4/5/2026

 Easter Sunday, March 5, 2026

1242 Battle on the Ice: Russian Prince of Novgorod Alexander Nevsky defeated the Teutonic Knights on the frozen Lake Peipus between Estonia and Russia

1792 George Washington exercised the first presidential veto to strike down a  bill to increase the number of seats for northern states in the House of Representatives

1948 WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL (IND) began broadcasting

1969 Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities

1971 US Lt. William Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre

1992 Serbian troops began besieging Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which would become the longest siege in modern warfare

2025  The first of two tariff rounds went into effect in the United States, containing a 10% blanket tariff on every import into the country.   Jaguar Land Rover suspended vehicle exports to the United States for a month to evaluate the impact of Trump's tariffs on the automotive industry. 

In bed at 8:40, awake around 2:40, and up at 3:15.  0325 121/72/66 107 205.2.  35/20/49/33. Windy, cloudy Easter with sunny conditions forecast around 4 p.m.  As usual, March and April  cling to winter conditions in Wisconsin, not a day for Easter bonnets, with all the frills upon it, . . . 

Morning meds at 10 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Reasons for some joy this morning, to wake to find that the second airman was rescued in Iran.  The Special Ops folks who carried it out are real heroes.  

Trump's early morning Truth Social post was a new low for presidential conduct, and a new peak in demonstrating his dwindling intelligence and gross lack of judgment.

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah". President DONALD J. TRUMP

He blasphemes the religion not only of most Iranians, but also of almost all of the Arab world and believers in Islam from Turkey to India, plus those in he U.S.  and 90% of Indonesians.  All in one tweet.

4/4/2026

 Saturday, April 4, 2026

1949 The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., establishing NATO

1968  Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis; riots broke out in over 100 cities in the United States

1984 Winston Smith in Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" began his secret diary in defiance of the totalitarian government of Oceania

1990 King Baudouin of Belgium, a devout Catholic, stepped down as monarch for 36 hours to avoid signing a bill legalizing abortion

2024 Joe Biden warned Benjamin Netanyahu that the US could shift its policy if Israel did not address humanitarian concerns in Gaza and work towards a ceasefire 

2025  China responded to Donald Trump's tariffs with a 34% reciprocal tariff on imports of American goods.   Over the past two days, the S&P 500 was down over 10%.

In bed at 9, awake at 3:30, up at 4:20.  148/84/32.115 205.6.  41/34/51/35 Rain, rain, rain.  0.4 in last 24 hrs., 0.2 expected in next 24

Morning meds at 8:15 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:30 a.m. and 6:25 p.m.

I need frequent reminding

Facebook post this morning:

I'm thinkng of Trump and Hegseth seeking a "defense" budget of $1.5 trillion dollars next year, and our war-of-choice in Iran costing us  a couple billion dollars a day, and of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech delivered on April 16, 1953, when I was 12 years old.  Eisenhower said: 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is the way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

How far our nation has fallen in my lifetime. 

I'm doing a lot of thinking about the downed F-15 airman in Iran, and thinking of my college and NROTC friend Jay Forrest Tremblay and my Vietnam friend Bill "Moon" Mullen.  Jay was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war. operating off a carrier and flying a mission over North Vietnam when he strayed into China and was shot down.  He was listed as MIA for many years, until his remains were recovered from China and properly identified.  "Moon" was a Marine A-4 Skyhawk pilot serving as the G-2 othe Headquarters Squadron of the 1st Marine Air Wing in Danang when I served as a Senior Air Director in the Wing's Tactical Air Control Center, part of G-3.  We didn't work directly together during working hours, but we spent many evenings togeths in the Officers' Club.  Though his primary job was in the Wing's G-2 section, he continued to fly bombing and close support missions with one of the A-4 squadrons depoloyed  to Danang and ChuLai.  I learned that he had been had been shot down after I had been transferred from the TACC center to Marine Air Control Squadron 6 in northern Okinawa.  It was an infantry training base and a training way-station for Marine infantry units deploying from the U.S. to Vietnam.  I devoted a chapter of my memoir to my months on Okinawa, including this about "Moon" Mullen:

Camp Schwab was much like a boot camp with constant activity, intense training and physical conditioning and a lot of troop movement and shouting.  There was much less chickenshit than in boot camp but much more focus on life and death stuff: weapons training, tactical maneuvers and communications.  The grunts were too busy to pay any attention to us wing wipers who ran the base and we stayed as far away from them as we could.  They were a rough bunch.  Their intensity and focus and their gung ho attitude were a far remove from the cynicism and jadedness of those of us who had recently returned from Vietnam.  We were doing our best to forget what they were anticipating.

At the beginning of May, the war became more personal to those of us who had come to Camp Schwab from the wing headquarters in DaNang.  We received news that our friend Bill “Moon” Mullen had been shot down over Laos.  The American government refused to admit that we were conducting operations in Laos but we all knew it.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through Laos and our aircraft regularly bombed it.  On April 29th, 1966, Moon flew an A4E to a bombing mission in the most heavily defended area of the trail, the area around the Mia Gia Pass.  His plane was the last in the formation.  It was hit by anti-aircraft fire as he pulled away from the target.  The plane went down, but the other pilots picked up radio beeper signals from the ground where his plane went down.  The circling pilots radioed instruction to him, which he complied with, indicating he had ejected safely.  Soon, the radio on the ground was still active, but instructions from the air were not being followed.  It appeared Moon had died or lost consciousness or had been captured or killed.  He was never found.  It was never learned whether he had been captured or killed or died from injuries from the anti-aircraft fire or the ejection.  The 1973 Paris treaty provided for return of POWs held by the VC and by North Vietnam, but not those held by Laotian communists.    In 1994, I ran my fingers over his name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington.  He is still listed as among the ‘missing.’

Moon Mullen was well liked and highly respected by all of us in the headquarters squadron in DaNang.  He regularly flew missions with his old A4 squadron based in Chu Lai though he was assigned to the Intelligence section of Wing headquarters.  Unlike some others, he never looked down his nose on those of us who were not aviators.  He was a captain and a few years older than most of us.  He had just turned 31 when he was shot down; most of us were first lieutenants in our mid 20s.  When we could talk him into it, ‘by popular demand,’ Moon would stand up next to the bar or his table at the officers’ club and sing, always the same song – 

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

     From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.

The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,

     It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,

     Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,—

     Oh, Danny boy, O Danny boy, I love you so! 

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,

     If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,

     And kneel and say an Avè there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,

      And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,

For you will bend and tell me that you love me,

      And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me! 

When Moon sang Danny Boy, we all shut up.  The juke box would be turned down or unplugged and the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkle and the Mamas and Papas would give way to Moon Mullen, a capella.

I suspect most, perhaps all of us thought Moon was probably dead; I did.  We may have even hoped that he was dead rather than living as a captive in a cave in a mountain in Laos or sick and abused in a jungle prison.  I don’t know what we thought because we did not talk about it.  We didn’t talk about it, but we all thought about it, about him.  We thought of him as we drank each night at the officers’ club.  We thought of him as we watched the gung ho grunts go through their training before heading south, some to die, some to lose limbs, some perhaps to be among the missing, most to return alive but messed up in their heads and hearts to one degree or another.  I think of Moon every time I hear Danny Boy.  For many years, I hated to hear the song.  My eyes would start burning when I heard it, especially the lyrics If I am dead, as dead I well may be, Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying . . .”  It would take me a while to ‘come back’ after hearing it and I never sang it, though it had been one of my favorites before May, 1966.

I think Moon Mullen was for us emblematic of the ambiguous character of the war itself.  He was neither alive nor dead, just ‘missing.’  He went down in a country (of sorts) where our government wouldn’t even admit we were fighting, though every Tom, Dick and Harry knew we were.   The terrain he was bombing was not land that we would ever in any sense ‘take’ or ‘capture’ or ‘seize’ or ‘hold.’  It would be used for years as a principal line of communication and logistics between North Vietnam and forces in the south and for years pilots would fly missions trying to slow the flow of men and materials southward and for years pilots would be shot down over that land.  Indeed, when Nixon’s so-called ‘peace with honor’ was negotiated in Paris in 1973, there was no written agreement for the identification and repatriation or return of the bodies of pilots shot down over Laos.  The treaty only bound “the parties hereof and the signatories hereto,” which did not include the government of Laos which was not ‘officially’ involved in the war.  What happened to Moon Mullen and his family,  the long, inconclusive waiting, the deceptions, the ultimate loss, was a microcosm of what was happening to American, and to Vietnam.  I believe we knew that as we poisoned ourselves at the club each night and as we looked on those infantry Marines so intensely preparing for what awaited them in Vietnam.  More Danny Boys, more Moons.

GOING AFTER CACCIATO

Tim O’Brien

They did not know even the simple things: a sense of victory, or satisfaction, or necessary sacrifice.  They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it, securing a village and then raising the flag and calling it a victory.  No sense of order or momentum.  No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels.  No Patton rushing for the Rhine, no beachheads to storm and win and hold for the duration.  They did not have targets.  They did not have a cause.  They did not know if it was a war of ideology or economics or hegemony or spite.  On a given day, they did not know where they were in Quang Ngai, or how being there might influence larger outcomes.  They did not know the names of most villages.  They did not know what villages were critical.  They did not know strategies.  They did not know the terms of the war, its architecture, the rules of fair play.  When they took prisoners, which was rare, they did not know the questions to ask, whether to release a suspect or beat on him.  They did not know how to feel.  Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved; whether, in times of quiet, to be apprehensive or content; whether to engage the enemy or elude him.  They did not know how to feel when they saw villages burning.  Revenge?  Loss?  Peace of mind or anguish?  They did not know.  They knew the old myths about Quang Ngai – tales passed down from old timer to newcomer – but they did not know which stories to believe.  Magic, mystery, ghosts and incense, whispers in the dark, strange tongues and strange smells, uncertainties never articulated in war stories, emotion squandered on ignorance.  They did not know good from evil.

Around the time I found out about Moon, I received orders back to the States, to I&I (Inspector-Instructor) duty with a reserve unit near Philadelphia.  I would leave Okinawa on June 10, 1966, a little less than a year after I had arrived at Iwakuni.  The normal Far East tour was 13 months; I was going home a month early because they needed me at my next duty station.  If Moon Mullen had had the same good fortune, he would not have been on his mission over Laos on April 29th.  He was shot down only two weeks before the date on which he was to return to the States.  I am reminded of John Kennedy’s wisdom:

There is always inequity in life.  Some men are killed in war and some men are wounded, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco.  It’s very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality.  Life is unfair.

It's almost painful now to reread Tim O'Brien eloquent words about the profound ambiguity about the Vietnam war and how it was fought and why it was fought.  I think of course of our military men and women fighting the Iran War and wonder what they are feeling about its ambiguity.  To Pete Hegseth, it is a Holy War, a Crusade against "barbaric savages," using unusually harsh, absolutist, and often religiously charged language.  He has vowed to unleash “overwhelming and punishing violence" . . . against those "who deserve no mercy," whom our military forces will "hunt you down and kill you."  Although President Trump has said that the Iranian people are "great." he threatens  not merely to destroy their life- sustaining infrastructure, but "obliteration like you've never seen before" and "We're going to bomb them back to the Stone Ages where they belong."  Most recently, he posted on Truth Social: Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT.  Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!"  All this while never presenting a clear and prioritized picture of what his main goal is or goals are.   What are our troops to make of this?  Not only the pilots and crews flying missions over Iran, but the Marines and paratroopers on their way there, to do what?  Is this the kind of action they volunteered for?  Is this the hill they are really willing to die on?  The cause worth sacrificing their lives for?  Do they have a greater belief in the rightness of this war than about 2/3rds of the American public, who do not believe in it?  

Because of my year as a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer in the Philadelphi area, I think especially of the families of all those servicemen and women, and most especially of the mothers and fathers, and of wives like Barbara Mullen.  Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time passing  . . .

From last year's journal on this date:

Republicans are busy blaming China, Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, and other countries for cheating the United States by producing goods for American consumers.  It wasn't these countries who were pounding on Congressional doors to pass NAFTA and other trade agreements so jobs could be shipped overseas; it was American capitalist corporations looking to lower the labor costs of their products.  It's been the same since the start of the Industrial Revolution, with management always trying to reduce labor costs and maximize profits.  The great Chinese manufacturing behemoth was created not only by the Chinese communists but also by American capitalists.  Ditto Vietnam's position as America's 7th largest                           "trading partner."  Ditto Mexico's maquiladoras.  They couldn't exist without Western (mainly American) corporate capitalists feeding them.  Now Trump and his Republican toadies and cronies accuse the creatures American capitalitst created and nourished of 'cheaing, robbing, looting, pillaging, raping, and plundering" us' poor Americans,   54% tariff on China.  The loss of Milwaukee's great manufacturing business shouldn't be blamed on foreign competition but on domestic corporations' eternal quest for cheap labor.

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday 

 

4/3/2026

 Friday, April 3, 2026

1860 Start of the Pony Express; mail was delivered by horse and rider relay teams between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California

1948 President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Western Europe after World War II, granting an initial $5 billion in aid to 16 European countries

1955 The American Civil Liberties Union announced it would defend Allen Ginsberg's book "Howl" against obscenity charges

1968 N Vietnam agreed to meet US reps to set up preliminary peace talks

1969 Vietnam War: Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced that the United States would start a policy of "Vietnamization", reducing American involvement

2025  Multinational car manufacturer Stellantis announces it will lay off 900 workers across five of its U.S. factories and will pause production at assembly plants in Canada and Mexico in response to the tariffs.

In bed at 9:30, up at 6ish, 0600 136/76/62 204.4

Morning meds at 11 a.m.  Ranolzaline at 6:39 a.m. and 6:05 p.m.  Trulicity injection at 7 p.m.

Symptoms.  Three days ago I wrote ""It's hard to believe how tired I am every day, how often I stretch out on a recliner to rest or nap."  Ditto today.  I had 2 appointments at the VA today, Kali Kisto and the Physical Therapy clinic.  I was like a zombie at both and as I write this at 2:30 in the afternoon, I'm 'coming to.'  Fatigue is not listed as a common side effect of the Ranolazine, so I'm wondering if this problem is just the congestive heart failure at work.  On the other hand, the lightheadedness remains significantly improved, ditto the SOB.  Go figure.  Good news: our new front stoop iron railings were installed the other day and I 'broke them in' this afternoon, i.e., I used them for the first time.  Thanks to the VA.  A big help!  It's more than a little distressing that the one, short step from our sidewalk to the stoop is a risk for me, but so it goes.

An F-15 was shot down over Iran today.  One crew member was rescued, the other is being sought. I'm thinking of Pete Hegseth's public statements about ignoring the Geneva Conventions, "We will keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,' and “no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars.”  My greatest concern with his many comments like these is that he puts our own service people in combat zones in greater risk of being mistreated by those they are trying to kill or otherwise hurt.  If America will show "no quarter, no mercy" to the Iranians, why should they show mercy or quarter to our captured airmen? Or to observe the legal requirements of the Geneva Conventions??

4/2/2026

Thursday, April 2, 2026

1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin

1975 Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees fled from the Quang Ngai Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops.

2025  Donald Trump announced a universal 10% tariff,  a 20% tariff on goods from the European Union, and a 34% tariff on all imports from China, effective April 5.

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:50, up at 4:30.  132/62//61 101 205.4.  35/18/60/33 Rain all day.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:10 a.m. and 6:25 p.m.

Further to yesterday's Zeke Emanuel and me.  What's the big difference between Zeke's willing acceptance of voluntary, natural death after age 75 and suicide, a passive suicide?  Or is "passive suicide" an oxymoron, like "cruel kindness" or "kind cruelty"?  Euthanasia is illegal everywhere, whereas physician-assisted suicide is legal in a number of jurisdictions, and VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking) is probably legal in all jurisdictions.  Unlike euthansia, physician-assisted suicide and VSED involve the voluntary hastening of death, but so does a DNR, or Do Not Resuscitate instruction in an advanced directive.  Might not Zeke's voluntary eschewing of all life-prolonging do the same thing?  I thought of this most recently yesterday when I declined a referral to General Surgery to correct an intrustion of my bladder into an abdominal hernia and was scheduled to have a cardiac monitor applied to my chest to provide more information on my bradycardia, premature ventricular contractions, and congestive heart failure.  I accepted the cardiac monitor and rejected the referral to surgery for the bladder/hernia problem.  Why not forego all medical attention except that addressing pain or discomfort?  Why have regular vaccinations for Covid-19, shingles, pneumonia, and influenza?  From Zeke's article:

I take guidance from what Sir William Osler wrote in his classic turn-of-the-century medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine: “Pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged. Taken off by it in an acute, short, not often painful illness, the old man escapes those ‘cold gradations of decay’ so distressing to himself and to his friends.”

Why not let nature take its course and "escape those 'cold gradations of decay' that are so distressing to me?

A main reason is that I have a life partner, Geri, and choosing to die when death could be medically/surgically prevented is choosing to leave her alone in her old age.  I don't presume to think of myself as such a great life partner, certainly not in my senectitude and decrepitude.  I'm of tremendously less help to her around the house than I once was and I'm not great company in my current condition, but I am company, companionship, and at least some help around the house.  We don't do very much together during our daytime hours, but it's comforting, to me at least, just being near her, sharing her presence, sharing our home, helping each other out in small and not so small ways.  I have no doubt but that sharing life with a loving partner is infinitely better than living alone, perhaps not for all, but certainly for me, and I think, for her.  Thus, choosing to let nature take its course, when the course is death, in order to avoid the hardships and deteriorations of old age, seems pretty cruel and selfish when one is in a loving partnership.  The same considerations as apply to a loving and mutually supportive spousal relationship don't apply generally to parent-adult child and friend relationships.

This having been said, I wonder about the ease with which I told the VA medical and surgical staff before my last surgery and upon my admission as an inpatient in the hospital that I did not waive the DNR instruction in my Health Care POA.  Geri and I have discussed the matter pretty recently and are generally on the same page regarding not wanting our lives to be artifically extended or maintained.  I can't imagine a satisfactory life without her, but I think she will have a much better chance of a still-worthwhile life without me.  She is closer to her children and both their spouses, and she has a good many good friends, some of very long duration, with whom she has maintained good contact.  It comforts me that she is better equipped than I am to live as a widow(er), but I suspect that the next time (if there is one) that I am asked whether I waive my DNR, I will not be as cavalier in my response as I have been recently.  And I wonder whether and how Dr. Zeke would re-analize his "Why I Wish to Die at 75" article to deal with the complications of marriage.  The problem is complicated by the issue of how disabled and needing care the post-75 individual is.  There may come a time when I get so disabled by the 'complications' of old age (especially the cardiac ones) that I am a big care-giving burden for Geri, in which case my survival is more a burden on her than a blessing.  In those circumstances, the DNR issue becomes simpler, but what about the stopping all medical tests, vaccinations, interventions, etc.  In those circumstances, Dr. Zeke's proposals still are moe complicated for the married than for the unmarried.  I used to tell our law clerks at our law firm, "Nothing's simple, nothing's cheap."  Same here.

 

4/1/2026

 Wednesday, April 1, 2026

1939 US recognized Francisco Franco's government in Spain at the end of the Spanish civil war. Pope Pius XII congratulated Generalissimo Franco's victory in Spain

1945  US  invaded Okinawa in the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific theatre

1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs' parents' house in Cupertino, California

1982 US formally transferred the Canal Zone to Panama

2001 Slobodan Milošević surrendered to be tried on charges of war crimes.

2001 The Netherlands became the first country to make same-sex marriage legal

2002 The Netherlands legalized euthanasia, the first nation in the world to do so.

2004 Google introduced Gmail

2020  President Donald Trump said the Strategic National Stockpile was almost depleted amid widespread shortages of medical equipment to fight COVID-19

2025 1939 US recognized Francisco Franco's government in Spain at the end of the Spanish civil war. Pope Pius XII congratulated Generalissimo Franco's victory in Spain

2025 The U.S. announces it is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group, the USS Carl Vinson group, to the Middle East

2025 The Chinese Navy and Air Force conduct large-scale military exercises around Taiwan. At least 19 Chinese warships are deployed, including the aircraft carrier Shandong, marking its closest ever approach to the island. 

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:20.   164/66/33 0537. 134/68/62 0545 115 205.0  

Morning meds at 10:30 a.m.  Ranolazine at 6:10 a.m. and 5:55  p.m.

Symptoms.   My feet are numb/tingly each night when I go to bed.  My watch tells me my heartbeat range today is 35-92.   Also, I've been very tired each day, especially in the mornings, since leaving the hospital on the 23rd.

Zeke Emanuel and me.  In the October 2014 issue of The Atlantic magazine, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has an article that he titled "Why I Hope to Dive at 75."  I read back when it was published, and for some reason printed a copy of it, which I have kept ever since.  Emanuel cites (with evidence) many reasons to avoid life after age 75, but they mainly come down to decriptude and the losses and suffering that decrepitude bring.  I believe I have cited or written the article several times in this journal/blog.  Today I am thinking about this part of his article:

Once I have lived to 75, my approach to my health care will completely  change. I won’t actively end my life. But I won’t try to prolong it, either.

Today, when the doctor recommends a test or treatment, especially one that will extend our lives, it becomes incumbent upon us to give a good reason why we don’t want it. The momentum of medicine and family means we will almost invariably get it.

My attitude flips this default on its head. I take guidance from what Sir William Osler wrote in his classic turn-of-the-century medical textbook,  The Principles and Practice of Medicine: “Pneumonia may well be called the friend of the aged. Taken of by it in an acute, short, not often painful illness, the. old man escapes those ‘cold gradations of decay’ so distressing to himself and to his friends.”

My Osler-inspired philosophy is this: At 75 and beyond, I will need a good reason to even visit the doctor and take any medical test or treatment, no matter how routine and painless. And that good reason is not “It will prolong your life.” I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions. I will accept only palliative—not curative—treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability. . .  After 75, if I develop cancer, I will refuse treatment.  Similarly, no cardiac stress test. No pacemaker and certainly no implantable defibrillator. No heart-valve replacement or bypass surgery. . .

 His argument makes a lot of sense but the problem is the execution.  I am almost 10 years past my 75th birthday and, not surprisingly, I'm seeing more doctors than ever, taking more prescription medications than ever, and under going more medical tests and procedures than ever.   I've spent 12 days as an inpatient in the VA hospital in the last 6 months, plus a couple of outpatient surgeries.  I have an "open account" in the Gold primary care clinic, the rheumatology clinic, the cardiac arrythmia clinic, the congestive heart failure clinic, the urology clinic, the infectious disease clinic, and even the mental health clinic.  I take 15 or 16 pills and capsules every day, and have taken fistsfuls each day for many years.  Despite all of that, I usually feel at least crappy, if not truly miserable.  I'm suppposed to be on a low sodium, low sugar diet and to try to take in no more than 64 ounces of fluids each day.   All this to extend my life so I can grow ever more dependent on doctors, therapists, and prescription drugs?  Does this ake any sense?  Zeke says "no", and I have to agree with him.  This morning RN Kim Kitzke, NP Kali Kisro, my primary care provider's nurse, called to tell my that my bladder extends into an abdominal hernia and that that may be the cause of the recurring pain in my right flank, so she wants to refer me to the General Surgery clinic.  I declined.  I also wondered whether I should decline the wearing of a Holton monitor that was applied to my chest this afternoon.  Should I start following Zeke's advice?  Would I be doing Geri a favor, or the opposite?  That's the issue that Zeke didn't address in his article.  I supposed it's because he's been divorced since 2008 and never remarried.  For us married types, it's the crucial issue.  [Hopefully to be continued later.]

 

 

3/31/2026

 Tuesday, March 321, 2026

1889  The Eiffel Tower officially opened, designed by Gustave Eiffel

1968 President  Johnson authorized a troop surge in Vietnam, bringing the total number of US military to a peak of 549,500, and announced  that he would not seek re-election

1971 William Calley was sentenced to life for the My Lai Massacre

1989 Donald Trump purchased Eastern Airline's Northeast Shuttle

2020  British pensioner Robert Weighton became the world's oldest man at 112 years

2021 New York state legalized the recreational use of marijuana

2025 Newly elected Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen rules out Greenland joining the United States while he is in office. 

In bed at 8:45, up at 4:20.  0435 144/69/67 116 205.6  46/51/39 SEVERE WEATHER ALERT: SW winds on the northern edge of rain will gust to 40 to 50 mph early this morning.  these gusts should last only 30 to 60 minutes.

Morning meds at 5:30 a.m.  Ranolazine at 5:15 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Symptoms.  It's hard to believe how tired I am every day, how often I stretch out on a recliner to rest or nap.  On the other hand, the intense lightheadness has significantly improved, making me think it was a temporary side effect of the Ranolazine.  fingers crossed.

A pencil drawing I did several years ago of a Vietnames mother fleeing with her children

Yesterday, I wrote about war crimes, and this morning I read this from my journal/blog three years ago today:

I finished the article/book.  It is a short but devastating read.  In the end, each of the 4 defendants had his sentence for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 19-year-old Phan Thi Mao either reduced or dismissed.  It reminds me of course of Lt. William Calley and the slaughter at My Lai.  We forget the role that racism played in the war, how little we valued the lives of the Vietnamese, how unable to tell friend from foe among them,  how free we felt to force them to leave their homes and rice fields to move to 'strategic hamlets,' how entitled we felt to drop high explosive and incendiary bombs on them, to spray toxic defoliants over their land, to shoot artillery shells and M16/A-15 bullets into their bodies.  Part of Phan Thi Mao's skull was blown off by the M16 rounds shot into her 19-year-old body.  Her body moldered for three weeks on Hill 192 before the Army forensics team picked up the parts of her body as evidence and carried her away in a body bag.  All of this happened in 1966, the year I left Vietnam.  I remember hearing rumors of Marines throwing captured VCs out of helicopters and of other Marines collecting severed ears of Vietnamese KIAs.  How cavalier we were about what we were doing to the Vietnamese, to ourselves.  How indifferent.

A pencil drawing I did from a photograph of

a terrified young Vietnamese woman and her infant

This morning, I can't remember anything of the article or book (Casualties of War) that prompted the longer reflection of which the above was the conclusion.

Playing with fewer marbles.  I went to the library this morning to pick up some state tax forms.  I got there at (:30 to learn that it opened at 10.  I stopped at the BP station on the corner of Port Road and Brown Deer to fill my half-full tank, figuring gas prices were more likely to rise than to fall.  I pulled into southern bank of pumps and realized I had pulled in with my gas tank on the side of the car away from the pumps.  I backed out and moved to the northern bank of pumps and realized I had parked so far away from the pump, the hose could barely reached it.  After filling up at $3.90 a gallon, I drove onto Port Road to go home, when I realized I hadn't screwed my gas cap back on.  The older I grow, the fewer marbles in my sack.

3/30/2026

Monday, March 30, 2026

1965 Vietnam War: A car bomb exploded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, killing 22 and wounding 183 others

1972 North Vietnam launched a major conventional offensive against South Vietnam

1981 President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley

2018 Palestinians began a "Great March of Return", 6 weeks of protests on the Gaza Strip demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to Israel. 19 Palestinians were killed and 1,416 injured on the first day.

2023 Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan Grand Jury on charges over hush payments paid to porn star Stormy Daniels

2023 Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak signed an open letter warning that the race to develop AI systems is out of control and asking for a suspension of at least six months

2025. Iranian president said that Iran will not have direct negotiations with the U.S. on its nuclear program, but is open for indirect talks to rebuild trust, after Donald Trump threatened bombing if Iran does not agree to a new nuclear deal.

In bed at 8:40, up at 5:25.  0540  163/64/66  0550  141/6566 124 205.4   44/39/62/44. Mostly sunny.

Morning meds at 7 a.m.  Ranolazine at 6:10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Symptoms: Numbness, tingling feet yesterday, this morning.  Lightheadedness and SOB were OK yesterday.  At 6 p.m., A-OK, regular chorese + stripping and making bed. 

Combatants, civilians, Geneva conventions, Schrecklichkeit, and war's reality throughout my life.  I was born in August of 1941, before Pearl Harbor and before Hitler's declaration of war against the U.S.  The Second World War had raged in Europe for 2 years already, and in Asia since 1931 with Japan's invasion of Manchuria, and 1937 with its invasion of China.  By the time I was born, massive wars against civilan targets had already become common, with Germany's bombings of London, Birmingham, and Liverpool, and Japan's many atrocities in Asia, including but in no way limited to, "the Rape of Nanking" in 1937.  Japan had annexed Korea in 1910 and commited innumerable crimes against the Korean people for decades. Eventally, of course, all of the major participants in World War II - including Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union - would engage in what the German's call Schrecklichkeit, or terror strategies and tactics against their civilian enemies.  For the US and Britain, those crimes consisted principally in saturation and fire bombing of cities. 

The Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1949, with the Fourth Convention codifying the protection of civilians in times of international armed conflict and occupation.  Its rules prohibit violence against civilians, guarantee access to humanitarian relief, and regulate the responsibilities of occupying powers.  The US is a signatory of the 1949 Conventions, but has refused to sign or ratify a number of subsequent components of what is now considered International Humanitarian Law, like the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the two 1977 protocols of the Convention.  We think of war crimes and crimes against humanity as derelictions committed by other countries and thier combatants, and not us, but we have plenty of our own, as is clear from reading the Wikipendia entry under "US War Crimes."  I recall hearing of some when I served in Vietnam, of our guys collecting ears of dead VCs, or of throwing VC out of choppers.  Whether the rumors were true, of course, I couldn't know, but war does bad things to those fighting them, in some cruel brutality, and in most, at least an indifference to the suffering of others, or real schadenfreude.

In any event, I was prompted to write these notes by Donald Trump's Truth Social post this morning threatening again to bomb all of Iran's power stations, and adding "maybe desalination plants."  War crimes, like the Russians', like Hamas' and the IDF's, the Nazis and the Japanese,  and like our long history of inhumane, unChristian conduct when it suits our purposes.  It has hardly been customary, however, for an American president to threaten, in a public writing, to commit war crimes against the civilian population of a nation with whom we are warring.

A prettier photograph of 26 year old Specialist Sabrina Harman, 372nd Military Police Company, a reserve unit from Cresaptown, Maryland, the woman delighting over the corpse of the Iraqi combatant, above.  The New Yorker, "Exposure," March 17, 2008, about her service in the American prison at Abu Ghraib, Iraq.  "No beast is more savage than man when possessed of power answerable to his rage." Plutarch.  Like so many of us, Harman joined the military to help pay for college.  I don't mean to characterize her as a beast or a savage, as is clear from the New Yorker article cited, but as an illustration for the point that war does bad things to people; it's 'not healthy for children and other living things.'