9/17/2025

 Wednesday, September 17, 2025

D+316/241/-1223

1787 US Constitution was signed by delegates at the Philadelphia Convention

1941 Famous meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr and German head of nuclear energy project Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen to discuss nuclear weapons

1978 Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Accords, frameworks for peace in the Middle East and between Egypt and Israel

1986 US Senate confirmed Shorewood H.S. alumnus William Rehnquist as 16th chief justice

2024 Handheld pagers belonging to members of the armed group Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon, killing nine people and injuring 2,800

In bed at 10, and up at 6.  59°, high of 79°, sunny day.

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 7:30 a.m., with me wondering whether I should take them or skip them in light of my mistaken double-dosing yesterday.  I took them.

They're not that into you, Joe.  In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there is an article by Emily Glazer and Annie Linskey and  on Joe Biden's hard time cashing in on his presidency.  He receives more than $400,000 a year from his congressional and presidential pensions, but he has about $800,000 in personal debts, including the mortgage on the $2.7 million Rehoboth beach house he and Jill bought in 2017.  There are also big bills for Hunter's legal fees and his daughter Ashley is in the middle of a divorce.  He is 82 years old and wants to leave moeney to them and to his grandchildren, but raising it is coming hard.  His agent is having a had time finding high-paying ($300K-$500K) speaking engagements for him.  One problem: not many people are fond of him anymore after disastrous decision to run for re-election and refusal to drop out after the disastrous debate.  Republicans never liked him, and Democrats aren't too keen on him either.  The other big problem is fear that engaging Joe as a speaker will incur the wrath and possible vengeance of the Orange Ogre in the White House.  Biden and his enormous ego remind me of The Old Man and the Sea: he went out too far.  He should have retired gracefully once he had accomplished his lifelong goal of serving as president and living in the White House, showing his doubters and detractors that he was up to the job despite his limitations.  In the end, his relentless ambition has done him in.  He's the former president and he's flying in commercial aircraft instead of private jets.  I can't say I feel sorry for him.  I confess, shamefully, to harboring a grudge against him since 1991 when he gave us Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court through 2024, when he gave Donald Trump a catastrophic second term in the White House.

What I believe you believe and what you believe I believe is a big part of the crisis in American society today.  We tend to believe the worst in our political adversaries.   Rightists say that Leftists don't believe in God, believe in infanticide, want to take away our freedoms, etc.  Leftists say similar but opposite things about Rightists.  To the Right, there is no reasonable, moderate Left and to the Left, there is no reasonable, moderate Right.  Each side tends to think of the other side as "Radical."  To a large extent this is based on the situation in Washington, in the Congress, where, because of party primaries, state gerrymandering, and social media, both Democrats and Republicans are increasingly represented by people on the extremes of their parties (though Republicans more than Democrats.)  There are no more "liberal Republicans" like Nelson Rockefeller, Earl Warren, and George Romney.  The last of the "Blue Dog" Democrats is Henry Cuellar of Texas.  As far as I can tell, to Donald Trump, there are no "liberals," only "radical liberals."  Thus his threats against "radical liberals" includes all of us on the left.  In much social media discourse and from the mouths of too many Republicans, "Democrats" and "demons" are synonymous.  As I awrite this, I'm aware that I have literally posted a graphic of a demon as a representation of "the Orange Ogre" in the Whhie House.  I am guilty of what I accuse other of.  But I know full well that there are many people who voted for Trump who are appalled by his character and his behavior and the way his administration carries out his policies, but couldn't  themselves to  vote for Hillary Clinton, Biden, or Harris for varius reasons.  They are no more "fascist" than I am "communist."  They know that I am not "an enemy of the people" and I know the same of them.  But I also know that there are fascists on the right side and there are Marxists (but not Stalinists or Leninists) on the left side.  If I knew more about his theories, I might find that I believe he was right.  How many of us have read and understand his critique of capitalism?  Among the fascists on the Right are Trump himself and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and, I suspect, a great many others.  I believe that democracy is no one's natural first choice of an ideal government.  Our first choice would be a government that does what we want; we accept democracy because we can't get a government that does what we want so we take second-best, one which gives us some say and sometimes one that approximates what we want.  Fascism was extremely popular to millions of people in the 1920s and 1930s and is still popular to millions of people today.   It gained control of Italy, Germany, Japan, and Spain in that era, but had many adherents in Great Britain, France, and elsewhere.  We would all be a lot better off if we had accurate understanding of the terms "fascist," "Marxist," "socialist," and "capitalist."  I read a couple of books and other resources several years ago trying to understand what "fascism" was and is.  It turned out to be not so simple.  The same of course is true of "socialism" and to a lesser extent "Marxism" and "capitalism."  Most of us are pretty ignorant of their varied meanings, connotations, and nuances, but we toss them around as negative epithets as though we know what we are talking about.  That said, I think I know enough about fascism to feel comfortable calling Trump and Miller fascists.  If I knew more about Tom Homan, the ICEman and Border Czar, I suspect I put him in the small group too.  As it is, I suppose I should call the ICE agents who don facemarks, snatch people off our streets, throw them into unmarked vehicles, and whisk them off to "detention centers" hundreds of miles from their home, "thugs," rather than brownshirts, Gestapo, or fascists, but I wonder whether all this quibbling over labels can make any difference in the temper of our times.

VA today.  Dr. Cheng at Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.  Tomorrow, x-rays of my left hip and my right shoulder, between 11 a.m. appointment for "Aging from the inside out" group discussion, and the eye clinic to pick out a new pair of eyeglasses.

State dinner in Windsor Castle for Trump today, with full military honors.  1200 soldiers passing in review and standing at attention for a formal 'inspection' by King Charles and Trump, 120 horses, 9 jets trailing red, white, and blue contrails.  Pass me the basin, please.