August 16, 2022
Woke up thinking about how many television news people are minorities of one sort or another. Gianna Golodryga, Bessarabia Jew emigrated from Moldova as a child. Ali Velshi, Ismaili Muslim of Gujarati Indian descent. Rachel Maddow, lesbian. Shep Smith, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Robin Roberts, Jonathan Capehart, Steve Kornacki, gay. Lester Holt, mixed race Jamaican ancestry, Manu Raju, what?. Many, many minority reporters and local anchors: Stephanie Gost, Lindsey Rieser, et al. Blacks? Asians? Jews? Where to begin??? I can see how this would be irritating (at best) for America First, replacement theory types
Finished reading a book review in WSJ about the new Collected Poems of W. H. Auden. Remembered my early days of teaching and gatherings with freshmen law students at the Forst Keller, and the wife of one student who attended a small college where Auden was resident one semester, telling me of schmoozing with him at gatherings like my Forst Keller ones. Flashing memory of my first engagement with binge drinking at the same place in my freshman year of college, and of my group being chased out of the place for some unknown reason by a bartender, hiding under a car, lurching back to the dormitory, and a 3-day hangover. It should have been a lesson for me, alas.
Last night Chris Nolan asked me, via text to Geri, whether it was in her interest to sign a hold-harmless, indemnification, arbitration, etc., agreement tendered to all the volunteers at the charitable Ridgefield Thrift Shop by the new manager I suggested she wrap it around a flagpole and invite the new manager to sit on it. Unbelievable to ask volunteer workers at a local charity to sign an agreement putting themselves at financial risk for the 'privilege' of offering volunteer labor. What is that manager thinking?
Took Andy's trash cart out this morning, and brought his mail in. Texted a prosaic photo of the cart at the curbside. Received many photos from him of Canadian scenery, fishing, and boating.
Read a story in this morning's NYT about American Jesuits failing to deliver on their commitment to raise $100,000,000 for the descendants of Africans whom the Jesuits had enslaved. It reminded me of course of endemic, enduring ecclesiastic hypocrisy, but also of how excruciatingly hard it is, in any circumstances, to follow Jesus' teachings and his precepts, the hardest being 'love your neighbor as yourself' with 'your neighbor' being identified as Everyman, the Samaritan, all others, the lowest and the highest. Feed them, clothe them, shelter them, care for them in jail and on sickbeds, and so on. I read Reinhold Niebuhr's book on it years ago, "An Interpretation of Christian Ethics," and still have the book, with abundant underlining, highlighting, and little checkmarks and squiggly stars in the margins. I remember reading the book and marking it up and its bottom line - Jesus' ethics is/are impossible to live up to, but nonetheless worthwhile - but little else of his reasoning.
Geri stopped in to visit Jimmy and brought him home to get him a change of scenery. We all (including Lilly) went for a ride to Port Washington, via the elk farm off CTH C. We stopped at Rotary Park on the lakefront to give Lilly(and Jimmy) a walk. Jimmy seemed to very much enjoy the ride, as we did. Before we left for our ride, Jimmy asked us if he had ever lived in Keokuk because he was perseverating of sorts on Keokuk but he didn't know what or where it was or why he kept thinking about it. I told him it is a city in Iowa on the Mississippi River north of Canton, MO, where he went to Culver-Stockton College. Before we entered the house, he asked about Andy's Lexus that I had been driving. I told him it was a 2005 Lexus and he said he doesn't know what year it is so he doesn't know how old that is. He is always genuinely surprised to learn things like what year it is, and what month it is. The world he lives in is a mystery to him.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Woo, woo, woo
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Jolting Joe has left and gone away
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Had Hong Anh's fried rice combo w/ veggies for dinner then went to Andy's to take the trash cart and mail in and put the recycling cart out.
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