9/23/23

 Saturday, September 23, 2023

In bed by 10, up at 5:30 with Lilly sleeping on the floor near me, let her out into the warm 66° morning, high of 70° today, cloudy/partly cloudy day, AQI=47, Wind SE at 9 mph, 5-14/26. DPa 58-62.  Sunrise at 6:39 at 89°,  sunset at 6:47 at 270°, 12+7.

Daybreak, 6:47 a;m.

The autumnal equinox occurred at 1:50 a.m. CDT when the Earth's axis was perpendicular to a line between the center of the Earth and the center of the Sun when the Sun's rays shone directly on the Equator as the Earth's axis tilted the Northern hemisphere away from the Sun and the Southern hemisphere toward the Sun.

    It's a breezy morning and 'falling leaves drift by my window, autumn leaves of red and gold, . . .'  It's 8:30 before I see the first chickadee arrive at the feeders.  Soon they arrive in numbers.  Then a male house finch savoring safflower seeds.  A young mother in white short shorts and a black sweater walks her dog and pushes her youngster in a stroller from Wakefield Court onto County Line Road reminding me of a subtly erotic poem by William Carlos Williams, The Young Housewife:

At ten AM the young housewife

moves about in negligee behind

the wooden walls of her husband’s house.

I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb

to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands

shy, uncorseted, tucking in

stray ends of hair, and I compare her

to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car

rush with a crackling sound over

dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. 

South Beach, Port Washington, yesterday, 3 adults, 2 juveniles, northernmost sighting, probably due to Hurrican Idalia

The Patriot is a very long feature piece appearing in The Atlantic online and scheduled to appear in the November 2023 print edition.  It is about Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will retire and be replaced on September 30.  The story details the contentious relationship between Milley and Donald Trump.  I have quite a bit of confidence in senior military officers, 3 and 4-star 'flag officers' as generals and admirals are called.  I specifically have confidence in the judgment and courage of Mark Milley and I am thankful for his efforts, often successful, to dissuade Donald Trump from following through on a number of his worst impulses and for his persistent successful effort to remind his subordinate military officers that the military would have no role in assisting a Trump-led civilian coup.  I noted that his father, like mine, was a participant in the assault on Iwo Jima and that his father, like mine, endured PTSD from his wartime experiences.  I appreciate Milley's unsuccessful efforts at dissuading Trump from reversing military justice decisions punishing our troops, including the notorious SEAL Eddie Gallagher, for war crimes, the military considering the soldiers and SEALS criminals, Trump calling them 'patriots' and 'heroes.'  On the other hand, I have reservations about Milley's thoughts on the American imperial hegemon, revealed in this excerpt:

“World War II ended with the establishment of the rules-based international order. People often ridicule it—they call it ‘globalism’ and so on—but in fact, in my view, World War II was fought in order to establish a better peace,” Milley told me. “We the Americans are the primary authors of the basic rules of the road—and these rules are under stress, and they’re fraying at the edges.  That's why Ukraine is so important. 

Here's what your military’s doing: There are 5,000 sorties a day, including combat patrols protecting the U.S.A. and our interests around the world. At least 60 to 100 Navy warships are patrolling the seven seas, keeping the world free for ocean transport. We have 250,000 troops overseas, in 140 countries, defending the rules-based international order. We’ve got kids training constantly. This military is trained, well equipped, well led, and focused on readiness. Our readiness statuses are at the highest levels they’ve been in 20 years. So this idea of a woke military is total, utter, made-up bullshit.

What is meant by the 'rules-based international order'?  Basically, an international order that protects international business interests which, at the end of World War II meant, for the most part, powerful and extensive American corporate business interests.  The other countries of the world were decimated by World War II; only America got stronger economically and militarily more dominant.  When Milley refers to "combat patrols protecting the U.S.A. and our interests around the world," he is talking about American, corporate, international business and finance interests.  That's why we have 250,000 troops overseas in 140 countries, not to protect the locals from 'bad guys,' but to protect the financial interests of our corporate capitalists who need or want what is located in those 140 countries.   Decades ago while eating lunch in our law firm lunchroom, I mentioned to my co-workers that America is inherently the biggest threat to world peace because we are more reliant on overseas nations for imported raw materials for our manufacturers and for markets for their exported goods and services.  The reaction was general disagreement and disbelief, indeed shock that I would voice such thoughts.   Perhaps it is noteworthy that I was the only military veteran in the room and the only Vietnam veteran, or maybe not.  In any event, those money interests are what America's vast, lethal, military machinery is created and maintained to protect, not "freedom" or "democracy" or 'the American people' generally.  That was the entire point of Marine General Smedley D. Butler's War is a Racket, published in 1935.  So it was then, so it is now, and so it will ever be in a "rules-based international system" run by global capitalists.  We need to remember the Golden Rule that he who has the gold makes the rules and ultimately only to benefit himself.

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist, 2001;  Our goal "is the deconstruction of the administrative State" Steve Bannon, 2017; “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down,” Kevin McCarthy, 2023.   Chickens come home to roost.

Making Navy Bean Soup this afternoon.  Ingredients a bag of inexpensive dried navy beans, a stalk of celery, a couple of small carrots, an onion, a can of petite diced tomatoes, and a ham bone that cost more than $13.  Outrageous! but I'm lucky that I can get one even though I have to go to Wauwatosa to get it.  

5:00 p.m.   A disappointment.  Some time ago I got to thinking of all my painting endeavors and my bread baking and soup making endeavers as 'experiments' which either work out or not.  Today's soup has not worked out, way too thin, 'soupy', lacking texture and character.  I used the immersion blender to try to thicken it a bit but the navy beans were so soft already that they pretty much disappeared.  The ham is good and though the soup has basically turned into a ham soup in a bean broth, the broth isn't terrible and I will probably eat/drink all of it.  I'm wondering what recipe I have used in past 'experiments' that all turned out well.  Drat.

This is Us.  I have watched 22 or 23 episodes of this program and obviously like it enough to watch that much.  I'm into Series 2 and am thinking that the stories and dialogue may be getting a bit hokey.  The story of the Pearson family, the parents and grandparents, the 3 siblings, their partners and their adventures is interesting and I'm sure I'll keep watching it for awhile though I am having the same feeling I had with AppleTV's Morning Show with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon; the first series was terrific but the second (and now the thired) couldn't maintain the same quality.  We'll see.  I do find the issues that are addresed in the series interesting, including drug addiction and alcoholism, bad relations between sons and fathers [Jack and his dad] and daughters and mothers [Rebecca and her mom], reestablished relationships within a family, especially Randall and his father William, racism, our sense of identity, especially Kevin's when he stopped being a football hero. Kate's as a "fatty," Randall as an child left on a fire station's doorstep, women's sacrifices to raise children, Rebecca's wise to be a singer, etc.  A lot of the issues addressed remind me of myself and my own family(ies) which is perhaps why I have stayed with the show this long and expect to stay longer.

I am disappointed that the Randall character who was so capable and self-assured throughout the 1st series has turned into someone less admirable in the 2nd.  Ditto for Jack and for Kevin.  The characters that I like the most are Rebecca and Kate and Randall.  I can't get into Kevin.  We have been introduced to Deja and her incarcerated mother and I suspect we will see more of them in future episodes.  In any case, all of the prinicipalecharacters are three dimensional and well-developed by the writers.   The 'identity issues' have made me wonder about how I think and have thought of my own identity; how I think of myself, see myself.  In my old age I know that I often think of myself pretty negatively, pretty much the character that Yeats wrote about in Vacillation, 'thing said or done long years ago, or not done or said, weigh me down and not aday but something is recalled, my conscience or my vanity appalled. (I wonder how close I just got to Yeats' original.}