4/24/2025

 Thursday, April 24, 2025

D+169/94

1916 The Easter Rising of Irish republicans against British occupation began in Dublin

1961 JFK accepted "sole responsibility" following the Bay of Pigs

1967  General William Westmoreland said in a news conference that the enemy has "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily."

1980 US military operation to rescue 52 hostages in Iran failed, and 8 died

In bed at 9:30, awake about 4, and up at 4:20.

Prednisone, day 345 (corrected); 2 mg., day 7/21; Kevzara, day 10/14; CGM, day 9/15; Trulicity, day 7/7.  Prednisone at 5 a.m.  Other meds at 9:15 a.m.

Putin's puppet:  Trump's Truth Social post yesterday:

Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is boasting on the front page of The Wall Street Journal that, “Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea. There’s nothing to talk about here.” This statement is very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of President Barack Hussein Obama, and is not even a point of discussion. Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired? The area also houses, for many years before “the Obama handover,” major Russian submarine bases. It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War. He has nothing to boast about! The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country. I have nothing to do with Russia, but have much to do with wanting to save, on average, five thousand Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, who are dying for no reason whatsoever. The statement made by Zelenskyy today will do nothing but prolong the “killing field,” and nobody wants that! We are very close to a Deal, but the man with “no cards to play” should now, finally, GET IT DONE. I look forward to being able to help Ukraine, and Russia, get out of this Complete and Total MESS, that would have never started if I were President!

With a friend like Donald Trump, Ukraine and Zelenskyy don't need enemies.  Trump cloaks himself with the mantle of a great humanitarian, concerned only with "wanting to save, on average, five thousand Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, who are dying for no reason whatsoever."  A regular Florence Nightingale, heartsick over the carnage of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers.  No mention, however, of civilians, who are and have always been a principal target of Putin's drones, missiles, and artillery.  Plus, "Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of President Barack Hussein Obama, and is not even a point of discussion."  "Under the auspices" means 'with the help and support of."  Obama and the rest of the world condemned Russia's seizure and annexation of Crimea.  Here's the position of the first Trump administration on Russia and Crimea:

PRESS STATEMENT, MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 25, 2018

Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental principle - which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act - constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests. As we did in theWelles Declarationin 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recogniz the Kremlin's claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with all its partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine's territorial integrity is restored. The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea. As democratic states seek to build a free, just, and prosperous world, we must uphold our commitment to the international principle of sovereign equality and respect the territorial integrity of other states. Through its actions, Russia has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community.

In Syria, he betrayed our allies, the Kurds, to the Turkish dictator Erdogan.  Now he betrays our allies, the Ukrainians, to the Russian dictator Putin.  And he pretends to be a neutral intermediary: "I have nothing to do with Russia."  

What will it take for the 77 million Americans who voted for this bastard to realize he is Putin's puppet?  He has divided the country as it hasn't been divided since the bitter 1960s.  Dayenu.  He has taken a sledgehammer to the nation's and world's financial markets.  Dayenu.  He has acted so capriciously and perfidiously that no nation can count on America's word anymore.  Dayenu.  He has appointed grossly incompetent persons to lead the nation's defense, intelligence, and justice departments.  Dayenu.  He has granted pardons to insurrectionists and cop beaters,  Dayenu.  He has defiled the office of the United States presidency by his words and by his deeds.  Dayenu.  He has treated as enemies long-term friends of the United States, including Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and NATO.  Dayenu. He had reversed or undermined years of progress in addressing the dire dangers of climate change.  Dayenu. He has denigrated the nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, calling them "sucker" and "losers." Dayenu.  He has turned loose on federal agencies created to aid Americans, the world's wealthiest man, for a slash-and-burn campaign to destroy or weaken them.  Dayenu.  He has defied our courts and treated the nation's Constitution as empty words.  Dayenu.   He has substituted for the ideals of truth, justice, and the American way, traits of narcissism, self-interest, callousness, hatred, vindictiveness, and opportunism.

I was born when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.  I grew up during the presidencies of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy.  I will probably die while Donald J. Trump is president.  What can our children and grandchildren look forward to after this?  How low can we go?

 Thankful thoughts for the Andersons.  I texted Larry this morning:

Charles Clausen:

Good morning, buddy.  First, I appreciate that you called me to check in on watashi-wa and Geri and to share your adventures on your European cruise.  Second, I also appreciate the help from Jan in befriending her and you on Facebook.  The older I get, the less capable I am with computers and anything digital.  My thanks to Jan.  Third, I very much appreciate reading Jan’s notes and enjoying her photos and videos about your voyage, both because of her terrific narrative writing ability and because much of what she wrote about triggers memories of my own time travelling in Europe, especially in Bell’Italia.  I’ve been reading about your visit to Crotone and to the Ceraudo farm, restaurant, and winery.  I’ve been to Italy three times, once for a week in Rome with Mike Hogan, who is a former Jesuit which got us a pass into the Papal Gardens behind St. Peter’s, and into the catacombs beneath the basilica where Peter is said to have been buried after his martyrdom, and twice with Geri, including a two week visit during which we rented a farmhouse in Marche, on the Adriatic side of the Apennines.  As I enjoyed the photos of the Catholic churches, I wondered what thoughts went through your head as a guy born in the bosom of the Wisconsin Synod Luthaeranism with its mighty dim view of Catholicism and its idolatry and anti-Christ.  BTW, Jan and I seem to be cut from similar cloth when I comes to note-taking on trips.  I went to Paris in 1998 from Holy Thursday to Easter Monday, attending services at every church I managed to get to, including the Easter Vigil at Notre Dame.  I filled 88 pages of a pocket notebook I kept with me.  When Geri and I spent the two weeks  in Italy, she got a little irritated with me for spending so much time writing notes about our time there.  I’m thankful I still have the notes to revisit now and then and thankful to you and Jan for sharing your trip.  If I start texting or emailing you too much, feel free to ignore my blather.  As you probably know, I tend to ‘run off at the keyboard.’  Also, you should know that, although I write every day on Blogspot/Blogger, the stuff I put into it is basically just a personal journal or notebook that I’ve been maintaining for close to three years.  I use Blogspot because my handwriting would be illegible and Blogspot lets me both type and insert photos, but no one ‘follows’ me or reads it, except you whenever you may do so.  I put all sorts of stuff in it, poems, song lyrics, my paintings and drawings, memories and personal reflections, including my FB posts and communications with family and friends, including you.  If you prefer me not to mention you for any reason, let me know and I’ll removeany references to you.  As I’ve told you before, my circle of friends is diminishing and I count it a great blessing to have had your friendship for so many years. s/f

Larry Anderson:

Well, stand by, she still has about 5 episodes to go, including Venice and Lake Como. S/F

I spent more time on her FB page this afternoon, reading about and seeing the photos and videos of Sicily and Pompeii.  Great photos, great videos, and great descriptive and reflective narratives by Jan.  I was struck by the way she concluded her words about their visit to Pompeii:

I found touring the ruins to be a somber experience.  In 79 AD, the people here were going about their everyday life when everything just stopped in a sudden violent two day rain of ash and searing heat.  As you enter Pompeii - and as you leave her ruins - Mt Vesuvius towers nearby. 

Pompeii is fascinating. And tragic.  What are the lessons it has to teach us?? Carpe diem. Seize the day! Rejoice in the richness and beauty of this moment. Life is so fragile that we must not ever take it for granted. It is a gift.

Her thoughts reflecting on the sudden death in Pompeii triggered my thoughts of Tom St. John and of my Mom.  My mother, at age 51, was tending her little garden in the back yard of her home when an aneurysm in her brain burst, putting her in a coma and leading to her death 9 days later.  One minute she was caring for her flowers, the next minute she was lying on the ground unconscious and on her way to her death.  Tom St. John, at age 79, was in the American Virgin Islands, snorkeling with his wife Micaela and their son Saul.  Micaela and Saul were in the boat resting and noticed that Tom had not moved in the water for some time.  Saul swam over to check on him and found he was dead from what turned out to be cardiac arrest.  My Dad, living with my sister at the time, was feeling fine and had a piece of cake after his lunch.  An hour later, he wasn't feeling well and was taken to the hospital, where he was brain-dead that evening.   My little sister died a long, slow death at age 77 from COPD.  My mother, father, sister, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and a cousin are all gone.  Friends and colleagues from my law firm have also gone: Bob Friebert, David Branch, Bill Guis, Bill Raush, and Tom St. John, all younger than me.  I think of all of these people who were big parts of my life, all dead younger than I am, except for my Dad.  I think too of my two friends who were pilots who "bought the farm" during Vietnam, Marine Bill Mullen in Laos, and Navy pilot and Marquette classmate J. Forrest Trembley in China.  How do I feel about outliving so many friends and family?  Sometimes I have something like survivor's guilt, especially with respect to my little sister, but even with respect to my mother.  Why should I have lived longer than they did, they who were much more deserving of a long life than I am?  But I am mindful of what Jan wrote, that " Life is so fragile that we must not ever take it for granted. It is a gift."  When I'm in the dumps and starting to throw a pity party for myself, I remind myself of what my mother went through to bring me into this world, and to protect and nourish me, how she wanted me to live a good life, not like "Micky the Mope."  I remind myself of how much my sister loved me and supported me in hard times, and how she too wanted me to live a good life.  Even though they are gone, their love lives on in me, a gift that keeps on giving.  I need to stop writing now.  Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift, which is why we call it 'the present.'

4/23/2025

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

D+168/93

1969 Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for killing RFK (later commuted to life)

1971 Columbia University operations were virtually ended by a student strike

1985 New Coke debuted; Coca-Cola announced it was changing its secret flavor formula

1991 USSR granted the republics the right to secede under certain conditions

2020 President Donald Trump suggested studying whether COVID-19 could be treated by introducing disinfectant or UV lights into a human body, 

In bed at 9, but had a hard time falling asleep. Awake and up at 3:30, unable to sleep.  41°, cloudy, high of 62°, rain this afternoon.

Prednisone, day368; 2 mg., day 6/21; Kevzara, day 9/14;  CGM, day 8/15; Trulicity, day 6/7.  Prednisone at 4 a.m.  Other meds at 5 a.m.   

Phone call from Larry Anderson.  He filled me in on his and Jan's grand cruise through much of Mediterranean/Adriatic Europe from Barcelona through ports of call in France, on to Rome, Naples, and Sicily, and up the Adriatic coast of Italy and Croatia.  From Venice, they took an excursion to Verona and over to Lake Como, which brought back memories of Geri's and my stays in Como during our two weeks in Italy in 2000(?).  I'm reminded that Como is where we were introduced to limoncello, a bottle of which I've had in the refrigerator for months.  Maybe I should start imbibing again.

Miscounted days.  Somewhere along the line, I made a typo or other mistake in counting the days I've been on prednisone.  I didn't start the drug until I was diagnosed with PMR by Dr. Ryzka on May 13 2024, less than one year ago.  Nonetheless, my count has me on the drug for 368 days, an error.  Perhaps on a day when I am really bored, I will go through the journal entries and find where I made the error (or errors).  Also, I had Trump on day 94 of his presidency, though others have him at day 93. They are correct; I'm wrong.  Perhaps my count on the number of days that have elapsed since 77 million Americans voted for him is also off, but I'm not up to recounting those days.  'Close enough for government work,' and my private journal/unread blog/daily notes/morning musings.

Kristi Noem's purse was stolen on Easter Sunday.  The haul: $3,000 in cash for the family's dinner out and Easter gifts, the $4,400 Gucci shoulder bag, and her $600 Louis Vuitton Clemence wallet.  Not bad.  No comment.

Fairly busy day.  I delivered Andy and Anh's mail and Amazon package, went to the library to return a book, "Mad House" by Annie Karnie and Luke Broadwater, and sent to Sendik's for various items.  I spent much of the afternoon fixing the TV sets in the sunroom, basement, and my bedroom.  Problems both with ROKU and with YouTube. I have the ROKU problems at least partially fixed (fingers crossed) with the help of Mr. Google, but no luck with YouTube on the basement set.  Only partially successful.  I baked a loaf of banana bread, using the sour cream and butter recipe.  I put too much oil spray in the loaf pan, but it didn't ruin the bread.

4/22/2025

 Tuesday, April 22, 2025

D+167/93

1954 Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings began

2021 President Joe Biden pledged to cut US carbon emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 at a virtual climate summit

In bed at 9, up at 4:40.  39°, high of 54°.

Prednisone, day 367; 2 mg., day 5/21; Kevzara, day 8/14; CGM, day 7/15; Trulicity, day 5/7.  Prednisone at 4:50 a.m.  Other meds at 6 a.m. 

Last year's journal on this date, in its entirety:  "Terrible night, terrible pain in both hands & wrists, both shoulders."

Side effects of Kevzara.  I saw my VA rheumatologist yesterday, told him of my persistent shoulder pain and some hip pain, and had a blood draw afterwards to check my inflammation markers, sedimentation rate and c-reactive proteins.  I may learn the results today which will determine whether I can continue withdrawing from prednisone and perhaps be off of it by the end of May.  He told me, however, that I would continue on Kevzara injections for one year.  I looked up the side effects of Kevzara and learned:

KEVZARA® (sarilumab) can cause serious side effects including:

SERIOUS INFECTIONS: KEVZARA is a medicine that affects your immune system. KEVZARA can lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections. Some people have had serious infections while using KEVZARA, including tuberculosis (TB), and infections caused by bacteria, fungi, or viruses that can spread throughout the body. Some people have died from these infections.

CHANGES IN CERTAIN LABORATORY TEST RESULTS: Your healthcare provider should do blood tests before and after starting KEVZARA to check for low neutrophil (white blood cells that help the body fight off bacterial infections) counts, low platelet (blood cells that help with blood clotting and stop bleeding) counts, and an increase in certain liver function tests. Changes in test results are common with KEVZARA and can be severe. You may also have changes in other laboratory tests, such as your blood cholesterol levels

TEARS (PERFORATION) OF THE STOMACH OR INTESTINES: Tell your healthcare provider if you have had a condition known as diverticulitis (inflammation in parts of the large intestine) or ulcers in your stomach or intestines. Some people using KEVZARA get tears in their stomach or intestine. This happens most often in people who also take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)[aspirin], corticosteroids, or methotrexate. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have fever and stomach (abdominal) pain that does not go away. 

CANCER: KEVZARA may increase your risk of certain cancers by changing the way your immune system works.  

Dr. Ryzka told me none of this when he put me on this medication.  Should he have?  Should he have gotten my "informed consent" before having me inject this stuff in my belly every two weeks?  I wonder about this, especially about the risk of perforations in the stomach or intestines, since I have taken a full-strength, 325 mg aspirin every day for the last 4 years or so.  I suspect most doctors don't bother with warning about possible side effects because their probabilities are so low.  Or perhaps because the information is available in the package inserts that come with the medication, the inserts that few patients read or indeed may not be abe to read because the print font is so tiny as to be illegible.  In any event, now that I know the risk of serious illness, injury, or death (though not the magnitude of the risks), should I stop using the med?  Something to think about, or perhaps to do further research on.  First, I await the results of yesterday's blood test.

Dr. Ryzka called me while I was on my afternoon outing and told me that all my numbers were good so I should continue on 2 mg/day to complete the 21 days, then 1 mg for 21 days, and then stop taking the stuff.  That's the good news; the bad news is that all these pains in my joints must be osteoarthritis.

Cruelty, vindictiveness, pettiness, and let public health be deamned.  From yesterday's WSJ:

Trump Administration Irate at Harvard, Plans to Pull Additional $1 Billion in Funding

 The Trump administration has grown so furious with Harvard University after a week of an escalating dispute between the two sides that it is planning to pull an additional $1 billion of the school’s funding for health research, according to people familiar with the matter.  

Trump administration officials, the people said, thought the long list of demands they sent Harvard last Friday was a confidential starting point for negotiations.

They were surprised on Monday when Harvard released the letter to the public. Before Monday, the administration was planning to treat Harvard more leniently than Columbia University, but now officials want to apply even more pressure to the nation’s most prominent university, according to the people.

People familiar with Harvard’s response say that there was no agreement to keep the letter private, and that its contents—including requirements that Harvard allow federal-government oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff—were a nonstarter.

The letters to Harvard and other schools are coming from a new Trump panel called the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. 

Are actions like these coming from Trump himself, or from Stephen Miller, a shanda fur die goyim?  Or does Robert F. Kennedy have a role in this as Secretary of Health and Human Services, or Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education?  My money is on Stephen Miller. 

This morning's lead headline in the WSJ is "Dow Headed for Worst April Since Great Depression: Few think the administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain."    

Such a welcome sight!  Geri is getting ready to take charge of her gardens and landscaping again.

Thinking about Pope Francis's death and Micaela's seder.  The Hagaddah, Elijah, ma nishtanah, and dayenu.  Cardinals in red, bishops in purple, Swiss guards, and the conclave.  Rituals, traditions, rites, customs, protocols.  Why do I find the Passover Haggadah understandable and worthwhile, but all the folderol surrounding the death of Pope Francis (and every earlier pope) and the election of his successor to be so off-putting, repellent, and worse?  Traditions and rituals help to bind people in groups together.  They help provide identity, meaning, purpose, as well as group cohesiveness. They can be good things or bad things.  Family prayerful seders are good.  Nazi ritual a la Leni Riefenstahl are bad.  The haggadah at Passover is a family and friends affair celebrating the survival and liberation of a whole people held in captivity by another people.  The Vatican rituals surrounding the Pope, in life and in death, are about one man, a High Priest, said to be the linal successor of another man supposedly designated by the Son of God, who was God Himself, to lead his people.  All the pomp and circumstance around the Pope is designed to mimic the homage due to an emperor.  The papal Curia is aptly named - a court, as in a royal court.  The Swiss Guards with their bizarre striped, Renaissance-style uniforms, their halberds and helmets, are an anachronistic Praetorian Guard.  All the hullabaloo suggests worldly power and glory fit for a king, an emperor, or a Stalin, Mao, or a Fuhrer.  The first shall be last and the last shall be first . . . Give away all that you have . . . Unless you become as little children. . .

Afternoon outing.  First to the bank to deposit the $100 bills Costco gave me, then to Germantown H.S. to see where Lizzie will be competing on Thursday, then to the post office for stamps, then to 'Birds R Us' for suet, then to the recliner for a nice nap.

My minority view universities and law firms that "cave" to Trump's extortion.  We should not be so harsh, unforgiving, and accusatory about the univeristies and law firms that settle with Donald Trump to avoid the draconian punishments he is able to visit upon them.  The universities are at risk of losing grant monies and needed revenje from foreign students.  The grants that would be terminated or 'paused' could result in the laying off of valued employees and in any event would result in the cessation of the research being funded in part by the federal grants.   I take it as a given that some and probably ost of that research, especially medical reserach, is important, or else it would not have recieved the grant in the first place.  So there is more at stake than merely money.  The law firms who 'caved' represent clients to whom they own duties of good faith, reasonableness, loyalty, and care.  The punishments Trump threatened would inevitably have affected not only the lawyers in the firm, but also their clients.  Presumably many would have to seek other counsel, sometimes at additinal and perhaps great expense.   We ought not be so quick to condemn these organizations and the people who run them.  I'm not saying that they should have settled with Trump or they should not have, but that we should be slow to sling mud at them.  On the other hand, we oughtn't to hestitate in recognizing Donald Trump and his thugish acolytes for what they are: extortionists.

4/21/2025

Monday, April 21, 2025

D+166/92

1954 The USAF flew a French battalion to Vietnam

1956 Elvis Presley's first hit record, "Heartbreak Hotel," reaches #1

1975 Last South Vietnam President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned after 10 years in power

1989 Thousands of Chinese crowded into Beijing's Tiananmen Square, cheering for students demanding greater political freedom

In bed at 9, awake and up at 5.  48°, high of 52°.  

Prednisone, day 365; 2 mg., day 4/21; Kevzara, day 7/14; CGM, day 6/15; Trulicity, day 4/7.  Prednisone at 5:15 a.m.   Other meds at 7 a.m.

Text to Steve yesterday.   

Hi, Steve.  It was wonderful spending time with you and Nikki this weekend.  I watched "Come and See" on the Criterion Channel this afternoon.  It has the whole film plus a number of  e xtras some of which are as horrifying as the film.  I was born in 1941 and grew up as the atrocities of the Nazis (and to a much lesser extent, the Japanese) were being exposed.  I vaguely remember the first time I read some material on and really had some comprehension of the realities of the Nazi concentration camps.  Much later, I learned of their atrocities in the countries they invaded in Eastern Europe.  At some point, the Einsatzgruppen (sp?) were very concerned about not "wasting" bullets shooting Jews and that was a big part of the reason for crowding them into structures and burning them alive.  One of the things that struck me about the movie was its tremendous underemphasis on the Jewishness of most of the victims of the Nazis.  There were a couple of references to "Yids" but otherwise, a viewer might think that the Nazis were indiscriminate in their selection of villages to burn with their inhabitants, which was not true.  Jewsih shtetls were the principal targets. This was clearly a result of Russian & communist deemphasis of the separateness of the Jewish victims of Nazism.  The same thing happened after the war when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.  There was official resistance to erecting any memorial to the incredible massacre of Jews at the Babi Yar ravine in Kiev and when a memorial was finally erected, the Soviets referred to the approximately 36,000 victims simply as Ukrainians, not as Jews.  Thanks for recommending the movie.  Your're right; it's well worth watching - once.

Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, and me.  The first two are kooks, whackos, and dingbats.  How about me?  Navarro, Bannon, and I share a deep antipathy to NAFTA and the World Trade Organization because of what they have done to American factory workers and cities like Milwaukee.  Ultimately of course it was simply Capitalism and capitalists, in their relentless pursuit of cheap labor costs, that have led to globalization and the deindustrialization of America. 

"One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return."  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 1081.

When nations compete on labor costs, there is no way the U.S. can win against nations with significantly lower standards of living and much fewer labor and environmental protection laws.  A factory worker at A. O. Smith, Allen Bradley, or Harnishfeger Corporation in Milwaukee could not support himself/herself and a family on what a Mexican worker n a maquiladora or a worker in China or Vietnams is paid.  Thus, it was entirely predictable, predicted, and well known when China was granted 'most favored nation' status, when it was admitted to the WTO, and when NAFTA was negotiated by Republicans, signed by Bill Clinton, and ratified by the Senate, that American factory employment would plummet and that places like Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha would pay the price, socially and economically, for corporate management's access to cheap foreign labor.  And so it went.  Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon believe American workers were screwed by those agreements,  and so do I.  Maybe Donald Trump does too, but who knows what he believes or cares about?  In any event, Navarro, Bannon, and maybe even Trump are True Believers that high tariffs are the way to re-industrialize America.  

I started out this note writing that Navarro and Bannon are kooks, whackos, and dingbats but I need to withdraw those charges against Bannon.  I don't really believe he fits into any of those categories.  He is clearly tremendously intelligent, with a wealth of experience and learning.  I count it to his credit that he spent 5 or 6 years in the U. S. Navy.  He earned a bachelor's degree in urban planning from Virginia Tech, a master's degree in national security from Georgetown, and an MBA from Harvard.  He worked at Goldman Sachs, produced several Hollywood films, and managed Breitbard Media.  He is extremely articulate with an agile and facile mind.  He is a right-wing conservative, but I don't think of him as a fascist, though he is certainly a nationalist.  I don't think he is evil, wicked, or malicious, though his second wife accused him of spousal abuse, and he has had many unfriendly encounters with criminal law enforcement agencies.  I suppose I don't think Navarro is evil, wicked, or malicious either.  Like Bannon, he has advanced degrees from prestigious universities.  He and Bannon are just True Believers in economic nationalism and in the necessity of building high tariff walls around America.  They both share with Trump deep-seated grievances, the sense of having been and getting 'screwed' by China, Europe, and others.  They believe that "free trade" is a sham that only hurts the U.S.  They believe it's naïve to consider as "allies" countries that are out to 'screw us' economically. (They both have served time in jail for contempt of Congress.)  In sum, they are natural fits for Donald Trump who shares their beliefs.  None of them seems ever to have taken to heart Oliver Cromwell's admonition: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.  I find myself wondering, however, to what extent they may be right about tariffs.  On the other hand, as I write these words, the securities markets close today down about another  2.5% on top of big losses following Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" speech.  

 Cheri visited Geri today, Geri visited Dr. Grap today, and I visited Dr. Ryzka today.

Race to the Outhouse, by Willie Makeit.

 

4/20/2025

 Sunday, April 20, 2025

D+165/91

Easter Sunday

1964 86% of black students boycotted the Cleveland public schools

1965  The People's Republic of China offered North Vietnam military aid

1968 British politician Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech

1980 Fidel Castro openied the Mariel Port, about 125,000 left in the next 5-6 months

1983 President Reagan signed a $165B bailout for Social Security

1999 Columbine High School massacre: 13 killed,  24 injured, shooters committed suicide 

2021 Former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd 

In bed at 10:30 and up at 4:45.  

Prednisone, day 365; 2 mg., day 3/21; Kevzara, day 6/14; CGM, day 5/15; Trulicity, day 3/7.  Prednisone at 7:20 a.m.  Other meds at 7:40 a.m.   

Geri's birthday gathering was, as usual, delightful.  Steve and Nikki came up from Chicago, and David, Sharon, and Ellis were here.  The conversation never lags with this ensemble, and last night was no exception.  On the other hand, however, there was a noticeably different tone to much of the conversation because of what is happening in the country under Trump's presidency, with elements of anger (mostly from David and Sharon,) fear, anxiety, resistance, and hopelessness (mostly from me.)  The political situation did not cast a pall over the celebration and the joyfulness from simply being together, it did have some dampening effect on some of the conversation before and after dinner.  What Trump is doing is the unignorable elephant in many families' homes.  Ellis helped to elevate everybody's spirits, as usual.  She's a remarkable 10-year-old, highly intelligent, very verbal, very comfortable around adults,  very outgoing, and very affectionate with all family members, especially her Nonna.  Steve brought his Mom a present, a ceramic spoon rest that he made in a pottery class that he and Nikki are attending (and very much enjoying.)  He also brought some morning glory seeds from  his garden, which are soaking in water in the spoon rest, hopefully to sprout soon and be planted in our backyard where Geri hopes they will climb and entwine a damaged tree.  

4/19/25

 Saturday, April 19, 2025

D+164/91

1775  Paul Revere's midnight ride from Lexington to Concord

1989 Central Park Five: Violent rape of jogger Trisha Meili in NYC's Central Park became one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s. Five teenagers were wrongfully convicted and spent between 6-12 years in prison.

1993 After a 51-day siege by the FBI, 76 Branch Davidians died in a fire near Waco, Texas (accident, suicide, and tear gas are disputed causes)

1995 Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh triggered a truck bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168. including 19 children, and injuring 500

In bed at 9, awake at 4, and up at 4:20.  45°, cloudy, high of 54°   

Prednisone, day 365; 2 mg., day 2/21; Kevzara, day 5/14; CGM, day 4/15; Trulicity, day 2/7.  Prednisone at 6:05 a.m.  Other meds at 8 

Sentimentalist.  Yesterday, I engaged in what has become a tradition in our home.  I got up early in the morning and went through my collection of greeting cards to find the birthday cards I had given her and saved over the years.  For many years, I have refused to give greeting cards that are trite and meaningless or cards that express thoughts that I don't really believe.  Picking a Father's Day card used to be a challenge since so many of them speak of what a great father the recipient was when the sender, me, was a child, something that wasn't true of my Dad.   In any case, this morning, I strategically placed several of the cards that accurately expressed my feelings about Geri around the house where she would discover them after she arose on her birthday, starting in her bathroom and ending at her usual spot on the TV room sofa. I also ineptly wrapped a birthday present I bought for her a couple of months ago, a simple wood carving of a dog standing and leaning against its beloved owner.  When I saw it advertised with other carvings, I immediately ordered it because it reminded me of one of my favorite photos of Lilly standing and excitedly kissing Geri, who was seated on a park bench.  Her dear friend Fredi Miller took the treasured snapshot years ago and sent it to Geri when Lilly died.  Geri now has the photo and the wood carving next to Lilly's ashes on the living room buffet.

While searching through the collection of saved cards, I opedned a  jewelry or organizer boxI''ve had for years, one from my days in the Marines.  It was useful for keeping the various military insignia we wore on our uniforms, rank insignia and EGA stuff (eagle, globe, and anchor.)  In it I still have a Marine Corps belt buckle, one first lieutenant bar, a couple of EGA devices for my dress blues/dress white unforms, 2 of Sarah's diaper pins, a pink slipper from Sarah's toddler days, a letter to the tooth fairy from Sarah, a note from Andy asking whether the 'toth' fairy would leave him a quarter and providing a choice of two response boxes, one for "yes" and another for "no," a pocket-sized booklet of "Prayers and Observances" from Leo High School, a 1982 letter from Sarah to me from her German language camp in Minnesota, and a 'holy card' from my Grandpaa Dewey's funeral in 1967.  I was hoping I would also find the 'holy card' from Johnny Flynn at the Irish Christian novitiate, but no luck, though I think I have it somewhere.  I still have the crucifix that lay on my mother's casket in 1973 and the one that was on my friend Roland Wright's casket.  I have Andy's Most Valuable Player Award from one of his Little League games in 1984 and a plaster sculpture of a penguin he gave me when he was a child.  I have my Dad's wristwatch and a postcard he sent to my Aunt Monica from a Marine base in 1944 or 1945, before Iwo Jima.  I have a pearl ring of my mother's as well as an elegant porcelain pitcher that I believe to have been her mother's.  All of these things are treasures to me, more relics than mementoes, but in any case, things of great value.  But coming up on age 84, I know my days are numbered and that, when I'm gone, my memories will be gone too and, with them, the significance of these items.  All or most of them will be trashed, and why not?  The same will be true of my memoir and this journal, at least the 'hard copy' of it.  Again, why not?  I think of Geri's china cabinet and of her 'good china' and chrystal, and of her mother's, all protected and saved to pass on, but to whom?  They are valued by her, and by me, but 'good china' and chrystal are from another age, another culture.  I suppose the stuff will end up in a consignment shop, if there is a consignment shop that is willing to take them.  Does anyone buy this stuff anymore?  My paintings and drawings?  Destined for the trash bin and again, why not?  I'm a little sad about all this, but not blown away or depressed.  As Billy Pilgrim reminded us in Slaughterhouse-Five, "So it goes" and, as the priests reminded me every Ash Wednesday, Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.

Holy Week.  Today is Holy Saturday, tonight the Easter Vigil.  Here is a posting from April 9, 2023, with some thoughts about "Holy Week"

25 years ago today, I was in Paris attending the Holy Thursday / Last Supper mass at the Abbey St. Germain de Pres.  It was the beginning of 4 days spent staying at a cheap hotel on the Left Bank and attending services at just about every church in central Paris, including the solemn Easter vigil mass at Notre Dame, celebrated by Paris' Jewish Cardinal Aron Lustiger. (Knowing my plan to binge on ancient churches, Geri wisely opted to stay home.) The liturgies were theatrical, dramatic, and affecting.  I filled 88 pages of a little pocket 100-page notebook with notes of my visit, which I have occasion to read every now and then, including today.  I have always been affected by religious venues and by liturgies, illustrating, I suppose, that those who designed them accomplished their purpose.  I was struck by how many young people attended the services in supposedly secular France.  Three years after my visit, the Boston Globe started its investigation into childhood sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese and its efforts at cover-up.  How much has changed since then.  The extensive structural damage to Notre Dame Cathedral seems emblematic of the institutional damage to the Church.  I wonder today what differences, if any, I might see in the people in the pews during this Holy Week compared to 25 years ago.  I wonder especially if I would see as many young people in those pews.  Social scientists and pollsters tell us that church membership generally and among the young is declining, that increasingly the responses to questions asked about religious affiliation is "none" or "n/a."  One wonders whether this trend will reverse as the situation in the country and in the world becomes more ominous, or is traditional religion, including the evangelical and pentecostal varieties, whose members skew old, becoming a sputtering flame.

In 1998, when I made that pilgrimage to Paris, Bill Clinton was the American president, the United States was nearing a budget surplus rather than a deficit, and the national debt was $5.5 trillion, 60% of the GDP.  Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia, not yet succeeded by Vladimir Putin.  Europe was at peace and the Brexit madness had not yet overtaken Great Britain.  In 2023, when I posted the FB recollection, the UK had finally succumbed to its self-defeating Brexit folly, Russia and Ukraine were well past the first anniversary of their war, and NATO had been reinvigorated by that war after its shaky existence under Trump's regime.  The U.S. was a year and a half past its controversial and bloody withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden.  This Easter weekend, Trump is back in the White House, and the world has been turned upside down.  The Ukraine War is more than 3 years old, and the U.S. has switched sides under Trump.  Europe has been called an adversary of the U.S. - "the EU was created to screw us" - and NATO can no longer count on the U.S. for its protection against Russia, which now is allied in large measure with Trump's America, which is increasingly fascistic and Christian nationalist.  Now, even more than two years ago when I wrote the FB post, I wonder what current developments are doing in terms of religious faith.

In Yesterday's NY Times, there was an article by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham titled "White House of Worship: Trump Elevates Christian Prayer and Power" and subtitled "Evangelical leaders are relishing the new atmosphere at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and greater access to the president."  Excerpts:

From the moment Donald J. Trump was re-elected to the presidency, his conservative Christian supporters have rejoiced in a second chance for their values to have power. . . Routinely, and often at Mr. Trump’s enthusiastic direction, senior administration officials and allied pastors are infusing their brand of Christian worship into the workings of the White House itself, suggesting that his campaign promise to “bring back Christianity” is taking tangible root. . . .there is an enduring sense among many of his Christian supporters that Mr. Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt last summer to remake America.

Mr. Trump is not known to attend church regularly, and at times in the past he has sounded ignorant of Christian language and beliefs. But after the assassination attempt, Mr. Trump said he had been saved from death by “the grace of almighty God.”

To his supporters’ particular delight, Mr. Trump’s new White House Faith Office has physical office space in the prized real estate of the West Wing.

To paraphrase, is this good for the Christians?  A "Faith Office" in the West Wing?  An amoral and immoral president believed to be an emissary of The Most High? If it's good for the evangelicals and pentecostals, is it bad for the non-evangelicals and non-pentecostals?  Is it good or bad for a multi-cultural, multi-religious,  largely secular America, in other words, the rest of us?  Will the steady downward trajectory of America's democracy under Trump's erratic and idiosyncratic leadership, tightly associated with right-wing Catholicism and Protestantism, drive people, especially young people, away from religion or toward it, perhaps in despair and desperation?  

Am I wrong to think there is something obscene about Putin's declaration of a temporary ceasefire for Easter?   Same thought about LBJ's and Nixon's Christmas bombing pauses on North Vietnam.

Peter's Nicolet FEAR robotics team won the Excellence in Engineering Award at the International Competition in Houston today, a tremendous achievement and a wonderful conclusion to years of hard work at Nicolet..  Mazel tov, Peter and to Andy and Anh for all the support they have given him along this long journey.

Steve and Nikki, David, Sharon, and Elllis will be here for dinner tonight, celebrating Geri's birthday.

4/18/25

 Friday, April 18, 2025

D+163/90

1944 Geraldine Edith Aquavia was born in Oak Park, Illinois

In bed at 9:40, awake at 3:53, and up at 4:15.  SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH, first thunderclap at 7:14 a.m. 

Prednisone, day 363; 2 mg., day 1/21; Kevzara, day 4/14; CGM, day 2/15; Trulicity, day 7/7.  Prednisone at 4:25 a.m.  Other meds at 5:20 a.m.  Trulicity injection at 7 a.m.

Geri's Birthday.  My words at her 80th birthday dinner last year:

A few years back, I started keeping a list on my iPhone of 'what I love about Geri and it started with her laugh.  I was listening to her chatting on her phone with one of her friends and she was really enjoying whatever it was they were talking about and she was laughing, a wonderful, deep, exuberant laughter that was a pleasure to listen to, infectious inasmuch as just hearing it made me smile.  

Later I added "sharing her thoughts" and "sharing time" with me to the list, realizing how she has privileged me by that sharing.  I'm the only person in the world she shares so much of her life with.  I have often thanked her for agreeing to marry me.  It's a great and unique privilege married people confer on their partners, a privilege we too often lose sight of as we cope with the daily necessities and distractions of life.

Then I added her devotion to duty.  It sounds as if I were thinking of a soldier or a 'first responder' but in all of the roles she plays in her life, Geri has an innate sense of duty. 'Sense of duty' doesn't capture what I'm referring to.  As a child to her parents, as a parent to her children, as a life partner to me, as a sister to her brother Jim, and as a friend to her many friends, she is true, caring, trustworthy, attentive, solicitous.  The people in her life can count on her for help, for advice, for an open ear and a ready hand, to respect confidences, to pitch in when some pitching in is needed and to butt out when some butting out is needed.  When my twice-widowed father came to live with us, Geri became his best friend at a time in his life when he so badly needed a real friend.  When her older brother lost his wife and his children were spread out across the country, Geri encouraged him to move near us and she personally cared for him for several years.  We should all have these qualities but not all of us do and few have them as innately, as suffusely as Geri does.  This sense of duty carries into all her undertakings, e.g., as an employee, as a volunteer (ombudsman at a nursing home, child welfare investigator, poll worker) and even to our pets.  When our beloved cat Blanche needed to be hydrated by transfusion every day, Geri turned her ironing board into a gurney for her, hung the hydrating solution from a closet door, and served as her nurse.  And Lilly, . . . words fail me.

She is courageous.  She has faced some difficult challenges in her life and addressed all of them head on.  Where many, including me, would have faltered, backed off from a difficult challenge, she has put her shoulder to the wheel and addressed them.  She has guts, tough-mindedness, patience, and an admirable sense of self-respect and determination that lets her succeed at challenges that would defeat many of us.

My iPhone list is lot longer and includes stuff like leading the way when there is tought, unpleasant, nasty work to be done.  She is first to pick up the mop or shovel, not waiting for others, including me, to get at it. But my list is inevitably incomplete.  She is who she is in all her uniqueness.  She is special in large part because she doesn't treat herself as special, as better than or not as good as anyone around her.  But she is very special to me, and she's very special to her family and to her many friends who count themselves privileged to have her in our lives.

Last year on this date,  I was living on my recliner, day and night, wishing I could die and 'get it over with, be done with it.'  I wrote the long letter to Dr. Chatt describing my symptoms and asking whether it might be polymyalgia rheumatica that could be treated with medication or alternatively, "whether this is what the rest of my life will look like."  The letter seemed to offend her, but when Geri took me to see her and later Dr. Ryzka, she had to push me into the VA in a wheelchair.  I was at the end of my rope.    

Deborah Kerr in an Actor's Studio interview: “I don't like getting old. I hate it, in fact. I don't know an honest person who likes it. You just thin out and all your energies go toward surviving or moving safely from one room to another. But the mind thrives, thank God. Or mine does. I used to try very hard not to regret it. I thought that regrets were a waste of time, a sign of weakness. I think only the most insensitive of people have no regrets, because in this time, this slower time, your mind goes back to so many instances when there should have been more kindness, more attention paid to others. I missed so many opportunities to be a better friend, a better mother, a better actress. Of course, I can't remember now what I was in such a hurry to get to that I grew so bad at the important things. So I regret and I think. Old age is the big index to the foolish young people we were."

Deborah Kerr: I recall my good high school friend Larry Stack's mother pronouncing her name De-bor-ah, with the accent on the second syllable.  The close friendship disappeared when we graduated from high school; he stayed in Chicago to attend DePaul University and become an accountant or CPA, and I went off to Milwaukee.  I strain to remembr if we continued to double date and see each other during my returns to Chicago to see Charlene, but I don't thnk so.  Johnny Flynn and Jack O'Keefe went off to join the Irish Christian Brothers and we also lost touch with one another, except for a visit I somehow made to Johnny in his novitiate, though I don't recall how I was able to do that.  Perhaps my freshman Navy cruise port stop in New York?  For many years, I kept a 'holy card' he gave me, or sent to me, signed "Your friend, Johnny."  Decades after our graduation, Ed Felsenthal encouraged me to come down to Chicago for the annual Leo High School alumni dinner.  He told me Larry Stack attended them and would like to see me, but I never attended any of the dinners.  I regret it now that I am running out of friends.  Perhaps I associated Larry too much with double-dating with Charlene, and my heartbreak and long-lasting heartache after she dumped me when I returned from that freshman cruise.  I wonder if most high school friendships evanesce like mine did after the friends go off to different cities and schools.  Larry and I were pretty tight.  We frequently double-dated.  I would take the streetcar (or bus?) to go to his house, play ping pong in his basement, and listen to records.  We talked on the phone regularly.  And then it was over, 'Gone with the Wind.'  We were on different and diverging paths.  So it goes.  Or was it the 'Char shock'?

Milwaukee’s Lead Crisis: Flaky Paint, Closed Schools and a C.D.C. in Retreat is an article in this morning's NY Times by Julie Bosman.  Excerpt:

Milwaukee is facing a deepening lead crisis in its schools, and it suddenly finds itself without help from the country’s top public health agency.Four children in the Milwaukee Public Schools have been found to be exposed to high levels of lead in the last six months. Investigators have discovered seven schools with flaking lead paint and lead dust inside classrooms and basements. Three school buildings have been shuttered so far, and officials said that more are expected to follow — as soon as next week — as the investigation expands.

In the past, school districts have turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help manage lead problems. But weeks ago, the commissioner of the Milwaukee health department was told that a toxicologist and epidemiologist from the C.D.C., both lead experts who were expected to assist city officials with the local response, had been fired from the agency.

Then the Milwaukee health department was dealt an even sharper blow: Its request for federal assistance from C.D.C. experts to help manage the lead crisis, known as an Epi-Aid, had been formally denied.  “There is no bat phone anymore,” Dr. Michael Totoraitis, the Milwaukee health commissioner, said in an interview. “I can’t pick up and call my colleagues at the C.D.C. about lead poisoning anymore.”

The C.D.C. is already reeling from layoffs targeting 2,400 employees, nearly one-fifth of its work force.  

Children in Milwaukee suffer from especially high rates of lead poisoning: In some census tracts on the north side, more than 20 percent of children under 6 years old had high levels of lead in their blood, according to state health data. .. . . .

C.D.C. cuts could quickly threaten public health, experts say, pointing to reductions in agency resources to promote environmental health and prevent communicable disease. 

Thanks to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE.  Trump is probbly still p.lo.'d tt the CDC because it didn't save him from the Covid-19 pandemic which showed him to e moron.  Tony Fauci lost his security protection and the CDC lost one fifth of its workforce.  We are living through an unimaginable disaster..  Meanwhile, another article in the NY Ti,es points out that the Evangelical Christian community is ecstatic with Trump back in the White House.

From the moment Donald J. Trump was re-elected to the presidency, his conservative Christian supporters have rejoiced in a second chance for their values to have power.  . . Mr. Trump is not known to attend church regularly, and at times in the past he has sounded ignorant of Christian language and beliefs. But after the assassination attempt, Mr. Trump said he had been saved from death by “the grace of almighty God.” . . . . 

On Sunday, Mr. Trump opened the Easter festivities with a statement  referred to as a “proclamation.”

“This Holy Week, Melania and I join in prayer with Christians celebrating the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” the statement begins, referring to Jesus as “the living Son of God who conquered death, freed us from sin, and unlocked the gates of Heaven for all of humanity.” 

Pass the basin.  

The new dryer was dellivered this morning. 

The Clausen Theory of America's Deb Burden.  For too many years, the government has taxed too little and borrowed too much.  We don't pay enough in taxes and haven't for many years.  For congressmen and senators, raising taxes is politically costly; borrowing isn't.  It's similar to the nation's infrastructure, that was and is so badly in need of updating and improving, largely the consequence of deferred maintenance and political/legislative irresponsibility..