvals. In April, the project obtained approval from the Commission of Fine Arts, which is now composed of the president’s allies after he fired previous members. In July, the National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by Trump appointees, approved the preliminary site and building plans. The arch, which would sit a few miles from Reagan airport, also passed the Federal Aviation Administration’s air safety standards last week, with the administration announcing that it “would not pose a hazard to aircraft.”

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery and is adjacent to the proposed site, slammed Trump’s plan in a post to X.

Here’s the tweet:

And a bit more:

The project appeared poised to move forward imminently. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Sept. 3 that the administration was preparing to start excavation work “over the next two-week period.” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the Trump administration to provide 48 hours’ notice before it starts “any activity” on the arch, other than work to determine whether there are archaeological resources on the proposed site.

What can one say but “0y vey” (if you’re Jewish)?  Why turn a decorative arch into a weapons site, also making it a target for terrorists? Only if you want to justify the arch (like Trump justified the White House ballroom) as being of crucial importance to National Security.

*As expected, CNN, Politico, and MS NOW are suing Trump, who excluded the venues from the White House and deep-sixed them from its press pool. But the t.v. networks struck back, banding together to black out all television coverage from the White House:

The decision marks an escalation of tensions between the press and the Trump administration after the president announced last week that he would ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.

The three news outlets said earlier Monday that they were suing the Trump administration over the ban.

In a joint statement early Monday, the outlets said they were filing the suit to “protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, called the ban “a direct assault on the First Amendment and a blatant violation of due process.”

. . . Major television networks agreed on Monday to suspend a rotation of broadcast journalists who cover President Trump after the White House removed CNN from a planned assignment covering the president’s trip to New York.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News wrote in an email to pool members. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”

The White House press pool is a rotation of reporters, videographers, photographers and technicians who cover the president when he travels or when he conducts events in spaces that are too small for the entire press corps. Monday’s decision suspends—for now—the television press pool, which distributes video footage and reporting about the president to TV networks and other broadcast outlets.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” White House television pool members Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News said in a statement. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

I don’t know whether other media, like print and/or radio, are part of the pool, and whether they’re still participating.  This will take some of the wind out of Trump’s sails as he delights in getting attention. Now he’s not getting it from television networks, at least in the pool coverage.

*The midterm elections are 42 days away, and so the NYT prognosticates: “Who’s winning the race for Congress?” (article archived here).

The Senate prediction is 3 states favoring Democrats, 2 favoring Republicans, and 7 states being tossups.

It’s a critical couple of weeks for Representative Mike Collins, the Republican nominee in Georgia, and Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee in North Carolina.

Both have consistently trailed in polls, and Republican strategists are actively discussing whether to cut bait, especially on Collins, as The Times reported last week.

At a donor meeting earlier this month in Dallas, Collins was notably missing from a slide presentation of the party’s top
“quality” recruits this cycle — though he was in the room as the presentation was made.

Republicans haven’t given up on Georgia or North Carolina. President Trump campaigned for Whatley last week in North Carolina. Vice President JD Vance will be there on Monday. And Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican majority leader, is headed to Atlanta on Thursday to headline a fund-raiser for Collins.

But as Thune said last week, Republicans “obviously make decisions when it comes to resources” on a stretched map.

Translation: Improve soon in the polls — or else.

For the House, 9 districts are leaning Democratic, 7 leaning Republican, and there are 21 tossups.

Republicans are seeing the same polls that the public is. The Times measured a nearly 9-percentage-point edge for Democrats on the congressional ballot last week — akin to the margin in the 2018 Democratic wave.

But Republicans are openly hoping those numbers are understating G.O.P. support.

“None of us should put any stock in polls anymore because they are wildly inaccurate; we all know that,” Speaker Mike Johnson said last week at the Capitol. “We know this is going to be a tight race. It is going to be decided by about 20 jump-ball swing districts around the country.”

His math is not wrong. The Cook Political Report currently rates 206 seats as leaning Democratic and 208 as leaning Republican. Democrats will need to win a majority of the 21 tossup seats to win.

I’m no pundit so I’ll refrain from predicting anything. But clearly the Republicans are going to lose quite a bit of Congress this time. If the Senate goes 50/50, it will effectively be Republican since VP Vance will be the tiebreaker.

*The WaPo has joined the chorus of media that recognize the value of standardized test in an editorial board op-ed called “A multifront war against educational accountability” with the subtitle, “New York drops Regents exam as a graduation requirement and conceals AP test results” (article archived here).

If teachers unions put as much effort into improving test scores as dodging accountability, students in New York’s public schools would have markedly better chances for success in life.

The New York State United Teachers union rallied again last week to pressure Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to reverse her decision to opt into a federal tax-credit scholarship program that would benefit students. Union bosses fear it would boost enrollment in private and religious schools, where it’s harder for unions to collect dues.

No wonder NYSUT feels threatened by more competition: Only 48 percent of New York public school students in grades three through eight can read proficiently, according to preliminary assessments released last month by the state. Bad scores aren’t for lack of investment: New York spends more per pupil than any other state.

Instead of rising to the challenge, NYSUT would prefer the state water down standards. “More teaching, less testing” is the union’s mantra. Manhattan Institute fellow Jennifer Weber told us, “They don’t want the tests because they don’t want to be held to the data and the outcomes.”

Last week, the unions won a big battle in their crusade against accountability when the New York State Board of Regents voted to end the use of the Regents exam as a high school graduation requirement. Though students will continue to take the test, the board says it will develop a different set of graduation requirements, such as being a “critical thinker” and “effective communicator.” But how will those skills be measured?

. . .New York’s Education Department has joined the anti-transparency brigades by blocking U.S. News & World Report from gaining access to the state’s Advanced Placement scores. New York claims it’s protecting student data from being used for a “commercial product.” In reality, suppressing aggregate data on AP scores covers up the shortcomings of public schools while handicapping higher performing alternatives, such as the charter network Success Academy.

One of the network’s high schools was ranked 11th in the state last year when U.S. News factored in AP scores. This year, without the AP scores available, the school fell to 196th. Success Academy is suing the state and deserves to win.

I’ve come to realize that teachers unions are among the biggest opponents of merit as a metric for advancement in schools, but New York’s Education Department?  And they block AP scores so the shortcomings of the states’ schools aren’t evident (the “commerical product” argument doesn’t wash). Oy again!

*Over at The Free Press, journalist Ardena Schwartz, using a new book (below) as a prompt, asks “Israel won the battles. Did it lose the war?” Her answer is “yes”.

While that commission of inquiry may never come, a new book offers the most extensive analysis to date of the war, and the behind-the-scenes decisions and debates that shaped its trajectory. In the War Room, released this month, is a riveting—and at times infuriating—look inside the deliberations that drove Israel’s multifront war against the Iranian Axis from 2023 to 2025. Co-authored by Israeli journalist Yonah Jeremy Bob of The Jerusalem Post and American journalist Elliot Kaufman of The Wall Street Journal, the book takes readers inside the conversations—both within Israel and between the U.S. and Israel—that produced the war’s greatest achievements and failures.

. . .As the book progresses, a pattern becomes obvious: Litanies of stunning Israeli military successes are repeatedly offset by colossal mistakes and miscalculations, egotistical infighting, and a jaw-dropping failure to reassess assumptions about Hamas. Indeed, this is the first time it’s been reported that Netanyahu did not speak to the head of the IDF until four hours into the Hamas invasion.

The authors make it clear that the failures that led to October 7, and the disastrous mistakes made that day, belong to all involved. “Israel’s prime minister, cabinet, military, intelligence agencies, and opposition all wore the same blinders,” write Bob and Kaufman, referring to the belief that Hamas was incapable of a mass invasion of Israel and that it favored quiet over confrontation. Still, they add, “the buck must stop with the prime minister. On some level, he knows that.”

. . .According to documents retrieved by the IDF in Gaza, former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned the October 7 attacks with two overarching goals. The first was to thwart the Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement that the Biden administration was close to securing. The second was to lead Israel into a long and grinding invasion of Gaza that Hamas had long prepared for and Israel had not, and that Hamas knew would result in the deaths of many thousands of Palestinian civilians. The ensuing humanitarian crisis, Sinwar predicted, would turn Israel into an international pariah.

It is hard to argue with the fact that both of Sinwar’s goals were achieved. Israel’s international standing has seldom been worse, and Israel is now a bitterly divisive topic on both sides of the aisle in the United States. It is an open question whether the next American president—representing either party—will sever ties with the Jewish state. The prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia, briefly revived by the Biden administration, was laid to rest by Netanyahu’s rejection of the conditions that agreement required. Today, relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are frayed, with the U.S. rejecting Saudi requests for aid as the kingdom faces renewed attacks from the Houthis. Prospects for normalization are muddled at best.

As for the military successes achieved in this war, many have failed to stick. As the book explains, the same Hezbollah that was supposedly decimated in the 2024 pager attack rose from the ashes to terrorize Israelis in 2026, emptying northern Israeli towns and killing dozens of soldiers. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime—the benefactor of Hezbollah and Hamas—survived the unprecedented American-Israeli attacks, leaving its ballistic missiles and nuclear program largely intact.

There’s a lot more, and you can read it if you subscribe. Schwartz seems to think that the solution to the whole problem was to somehow replace Hamas with the Palestinian Authority.  That is dumb for two reasons: Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza prefer Hamas to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian authority is still committed to terrorism.

The book (click the link to go to the distributor’s page):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili sees the despised Kulka outside:

Hili: Our neighbor pretends she doesn’t see me.
Andrzej: Use the same method of coexistence.

In Polish:

Hili: Nasza sąsiadka udaje, że mnie nie widzi.
Ja: Zastosuj tę samą metodę kohabitacji.

*******************

From Stacy, image by Chris Shapan:

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Give Me a Sign (it refers to a horse):

From Masih, a heartbreaking voice message from an Iranian woman who may be about to be executed:

From Malcolm, cat moments from Facebook:

Ricky Gervais displays his cat:

Two from my feed. I couldn’t resist posting the first one:

I love time-lapse videos of birds nesting:

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial. This brother was selected to work in the camp, but decided to stay with his ten-year-old sister. Both, Jews from Czechoslovakia, were then put to death in the gas chamber.

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, listen to the coyote chorus:

Sunrise song. You'll want the volume up for this one, but not too high. Every coyote within a half kilometre radius decided to make themselves known this morning while I was enjoying the sunrise from the kayak. A truly magical moment. #mammals 🌿

— Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 (@secondnaturemb.bsky.social) 2026-09-21T16:37:10.099Z

Matthew says, “That’s the way to do it.”:

4 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. “…the day of my cataract surgery”

    I wish you the very best of luck, I know it makes such a difference to quality of life.

    Reply

  2. Regarding the arc/arch/whatever the hell it is, maybe he is reactivating the Army of the Potomac and this will welcome them back across the river from Virginia. And the arming of the arch is to discourage the Army of Northern Virginia from pursuit? Makes as good a sense as anything else the guy does.

    Hope the surgery goes/went well and a rapid recovery.

    Reply

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