Sixty years ago a young man in New Jersey signed up to run toward other people's worst nights. Nobody ever paid him a dime for it.

Last week his town thanked him. Which is usually how these things end.

Also: a general who handed out chocolate to children, buried this morning with a crowd in the street. A promise the Germans call the firewall. Twenty one miles of water that a fifth of the world's oil has to pass through. A hurricane that has made its turn, and the anniversary falling on Friday. A voice out over Elliott Bay before daylight. A man on the Passaic River aboard something that belongs in a bedroom. And a mountain near Antarctica with something in its crater that has never once gone cold.

Monday, September 7th, 2026. The Sterling Report. News and comment.