Friday, April 24, 2026
1916 The Easter Rising against British occupation began in Dublin
1961 JFK accepted "sole responsibility" following the Bay of Pigs
1967 General Westmoreland said that the enemy has "gained support in the US 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
2025 Israeli settlers in the West Bank shoot 5 Palestinians and set fire to homes and farmland
In bed at 9:15, awake at 4:15 with low glucose alarm, up at 4:30; 0450, 124/72/57 132. 207.4; 63/69/44, partly cloudy.
Morning meds at 9a.m, with half-dose of Bisoproplol.
Scattered thoughts this morning: (1) Yesterday I thought I should go ahead with the catheter ablation of my heart, that I should just rely on this Dr. Singh, who is highly experienced, board certified, and on the staff at both Zablocki and Froederdt and on the faculty of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Today, I'm wondering again, largely about undergoing such a procedure at my age and in my condition. It bothers me that Singh didn't mention any of the risks of the surgery, but rather just gave me a brochure that included them among about pieces of information about the procedure. I'm aware of the unavoidable conflict of interest with fee-for-service professionals, i.e., that with the greater number the services they recommend, the greater their income. In my teaching days, I used to explain it to students with the adage about leaving no stone unturned, when you bill by the stone. The conflict certainly doesn't disqualify the professional from giving the advice, and doesn't mean the advice should be ignored, but it's a factor in deciding whether to follow it. I'm pretty sure it's accurate to say that Dr. Singh makes most of his lucrative income in operating rooms in hospitals, not in examination rooms in medical offices.
(2) The Idiot, The Grand Inquisitor, The crucifixion, nihilism, existentialism, the paths of glory lead but to the grave, Jesus Christ, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Now that I've finished The Idiot, I'm wondering what it was about. What was Dostoevski's point in writing it? It's a tragedy. Prince Myshkin, the hero, ends up back in a sanitarium in Switzerland, where he had been when the story began, but he's in much worse shape, arguably better off dead. Natasia Phillipovna, the other main character (though she appears only relatively rarely in the narrative), ends up dead, murdered by her (would-be?) lover, Rogozhin, who ends up in prison in Siberia. Aglaya Ivanovna, Myshkin's other lover interest, ends up married to a cad and converts to Roman Catholicism, which. according to Myshkin, is worse than atheism and nihilism. Ippolyte, the nihilist doomed to die at age 18 of tuberculosis, is dead. What is the point of the whole story? Crucially, who is 'the idiot'? Is it just Prince Myshkin, the 'hero', or is it Jesus of Nazareth, on whose teachings his life is lived? Or is it all the other characters, especially those who profess to be Christians but don't live as Jesus urged? Or Ippolyte, the nihilist who believed that life is utterly meaningless, a character who could have been created by Camus or Sartre, who reminds us of Sisyphus or Meursault, or is the Meursault character Rogozhin, who commits the senseless murder of Natasia? Was the murder senseless or was he 'putting her out of her misery?' Was she an idiot for refusing to marry Myshkin, who loved her more than anyone else in the world did, and infinitely more than she loved herself? Or was Dostoevski the idiot, writing about himself, he who actually believed in Jesus's teaching despite it's inconsistency with human nature, our 'fallen' human nature? I don't think these are just academic questions, but rather spring inevitably from the novel itself, especially read with some knowledge of Dostoevski's life. I'm wondering whether Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about Doestoevski, or thought about him, when he wrote his long, dense An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, which I read so many years ago. I have misplaced my marked-up, highlighted, old paperback copy of the work, but there is a full-text version on-line. It includes a chapter entitled "The Relevance of an Impossible Christian Ethic." Niebuhr makes the point that we human beings are, by nature, i.e., as his God created us, incapable of acting wholly in accordance with Jesus's instructions, of loving our neighbors as ourselves, of loving our enemies, of turning the other cheek when struck, of forgiving 'seven times seventy' when wronged, etc. He wrote: "Jesus thus made demands upon the human spirit which no finite man can fulfil, , ," It is this fact that makes M."yshkin such an unbelievable character. Niebuhr also wrote: "The real crux of the issue between essential Christianity and modern culture lies at this point. The conflict is between those who have a confidence in human virtue which haman nautre cannot support and those who have looked too deeply into life and their own owuls to place their trust in so broken a reed." A reader wonders whether Dostoevski intended his readers to accept Myshkin as a possible, flesh-and-blood human character, when no one has ever met another person so selfless. If he didn't so intend him, what did he intend. Again, what was Dostoevski's point with this story?
(Myshkin kind of reminds me of a precursor of today's Ted Lasso, though I haven't watched enough of the Lasso series to make such a comparison.)
The Idiot was published in 1869 and The Brother Karamozov in 1880. One wonders whether the former was the basis for the chapter in the latter, "The Grand Inquisitor," in which Christ returns to earth and is forced first to be burned at the stake by the Church, and then simply to go back where he came from, to leave humankind and their religions alone. There are major non-congruities, of course, but I think of the closing of "The Grand Inquisitor" where Jesus kisses the Inquisitor, and the penultimate chapter of The Idiot, where Myshkin caresses and kisses Rogozhin who has killed Natasia whom Myshkin had intended to marry.
I'm wondering what The Idiot would look like if written from the point of view of Natasia Phillipovna. She was the victim of childhood sexual abuse by her guardian, Totsky. She seemed to hate herself as a result, although she had an immense quantum of pride (though of a self-destructive kind.) She considered herself dirtied and unworthy of marriage to a good man, perhaps even of social relations with 'polite society,' a devalued woman. She was kind of 'knocked off her rocker' by the sexual abuse and Myshkin realized that and was described as "pitying her" although that seems like the wrong term, "having deep compassion for her" being better. To know all is to understand all. Perhaps her sense of bitterness was also because she perceived the unfairness of her parents dying early and her being delivered to the pervert Totski that unbalanced her, much like Ippolyte saw the unfairness in his death sentence from TB as a teenager while most others were spared. (Why me, Lord? and all that.) To me, Natasia and Ippolyte were characters that deserved better development in the novel, more than, say, the flippant, selfish Aglaya Ivanovna.
I'm glad that I read the novel though I don't know that I would recommend it many people. I've read Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment (more than once) and The Brothers Karmazov, and may read one of them again, or perhaps Notes From the Underground, or perhaps one or more of his short stories. Or not. I enjoyed both Crime and Karamzov a lot more than I enjoyed The Idiot. In fact, "enjoy" is not the right word to describe this reading experience. I read it on Kindle with audio and it took many hours. The Penquin edition of the book is 784 pages and I've read that some editions are over 1,000 pages. 'nuf said.
(3) Doppelganger nations. I have long thought and written in this journal over the last almost 4 years that the United States and Israel are doppelgangers, twins, images of each other. Both think they are "exceptional", i.e., ot subject to the same rules as other, lesser sovereignties. Each has long been victim to outsized influence from religious leaders, always from the right, rarely from the left. Each has long had outsized military forces and military budgets. Each has suffered from some form of racism throughout its history. Each started as a settler-colonial enterprise with a need to subdue, subordinate, and ultimately expel indigenous people in the interest of nationhood/statehood and national security. Each has a long history of expansionism. Each has long thought they God is on their side, that their existence and welfare is an expression of God's will and of God operating in the world throughout history. Each is a nation of immigrants. Each is dominated by conservative institutions and forces, with moderates and liberals now feeling feeling as if they are passengers on ships of states captained by fools, mad men, or totally self-interested, wicked men.









