 On Sunday, January 3, at 6:59 am I was sitting in my favorite writing chair in front of a cozy fire writing in blissful ignorance a blog about leftover Christmas cookies. At 7 am my spouse turned on the radio to listen to the news and my visions of sugarplums suddenly turned into visions of a shock attack, bombs, explosions, and squadrons of helicopters from which hordes of foreign soldiers rappelled to the earth. I knew that it was the United States that had attacked Venezuela, American planes that had dropped the bombs on Caracas, American cyber units that had sabotaged Venezuela's electrical infrastructure and plunged its civilians into darkness, and that it was American troops that had rappelled from helicopters into their capitol and captured their president and their country, and for what reason.  Still, for a moment in my mind it wasn't Venezuela but my country the planes were flying over, my country the bombs were falling on, my country that was without power, my country that the foreign soldiers were rappelling down from their helicopters to attack. And I was seized with a moment of fear. Because even before the attack on Venezuela Donald Trump had been threatening to seize, acquire, or take military action against a number of countries, among them Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Iran. And when I heard that Trump, of his own volition, without so much as consulting Congress, had started a war with Venezuela, I thought, this is just the beginning. He won't stop with one country. He'll go right down the line, using America's superior military strength to overpower and vanquish country after country until the world finally unites to fight back back against us, and then the day will come when we Americans will look up and see helicopters in our skies with foreign soldiers rappelling down. I've thought that thought more and more often since January 3, as since then Donald Trump has doubled down on his determination to personally own Greenland, and to accomplish this goal either, in his his words, the easy way or the hard way. Today's meeting in Washington D.C. among the Danish, Greenlandic and American (that is to say, JD Vance and Marco Rubio) delegations resulted in no change in Trump's ultimatum that he will own Greenland, nor in any lessening in Greenland's resistance to his ultimatum. And Denmark's Defense Ministry today announced that its troops will fire on any enemy, including the American Army, that tries to take Greenland by force. In the meantime Donald Trump has cut off oil to Cuba, exacerbating the economic hardship of the Cuban people, and he's already talked about installing his Secretary of State Marco Rubio as that country's new president. Trump continues to talk up taking military action against Colombia and Mexico, but front and center, right next to his threats to invade Greenland, are his threats of an imminent military strike against Iran. I wonder if, when Adolph Hitler and his allies were raining down death and terror in Europe, Asia and Africa, they, as military superpowers, felt safe and impervious to conquest because oceans separated their territories from the United States, which was, in any case, a mid-level military power at best in the late 1930's and early 1940's. According to the 12/11/2014 post on the U.S. Army website: "'The U.S. Army went into World War II with an end-strength of just 189,000, ranked about seventeenth in effectiveness among the armies of the world, just behind Romania,' wrote Cristopher R. Gable in the U.S. Army Center of Military History publication: 'The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941.'" (https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later). But that was before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into a massive and unprecedented production of military equipment, a well-answered call for military enlistment, and the will to once again fight to make the world safe for democracy. I wonder how many countries Donald Trump's armies will have to invade before the day comes when an alliance of world powers decides to make the world safe for democracy by crossing the oceans and landing on our shores. References: https://www.google.com/search?q=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&rlz=1C1OPNX_enUS1166US1166&oq=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAtIBCjE4ODkzajBqMTWoAgywAgHxBZL1JTZ-Fmmv8QWS9SU2fhZprw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/article/poll-62-of-americans-would-oppose-us-military-action-in-greenland-215222605.html https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezela-mexico-00710063 https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/10/politics/us-will-take-greenland-the-hard-way-if-it-cant-do-it-the-easy-way-trump-says https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/14/us/trump-news?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20260114&instance_id=169279&nl=breaking-news®i_id=57152138&segment_id=213658&user_id=bd7dcba13f30625c4d8a54f9f4eaa28e https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/what-would-trumps-threatened-strikes-colombia-mexico-or-cuba-achieve https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later
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 Multiple videos have turned up of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last Wednesday, January 7. Most of the videos were taken on cellphones of witnesses. One of these evidential videos was taken by Ross himself on the cellphone which he held in his hand while circling Renee Good's car. He continued holding his phone and recording even while he shot her three times. There've been all kinds of back and forth from opposite sides of the political aisle on what the videos tell us happened, and yet with all the captured angles and points of view and all the subsequent analysis and some rushed conclusions up to date, none of the visual footage actually shows how close Jonathan Ross was to Renee Good's car when she began pulling away, or whether he was in danger of being run over, or, what appears to be the most important element, whether Renee Good's car made contact with Jonathan Ross's body, and if so, when. Me, I don't get why someone doesn't just ask Jonathan Ross whether or not he got hit by the car. Or maybe the FBI investigators did ask him, but don't want to share his answer in case it does nothing to support the conclusion required of them by Donald Trump and his clownish vassals, FBI Director Kash Patel and Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem.  But there are things that the videos do tell us, things so obvious that that you don't have to study the frames with a stop-action camera or a magnifying glass to see them. What the videos tell us is that ICE agent Jonathan Ross was poorly trained for the job he was supposed to be doing. According to Department of Homeland Security policy, officers are required to try and de-escalate tensions in potentially volatile situations. But Ross and his fellow agents did exactly the opposite when, instead of allowing Renee Good to leave the scene, they surrounded her car and ordered her to exit. Also per DHS policy, officers are in general forbidden to shoot into a moving vehicle because shooting into a moving vehicle may kill the driver but won't make the moving vehicle stop (Duh). The vehicle then becomes a two-ton missile careening out of control that endangers lives and property.  Tragic as the shooting of Renee Good was, one can only shutter at the thought of how much more tragic it could have been, had her car crashed into humans instead of parked cars. The video footage further tells us that here is a law enforcement officer who knew no better than to record on his cell phone with one hand while shooting his gun with the other, cowboy style. And here's a question that the video begs: if Ross had time to pull out his weapon, why didn't he instead use the time to jump away from the slowly moving car? The videos tell us that Ross and his comrades were either ignorant of or dismissive of the basic law enforcement training that instructs officers never to stand in front of or behind a moving vehicle, don't grab a door handle, and don't reach into a car.  I imagine that smashing a car window then reaching into the car is such unthinkable behavior for a law enforcement officer that no purveyor of police policy ever even thought to include forbidding it in the training manual. But it was this very behavior on Jonathan Ross's part - smashing a car window then reaching inside to try and unlock the door - that caused him to be dragged and seriously injured just last June. Which knowledge gives us the big picture of what it was we actually saw in the video footage. What we saw was a man who underneath his mask and his Kevlar and his weapon and his authority was afraid. A man who was perhaps still suffering from PTSD. A man who has been indoctrinated that these people are the enemy.  We saw a man who was angry that two women, one of them in a car,  ...were showing him no respect in spite of his boots and his Kevlar and his mask and his gun and his authority and his masculinity.  What the videos tell us is that this is what our country has degenerated into.  Reference:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-renee-good-cell-phone-invs https://www.newsweek.com/jonathan-ross-ice-agent-shooting-minneapolis-minnesota-11332093 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/08/ice-shooting-minneapolis-use-of-force/88082677007/ https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/23_0206_s1_use-of-force-policy-update.pdf https://www.justsecurity.org/128498/dhs-doj-cbp-policy-force-vehicles/#:~:text=or%20other%20Conveyances-,a.,solely%20to%20disable%20moving%20vehicles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/10/minneapolis-shooting-ice-officers-training-policies/  What a fearful, sad, disorienting time we live in. This is the age of Trump, where day by day, sometimes hour by hour, we're hit with a new shock, so that we can't absorb one shock before we're hit with the next one. I regularly find that while I'm still searching for the words to express what I think and feel about the most recent act of cruelty, brutality, corruption, or aggression by Trump or his minions I have to abandon the effort because that outrage has been made obsolete by the breaking news of yet another outrage. Sort of a variation of a nightmarish Groundhog Day scenario. And so here I am again today, here many of us are, once again horrified, angry, grieving, trying to find words to express what we're thinking, what we're feeling, about the latest outrage, the brutal killing two days ago in Minneapolis of 37-year- old Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, who was shot to death by ICE agent Jonathan Ross,  ...while she was attempting to move her illegally parked car during an anti-ICE demonstration. Renee, videoed by Jonathan Ross on his cell phone moments before he shot her.  The purported investigation of Renee Good's death will be carried out solely by FBI, no longer an independent law enforcement agency but beholden to the wishes of Donald Trump. To this end the FBI has blocked the Minneapolis police and Minnesota state officials from taking part in the investigation, such as it will (or will not) be. But if Trump's FBI refuses to seek either truth or justice in the killing of Renee Nicole Good, and if Trump lackeys JD Vance and Kristi Noem insist on broadcasting their preposterously fabricated narrative that Good was a domestic terrorist who was trying to kill ICE agent Ross, who subsequently had no choice but to shoot her in self-defense,   ...there are human witnesses and video footage that tell a different story. The story those witnesses and videos tell is that Renee Nicole Good trying to move her car was no threat to the lives of the ICE agents or to whatever mission they were there to accomplish in their combat gear and masks that morning in that Minneapolis neighborhood. They tell that there was no reason, while Good was turning her front wheels to the right, for Jonathan Ross to shoot through her windshield from where he stood to the front left side of her car. That there was no reason, after shooting Good in the face through her windshield, for him to shoot her twice more through the driver's side window then snap, "f**king b**ch" as her car and its lifeless driver careened away. And though MAGA world is pushing the unproven account that Jonathan Ross at some point was hit by Renee Nicole Good's car, all the video stills show him on his feet the whole time, walking and looking just fine.    Some outrages are worse than others. Rest in peace, Renee. You seemed like a really nice person.   It's Saturday, January, 3, the day after January 2, the day the Christmas holidays (or whatever holidays one opts to celebrate or not celebrate between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day) officially close for the season. Today I intend to take down all the decorations,      ...except for the Christmas arch that we set up every year,  ...both the setting up and taking down of which is a whole day's operation usually carried out with the help of our son and a measure of agita.     And yet while it's up and glowing, the arch is a source of such visual delight to ourselves and, we're told, the neighborhood, that its construction and deconstruction are worth the effort.    So the arch will stay up a few more days. But the rest of the holiday things will be put away until next year. Including the holiday eating. Oh, that holiday eating. The feasts we had. In our house the feasting began on Christmas night, when the first of our out-of-town loved ones arrived for a too-brief, too-quickly-over six-day visit.  The next night we ate at the Sakura Japanese steak house, to which we all gave five stars.  On the morning of December 28 my daughter Claire and her husband Miguel arrived from Chicago, and after a quick brunch of waffles and Miguel's sublime specialty scrambled eggs,   ...we all hit the ground running to get ready for a feast with family and friends that evening.           After the company left, everyone laden with leftovers, the family gathered in the family room for a movie and games.   The following morning, Monday, the plan had been to go out for brunch. But as it turned out, everyone was once again jonesing for some of Miguel's eggs and my waffles, so we brunched at home, where it was generally agreed that the food was superior to restaurant fare.  The next morning, Tuesday morning, was our last day of holiday feasting, when two more local relatives joined us for a final brunch, this time with French toast, tater tots, fruit salad, and Miguel regaling us with two batches of eggs, one mushroom and one veggie.  Early the following morning, New Year's Eve, all our out of town loved ones left. On New Year's Day, the last day of the Christmas season, I suggested to my mate Tom that the two of us ring in the new year by going out to dinner at Fado, an Irish restaurant at nearby Easton Town Center. Easton was still festively lit up,       ...Fado was cozy,    ...and the food, Tom's super-tender pot roast and my tasty shepherd's pie, was just what we were in the mood for.   And now it's January 3, time to take down the Christmas decorations and stop the Christmas eating. Except I still keep seeing these cookies and candies around the place.      So I guess Christmas isn't quite over yet.   When I came down on Christmas morning I caught a quick glimpse of the New York Times sitting on the kitchen table.  My first thought was that this was some contemporary artistic rendition of the Nativity story, in which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their newborn baby Jesus to save him from certain death at the hands of Herod, the King of Judea. But upon taking a closer at the newspaper I saw that this was in fact a photograph of Sudanese refugees who fled their homeland to save themselves from certain death at the hands of a violent militia group known as the Rapid Response Forces.  I wondered if the Times editorial board purposely chose this photograph for its Christmas Day edition on the hunch that its readers would likely make the same connection that I did. And perhaps to hand their readers the challenge of squaring how we celebrate Christmas,             ...with circling back to that first Christmas, which, if we are to believe what the the Gospel tells us, has much more in common with this image,   ...than with any of the things we do to commemorate the birth of Jesus. But here's an idea. Supposing we gave ourselves permission to brighten up the dark, cold, winter days to our heart's content with lights, gifts, eating, singing, celebrating with family and friends, and spreading a spirit of joy, while the rest of the year we live the message of Christmas by caring for the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters on the planet.  If only.    It's Christmas Eve here in Columbus, Ohio. Some of us spent the day getting our homes ready for this night,   ...putting the finishing touches on our baking,  ...burning our Christmas Eve bayberry candles,   ...for some of us the celebration of Christmas with friends and family beginning on this night. Some of us were out during the day doing some last minute shopping or enjoying the festively decked-out stores and malls,  ...and some were in their homes, cowering in fear, unable to put together Christmas for their families, unable to console their frightened children, too terrified to leave their homes to visit with loved ones, or even to shop for food. This is because during this season, the overarching themes of which are peace, joy, goodwill, letting all contention cease, and recalling the story of the baby who was born in a stable and whose parents became immigrants who had to flee with their newborn child across the border into a foreign country,  ...Donald Trump chose to bring his theater of cruelty,  ...under the direction of his cold-blooded, plastic surgery-skinned overseer of brutality,   ...to Columbus, Ohio for Christmas.     But Columbus, Ohio, has chosen during this Christmas season to live the message of kindness, brother-and sisterhood, and caring for the least among us preached by the one who was born on that first Christmas day:            Matthew 25:35 – “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” Leviticus 19:33-34 33 “ ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and carry a whistle.  Merry Christmas, Everyone. May the Lord keep your city safe from ICE.
 A few years ago I wrote a post on my impression that Chicagoans are the nicest people. The basis for this post was an experience I had almost half a dozen years ago when visiting the city in the icy, frigid, mid-winter weather. (https://www.ailantha.com/blog/chicagoans-are-the-nicest-people).   I had taken a train from the airport, and when I reached my stop I had problems with my suitcase, first getting it through the turnstile, an old-fashioned contraption that looked like this,  ...then getting it down the steep flight of stairs from the train platform to the sidewalk.  However, one nice young man stopped and helped get my suitcase through the turn stile, then another stopped and hauled my suitcase down the steps for me. Then, as I was making my way on foot from the train station to my destination I got a little directionally confused, and a nice man on the street helped me find my way. And so it was during that visit that it struck me how nice Chicago folks are. And it was during my most recent visit the second week in December of this year (See post from 12/16/2025, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/walking-and-walking-and-walking-in-a-chicago-winter-wonderland), that I began to take notice of how kind a city Chicago is. Everywhere I went there were signs of tolerance and acceptance. I saw signs such as these on public restrooms.    In shop windows everywhere I walked there were signs standing up for the immigrants who were given refuge in Chicago only to be cruelly persecuted by Donald Trump's heartless ICE gangs.        For me all these signs brought a a spirit of Christmas feeling, a bit warmth to the cold winter air, a bit of solace in the midst of woe,  ...and made me feel that Chicago is my kind of town.    Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon: "Equal And Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888 "Tropical Depression" https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY
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"Tropical Depression"
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January 2026
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