June 16, 2026

 Tuesday, June 16, 2026

1873 President Ulysses Grant decreed a portion of Wallowa Valley, Oregon for the Native American tribe, the Nez Perce. The order was rescinded two years later, and the tribe was forcibly relocated to Oklahoma.

1904 Bloomsday, the date of the fictional events in James Joyce's novel "Ulysses"

1944 George Stinney, a 14-year-old African-American boy, was wrongfully executed for the murder of two white girls, becoming the youngest person ever executed in 20th-century America

1954 Ngô Đình Diệm was elected Prime Minister of South Vietnam

2015 TV personality and real estate mogul Donald Trump launched his campaign for the Republican nomination for President at Trump Tower

2023 Scientific teams in the UK and Israel claimed to have grown synthetic human embryos equivalent to those of a 14-day-old natural embryo, sparking controversy

2023 Robert Bowers was found guilty of the deadliest attack on Jews in the US, of shooting 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018

2025  Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia introduced legislation to prevent Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization.

In bed at 9:30, and up at 5:30; 0545 122/72/54 99 203.2; 59/52/69/57

Morning meds at 8 a.m., morning blood thinner at 7 a.m. and evening one at. p.m. 

Before I happily climbed into my bed last night, I reflected a bit on what an extraordinary, wondrous experience I had undergone during the day.  I was yesterday, and remain this morning, gobsmacked by it.  I copied the photo above from the internet and inserted it because it gives an idea of the number of professionals engaged in the procedure.  In the photo, we see 6, but in my case, there were more than that, since Dr. Singh was assisted by two electrophysiology "Fellows" studying at the VA hospital.  I was truly astounded when I walked into Zablocki's electrophysiology lab: how large the space is, how many people were there for the procedure, and how many pieces of sophisticated electronic equipment were there.  I've been in a few operating rooms in my life (for a hernia repair, a couple of cataract surgeries, and multiple procedures on and in my bladder), but never saw anything to compare with the electrophysiology lab.  

I wrote yesterday of my trepidation about the procedure on the one hand and of my awareness of how blessed I was to have the procedure available to me.  ChatGPT tells me that the average cost of a catheter ablation procedure for PVCs in the US is $21,000 to $30,000, higher in the case of special circumstances.   I'm not surprised and feel doubly blessed in that the procedure cost me nothing, though Medicare and my Medigap supplemental policies will reimburse the VA for a portion of the cost.

I've been writing about my experiences, but I keep thinking of my wonderful wife, partner, helper, supporter, and wing-mate Geri.  They also serve who only stand and wait.  How difficult it is being the person in the waiting room, whether it's young expectant fathers pacing and fretting outside labor and delivery rooms, or elderly wives waiting and wondering outside of ERs, ORs, or electrophysiology labs.  Geri had a bad night's sleep Sunday night/Monday morning before getting up to chauffeur me to the hospital for my 8:30 appointment, and then waiting and waiting and waiting till I was rolled into the second recovery room at 12:30 (?) when she joined me only to watch helplessly as I grimaced, moaned, and groaned with the terrible bladder pain for more than an hour.  If I had been watching her in pain like that, while being unable to help, it would have torn me up, and I don't suspect it had much of a different effect on her.  Watching anyone suffering causes suffering in the watcher, especially if the watcher is emotionally wired to the sufferer.  When that ordeal was over, she helped me get dressed and rolled me in a wheelchair out to the hospital's exit, where I waited while she retrieved her car, picked me up, drove me home, and fixed a wonderful frittata with spinach, tomatoes, and shallots.  I'm reminded that love is much more than an emotion or sentiment; it's an action verb.  She's been acting lovingly towards me for 40 years and more.  A bigger blessing than a catheter ablation of an ailing heart.

From Fiddler on the Roof:

(Tevye) "Golde, I have decided to give Perchik permission to become engaged to our daughter, Hodel."

(Golde). "What??? He's poor! He has nothing, absolutely nothing!"

(Tevye). "He's a good man, Golde.  I like him. And what's more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him.  So what can we do?  It's a new world... A new world. Love. Golde..."

Do you love me?

(Golde). Do I what?

(Tevye). Do you love me?

(Golde). Do I love you?  With our daughters getting married. And this trouble in the town. You're upset, you're worn out. Go inside, go lie down!  Maybe it's indigestion

(Tevye). "Golde I'm asking you a question...  Do you love me?

(Golde). You're a fool

(Tevye). "I know..."  But do you love me?

(Golde). Do I love you?  For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes. Cooked your meals, cleaned your house. Given you children, milked the cow. After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

(Tevye). Golde, The first time I met you. Was on our wedding day. I was scared

(Golde). I was shy

(Tevye). I was nervous

(Golde). So was I. 

(Tevye). But my father and my mother. Said we'd learn to love each other. And now I'm asking, Golde. Do you love me?

(Golde). I'm your wife

(Tevye). "I know..."  But do you love me?

(Golde). Do I love him?  For twenty-five years I've lived with him. Fought him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that's not love, what is?

(Tevye). Then you love me?

(Golde). I suppose I do

(Tevye). And I suppose I love you too

(Both). It doesn't change a thing. But even so. After twenty-five years. It's nice to know

June 15, 2026

 Monday, June 15, 2026

D-Day!

1955 The Eisenhower administration staged the first annual "Operation Alert" (OPAL) exercise, an attempt to assess the USA's preparations for a nuclear attack

1967 Governor Reagan signed a liberalized California abortion bill

2025 According to American officials, I Donald Trump vetoed a plan by Israel to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In bed at 9:30, awake at 3:30 with inescapable thoughts, up at 4:15; 0430 121/75/57 113 203.2;  52/72/50, sunny morning, cloudy afternoon ahead.

Morning meds at a.m.  No home medications today.  Plenty later.

Text exchange with CBG last night.

Caren Goldberg:

I know you have your procedure tomorrow. I’m thinking of you and sending all good wishes for everything to go smoothly.

Charles Clausen:

That is very kind of you and I appreciate it.  Do I remember correctly that Sam was with you this past week?  My Sarah was here from Germany this weekend and I had breakfast with her at Maxfield’s this morning.  I was going to text you earlier but I didn’t want to become a pest.  I wanted to tell you that I’ve been binging on Elizabeth Strout novels, specifically the Lucy Barton series of 4 novels.  I’ve loved how she shows the complexity of human lives, and of our minds and emotions, and of how little we really know of one another, even in the best of situations.  I read them in their order of publication and just finished the last.one, Lucy By The Sea.  I’m dreading tomorrow’s procedure but I’m being shored up by Sarah’s visit, by Geri’s wonderful support, and now by your thoughtful good wishes.  Thank you.❤️

Caren Goldberg:

So nice that you had a chance to be with Sarah. I’m sure that was wonderful. I read Olive Kitterage and loved it but I haven’t read the Lucy Barton series. I love her writing too. It will be good to have the procedure behind you for sure. 

Charles Clausen:

I’ll give you a report when I’m on my feet.  Now it’s off to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream . . ..

I wouldn't trade the experience for a million dollars, and wouldn't do it again for two million.  That's what used to be said, and probably still is, about Marine Corps basic training.   It's how I feel about my catheter ablation for PVCs, or premature ventricular contractions.  Geri and I left the house at 7:30 this morning and got home around 4:30 this afternoon after spending a long day at the VA Medical Center.  I was pretty full of dread going in, not in the wimpering kind but of the 'sense of resignation' kind.  I'm starting to write this note at about 5:15 p.m., and I doubt that I'll complete it today because I'm pretty tired and still just a little bit loopy from the modest anesthesia of propofol and fentanyl administered by the anesthetist, Emily.   I was awake during most of the procedure and able to engage in conversations with Dr. Singh and with Emily about the process.  Dr. Singh made incisions on both sides of my groin to insert his catheters and accessed the heart through veins rather than arteries.  The process of inserting the catheters was not pleasant, but not awful either, and once they were in place, I felt no pain or discomfort, and could ask questions as I looked at images of the inside of my beating heart on a screen and listened to the colloquy between Dr. Singh and the other members of the team.  So the procedure itself was much less grueling than I anticipated.  On the other hand, however, the recovery was even more grueling than I anticipated.  The required three hours on my back with almost no movement wasn't so intolerable, but I had terrific bladder pain that kind of bounced around my whole pelvic region.  Relief came at the expiration of the three-hour near-catatonia, except for moaning and groaning, indeed sometimes a bit like whimpering!😱. I had been fitted with something called a "condom catheter" attached to a collection bag with the hope that I could freely pee through it and into the bag, but, as I feared, my old body is willing to pass urine while standing up or while sitting down, but not while lying flat on my back for hours.  

The best part of the day, other than finally being able to stagger to the washroom to sit on the toilet seat and pee, was at the conclusion of the procedure in the electrophysiology lab when Dr. Singh asked me whether I would prefer to go home tonight or to stay overnight.  I was surprised but immediately answered that I'd like to go home.   

One of the less pleasant parts of the day was when my Recovery Room nurse, Katie removed the condom catheter that Post-Anesthesia Recovery Room Gretta had applied.  It was then that I learned that the device had been kind of glued to my penis so that it wouldn't fall or slip off.  The adhesive made its removal more memorable than I would have wished. 😬

Another memorable part of the day's experience was in the admission area, where NP Leah ran me through the basics of what was about to happen and got my informed consent.  She asked me what I expected about the DNR instruction I have on file at the hospital, and I said I did not want to be resuscitated if my heart stopped beating.  Then she explained to me, as best she could, that they like to have only a 'temporary' waiver of the DNR during the procedure because sometimes the procedure itself results in the heart 'temporarily' stopping and, with their catheters in place in the heart, they just give it a zap to get it going again.   Obviously, I'm not doing justice to her much more accurate and professional explanation, but it sounded like what we're about to do may kill you if we trigger a cardiac arrest and you won't consent to letting us kick-start it again.'  In any event, I agreed to let them resuscitate me if their procedure is what was about to do me in.   I wanted to suggest to NP Leah that what we were discussing seemed like kind of a complicated matter meriting more discussion and information-sharing than we were engaging in and might better be handled well before the morning of the operation, as I sat on a gurney in my hospital gown and hospital-provided non-slip socks.  But it was D-Day and the troops were locked and loaded, waiting for me in the EP Lab, so I consented.  More tomorrow, depending on my memory & condition.

 

June 14, 2026

 Sunday, June 14, 2026

D-1

1919 John Alcock and Arthur Brown left Newfoundland in the first non-stop air crossing of the Atlantic

1942 Anne Frank began writing her diary two days after her 13th birthday 

°1946 Donald John Trump was born, and the world became a worse place

1949 French-allied State of Vietnam was officially formed during the First Indochina War; Bảo Đại was installed as Emperor

1954 Eisenhower signed an order adding the words "under God" to the Pledge

1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was introduced by Bill Clinton as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House

2025 A series of anti-Trump protests occured across the United States in all 50 states

2025 Minnesota state legislators and their spouses were shot in two targeted spree shootings at their homes.  Hortman and her husband were killed, while the condition of the Hoffmans was "grave".

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:05; 0520 138/80/57, 0530 126/72/60 101. 202.6; 59/53/68/55 sunny, windy.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.

Breakfast with Sarah at Maxfield's at 9.  We avoided talking about tomorrow's surgery until the end of our visit back at the house.  

I started reading Stoner by John Williams yesterday and got almost a quarter of the way through it.  The narrative starts with young William Stoner, an only child, growing up on his poor and taciturn parents' farm in Missouri, early-laden with many farm chores, and going off to college at the University of Missouri as an awkward farm boy, intending to major in agricultural studies and to return to the family farm upon graduation, but becoming entranced by English literature and switching to an English major.  He earned his bachelor's degree and then a master's degree, and was hired on to the faculty as an instructor to teach freshman English courses.  The story reminds me, though only a bit, of my trepidatious beginnings as a college student at MU in 1959 and as an assistant professor at the law school in 1970.  What most snagged my attention, however, in the early pages, was the description of Stoner's engagement to Edith Bostwick, the pampered daughter of wealthy parents in St. Louis, who consented to their marriage, but only with reservations about Stoner's straitened beginnings and limited financial "prospects."    I paused when I read his reaction to getting the go-ahead for the marriage:

In the guest room that night, William Stoner could not sleep.  He stared up into the dark and wondered at the strangeness that had come over his life, and for the first time questioned the wisdom of what he was about to do.  He thought of Edith and felt some reassurance. He supposed that all men were as uncertain as he suddenly had become, and had the same doubts.

The passage reminded me of my getting engaged and married at age 21.  I've thought about it many times over the years, especially since the marriage ended badly.  I've wondered often whether I got engaged and married out of fear, fear of leaving my familiar college life, my familiar roommates, and fear of moving into a great unknown, life as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Marines.  I've wondered whether getting married to my college sweetheart was a way of holding on to something of the life we were both leaving, a way of diminishing, by one person at least, 'those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.'  Both Anne and I were facing an unknown future, and marriage was a way of facing it together, with a partner from our soon-to-be-past life.  All my roommates and best friends got married right out of college.  We had all been raised Catholic, and attended Catholic schools and college in the 1950s and early 60s.  Vatican II was still occurring, the 'sexual revolution' and women's liberation had not begun yet, the Beatles had yet to appear on the Ed Sullivan show, we were still culturally in the 50s when young Catholic lovers were expected to get married.  Long engagements were suspect, and living together was "shacking up," sinful, and scandalous, especially for the woman.  Tom Devitt graduated a semester early, in December 1962, and married his girlfriend Ronnie Colby, one week later.  Ed Felsenthal and I graduated on June 2, 1963.  Ed married his high school sweetheart Lynn on June 8th, and I married Anne on June 15th.  Bill Hendricks graduated a semester later and promptly married Paula Bocchichio.  Jerry Nugent married his high school sweetheart Phyllis, but not immediately after graduation.  O, tempora! O, mores!    Can we imagine 5 college roommates in 2026, almost all choosing to get married immediately upon graduation?  Andy, Steve, and David were all in their 30s when they married, and Sarah in her 40s.   Was marriage a way of rectifying and ratifying our past sins of the flesh?  Those sins were unlawful and sinful when committed, indeed mortally sinful for us Catholics, but subsequent marriage, in 1950s thinking, was something of a curative.  Who knows why we do what we do?  How much is the exercise of free will, and how much determined?  I'm mindful of Lucy Barton's concluding lines in Oh, William!

But when I think Oh William!, don't I mean Oh Lucy! too?  Don't I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!

Except a little tiny, tiny bit we do.

 But we are all mythologies, mysterious.  We are all mysteries, is what I mean.

This may be the only think in the world I know to be true. 

 

I'm having thoughts about tomorrow's "procedure" or "surgery."  I've been thinking of tomorrow's catheter ablation as "some heart surgery," but I sometimes see the process referred to  as a "procedure" rather than "heart surgery."   Maybe I should be referring to it as "groin surgery" since my groin is where the incisions will be made to permit access to the vein or artery through which  Dr. Singh, or some other person, will "thread" a catheter all the way through my torso and into the chambers of my heart.  Whatever, right?  I've been a mental wimp about this whatever since I was first informed of its desirability to relieve or improve my copious heartbeat irregularities.  It is a scary ordeal to go through, and I am duly scared, not wimpering, cowering, chickening-out scared, but preoccupied scared.  It's not that I expect something to go wrong tomorrow, . . .  or is it?  Honestly, I suppose I do expect something to go wrong.   I don't have a good feeling about this surgery/procedure.  With any surgery/procedure, there are always risks, and this one is no exception.  Lots of things could go wrong, in my groin, in the veins or arteries, inside my heart, in my brain or lungs, or in the recovery.  It's very serious business, and I wish I weren't going through it, though I'm not about to withdraw my "informed consent."  Nonetheless, I realize that tomorrow morning I will be asked whether I want to be resuscitated in the 'unlikely event' that my heart stops beating during the process, and that, with my heart failure and my arrhythmias and my age and the assault on my body, the supposed "unlikely" event is not entirely unlikely.  Plus, it's only one of several real risks.  

I know, of course, that I should count my blessings, and I do.  First, it's a blessing that I'm having this surgery.  Most people in the world who could derive some great benefit from such an operation can't obtain it, for one reason or another.  I can.  Hosanna!  I don't have to pay a penny for it.  Hosanna!  My surgeon/electophysiologist is tremendously skilled, with skills acquired only from many, many years of intensive training.  Hosanna!  Hallelujah!  An entire team of highly-skilled medical professionals will work together to apply their years of intensive training to effect an improvement in my quality of life!  Hallelujah!  Hosanna!  How fortunate, how lucky, how blessed can a guy get?  I really know that.  Nonetheless, I confess to feeling like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: “I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”  At moments like this, I'm thankful for the support of my loving wife, who will see me through the whole megillah, but I could probably use her being reinforced by my dear sister, telling me to SNAP OUT OF IT!!!  SHAPE UP, BUSTER!  . . .  Now I feel like the young guy in the Mennen Skin Bracer commercial almost 50 years ago, slapping his face and saying, "Thanks, I needed that!"

The Wakefield Court annual block party was today, at the cul-de-sac from 4 to 6 p.m.   We arrived at about 4:15, and I left at 5:30 with a sore butt from sitting on the hard plastic seat of my rollator, "Judy."  Geri stayed until about 7:15.  She knows many more neighbors than I do, from many years of walking Lilly and from years of taking walks, most recently with neighbor Shirley Mara and friend Barbara, and from being outside gardening so often, permitting some schmoozing with strolling neighbors.  It's our American form of passeggiata.

 

6/13/2026

 Saturday, June 13, 2026

D-2

1933 German Secret State Police (Gestapo - Geheime Staats Polizei) established by Goering

1965 Vietnam War: Battle of Dong Xoai ended in a Viet Cong victory

1971 "The New York Times" began publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers

1997 Jurors in Oklahoma City bombing trial sentenced Timothy McVeigh to death

2018 Volkswagen was fined €1 billion (£880m) by German prosecutors over diesel emissions scandal

2025 Operation Rising Lion: Israel struck dozens of targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities, military sites and private residences, killing some senior military commanders and scientists in effort to eliminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4:15, up at 4:35; 0455 122/75/56 11 202.6;  63/80/63, sunny morning, cloudy afernoon.

Morning meds at 8 a.m.,  no Bisoprolol today, tomorrow, or Monday.

It's a quiet morning, high thin overcast before becoming sunny, no wind.  As I made my coffee this morning, I saw through the kitchen window a white-tail deer nibbling leaves off our western seviceberry tree along County Line Road.  We I opened the venetian blinds in the tv room, I saw a young white-tail buck, with short velvet antlers, prancng across our front yard toward County Line Road, maybe on the track of that doe by the serviceberry tree?  A chipmunk is busy foraging for seeds under our bird feeders.  Neither the chipmunk nor the deer show any concern over my procedure on Monday.  I went to bed last night thinking about it, and woke up thinking about it, wondering whether at my age I'm making a mistake.  Time will tell.  The chipmunk and the deer have more immediate concerns on their minds.

I watched the Israeli film Yes on AppleTV last night.  It is Nadad Lapir's supposedly satire on the state of moral degradation in Israel since the Hamas slaughter on October 7, 2023.  Lapid is persona non grata in his homeland of Israel, if not officially at least socially and politically.  The film is a very harsh indictment of current Israeli life and culture, that is, after October 7th, both in its fictional plot and in its nonfictional elements.  Among the latter, it shows the huge wall physically separating West Bank Palestinians from Israelis, a road in the West Bank 'for Jews only,' an Israeli prison holding thousands of Palestinian people, and a view, from 'the hill of Love,'  of Gaza under a pall of smoke from audible detonations of Israeli-launched high-explosives.  In the fictional plot of the movie, "Y" the protagonist is a pianist and composer who is, like the director Lapid, that rarity, an Israeli leftist.  He compromises his own beliefs and values in accepting a high-paying commission to compose music to a son that justifies destroying, 'exterminating,' Palestinians.   The film ends contains footage of young Israeli children singing the nationalistic anthem celebrating Israeli militarism and the drive to exterminate the enemy.

I struggle to come up with anything to say about the film.  To me, it raises the question of the legitimacy of Zionism, and of the State of Israel, though I don't know that that was Lapid's purpose in making the film.  I have long thought that any hope for Israel existing as just another 'ordinary' state in the world community of ordinary states ended with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995 by the young right-winger Yigal Amir.  Perhaps, though, it ended in 1977 when Likud overwhelmingly won the majority in the Knesset and Menachem Begin became prime minister.  I think inevitably of Yeshayahu Leibowitz's writing after the Six Day War, urging his country not to occupy the conquered territories of the Arabs.  Most of what he predicted about the effect of long-term occupation on the Israelis has come true, culminating on October 7th and the war on Gazans.  Leibowitz didn't put it this way in his writings, but I think what he feared was that the young state of Israel, the Israeli people, would lose their souls, and arguably that is what has happened to state, the majority of the people, and to "Y" in this movie. Quaere whether that has happened to America too.

The anthem for which "Y" composed the music:

I called upon the Jewish sages for help.   Here, as the generations proceeds, it turns out the enemies of humanity and the enemies of Israel are synonyms.  They muddy our world.  They are gathering to fight us.  A righteous man will use the cruelest, meanest, most despicable methods.  Because only that can stop evil that thinks it's good.  Out of a righteousness so great, so huge, people who in their personal lives would never say a bad word about anyone, will be nice to each other at the beach, on the streets.  At home, when they face their enemy, they become cruel, snakes, foxes, lions!  Hunger!  Thirst!  Sickness!  Death!  It's the command of revenge!  Wait for us, Gaza.  Wait for us when evening falls.  We will come.   We will bring fire to your walls, Gaza.  Destroyers of humanity, sons of darkness and death, you have committed evil and you shall know great evil.  Our God, I have set the Arab always before my eyes, as I lie and as I rise, and as I walk and as I fall.  Make it so my lips never cease to exhart revenge.  Neither mine, nor my seed's lips, nor my seed's seeds lips.  Forevermore.   We wrote a song, an anthem.  Israel, you, whom the whole world is watching, because you're always ahead of the world.  Monotheism.  Antiterrorism.  Shabbat shalom.

In a scene near the end of the film, Israeli children sing:

Over the beach of Gaza/ falls the Autumn night/ Planes are bombing / Destroy! Destroy!  / Tsahal's brave soldiers  / cross the front line / To wipe out those bearers of swasikas / In one year / There will be nothing living there /  And we'll return safely to our homes / In one year / We'll annihilate them all / Then we'll come home to plow our fields / And we will remember forever  /  Our pure, beautiful compatriots / For a friendship like this / Will never let our hearts forget / Love sanctified with blood /  Will always blossom among us / And now all the words are exhausted / All that left is our soul to shout out / For our soul no longer only resonates / Now we have a warrior soul / The people of Israel / The eternal, perpetual people / without stinting we will protect our home / without rest / We will show the world  / How we exterminate our enemies / And we will remember forever /  Our pure, beautiful compatriots / For a friendship like this / Will never let our heart forget / Love sanctified with blood . . . 

We are inevitably reminded of Hitler Youth singing Deautchland Uber Alles and of the young Nazi in Cabaret singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Us."  Closer to the closing scene, we see "Y" and other engage in literal bootlicking of the billionaire who commissioned the new anthem, after which "Y" tries unsuccessfully to drown himself, and then to get hit by a speeding truck before his wife Jasmine saves him, and they walk down a road, but to where, to what?

It's an ugly film about uglier realities that we all live with.  I can't imagine anyone loving it, but a lot people hating it.

6/12/2026

 Friday, June 12, 2026

D-3

1942 Anne Frank received her diary as a birthday present in Amsterdam

1963 American civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in Jackson, Mississippi

1965 South Vietnam Gen Nguyen Cao Ky succeeded Phan Huy Quat as premier

1967 In Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck down laws against interracial marriages

1980 Ronald Reagan said he would submit to periodic medical tests

2017 Forbes released the Top 100 highest-paid entertainers list - Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs at No.1 with earnings of $130 million

2025 Senator Alex Padilla of California is forcibly removed, pushed face-down to the ground, and handcuffed after attempting to ask Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem a question at a press conference in Los Angeles. 

In bed at 9:20, up at 4:30; 112/74/59 123 202.6, 0505 129/73/58; 57/ 76/57, mostly sunny day ahead.   

Morning meds at 8 a.m., last half-dose of Bisorolol at 6:20 a.m.    

I'm thinking about Monday's surgery, but as I write this, I have just put down, temporarily, Lucy By The Sea, page 223, where Lucy and William have just left their get-together with their daughters Chrissy and Becka, and where Lucy writes:

If I had known what it would be like the next time that I saw them -- Well, I did not know then.

It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us. 

It is a gift, I suppose, but it makes me wonder, theoretically that is, if one would accept the gift of life if we had complete foresight, if we could see 'the whole package,'  including the fact that it's temporary, that we live for some time and then we decompose and exist only as elements, atoms and molecules.  I think of the famous quote of Flannery O'Connor who, when told that the Eucharist was only symbolically the presence of Christ, said  “If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it.”  

None of us chooses to exist.  Perhaps our parents chose us to exist, but even that is iffy.  Who knows the circumstances of our own conception, whether it happened as part of an intentional act to fertilize an ovum, or just as part of a pleasure seeking act of lust, as the result of too much alcohol, "beer goggles," an accident or even violence.  But we know that we're going to end by dying, and may or may not know the circumstances.  If we did know all that, the beginning and the end and all that happens in-between, how many of us would choose life and how many would say "to hell with it"?  'Every day and every night, some are born to sweet delight.  Every night and every morn, some to misery are born.  Would Lucy Barton choose life?  Would her brother Pete?  Her sister Vicki?  Her mother?  There is a famous line in Deuteronomy 30;19:

. . . I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live . . . /

Traditional religion treats all life as a blessing, but we know that for some, for many, it is a curse.  For none of us was it a choice, to be or not to be, and, given a choice, I think it's fair to conclude that many would say "Thanks, but no thanks." 

Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire today, demonstrating a point Bob Friebert often made: Money doesn't care who it belongs to.  There is no much I can say about it, because I don't know enough about anything, but I know it is not good that there is such concentrated wealth in this world, such concentrated power in people with unimaginable, literally, amounts of money and power.   And widewspread diffuse poverty and powerlessness on the other hand.  I don't know that there is any way to address or remediate this.  Probably not, until there is a systemic collapse, until the whole system explodes.  Marx supposedly wrote that capitalism contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.  Again, I don't know enough about this stuff to know whether that idea is true or not, but I know enough not to fall for the political clichés and illusions I've heard all my life about all men are created equal, popular democracy, representiative government, equal justice under law, government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people,' and all that happy horseshit.  

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, once wrote that the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. "Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office,"  The Federal Reserve Bank estimates that the top 1% controls "only" 30-32% of the nation's wealth, but that percentage has been steadily climbing since the late 1970s when the percentage was 20-25%.  In 2017, Jimmy Carter said that the U.S. functions "more like an oligarchy" than a democracy, and most of us, at least most of those who care enough to regularly pay attention to the news, know that this is true.  "The best government money can buy," and "The Golden Rule - he who has the gold makes the rules."  Anyone who wants proof should just look at the Internal Revenue Code.

I finished Lucy By The Sea this afternoon.  It's a powerful novel and I'm glad I read all 4 of the Lucy Barton novels and that I read them in their order of publication.  

Sarah texted me that she was stuck in Austin for another day "because of mechanical difficulties." We'll get together for breakfast Sunday morning.

 

6/11/2026

 Thursday, June 11, 2026

1898  Marines  landed at Guantanamo, Cuba, during the Spanish–American War

1963  A Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolated himself at a Saigon intersection

1963 Gov Wallace tried to prevent blacks from registering at the University of Alabama

2025 The Trump administration called on countries not to attend a conference for ceasefire and peace in Gaza at the United Nations headquarters in New York and warned of potential diplomatic consequences should any measures be taken that are deemed hostile toward Israel.

In bed at 9:30; awake at 2, up at 3; 0310 110/60/32 126 203.2, -320 108/63/33; 67/78/62, mosttly cloudy, thunderstorms, poassibly severe  

Morning meds at 8 a.m., and half-dose of Bisoprolol at 7:30 a.m.

Worrisome t/c w/ ACC last night, had me awake and unable to sleep at 2, up at 3, back to bed at 5:40, and up again at 7:20.  Dragging butt today.

William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun:

The past is never dead.  It's not even past.

I'm having an emotional struggle day.  Memories from decades ago.  Private things, things I can't change, but that stay with me for a lifetime.  Things I've struggled with for a lifetime.  Disappointing things, loss of innocence things.  Stuff that Elizabeth Strout could write about.   

 "My preference has always been take Kharg Island. . .I don't know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest with you, you know, you could make a fortune, but I don't know that  America has the stomach.  I think they'd like to see us come home, but we did it with Venezuela. . . I"m not sure the country has the appetite for it."  Donald Trump, Fox News, this morning.  What does this tell us about this guy's concern for the lives and welfare of the troops he puts 'in harm's way'?  America doesn't have the "heart" or "appetite" for our soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen getting killed, but 'my preference has always been' to do it anyway, so long as it's not him or his kin getting killed or burned or having their arms or legs blown off.

I've started the countdown to Monday's surgery.  Last Saturday I took my last Trulicity injection until post-surgery, and tomorrow I take my last half-dose of Bisoprolol beta blocker.  I've avoided doing any more research on the particulars of the "procedure, e.g., how the doc gets the catheter(s) into the - is it a vein or an artery, or one of each? - how do they push (?) it from my groin through my torso and into the chambers of my heart - etc.  If I come through the process OK, I'll try to find out more about the particulars when I've recovered.  Right now, I know enough to dread it.

 

6/10/2026

 Wednesday, June 10, 2026

1898 US Marines landed in Cuba during the Spanish–American War

1942 Nazis killed all the inhabitants of Lidice, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic) which had been implicated in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi controller of Bohemia and Moravia, to “teach the Czechs a final lesson of subservience and humility”; more than 170 adult men were executed by firing squad on site, women and children were sent to concentration camp gas chambers, and the village was burned down and plowed under

2025 The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway imposed sanctions on Israeli far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, including asset freezes and travel bans, due to their conduct during the Gaza war.

In bed around 9:30, up at 5:15; 0535 135/48/31 xxx 202.0, 0545 115/58/31; 64/85/63, Dense Fog Advisory this morning, thunderstorm this afternoon.   

Morning meds at a.m., and half-dose of Bisoprolol at 6:35 a.m.

Reading.  I finished Oh, William! last night and read "Elijah the Prophet" in Sholem Aleichem's Jewish Children while resting before 'vitals' this morning.  Aleichem's tale is about a boy who falls asleep during the Passover seder, and who fears Elijah coming to carry him away in a bag.

"No big deal."  Yesterday's news that an American Apache helicopter had been downed in the Strait of Hormuz by an Iranian drone triggered a number of thoughts and memories.  I thought of the (in)famous incidents involving the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, attacked (or not) in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and leading to the (in)famous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, that started America's major involvmenat in the Vietnam War and my deployment there less than a year later.  A second thought was "paper tiger," the term often used by Mao Zedong and the Chinese government to describe the U.S.  This thought was triggered by news of Donald Trump's initial reaction to this provocaton as reported by the Wall Street Journal:

Trump hadn’t been convinced of the need to retaliate against Iran earlier in the day, U.S. officials said. In a phone call Tuesday morning with The Wall Street Journal, he played down the incident—repeatedly saying that it “wasn’t a big deal”—and stressed that the pilots weren’t seriously injured.

He changed his mind after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine recommended military action during a briefing at the White House, the officials said. . .

Trump has been reluctant to return to a broad bombing campaign, though he previously told aides he would consider restarting the full-scale war with Iran if American servicemembers are killed by Iran, the Journal has reported. 

The downing of the helicopter late Monday set off a race to find two American crew members who had escaped the Apache, a small attack helicopter that doesn’t have ejection seats. They were rescued by a U.S. drone boat in a first-of-its-kind operation at sea.

The Apache crew spent two hours in the water as darkness fell, according to Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for Central Command. One senior U.S. official described the crew’s escape from the downed aircraft as a “hand of God” moment 

I'm wondering how the sailors, Marines, and airmen in this wide theater of operations are reacting to Trump's TACO act.  I'm wondering how the moms, dads, children, and spouses of those service men and women are reacting.  I don't have to wonder how the rest of the world is viewing Trump and the United States.  He and we are seen as feckless, a paper tiger, and Iran as Trump's Vietnam, another American quagmire, quicksand, a quandary from which we cannot escape, Trump's tar baby.   Trump is a fool and we put him in power - twice.  Fool us once, shame on you.  Fool us twice, shame on us.  

One minute we're in a war, the next minute we're told the war is over.  There is a ceasefire in place, but both sides are still firing on one another.  We are hours or days away from a 'deal' that will end the (non)war, and ensure Iran will never have nuclear arms, or according to J. D. Vance, it may take months.  Or, as we reasonably suspect, there will never be such a deal.  "Lord, what fools these mortals be."  Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Oh, William!  Elizabeth Strout's closing line in the novel state the basic message of her novels.

At one point, I sat on the bed and said out loud, "Oh, Catherine."

And then I thought, "Oh, William!"

But when I think Oh William!, don't I mean "Oh, Lucy! too? - Don't I mean Oh, Everyone.  Oh, dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!

Except a little tiny, tiny bit we do.

But we are all mythologies, mysterious.  We are all mysteries, is what I mean.

This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true.

There is a lot packed into those simply expressed thoughts.  Zadie Smith (whose writings I've never read) is quoted on the dust jacket of the book:

Strout managed to make me love this stronge woman I had never met, who I knew nothing about.  What a terrific writer she is.

I'll second that.

This morning I picked up Lucy By The Sea to complete my reading of the whole Lucy Barton series,  and as I approached the library, a young boy who had just exited the library with (apparently) his mother and his sister, made a point of staying at the door, holding it open until I shuffled my way through it.  He warmed my old, failing and misfiring heart.  As I left the library with my book, I held the door open for a middle-aged guy who was approaching.  He thanked me, and then thanked me my service, because I was wearing my 1st MAW baseball cap.  I thanked him back.  What Lucy Barton calls "moments of grace."

Lucy By The Sea.  I'm only 40 pages into the story, but I notice how often Lucy writes of missing people, especially her second husband, David Abramson, who died about a year before the story starts.  But also her children, especially Becka, her younger daughter, who stayed in Brooklyn during the Covid pandemic, and who I suspect will die of it.  It makes me think of how, when I walked out of the library this morning with this book, I missed my sister Kitty, out of the blue.  I think of her now, as I write this, and I wonder whether it may be true that I miss her every day, or are there days when I never think of her or miss her. It seems more likely to me that I miss her every day than that there are days when I never think of her, but I can't be sure.  I still miss my Dad, who died 19 years ago, not nearly as often as I miss  Kitty, but frequently.  I must admit, however, that I have stopped missing my mother, who died more than half a century ago.  It was her death that had the greatest impact on my Dad, Kitty, and me, and of course I still think of her, but I don't miss her the way I miss Kitty, with whom I chatted every morning for several years before she died, and my Dad, who lived with us for a few years before he died.