5/14/2026

 Thursday, May 14, 2026

1948 David Ben-Gurion declared Israel independent from British administration, Golda Meir one of the signatories, and the US granted Israel de facto recognition

1955 Warsaw Pact was signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania

1975  "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles," written and directed by Chantal Ackerman and starring Delphine Seyrig, premiered at Cannes

1995 Dalai Lama proclaimed  6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima the 11th reincarnation of Panchen Lama, Tibet's 2nd most senior spiritual leader

2025 Pakistan said that more than 1 million Afghans have been deported back to Afghanistan since November 2023 as Pakistan  intensified a crackdown on illegal immigration.

2025 Argentine president Javier Milei ordered restrictions on immigration to Argentina, saying that immigrants were  bringing "chaos and abuse" to Argentina.

In bed by 9, not up until 6:20!  0630 128/67/58. 107 203.6; 42/59/38 and mostly sunny.

Morning meds at 9:10 a.m., and (roughly) half-dose of Bisoprolol at 6:45.

Fredrik Backman catches us up short, gobsmacks, surprises, shocks, amazzes, thrills, or distresses us.  For example, this short passage which I read while resting before turning on the BP machine:

"Have many people you've loved died?" she asks out of nowhere.

"Yes."

""I've been lucky, really," she says.

"How do you mean?"

"I haven't loved many people."

That exchange made me pause and think.  And then, Ted said to Louisa:

"What I hate most isn't that people die.  What I hate most is that they're dead.  That I'm alive without them."

Which made me pause again.  Again think again.   It seems like I'm pausing and thinking  on every page or every other page.  I mentioned to CBG in my text that I have the feeling that I should be taking notes as I read since there are so many notable passages as I move through the novel, but then I googled 'notable quotes Fredrik Backman' and found Goodreads lists 6,243 quotes😮!

Here's just a couple of other quick-hitters that gave me pause:

“Adults often think that self-confidence is something a child learns, but little kids are by t

ans

“Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that’s pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.”

He also slips into the casual conversations of his teenagers, questions that philosophers have pondered for ages, like this throwaway piece of a conversation between Louisa and Fish:\

"Isn't it like, totally unbelievable that we even exist?  So it won't be a tragdy when we don't exist anymore!  It's just cool, really cool, that we happened at all."

As much as I enjoy Backman's writing, I have at least some sympathy for the reviewer I read who found that he was annoyed that Backman is 'constantly trying to score. . . . every metaphor has to be grand, every point sharp, every pun as witty as possible.'  I'm half-way through the book now and notice this tendency especially with the 17/18 year old Louisa and the 14 year old Joar, both of whom are incredibly gifted masters of metaphor and aphorisms.  That quibble aside, I love this guy's writing and the characters he creates.  It is interesting that in My Friends he is so focused on abused and neglected children, reminding me of my now-deceased brother-in-law Jim Reck and, in a very different way, of my cousin Doug, about whom I write below.

My old pal LOA called this morning and we chatted about some health and other matters for almost 20 minutes.  It's a treat schmoozing with him.   I wish we weren't separated by so many hundreds of miles, but grateful that we can stay in touch by telephone, text, and email.  

The white-crowned sparrows and red-breasted grosbeaks have become regular visitors, making me wonder if they'll be here for the summer or if this is just a stopover.  I'm advised by the fellow at Wild Birds Unlimited that they are only stopping over here, on their way to Canada. 😥

Memories, memories.  From this morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:Excitement grows with 2026 class of lake sturgeon at Riveredge byPaul A. Smith:

The atmosphere this week at Riveredge Nature Center in Saukville is akin to a hospital maternity ward.  Excited. Determined. A little worried and sleep deprived, too.  "We've got babies," Mary Holleback, Riveredge's citizen science manager, said May 13. "A fresh, new start. We're crossing our fingers from here."  These young ones are not swaddled in blankets but the fisheries equivalent: swimming in temperature-controlled tanks and raceways.    They are lake sturgeon, the most recent hatchlings of one of Wisconsin's most ancient and revered species, and the focus of "Return the Sturgeon," an effort to restore the species in the Milwaukee River. 

The work is a partnership between Riveredge, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  At its core, it involves the DNR obtaining sturgeon eggs from spawning fish on the Wolf River in central Wisconsin and transferring them to a hatchery trailer at Riveredge.  Holleback then leads a crew of more than 30 volunteers over the coming months as they clean tanks, feed and monitor the developing sturgeon.  If all goes well, in late September about 1,000 sturgeon will be ready for release into the Milwaukee harbor. 

The sturgeon trailer at Riveredge and the outdoor filters and other equipment used to keep their tanks clean and properly aerated.  The water in the tank was pumped up from the nearby Milwaukee River.  The protocol for nurturing the young sturgeon and keeping their tanks clean was detailed and rigorously followed.

I was one of the volunteers on this project in its early years, when Geri and I lived in the Town of Saukville where Riveredge Nature Cemter is located.  Once a week, from Spring until the release day in September, I and my two other volunteer partners would arrive bright and early at the trailer in the woods on a little rise nest to the Milwaukee River just east of Newburgh where we busied ourselves feeding the young sturgeon and cleaning the tanks in which they lived and grew.  Mary Holleback, who runs the project today was our boss back then, too.  She and the other staff at Riveredge are terrific people and it waw a privilege working with them.  I volunteered not only on the sturgeon project, but also in classroom activities with school kids from around SE Wisconsin, and on never-ending projects in the prairies around the main building, like removing invasive species, harvesting seeds of native species of plants.  Riveredge and its staff and volunteers are a wonderful resource here in SE Wisconsin.  

In those early days of retirement, I also did regular volunteering in "hippotherapy" venues. From Wikipedia: "Hippotherapy is a physical, occupational, and speech therapy that utilizes the natural gait and movement of a horse to provide motor, and sensory input. It is based on improvement of neurologic functions, and sensory processes, and used for patients with physical, and mental disorders."  I worked exclusively with kids, ssome of whom had quite severe disabilities.  I enjoyed both the kids and therapists I worked with, and working with the horses.  It took me back to my early teenage years when my cousin Doug and I would take CTA buses as far as we could  out to the rural area outside southside Chicago to where there was a horse stable where we would rent horses to ride, or work in the stables cleaning stalls, etc., to earn riding time.  I never lost I love of horses that I developed then, 70-some years ago.  Those were the years before Doug attended De La Salle Catholic high school in Chicago, got into trouble, dropped out of school, joined the Navy, where he also got into trouble including brig time, got out of the Navy and got into trouble in civilian life, including time in incarceration in a California prison and an unknown number of jails..  Doug and I were each other's best friend for years before our high school years when he went his way with a lot of bad fortune, and I went mine, with a lot of good fortune.  He had an absent father but a good mother, my Aunt Monica, and his maternal grandparents living right upstairs, yet he was troubled from the time he was a very little kid.  He was a bed wetter and used to throw tantrums, lying on the floor, screaming.  His brother and sister were 'well adjusted,' neither one of them troubled, at least in any way that was visible to my sister and me, or our parents.  Each of them made a good adult life for themselves, their spouses, and their children, yet Doug's life was a train wreck from the beginning.  "Every morn and every night/ Some are born to sweet delieght./ Every night and every morn / Some to misery are born./. Some are born to sweet delight / and some are born to endless night." William Blake.   I pause as I think back on those days and all the days that followed for us five first cousins: Jim, Chris, me, Doug, and Kitty.  Now Kitty and then Christine have died, we three 'boys' hang on in our mid-80s.  We grew up together,  but are no longer close.   A lot to think about.

Kitty, Doug, Aunt Monica, me, Christine, and Jim on my  Dad's 80th birthday, September 2000, at The Family Table restaurant in North Port, Florida, at a happy moment.  Just a few minutes after my Dad took this snapshot, Doug and Jim were at each other's throats  (not literally) over some comment that Doug made, and their mother distraught.  Later that evening, Doug ended up in the Sarasota County jail, and Jim and I bailed him out the next day.  He had gotten obstreperous at his girfriend's house, she called the police, and Doug refused to cooperate with the responding police, who arrested him.  The story of his life.  

5/13/2026

 Wednesday, May 13, 2026

1958, French settlers rioted against the French army in Algeria

1958 The motorcade carrying Vice President Richard Nixon was attacked in Caracas, Venezuela; several of Nixon's staff were injured

1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by a Turkish gunman  in St Peter's Square

In bed at 9 and up just before 5; 124/77/59 121 203.8; 46/35/55/45, cloudy and windy (again) day ahead.    

Morning meds at a.m, half dose of Bisoprolol at 6:15 a.m., bitching to myself about the difficulty of splitting those tiny 5 mg. tablets. Mumble grumble.

2 years ago today:

Polymyalgia rheumatica

    HOPE

Rafal Ryzka, M.D.

Froedert/MCOW/ZABLOCKI

Jagiellonian University, M.D., 1999

May 13, 2024 marked the day my polymyalgia rheumatica self-diagnosis was confirmed by Dr. Ryzka, I received a prescription and supply of prednisone that evenually provided relief from the severe and disabling pain I had been experiencing since the end of December, 2023.  It also marked the first day of resuming my daily journal since the preceding April 26th.

Today, I opened the blinds on the window next to my recliner to see a male red=breasted grosbeak and what appeared to be a young white-breasted nuthatch on our feeders.  Life is good.  I'm enjoying watching a lot of activity at and under the feeders after sun-up.  I see a beautiful red-breasted nuthatch first pleasure himself with a seed from the suet cake and then immediately snatch some nesting material from the cotton ball just above it, and fly away home.

I started the morning reading My Friends, and being astounded and emotionally moved by Fredrik Backman's writing, thinking again I should be and have been taking notes, wondering whether I should read it again with pen and notebook at hand.  Passages like "Death has good taste.  It always takes the best first" (or something near that) reminding me of my mother's death at 51, and David Branch, Kitty's dying before me, Christine dying before Jimmy, Dougie, and me.  What a writer, what a writing!  I'll lay off writing my thoughts about it to Caren for fear that I'll become (and maybe already am) a pest in her life already quite full with her children, grandchildren, husband, and a zillion friends.  She and LOA seem like my last ones, the only ones who will make contact just 'to see how you're doing' and make arrangements to share a meal.  Of course, it's my own fault.  Like Ted in the novel, having been afraid to take responsibility for living a full life.

Dear Lord, protect us from your followers!😱  In this morning's Washington Post, White House aims to link U.S. history and Christianity in 9-hour prayer festival, by Michelle Boorstein, Laura Meckler and Natalie Allison:

The Trump administration is hosting an all-day prayer festival on the National Mall on Sunday that organizers say will reflect the country’s Christian origins and, they hope, spark “a movement of renewal” in America.

“Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” is partly funded by millions in public dollars earmarked for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration, organizers said. It will feature mostly evangelical Protestant leaders and members of the Trump administration, many of whom have embraced the message that America’s founders wanted the country to be explicitly Christian. . . . . 

While U.S. presidents through history have typically marked major commemorations with generic prayers of thanks to God, scholars of American religious history say the national jubilee is unprecedented in the modern era.

They say that’s because of its scope — nine hours and dozens of Christian speakers, including top U.S. officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) — and its focus on American identity as aligned with a specific slice of conservative Protestantism. 

 

Words of wisdom from Tom Friedman in this morning's NYTimes:

Dear NATO Members: I get it. You despise President Trump for all the right reasons. He has walked away from Ukraine. He has threatened to seize Greenland and annex Canada. He has coddled Vladimir Putin. He is eroding America’s democratic institutions and norms. He insulted each of you so much that the German chancellor recently barked back that Trump’s America was being “humiliated” by Iran. I get it.

Now get over it.

Get all your navies together and proceed to the Persian Gulf immediately to join the American armada to make clear that Iran will never, ever be allowed to decide who shall pass and who shall not through the Strait of Hormuz. And, if it insists on trying to do so, it won’t just be taking on the United States and Israel, it will be taking on the entire Western alliance.

For you to sit on the sidelines and let Iran’s malign regime, with its poisonous ideology, take hostage the Strait of Hormuz — as well as the modernizing Arab Gulf states lining it — would keep the world’s most critical oil lifeline in a state of permanent instability. This is not a small matter for Europe, which is highly dependent on gas from the Gulf to heat and power its economies, unless it wants to return to dependency on Russia.

I know this is a big ask, and it would be a lot easier if either Trump or the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would ever summon the integrity to apologize for launching this war without NATO consultation, without any strategy for the morning after if things did not go as planned and without even a fig’s leaf of international legitimation from the United Nations.

Alas, these two reckless egomaniacs, who are nowhere near as smart as they think they are, have now boxed themselves in. Unfortunately, we are all in the box with them.

. . . 

Trump and Bibi have done nothing to earn such high-minded NATO support even though the future of Hormuz so directly impacts every member of the alliance. This leads to my sad conclusion: Our NATO allies will almost surely reject this appeal.

The necessary may now be impossible. Trump has so regularly denigrated NATO, undermining the alliance’s deterrence against Russia, launched the Iran war without an iota of consultation and been utterly indifferent to the devastating inflationary impacts and energy shortages the war has inflicted on NATO members that the people in these countries may simply not allow their leaders to help us.

That is especially likely at a time when Trump sounds more and more unhinged every day. Who wants to stand with him, other than the sycophants in his cabinet and party 

. . . 

So, I end where I began. I understand why our NATO allies want to watch Trump and Netanyahu reap what they sowed. But these two awful leaders have sowed the wind — and we will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger. 

Text to SCC:

I think I’m a day early, but would you wish Christian a Happy Birthday from me.  I hope you’re all doing well.  We’re emerging from a rough Spring (cold, rain, wind) into something resembling Summer.  I can’t remember whether I’ve already told you I have some heart surgery coming up on June 15th, a catheter ablation for some ventricular tachycardia.  I’m a bit anxious about it, though I understand it’s quite safe, even for an old timer.  My doctor/surgeon is s Sikh and I’m wondering how he deals with his turban in the OR.  I’m told he is very competent (on the staff at Froederdt and faculty at MCOW), but not exactly Dr. Warmth. I hope all is well with my Geretsried family.❤️ 

I later remembered that I did tell Sarah about the catheter ablation, when we corresponded about her visit in June. 

 I see Dr. Cheng in the PM&R Clinic this afternoon.  Plus ça change, . . .  I saw him a year ago tomorrow too, and wrote this in this journal:

Visit to PM&R Clinic, where I saw Dr. Cheng, one of my favorite docs.  Nothing came of the visit except for a prescription for menthol patches for my shoulders, some exercises to try with resistance bands, and an examination of my shoulder, but it was nice seeing him.  On the way in from the parking lot, I chatted with an old Marine who served at NAS Atsugi during the Korean Era.  We shared as many experiences as we could in the distance between the garage and the hospital check-in booths.  On the way up the elevator to PM&R, I chatted a bit with another vet and with yet another in the PM&R waiting room.  As is often the case, I felt better leaving the VA than I did going in, though, as Jane Kenyon wrote, 'someday it will be otherwise.'  By the time I left, the outpatient clinics were largely shut down; there was no one to schmooze with.

Today, I'll inquire about the recurrent pain under my right rib cage which is particularly nasty today, and hope for some more brief but good encounters at the VA. . . . .  As it turned out I had no conversations at the VA today, other than a very pleasant one with Dr. Cheng, whom I like very much.  I did hear from one stranger who noticed my 1st Marine Air Wing baseball cap, and gave me the fraternal greeting, "Semper Fi, Marine!"  The younger ones more usually say, "Semper Fi, ooh rah!", which this old Corps Marine never heard during his years as a Jarhead.  . . . .  Dr. Cheng ordered a CT scan of my spine to see if it looks like I have arthritis in my thoracic spine to account for my recurrent pain.

Geri did the kitchen clean-up for me tonight.  She could see I was in bad shape because of my back, which I was.  I was in bed by 9, hoping for relief.

 

 

 

5/12/2026

 Tuesday, May 12, 2026

2024 I was out of commission from the pain and immobility from polymyalgia rheumatica which would finally be diagnosed by Dr. Ryzka the next day.

2025 I was out of sorts this day.  I woke up with my right eye sore and puffy.  I entered a lot of text this morning, but managed to erase most of it by failing to update.  I was waiting to leave for Urgent Care appointments at the Eye Clinic to check on the cataract replacement and with the Gold Clinic for possible cellulitis on my left leg.

2025 The first group of Afrikaners arrived in the United States after Donald Trump granted refugee status to the white minority group, who Trump said faced a "genocide" in the South African farm attacks. The government of South Africa rejected the claims. 

In bed at 9, awake at 3:30, up at 4; 0415 109/66/56 120 205.6 - 0430 120/69/59; 40/69/35.; cloudy, windy afternoon, again.

Morning meds at 7:20 a.m., half dose of Bisoprolol at 5:15 a.m.   

Looking south from our driveway, down Wakefield Court.  A photo can never capture the great beauty of the trees throughout the neighborhood, in all directions.  In the past couple of years, we have lost two aged Spruce trees, a mature service berry tree, a tree of unknown species in the back yard, and sustained damage to other trees.  We also see Hoppe and other tree service companies' truck in the neighborhood.

Text to CBG: 

Was it because you have known me for so many years, or because of our conversation yesterday morning about DNR instructions, old age choices, and Zeke Emanuel’s article in the Atlantic?  I’m wondering how it was that you knew so well two books that fit so perfectly with where I am in life now, as I would guess was clear from the excerpt from my journal/blog that I burdened you with last night.  I’ve gotten far enough into “My Friends” that the artist C. Jat has died, leaving his friend Ted forlorn.  I’m reading it, and partially listening to it, on Kindle and on almost every page there is some phrase or passage that makes me think “I should make a note of that”, and wondering whether there may be an internet site of notable quotes of Fredrik Backman.  (And it turns out there are many.)  I love his writing.  I love his characters.  I love his understanding of life’s complexities and its simplicities, and the same of death.  I love too his appreciation of the importance of friendship in life and I am most appreciative of yours.  Thanks again.

I’m thrilled you’re enjoying it — I thought you would appreciate the story, his language and his working to make sense of this life as we all work our way through. I too am most appreciative of you and of our friendship. 

Reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman.  Is it 'normal' that so much of what I read lately 'resonates' with me personally, which is to say that it's not just a story, but rather something that reminds me so much of myself or others close to me?  Yesterday, reading "And in the morning the way home gets longer and longer", and I was reminded of all thre principal characters: the grandpa, the son, and the grandson.  In My Frends, the character of the artist as a boy reminds me so vividly of myself as a kid, with a father who didn't love me, who led me to wonder whether I was really his son (just as my sister wondered whether she was really his daughter.)  The character of Joar, the artist's dear friend coverered in bruises from beatings from his father, reminded me so much of Jim R., my brother-in-law who is moved from one foster home to another throughout his childhood until he joined the Army to finally find a home of sorts, and then marrying my sister who provided him with a real home for the rest of his adult life..  In Theo of Golden, I identified of course with the bookshop owner, a Vietnam veteran.   

Christian parables and Jewish humor.  Last year on this date, I cited a passage from the Gospel of Luke 18: 9-14:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

It reminds me of a favorite and classic bit of Jewish humor: 

 On Yom Kippur, the rabbi stops in the middle of the service, prostrates himself beside the bema, and cries out, "Oh, God. Before You, I am nothing!"  Saul Rosenberg, president of the temple is so moved by this demonstration of piety that he immediately throws himself to the floor beside the rabbi and cries, "Oh, God!  Before you, I am nothing!"

Then Moishe Pipuk, a tailor, jumps from his seat, prostrates himself in the aisle and cries, "Oh God! Before You, I am nothing!"

Rosenberg nudges the rabbi and whispers, "So look who thinks he's nothing."

I love the joke in part because it's such a fine example of one of the hallmarks of Jewish humor, i.e., its self-deprecating. 

5/11/2026

 Monday, May 11, 2026

1949 By a vote of 37-12, Israel became the UN's 59th member

1955 Israel attacked Gaza

1963 Racial bomb attacks in Birmingham, Alabama

1965 Ellis Island was added to the Statue of Liberty National Monument

1968 Students & police battled in Paris, 100s injured

1973 Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg had the charges for his involvement in releasing the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times dismissed

1989 US President George H. W. Bush ordered 1,900 additional troops to Panama, which we had invaded in 1989

2022 The first-ever US government report into Indian boarding school deaths was released (not complete), documents more than 500 deaths across 400 schools and 50 gravesites over 150 years 

2025 Five people were killed and dozens injured including three critically, and hundreds are displaced in a fire at a four-story apartment building in Milwaukee

In bed at 9, up at 3:50, 2 low glucose alarms: 0410 124/73/59 105 204.0; 39/31/48/39, Brrrr! Sunny and cold.

Morning meds at a.m., half dose of Bisoprolol at 6 a.m.  

Glucose behving wildly yesterday and last night.  Multiple low glucose warnings, rapid dips in glucose readings.  Bad sensor or something somatic???

Breakfast with CBG at Maxfield's from 9: 25 till 11:10. Much conversation about families, life, books, friends, old age, upcoming surgery, and other stuff.  A blessing.

I read "And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer" by Fredrik Backman, recommended by CBG.  Very enjoyable, touching.

x

5/10/2026

 Sunday, May 10, 2026

1960 John F. Kennedy won presidential primary in West Virginia

1968 Vietnam peace talks began in Paris between the US and North Vietnam

1969 US troops began the attack on Hill 937 ("Hamburger Hill"), Vietnam

1976 Paul Harvey's daily syndicated program "The Rest of the Story" premiered on the ABC Radio Networks, continuing until his death in 2009

2012 Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree of canonization of the Benedictine nun and composer Hildegard von Bingen, completing the sainthood process started in 1228

2017 President Donald Trump shared classified information about ISIS plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Offic

In bed at 9, awakened at 1:40 by Low Glucose Alarm, moved to LZB at 3:25, did weigh-in at 3:40, and moved to Tv room by 4.  Several consecutive low glucose warnings yesterday afternoon/evening.0350112/54/32 133 205.0; 39/57/37, sunny morning, cloudy afternoon.   

Morning meds at 7:30 a.m., half dose of Bisoprolol at7:10 a.m.   

I've started reading The Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistence (2021) by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone.  They posit that there are two forms of government: hegemony and coercion.  Hegemony is government by and with the consent of the governed and coercion of course is the opposite.  They acknowledge that this is actually a continuum and that even hegemonic governments have aspects of coerciveness in some circumstances.  They argue that governments that claim to be hegemonic must claim that the governors act on behalf of and for the benefit of the governed.  This is the source of their hegemonic legitimacy and it requires that the governed believe that the governors act on behalf of the whole.  It's clear that they will make the case that America's capitalist government does not act on behalf of us governed, but rather on behalf of the interests of capitalists, corporations, banks, and financial institutions of many sorts, all representing what I call Big Money, accumulated capital.  I come to the book already believing this and I don't know whether I will get through the almost 400 pages of the book.  I know that I live and learn in a silo, like perhaps all of us, and my silo is philosophically anarchistic, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, deeply distrustful of Power and the powerful, and of claims of Authority.  I don't believe that the American government acts on behalf of and for the benefit of all Americans.  I don't believe that it derives its authority from the consent of the governed.  I don't believe that it is very "democratic." I don't believe that 'all men are created equal,' nor that 'they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.'  I believe those notions are what we used to call in Vietnam "happy horseshit," propaganda issued by the powerful in Washington and Saigon to persuade, to cajole, to inveigle or mollify the powerless to do what is necessary for the purposes of the powerful.  I believe that, as Thucydides wrote in his history of the Peloponnesian War, "The powerful do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must."  I believe, alas, that the miscreant Stephen Miller was correct when he said "We live in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, and that is governed by power.  These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."  One may argue with Thucydides and with Stephen Miller, but it seems to me that they have all of human history on their side.  Did Thomas Jefferson have anyone or any evidence on his side in arguing that 'all men are created equal' or that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed?  Wasn't that just a pipe dream until the rebels (who constituted probably a minority of the colonists) defeated the Brits and their allies militarily?  That is to say, until they killed them and otherwise sufficiently hurt them to persaude them to go away? to give up?  Wasn't the Revolutinary War just another contest of strength, force , power against competing strength, force, power?  One review of the book that I read describe this book as "a horror story to read" about our country, but that's only because the truth hurts.  

The cartoon is one I drew of myself, on a piece of cardboard, with my signature beret, in 2021, wide-eyed, fearful, and chagrinned over the world we were living in then, signified by the name of Samuel Alito because of all that he portended, and Vladimir Putin (ditto), and references to climate, atomic weaponry,  abortion by coathanger, election corruption, the MAGA movement, and the coup/insurrection on January 6th of that year.  Little did I suspect, though, at that time, that the American public would re-elect Trump, voting in 2024 in even greater numbers than his 2016 numbers, to put him back in power and lead to the nightmare we are living through now and will suffer from for many years.

5/9/2026

 Saturday, May 9, 2026

39!

1987 Geraldine Aquavia wed Charles Clausen under the crab apple tree on the front lawn of Tom and Micaela St. John in Shorewood, Wisconsin

In bed at 10 after Bill Maher, up just before 8.  First pit stop at 3?!? PainQuilPM?!?  0810 135/66/58 202.6; 56/48/63/46. Partly cloudy.

Morning meds at 10 a.m., and half dose of Bisoprolol at  8:40 a.m.  Trulicity injection at 8 p.m.

Who's  the dipshit with that gorgeous woman? Looks like he can't believe it either!

I finished The Correspondent yesterday afternoon.  A few comments.  (1) I was a bit surprised that in the entire novel, there is only one brief comment about Donald Trump, though the novel  takes place entirely in the Trump Era.  In a footnote to one letter, Sybil said she was becoming a Democrat because of Donald Trump.  The fact that she switched her political allegiance because of Trump wasn't at all surprising, but that she made no further reference to him or to what was happening within the country,during his first regime/reign and his interregnum, is although it's clear the author did not want The Correspondent to become a political novel.  (2)  I'm a little bit surprised that more wasn't developed about Theodore Lubeck's parents' 'Sophie's Choice' in 1941 Germany.  (3) I was wondering whether there would be a happy ending to the story in term's of Sybil's death and blindness because of the letter she wrote to Larry McMurtry in which she praised his courage in ending Lonesome Dove tragically, unhappily.  It seemed like a forewarning of what was to come in The Correspondent, but no.. (4) Her relationship with her daughter Fiona inevitably reminded me of my relationship with my Dad as indeed her attitude about pessimism, never expecting so she wouldn't be disappointed, or devastated as she was by Gilbert's death, and never getting very close to other people, perhaps even 'the birds."  (5) I was pleased that she came to a better understanding of herself in her last years, which was made abundantly clear in her letters to Rosalie and Fiona acknowledging her deep-seated faults grounded in her guilt and defensiveness, and in her opening herself and her dependency to Theodore toward the end of her life.  She reminded me of Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich.  (6) Lastly, I thought the closing letter to Daan, never completed and never sent, was brilliant, not on Sybil's part, but on the author's.  She never completed it because she couldn't.  She couldn't adequately understand herself what she was trying to have Daan understand.  She would try, and fail, and put the draft adie for another try, then try again, fail again, and again put the draft aside for another try and another failure, and eventually of course Daan died and then she died with things unsaid on both sides.  I was reminded of a message I sent to Anne on her last birthday in which, after appropriate and sincer birthday wishes and something about moving into the mid-80s, I told her that I was very sorry for every hurt I ever caused in her life and that I wanted her to know that.  It took quite a while before she responded, simply, 'Thank you,' but I'm sure many thoughts ran through her head, as they had through mine before I sent the apology.   I pause as I write these words now, on the 39th anniversary of my marriage with Geri, thinking Love and Marriage are not simple experiences, nor easy to understand, how it happens in the first place, nor how it unravels in the winds that blow into lives.  Sybil's draft letter to Daan, with all its uncompleted thoughts and sentences, and its cross-outs illustrates (and I use the term intentionally) how difficult, and maybe impossible, it may be to understand how and why we have lived our lives just the way we did.  I thought it was a brilliant and perfect ending to the story.

Spring is my favorite time of year for bird watching from my recliner, especially watching the birds who are grateful for the big cotton ball I hang to help them build their nests.  They always surprise me with the amount of cotton they stuff into their tiny beaks before flying away to stuff pieces of it into their nests.  The whole phenomonon of nest-building amazes me.  How do they do it, especially from the beginning starting with what, one twig?  A chunk of moss?  Whatever.  How do they get that initial structural component, or components, to stay in place while they go foraging for the next pieces?  How do they get the structures to be as sturdy as they are?  How do they find their way back to their nests with those huge wads of cotton seemingly blocking their vision?  How can anyone not be gobsmacked by the existence of birds and by what they can do, their resourcefulness? Alas, that we are killing them off by the millions, rendering whole species extinct.

Life moving on in my 80s.  One year ago today, I was recovering from cataract surgery the day before, wearing a patch on my right eye, and having trouble writing and typing.  Two years ago, I was out of commission with polymyalgia rheumatica pain.  Three years ago, I was daydreaming:

Pipe Dream.  Renting a cottage on the Eagle River chain of lakes, on a lake where loons and coots and eagles and ospreys live and living without the news: no online newspapers or magazines, no television, no cable, having my Lund Mr. Pike 16-foot fishing boat again.  Or spending time on Clam Lake or one of the nearby lakes like Ghost Lake where Sarah and I put in her kayak and my Mr. Pike years ago, middle of Chequamegon National Forest.  Ditto Cable Lake.  In my current condition, I wouldn't be able safely to get into or out of a fishing boat, and probably wouldn't do any fishing from a pier or bridge or the shore and I have to wonder if I would get sick of my own company.  In the pipe dream, I would do a lot of reading - novels, poetry, non-fiction, graphics - and watching DVDs.  I looked at rentals available in the Clam Lake area, Uppper and Lower Clam Lake, and got a little wistful remembering fishing with the Anzivinos for walleye on the lakes and in the Chippewa River at sundown, navigating the Chippewa with Andy on the bow of the boat with a flashlight, directing us away from boulders.  More fuzzy memories of fishing in a canoe with Ara Cherchian and capsizing in the river.  Many of the rental properties that appear on the internet are a far cry from the kind of places I used to stay in with the kids or the muskie crowd from Racine or the Anzivinos.  They are more like luxurious chalets with large windows and modern facilities, like John Price's family 'cottage' on Lake Huron.  It would simply require an exercise of will for me to go on a 'news fast and abstinence' right here at home but I doubt that I have the willpower to pull it off.   Habits developed over decades are pretty hard to jettison even for a day or two much less a week or two, but one can dream.  I'm reminded of an Andrews Sisters song I heard on the radio in my childhood.

I Can Dream, Can't I

I can see no matter how near you'll be / you'll never belong to me / but I can dream, can't I? . . .  I'm aware my heart is a sad affair / there's much disillusion there / but I can dream, can't I?

And Johnny Mercer's 1945 hit Dream, 

Dream / When you're feelin' blue / Dream / That's the thing to do / Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air / You'll find your share / Of memories there / So dream / When the day is through / Dream / And they might come true / Things never are as bad as they seem / So dream, dream, dream.

These were the kinds of popular songs we listened to in the 1940s and 50s, and that I danced to with my inamorata Charlene at the Melody Mill Ballroom in the North Riverside suburb west of Chicago, but I'm wandering a long way from Clam Lake. . .

Four years ago, May 9th, 2022, I had not yet started this journal/blog. I was still recovering (if that's the correct word) or adjusting to Kitty's death 2 months before, with the journal/blog commencement at the end of July to become a poor substitute for the long chats that Kitty and I shared every morning, until we didn't.

I have started and will soon finish the very short 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.  Geri got it at the library yesterday and read it in one day, probably in one sitting.  I asked her to let me read it before returning it to the library, which I now doing.  I love the exchanges involving trans-Atlantic purchases of fine used books for $1.85, $2, or $6.  It reminds me of my youth when one of my favorite activities in addition to listening to Elvis, Little Richard, or Jimmy Rodgers records, was to hop on a Halstead Street bus or streetcar to  64th Street where I caught the Englewood "El" to the Wabash Avenue, multi-storied,  used bookstores in downtown Chicago where I would spend hours browsing and making a few purchases of treasures to bring home on the "El."  I believe I often brought home a bag of books, grateful for the riches so inexpensively available in those stores.  How musty and dusty they were, and I felt like I had discovered El Dorado just a short distance from 73rd and Emerald Avenue.  A friend of the author who had visited the London bookshop wrote her: "It's dim inside.  you smell the shop before you see it, it's a lovely smell.  I can't articulate it easily, but it's a combination of must and dust age, and walls of wood and floors of wood." To which I say 'Yes."  The references to food rationing n the UK reminded me of finding my parents' WWII ration book on top of a cabinet in our tiny basement kitchen when I was a boy.  Most food rationing here ended by the end of the war in 1945, but sugar rationing continued until 1947, when I was in the first grade at St. Leo Grade School.  I finished the book this afternoon.

I followed Geri's encouragement to sit out on our patio this afternoon.  I dearly love sitting out there and simply looking at space in front of me, Geri's marginal garden, the many tall trees hehind it along the border between our property and our neilghbor's, the Callery pear tree next to the patio with its two sets of wind chimes and plants around its trunk, all the Virginia Bluebells in bloom at this time of year, the sky and clouds above me, and the occasional squirrel, chipmunk, or bird movint through.  The temperature was in the mid-60s and I was sitting in the partial sun with only a slight breeze but I had to go back inside and put on a sweatshirt to stay warm.  Meanwhile, Geri was out weeding weaaring only her jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt and was perfectly comfortable.  After sitting outside for only a short time and reading the last pages of 84, Charing Cross Road, my continuous glucose monitor alerted me that I was experiencing low glucose, in the 60s, and I  repaired to the house to stuff myself with some dark chocolate treats and get my glucose out of the danger range.  The photo illustrates how Geri stays warm in just her T-shirt while I'm cold in my sweatshirt: She works, I sit.

Anniversary dinner was lamb chops, a baked potato, and beets.  I tried but failed to persuade Geri to go out for an anniversary dinner and some expensive steak.

Low glucose alarm.  I'm experiencing several.many low glucose warnings from my CGM, despite eating Dove's Dark Chocolate Mints and many grapes.  I've learned that chocolate is not the thing to take in these circumstances because its high fat cotent slows down the digestion of its glucose, so lesson learned, but I'm still surprised by my body's wanting to return to low a low glucose state.

5/8/2026

 Friday, May 8, 2026

1945 German General Wilhelm Keitel formally surrendered to the Allies in Berlin

1957 South Vietnamese President, Ngô Đình Diệm, arrived in the U.S. on a state visit

1958 President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas

1967 Muhammad Ali was indicted for refusing induction into the US Army

1970 Thousands of students protested against the Vietnam War following the Kent State University shootings in Ohio

2024 New York has more millionaires than any other city in the world, one in 24, with 744 centi-millionaires worth more than 100 million and 60 billionaires

2025 The father of Natalie Rupnow, the perpetrator of the shooting that killed three people, including herself, and injured six others at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin,in December 2024, is charged with felonies in connection with the shooting

2025 Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States is elected to the papacy on the fourth ballot and takes the name Leo XIV. 

In bed at 9, but received a text message from Caela at 9:15 responding to one I sent at 4:4 about oranges for orioles and couldn't fall asleep.  I got up a little before 1 and moved to the TV room until 3 when I went back to bed and slept until 5:45; 0555 147/87/55 129 203.2; 38/63/34, sunny morning & partly cloudy afternoon

Morning meds at a.m., and half dose of Bisoprolol at 6:40 a.m. Missed my Trulicity injection.

FB posting today:

Unca Donald's folly.  The war against Iran has turned into a fiasco, not just a failure and a loss, but a ludicrous, ridiculous, and humiliating failure and loss.  Our 'excursion', 'blip', ''little skirmish', special military operation', or whatever  word we want to use rather than the accurate one -war, - has been from the beginning B'rer Donald's tar baby.  He can't get rid of it and it is making him and us more vulnerable and less powerful at home and all over the world.  When the Iranians fired missiles at two Navy destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, the devastating (and appropriate) American response along Iran's coastal military facilities was almost dismissed by Trump as "a love tap" and not a violation of or end of the 'ceasefire.'  Both Donald Duck and Donald Trump are arrogant, impatient, and immature creatures of sometimes middling but more often, low intelligence who often act impulsively and without much care or pre-analysis.    Both are cartoon characters, but unfortunately, only one is fictional.  One had his Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the other his J.D., Pete, and Kash.  One had his Daisy, the other his Pam and Kristi.  One had his uncle Scrooge McDuck as a role model, the other had his father Fred Trump.  When one was frustrated when he couldn't solve a probelm he had created himself, he would say "This is exasthsperatin'!", the other would say, "There is no problem."  I prefer Disney's Donald to America's/

I'm close to finishing The Correspondent, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit, although 'enjoying' seems an odd word for reading about so manies of the miseries that Life throws at people.  I'm thinking of the bullying that Harry Landy and Felix Stone experienced, Harry's suicide attempt, Rosalie's husband's need to be moved to a nursing home, "DM"s hatred for Sybil and Judge Whatsizname, Sybil's near-estrangement from her dauhter Fiona, etc.  Also, we started out with some letters written in 2012 and now we're into the Spring of 2017 and there has so far been only one glancing reference to Donald Trump!  Sybil was a woman of the world as a lawyer and then chief clerk to her Superior Court judge, a graduate of UVA Law, and highly intelligent.  Trump's campaign in 2015 and 2016, and his election that Fall were cataclysmic events in the U.S. and the world, but only one glancing reference to the man from someone who is so communicative and outgoing?   Perhaps that omission is about to be cured, or perhaps the author didn't want to get into the Trump weeds with her potential readership.  In any event, I think the reason I'm enjoying the book as much as I am is because of how it treats the many hard knocks that her characters, young and old, have to deal with in their lives, especially those experienced by the oldsters, like Sybil's blindness, her struggle with identity and origens, and with the death of her child Gill, her incapability of attending Daan's funeral and her absence's effect on her daughter Fiona, her broken wrist and sprained ankle, her regrets.  I suppose this kind of stuff is grist for the mill of all novels, but in any case, I'm enjoying reading this one.  One of the things about the narrative that I find interesting is the number of "double relationships" (for want of a better term) there are, like the relationship between Sybil and Rosalie and Rosalie and Fiona and Sybil and Finona, and the relationship between Sybil and Harry and Sybil and Harry's dad, and between Harry and his dad.  There's even the relationship between Sybil and his brother Felix, Felix's relationship with his lover/partner Stewart, and Stewart's relationship with Sybil, or at least his attempt to use Sybil to gain contanct with Felix.  Rosalie kept information about Fiona from Sybil, Sybil kept information about Harry from Harry's dad,  and information about Felix from Stewart..  Sybil castigated Rosalie for BETRAYAL of their relationship, but was comfortable to serve as a confidante in other relationships.  I daresay it's true that both Geri and I are great respecters of confidences, even with or from each other and it has on rare occasions led to some peculiar situations which, to respect confidences, I don't get into here.😐

    Perhaps the reason (or one of the reasons) I like this novel as much as I do is reflected in a sentence in a letter Sybil sent to Larry McMurtry: "I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane."  I am an old man and my life, like  all or almost all lives, has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.  I find it easy to relate to Sybil, though I'm not sure I like her very much.  I've said it and written it so often as to turn it into a cliché, that we are surrounded by saints, and heroes, and miracles - things marveloous, wondrous to behold, to see and experience.  The world is full of beauty and goodness yet we get so focused on the mundane that we miss the miraculous.  To accompany these thoughts, I looked for but couldn't find my photograph of the exquisite little mushroom I saw by happenstance or serendiptiy 4 or 5 years ago in the lawn near our mailbox.  Exquisite.  Inexpressibly beautiful.  I find such beautiful things all over the place and all the time, unless that is I am beset by the mundane.  Not that what besets me is itself mundane, but my internal mundanity hides its beauty and extraordinaariness from my consciousness.   I'm not expressing my though very well.  I'm like some of my students from my teaching days who would tell me that they understood some legal concept but they just couldn't express it very well.  I would suggest to them that they shouldn't be so sure that they understood the concept until they could express it in words.  I need to do better.