3/8/23

 Wednesday, March 8, 2023

In bed at 10:30, awake at 3:15, unable to sleep, left side perineal pain, dream of drafting Milwaukee Bucks articles of incorporations, share ownership provisions , thoughts of DemocraticSenatte race between Alex Lasry and his $50M trust fund and Mandella Barnes,what it says of the Wisconsin and national Democratic party, America, upat 3:31, laid back down again till 3:38, unable to sleep with political thoughts  and persisting perineal apin.  31℉ outside, Winter Storm for tommorow and Friday, especially within a few miles of Lake Michigan,i.e., Bayside and North Shore.  Winds currently at 9 mph from E, gusts up to 18 mph expected, wind chills will be 22 to 31℉. Sunrise at 6:16, sunset at 5:49, 11+33.

The Canary in our Mineshaft.  Tom Friedman in this morning's NYT:  "But roughly since 2009, Netanyahu — he is currently leading his sixth government as prime minister — has increasingly partnered with more and more ultranationalist and ultrareligious parties and has come to embrace the Trumpist playbook. He has increasingly sought to win elections by radicalizing his base, attacking Israel’s legal, media and academic institutions and inciting his loyalists against centrist and left-wing Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. In the last election, in November, Netanyahu abandoned any attempt to build a broad centrist coalition.  Under Netanyahu, Israel’s governments sought every way possible to avoid the peace process with the Palestinians and used every opportunity possible to demonize Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, even though Netanyahu knew that for years Abbas’s Palestinian Authority was providing essential security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank. . . . Next week, Netanyahu is shoving his politics right in the face of American Jews by sending his extremist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to Washington to speak at an Israel Bonds conference. . . . for the first time, you will see an Israel Bonds event attended by American Jews and picketed by Israeli Jews living in America. " If the U.S. elected Donald Trump as its chief executive 6 different times, what would we say of the U.S.?  A fascist racist state?  Why is it different for Israel, or is it?

DOJ Report on Louisville Police Department.  Louisville PD is 81% White and patriols neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly Black.  Big surprise: DOJ finds Louisville city and county police departments are blatantly RACIST, that the rights of Black residents are routinely violated by the cops that are supposed "to serve and protect" them, that their 4th Amerndment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures and their 1st Amendment rights of free speech and of protesting for redress of grievances are regularly violated, etc., etc., etc.  Breonna Taylor lost her life as the cost of getting this report.

The Eagle's Nest, Berchtesgaden, & Obersalzberg.  I watched a short documentary on the Eagle's Nest on YouTube this afternoon, bringing back memories of visiting there with Sarah and Christian about 10 (?) years ago.  Memories of the tunnel, the elevator, the mountaintop rooms and views of Austria and Bavaria.  Black and white films of gatherings of Hitler's visitors at Eagle's Nest.  It's still hard for me to 'wrap my head around' walking in the same narrow tunnel and riding in the same elevator that Adolf Hitler walked and rode.  Sarah and Christian visited one of the salt mines on our way back to Geretsried but my physical condition, bad even then, kept me in the car, dissappointing as I think back on the day.

VA Regional Office.  I met with Mitch Woytich in the VFW offices there to apply for reassessment of my disabililty status under the PACT Act.  He a veteran of our Iraq invasion, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division.  Enoyed chatting with him for the better part of an hour.  I have no idea whether there will be any change in my disability status.  I was reminded of how old I am when he mentioned that his father, also a veteran, is 70 years old

Butterfield 8.  I watched this movie again after seeing it near the time of its release in 1960.  Melodramatic though Elizabeth Taylor's acting was pretty good.  Can't say the same for Laurence Harvey's.  I had recalled Taylor's character as a call girl, but not so: she is a promiscuous party girl, a playgirl, but not a prostitute.  She describes herself as a 'slut' to her mother, but not as a whore.