March 19, 2026: Dawn at the corner of Webster & Drexel in Racine, Wisconsin, across from Mitchell School.
Another Week: Number 169
March continued to be a messy mix this week, with some rain and lightning on Sunday, and a full-blown blizzard with five inches of snow on Monday. Temperatures rose from 11 degrees on Tuesday to 59 by Thursday, and I switched from snow boots to sneakers.
In the news, Donald J. Trump’s war in Iran hammered away for a third week. Meanwhile, congressional hearings featuring his Cabinet selections have continued to spotlight preposterous corruption and incompetence. Recently, we saw Kristi Noem’s $220 million ad spend and $70 million flying bedroom, as well as Pam Bondi’s looney tantrums. This week, testifying specifically about worldwide threats, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, insisted that only Donald Trump can say whether Iran posed an imminent threat.
Trump has suddenly blundered us into a nasty war and now he wants out, but can’t find his way. On Saturday evening, he threatened to “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. This is, like, all the chess he has in him.
Additional tension is building around the wait times of TSA lines in America’s airports. The Trump administration is leveraging pain there because Democrats are refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless ICE is made to stop wearing masks and start using judicial warrants. As usual, Democrats are doing a feeble job of getting their message across — and the American public has zero comprehension of the issue. They just want “Washington” to “get it fixed.”
This week, I switched my phone from its $35-per-month Spectrum plan to a $25-per-month Boost Mobile plan and made an installation appointment with AT&T Fiber to replace Spectrum Internet.
I also walked 10.07 miles.
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The Colbert Questionert: Pete Townshend
Stephen Colbert uses a set list of 15 or so questions as a way of recording a bonus segment with certain guests that can be aired some other night in addition to their regular appearance on his show. This segment is called “The Colbert Questionert.”
Of course, the bit depends largely on the guest’s answers. Some celebrities impatiently tick off the items like paperwork, merely providing padding between commercial breaks.
Other times, the guest engages wholeheartedly, and a truly magic moment results.
On Monday, YouTube offered me Pete Townshend’s “Colbert Questionert” segment from the March 5th episode, and it was glorious.
One Battle After Another (2025)
Choosing movies to watch with my 90-year-old mom presents a number of challenges. She has already seen a great many of the better movies of the last 90 years. She’s not a fan of sex scenes, or swearing, or young people disrespecting parents. Foreign accents and subtitles are taxing. Artsy techniques can aggravate her. So, while she’s a huge fan of movies generally, she has not seen all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films.
On Saturday night, after striking out on several other options, I persuaded her to give Sunday’s Best Picture winner, One Battle After Another, a chance via HBO Max.
After some wincing early on, I was shocked by how much Mom enjoyed it. For example, Sean Penn carefully combing his hair in the elevator cracked her up.
The movie is a comedy — but not an overall funny one. It’s a nightmarish version of the America we live in now, only slightly exaggerated.
Penn, in a deservedly Oscar-winning performance, plays Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, a stunning premonition of Gregory Bovino. Just as Bovino went after protestors in Minneapolis, Lockjaw is hunting down immigrant-freeing revolutionaries called the “French 75.” One of these lefties is Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, another one is named Perfidia (which should be a red flag). They do a lot of kissing in the midst of revolutionary raids, and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) gives birth to a daughter who, sixteen years later, is played by the captivating Chase Infiniti.
Another outstanding character is Benicio del Toro as the daughter’s unperturbed (“ocean waves”) karate sensei.
There’s very limited sex and graphic violence here — but a good deal of action and plenty of verbal vulgarity. Amid all the grim fascism and racism, my mom’s main concern was for the daughter. We paused repeatedly, so I could explain how zip ties work and who Gregory Bovino is. When the movie ended, she made a joke about Bovino that I can’t repeat here because it would spoil the ending — but I laughed hard.
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