11/29/23

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

In bed at ???, up around 4 and let Lilly out.  26°, windy, high of 40°, Venus visible in the eastern sky, the wind is SW at 15 mph, 10-16/29, WC is 14°.  Sunrise at 7:01, sunset at 4:16, 9+17.

Treadmill; pain.  Pain OK upon awakening, but acted up as the day progressed, enough to keep me from going on an errand to Costco and Walmart.   22:35 & 0.50 at 3:45 p.m., watching a very boring lecture on W.B. Yeats' early poetry by a guy at Yale.  An entry on a year ago yesterday says that 'the pain is back, despite a week without any coffee, wine, carbonated drinks for a week . . ." the same regimen I'm going through now. 

I'm grateful for my children.  For the first 5 years of my marriage to Anne, it looked like we weren't going to have any children.  We used no birth control and we were both fertile but Anne never got pregnant for some reason.  I wonder whether it may have been attributable to the stress of life in the Marines, frequent moving, overseas deployment, depression on my return to the States, starting law school, who knows?  In any case, in the Spring of 1968, we learned that we were to become parents and on October 8th, Sarah was born.  She was a gift then and remains a gift today.  Our blessings were doubled when Andy arrived on January 3, 1972.  I have so many thoughts, memories, and emotions as I think of both of them and each of them so individual, so different from each other and from their parents and from every other human being. Memories as far back as delivery rooms at St. Mary's Hospital and as current as Saturday in the emergency room of the VA hospital.   I get verklempt as I sit here and type these words.

The leading candidate for Understated Headline of the Year Award: In this morning's WaPo: "Gaza war complicates U.S. efforts to normalize Gulf relations with Israel"

LTMW and a great many house finches on feeders and on the ground below.  Through the kitchen window, I see the robins have begun to strip the berries off our County Line trees, whatever they are.

Israeli Justice for Palestinians.  From this morning's WaPo: "How Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinians in detention without charge" by Ishaan Tharoor.  Excerpts:

[I]in the West Bank, most of which is under Israel’s military administration, Israeli authorities have detained roughly as many Palestinians as have been released in the past few days. A post-Oct. 7 crackdown saw the Palestinian population in Israeli custody almost double, by some measures: According to Palestinian rights groups, more than 3,000 Palestinians, mostly in the West Bank, were swept up by Israeli security forces. The majority appear to be held in administrative detention — that is, a form of incarceration without charge or trial that authorities can renew indefinitely.

Under international law, the practice of administrative detention is supposed to be used only in exceptional circumstances. But, as Israeli and international human rights groups document, it has become more the norm in the West Bank. Even before Oct. 7, smoldering tensions and violence in the West Bank had led to a three-decade high in administrative detentions. Then, according to the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, the total number of Palestinians in administrative detention went from 1,319 on Oct. 1 to 2,070 on Nov. 1 — close to a third of the total Palestinian prisoner population.

Israel’s critics contend that even those charged with specific crimes face a skewed, unfair justice system. Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military courts, unlike the half-million Jewish settlers who live in their midst. These courts have in some years churned out convictions at a 99 percent rate, a state of affairs that raises questions about the due process afforded to Palestinians.

“Palestinians are routinely denied counsel, for example, and faced with language barriers and mistranslations that taint testimonies and confessions used in court,” explained Vox’s Abdallah Fayyad. “But it’s not only a lack of due process that plagues this legal system. Oftentimes, these cases are based on specious and far-reaching charges.”

The dynamics of the Israeli carceral system for Palestinians have long undergirded anger over the broader nature of Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories. “The power to incarcerate people who have not been convicted or even charged with anything for lengthy periods of time, based on secret ‘evidence’ that they cannot challenge, is an extreme power,” noted Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “Israel uses it continuously and extensively, routinely holding hundreds of Palestinians at any given moment.” 

Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and Human Rights Watch have all condemned Israel's treatment of West Bank prisoners and detainees.  It's hard not to see it as simple racism and apartheid.

. . . . . . . . . . . . 

Warren Buffet and recently-deceased Charles Munger

 or Statler and Waldorf?

 

Have you ever noticed how gay Catholic clerical dress is?   I was remined of this by a story in the paper today reporting that Pope Francis has evicted Cardinal Raymond Burke, perhaps the Church's biggest fop, from his apartment in the Vatican.  Burke, from St. Louis, is sort of an 'anti-pope,' big opponent of Francis, aligned with all the most reactionary elements in the Church.  He is also known for his fabulous clerical wardrobe, the brocades, laces, and the cappa major.

 Cardinals deserve a long train and to be surrounded by other grown men wearing gowns.

 

 

 

11/28/23

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4ish, up at 4:30 & took my antibiotic. 14°, windy, high of 24, sunny morning, cloudy afternoon, wind WNW at 16 mph, 10-16/30, WC is -2°😮!  Sunrise at 7:00, sunset at 4:18, 9+18.  "High noon" at 11:39 a.m. at an altitude of 26°   

Treadmill; pain.  I woke up with some modest spasms.  I talked with Melinda in Whole Health by video at 10.  Talked with nurse Julie at the Urology Clinic at noon.  Discouraging news.   22:16 & 0.50 + seated yoga stretches.    

I'm grateful today for my father.  I am more indebted to my mother for all that she did during the years of WWII and thereafter to nurture my sister and me when my father was so emotionally distant from all of us, but today I want to recognize him, remember him, and credit him for the good in him.  I also need to acknowledge that he loved me, though for most of my life I didn't believe that.  He was a man for whom showing affection did not come easily, especially to his children.  Both my sister and I wondered throughout much of our lives why he didn't love us.  When I was a child, I actually wondered whether he was my father.  In his final years, Geri became his best friend and he even had a 'girlfriend' of sorts, our friend Rita Burns.  When he knew Rita was coming to visit, he drove from Saukville over to West Bend to a specialty candy shop to get them each an expensive chocolate truffle.  At the reception following Andy and Anh's wedding, Geri went over to the table where my Dad and sister were seated.  While they chatted, my Dad held Geri's hand.  Afterward, Kitty told me that he had never done that with her, never held her hand.  I could hear the disappointment in her voice.  It's no exaggeration to say that both Kitty and I grew up feeling we were unwelcome in his life and we wondered late in life whether he was jealous of our mother's attention to us.  During our childhoods, each of us wished our mother would divorce him and get him out of our lives.  So why am I grateful for him?  First, for those few occasions when he did break out of his hardshell and reach out to me.  He sent me a (as in one) letter when I went off to college.  He sent me a letter when I told the family I had decided to leave the Navy and join the Marines; his message - don't!  He drove by himself from Chicago to Doylestown, Pennsylvania to visit me after I got back from service overseas.  As it happened, I was in bad shape during his visit because of 'culture shock' and difficulty adjusting to my new life in what passed for 'civilization.  I still feel real regret and shame about my appreciativeness during that visit.  Second, for the friendship we shared late in his life.  He was 75 and I was 55 when we first became close.  Before that, we hadn't spoken of each other for 13 years.  After we broke the ice, I flew down to Florida to visit him 4 times each year and, after his second wife Grace died,  he eventually agreed to come up to Milwaukee and live with Geri and me.  I took him to all his doctor and hospital appointments and shared many rides in the country with him.  All those experiences are now warm memories for me.  Third, for the goodness that was in him.  Our mother knew of that goodness as did his good friends, his parents, his sister, and her children.  For some reason, he found it hard to share his good qualities with his own children.  This was a mystery to me and my sister when we were children and remained a mystery into our old age.  He was wounded by his experiences in the Marine Corps, especially by Iwo Jima.  From his suffering, I learned second hand of the suffering experienced by veterans with war-caused PTSD and first hand of the suffering experienced by the families of those veterans.  From him, I learned to understand that the statistics I read about KIAs, WIAs, MIAs never tell the true story of the costs of warfare to veterans and their families.  I learned that most of those mutilated by war don't even qualify for a Purple Heart ribbon.  I'm grateful to him for that though it's a gratitude I wish I didn't have.

I let Lilly out at 5:30 a.m.  She was sleeping on the TV room floor, next to her mattress, when I came out at 4:30.  She didn't wake up until I was only a foot or so away from her.  She's at an age at which I wondered whether she was sick or dying.  We are so conscious of her age and health.  When she came in from outdoors, she didn't wait at the dining room door for a treat as she usually does, but rather turned left and went back to Geri's room.  

UTI or 'IC flare'?  I received a call from Urology Clinic nurse Julie at noon,  Dr. Kassem advised to continue taking the antibiotic until they were all gone.  Bacteria level from urine culture was less than 10,000 CFU/ml, cluster forming units/milliliter.  It sounds like the IC did flare and caused (?) a slight infection and the combo led to the severe pain on Saturday.  I'm not much clearer about this now than I was before but this is basically bad news.  The ultimate culprit is the IC, not the bacteria and the severe pain could recur at any time.  Text to Andy, who asked how Geri and I are doing:

I was just going to text you.  Geri is still affected by the Covid- coughing and some congestion and continuing fatigue.  I heard from the nurse in the Urology Clinic.  The cause of the pain was my interstitial cystitis, not a UTI, though the urologist tells me to continue taking the antibiotic until they’re gone.  The urine culture produced less than 10,000 units of bacteria (CFU= cluster forming units) so the “abnormal “ urinalysis was caused by the IC.  Bad news, could repeat.  Thanks for asking and thanks again for your Guardian Angel help on Saturday.❤️❤️❤️

Library business.  I took Geri's card up to North Shore and had it renewed.  I also picked up a CD on "Mindfulness for Pain Relief" and "Killing a King" about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a 25-year-old settler.  Also "Writers and Missionaries:  Essays on the Radical Imagination", including a study of Edward Said and his involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

11/27/23

 Monday, November 27, 2023

In bed at 9, up at 4:06, let Lilly out with Venue visible in the SE sky, 21°, windy, high 28°, wind WNW at 16 mph, 15-18/29, WC is 8°😨!  Sunrise at 6:59, sunset at 4:19, 9+20.  Winter is here!

Treadmill; pain.  Got up with some CPP tightness on the usual left side.  I drank only water and chamomile tea (Sleepytime) tea yesterday.  I've been drinking only decaffeinated coffee lately, or occasionally halfcaf, and happily I haven't had any caffeine withdrawal headaches.  I've had some CPP spasms all morning but not disabling.

I'm grateful for Lilly.  I let Lilly out again at 4:40.  Call of nature or just her normal nervousness?  Let the dog out, let the dog in, let the dog out . . .   I wait at the door for her return with the temperature and wind chill so low.  She has her regular early morning route consisting of first walking north and then reversing course and checking out the southeast quadrant of her 'estate.'  On each of her two early morning outings she morning, she came in without her normal patrol of the southeast quad and seems a bit out of sorts about it, unsettled.  She's doing a lot of "ants in her pants" walking around this morning.  She is into her 15th year now and we are always a bit anxious about her wellbeing, including concerns about 'doggy dementia.'  She spends much of her time alone during the day, often in the sunroom, sometimes in my bedroom or the front room.  At night she normally plops down between us on the carpet in the tv room. . .   I let her out again at 7:40, not knowing whether she had any particular purpose in going out into the now 5℉ wind chill.  As so often happens though, when I let her out for a pit stop, I need to take one myself.  Geri got up at about 7:45 and again Lilly asked to be let out at 8:00.  Is this just a learned behavior to be provided a treat, a beef stick, slab of jerky, or chicken apple sausage? 

"The Golden Bachelor is a Fantasy.  Aging in America Isn't" is an audio feature by Michelle Cotter in this morning's NYT.  I have never watched this 'reality show' and never will but sound snips in Cottle's piece make it clear that the show is about Americans in the '60s and '70s pursuing romantic relationships, sex, and joie de vivre with lots of energy and vigor and gusto.  As the headline says, it's a fantasy.  The 'reality' that this fantasy show elides is the mental and physical decline and loss of energy that besets most of us as we slip and slide into old age.  Decline, decay, debility, decrepitude, deficiencies, distress, dementia, and of course disease and death - the reality part of 'the golden years' ignored in this silly program starring these silly people.

Why Some Seniors Are Choosing Pot Over Pills is a story in this morning's NYT.  Excerpts:

In 2007, only about 0.4 percent of people age 65 and older in the United States had reported using cannabis in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That number rose to almost 3 percent by 2016. As of 2022, it was at more than 8 percent.

“People are just desperate,” said Dr. Aaron Greenstein, a geriatric psychiatrist in Denver. “They’re willing to try anything.”

As more states legalize cannabis — it is now permitted for recreational use in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., and for medical use in 38 states and D.C. — the number of seniors who turn to marijuana will only continue to grow, experts said. An October Gallup poll found that about two-thirds of adults 55 and older think the use of marijuana should be legal.

Because cannabis is not federally legal, doctors don’t have enough research to guide them on what conditions it is helpful for, who might be at higher risk for potential harms, how to dose it properly or which strains to recommend, said Dr. Benjamin Han, an addiction medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the few geriatricians in the United States who studies older adults and substance use.

“What makes it even more complicated is cannabis is a very complex plant,” he added, and there are more than 100 cannabinoids — the biologically active components in the cannabis plant — as well as products with different ratios of THC to cannabidiol, or CBD. 

One study, led by Dr. Han, found that emergency department visits associated with cannabis use among older adults rose more than 1,800 percent in California — from 366 in 2005 to 12,167 in 2019.

Older users may lean on their prior experience with the drug, but “the cannabis today is very different,” he said. “It is stronger. And then on top of that, there are all these physiological changes with aging that make you more sensitive than you would have been 40 years ago.”

I have long wondered whether cannabis might help with my CPP, either by reducing the painful spasms or lessening the stress they cause.  I can't get advice from my doctors at the VA because they are forbidden to prescribe or recommend cannabis because of its criminal illegality under federal law and the laws of some states, including Wisconsin.  ("Cannabis is a Schedule I substance according to federal law, which means that, by definition, it has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Other examples of Schedule I substances include heroin and LSD. Because of this classification, cannabis remains difficult to study, and there is no definitive resource to inform a doctor’s clinical approach to its use.")  An elderly friend who was plagued by insomnia for years started using 'weed' obtained in a neighboring state where it is legal and his insomnia disappeared.  Others we know use it regularly for stress relief and relaxation.  Cannabis is now permitted for recreational use in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., and for medical use in 38 states and D.C.   Not in Wisconsin.😧

Thinking of Thomas Merton today.  living in a hermitage, 'far from the madding crowd.'  If he weren't a member of a religious community, Merton would be considered mentally ill

ICE!😱  The one inch of snow we received the other day melted on concrete and has turned to ice, including on our stoop.  An old person's nemesis.

Shirley brought Geri a care package.   Chicken noodle soup from Costco.  G is still decidedly not well.  I tried unsuccessfully to open the plastic container and finally gave up.

Budiac Plumbing in Cedarburg (Matt) took care of the clogged shower drain with his power auger for $235.  Well worth it.  He also adjusted the drain and removed the hair catcher in my bathroom sink.

LTMW at noon, I see a gorgeous red-bellied woodpecker peck off a big chunk of suet and fly away with it.  Typing this reminds me of a funeral I attended while I worked at the House of Peace, the funeral of the brother of the woman our caretaker Perry lived with.  Specifically, I'm recalling the end of the service when the congregation filed past the casket wherein lay the remains of the deceased, wearing his porkpie hat, with the assembly singing

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,  / I'll fly away; 
To a home on God's celestial shore,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

Chorus 
I'll fly away, Oh Glory  / I'll fly away; (in the morning) 
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

When the shadows of this life have gone,  / I'll fly away; 
Like a bird from prison bars has flown,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away) 

Chorus 
 
Just a few more weary days and then,  / I'll fly away; 
To a land where joy shall never end,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away)

I was reminded once again, though I needed no reminder, of how insipid the Catholic religious music of my youth was, how White.  O Salutaris Hostia and Tantum Ergo (makes your hair grow) and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name, (To Jesus Heart All Burning with fervent love for men, my heart with fondest yearning, shall raise the joyful strain,. . . .) and (Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our hearts take up thy rest . . . )   Could the Church have made it any harder to believe in God?  How much more moving, more inspirational is African-American gospel music, the spirituals.  Blake's The Garden of Love:

I went to the Garden of Love, / And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst, / Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut, /And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love, / That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves, /And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, /And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

 

 

11/26/23

 Sunday, November 26, 2023

In bed at 10, awake at 2:30, onto lzb and up at 3:15, with thoughts of ER and pain.  Let Lilly out, and took off the Lidocaine patch.  31°,  snow flurries, high of 33°, AQI=56, wind SW at 7 mph, 5-19/31, WC is 24°. 0,15" of snow is expected.  Sunrise at 6:57, sunset at 4:19, 9+21.

Snow on the ground, a fire in the fireplace, happy to be home and not at Zablocki.

Treadmill; pain.   The intense pain I had yesterday has not returned, knocking on wood, but the CPP is still with me, not terribly but enough to let me pretend it's an excuse to stay off the treadmill.😫 0:00 & 0.00 and no seated stretches or exercise

Yesterday's pain and ER.  It was, without hyperbole, pretty horrendous, and had me moaning out loud.  Andy got me to the ER at 3 and I was called in at about 3:20.  First stop was a nurse who took my 'vitals', etc., and led me to examining room 6, where I met my attending nurse, Nicole, and then a young resident who did a preliminary exam and concluded I didn't have a kidney infection.  Eventually, I was seen by the attending ER physician, Dr. Michael Uilein, who concurred that it didn't look like a case of infection, but ordered a urinalysis and blood work and also a CT scan to look for stones or whatever.  Both docs thought it was unlikely that I had an infection, in part, because I had just had a urinalysis 5 days before and it came up AOK.  I told each of them that I was very familiar with back pain and muscle aches and that this did not feel at all like any pain I had previously experienced.  As it turned out, yesterday's urinalysis was "abnormal", white cells, red cells, etc.  (I felt sort of vindicated since everything before the lab results seemed "normal.") The conclusion was that either I did have a UTI or the abnormal urine was the result of a "flare" in my IC.  The CT scan had to be read by someone in California and it took about 60 to 90 minutes of waiting for the result, which was 'no stone' or other indication of a problem (except for signs of IC in the lower part of my lungs.)  I was given the antibiotic Cephalexin 500 mg. to take 4x daily and released.  Dr. Uilein confirmed my understanding that it would be better if what we are dealing with is an infection that can be cured with an antibiotic.  If the pain was a result of flaring IC, it may reappear at any time.  I am to call the Urology Clinic on Monday and make an appointment for a visit w/i 5 to 7 days.  I was able to drive home, dropped Andy off at his house, and got home at 9 p.m.  The possibility that this pain may reoccur with a recurrence of an IC flare has me shaking in my boots.  Maybe I'll know more as I pursue this with the urologists.

Covid report:  I heard coughing during the night, but the patient looks and sounds a lot better this morning, though there is still some coughing and fatigue.

Interesting factoid: Since RMN's "southern strategy" after Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the White vote.

LTMW at a flock of wild turkey hens running across our lawn, single file, north to south, well strung out, followed by another group of 10 or so in a gaggle.

Clogged shower drain.  Not quite sure how this happened, but it's connected somehow to plunging a sink in Geri's bathroom.

Much to think and write about today, but  I'm semi-wiped out from yesterday's bout with pain and hours in the ER.

11/25/23

 Saturday, November 25, 2023

One month to Christmas😱

In bed at 9, up at 4:45, let Lilly out (twice),  24°, cloudy, high of 34°, wind W at 6 mph, 3-9/14. WC is 17°.  The waxing gibbous moon rose yesterday at 3:08 p.m. and was very visible in the daylight, reminding me of Sarah's lovely photo of the daylight moon over the Tetons.  Sunrise at 6:56 at 118°SE, sunset at 4:20 at 2:42°SW,9+23.  Solar noon at 11:38 and altitude at 26°.

Treadmill; pain.   I woke up OK but the CPP started early on.  Last night's pain was pretty nasty right up to bedtime.  Intense pain this morning around 7:45, a 7 or 8, right kidney area, had me moaning and thinking about calling Andy to see if he or Anh or Peter could drive me to the VA emergency room since Geri is quarantined with COVID.  It got better after 10 minutes or so.  Where did that come from???  It came back @ 8:25.  I typed out a text message to Andy but didn't send it; again the pain went away.????  Pain worsened at about 2, sent the text to Andy, who picked me up and took me to the Zablocki ER.  Got there at 3, got home at 9.  UTI or a flare of my IC.  

I'm grateful for my wife, my friend, my partner, my daily companion and fellow journeyer, my caregiver and caretaker, my role model for friendship, for living life responsibly, courageously, and mindfully, for more than I realize.  Years ago,  I started a list on my iPhone of 'what I love about her', starting with "her laughter" which delights me to hear, to listen to, a warm, wonderful laughter.   I added her devotion to duty, as a wife, a parent, a daughter, a friend, a citizen, an employee, a cat and a dog 'mama'.  Then her thriftiness and frugality, her delicate piano playing, her gutsiness and adventurousness, her sharing tasks like shoveling snow (now her sole undertaking), her respect for confidences, her intellectual and practical curiosity, her self-reliance and resourcefulness, her patience, her many long-term friendships, her judgment and practical wisdom, her tough-mindedness, her persistence in attaining goals from her deferred degree to completing a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.   I think also of her intrepidity, as when she beat the crap out of the pickpocket behind San Marco in Venice and of her putting up with my eccentricities, including walking miles in the cold winter rain, without complaint, from Sablé-sur-Sarthe to Solemnes in western France so I could hear the Benedictine monks chant at Abbaye Saint-Pierre.  A remarkable woman and nobody knows her as I do, privileged.

Gratitude and happiness.  Arthur C. Brooks has an essay in the current online The Atlantic titled "Four Ways to be Grateful - and Happier."  The list: (1)  Make thankfulness an interior discipline, as did Marcus Aurelius. (2) Make it an outward expression, as in 'thank you.' (3) Make it a sacred duty, like Rousseau and Jesus. 4. Make it into words of worship, as in Meister Eckhart's simplest prayer: Thank you.  Brooks' suggestions:

First thing, before getting out of bed in the morning, recite a few sentences to frame the day. I like Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” If you don’t want the religious language, find another such reason to celebrate the day, or write your own.

Maintain a gratitude list that you update once a week. You could tape it to the bottom of your computer screen and glance at it each morning before you start work, pausing briefly on each item.

Make a routine of your outward gratitude in a couple of daily emails or texts, sent before you get to work. You don’t need anything overwrought or dramatic, just a few words showing someone that you noticed something nice they did and appreciated it.

And on the days you aren’t feeling like sending your two thank-you messages? Make it three instead. Then remind yourself that to lighten the load on someone else with your words of thanks is a duty you have accepted.

Write or adopt a gratitude prayer or mantra that you can say throughout the day, especially at trying moments. Maybe it could be “Thank you for my life,” which, believe me, works wonders when you’re sad or afraid. Some people repeat thanks in a foreign language they find sonorous.\

I won't follow all of Brooks' advice but I do need to stay mindful of all I have to be grateful for in life.   I know I focus too much on the horrors of modern life: wars, mass shootings and 'ordinary' gun deaths, racism, the rise of fascism  America's fetid politics, and on and on, not to mention chronic pain.  I could always count on my dear sister to tell me to SNAP OUT OF IT! if I was pissin' and moanin' during one of our daily early morning conversations.  Losing her was a huge loss in my life; having her in it for so long was a huge blessing.  I'll try to remember to write a daily gratitude entry in this journal from now on.

LTMW at sun-up I see our first visitor, a chickadee hungry for some breakfast, another experience to be grateful for.  I feel the same about the beautiful large wreath with electric holiday lights our new neighbors, the Pandls, have mounted on the front of their house across the street from us. Around 8 a.m., the reddest male house finch I have ever seen perched on the short feeder and ate his fill while a snowbird did the same on the niger feeder.

11/24/23

 Friday, November 24, 2023

In bed at 8:15, and up at 5:30  Let Lilly out (twice). 24° under clear skies, high of 32°, clouding up in late afternoon.  Wind NNW at 13, 5-13/21, w/c=12℉!  Sunrise at 6:55, sunset at 4:21, 9+25.

Treadmill; pain.  Woke up w/o back or CPP but with IB.  Geri is coughing and more coughing; it looks like a trip to MadMed or the urgent care today.  I'm thinking I may have a UTI.  25:01 & 0.50 at 2:45 watching one hour lecture by Rashid Khalidi, author of "The One Hundred Year War on Palestine."  Very interesting; I should get a copy from the library to read the historical documents he refers to.

COVID!  Geri's home COVID test came up positive.  The nurse at Madison Medical says at 5 days she is 'outside the window' for getting Paxlovid and should take cough medicine, which I went up to CVS and bought.  Something told me that what she was suffering from was more than bronchitis.

LTMW at a female yellow-bellied sapsucker with the distinctive long white wing stripe feeding at the safflower/sunflower tube and a suet cake.  There is lots of action on both feeder tubes and the suet cakes suggesting that the predator I think was hanging around is gone, if it was even there in the first place.  In any case, this is the first time I've spotted a sapsucker in many years.

What a surprise!  WaPo morning headlines: (1) Many in Middle East blame United States for devastation in Gaza and (2) Biden’s resistance to a cease-fire could alienate youth voters in 2024.  Biden's literal embrace of Netanyahu and Israel's Armageddon tactics in Gaza with stupendous death tolls focusing on children do not come without costs.  We can only hope that Gaza and Afghanistan don't put Trump back in the White House.  What a country and world we live in.

On this date in 2020, I had a TIA.  No repeats but I've been taking a full-strength aspirin each day for more than 2 years.

Called Ed Felsenthal and chatted for 20-30 minutes today.  I meant to call him yesterday but never got around to it.  It was his first holiday since Lyn died and I was a little surprised that none of his 5 daughters and 12 grandkids were done on Marco for the holiday, but Ed shared Thanksgiving dinner with his good next-door neighbors and had a good day.  Cam Wakeman is down there visiting her daughter in Naples and will be spending a few days staying at Ed's house visiting him.  I suspect I may get a call from the two of them in the next few days.  We have all been friends for almost 65 years now.  What a blessing.

Which is greater?  Thankfulness for saying goodbye to 2023 or dread of 2024?  For me, it's dread of 2024.  Presidential election😱, climate change😱, Ukraine😱, Gaza and the Middle East😱, decrepitude, debility, dysfunction, decline😱, . . .

Just wondering how all the virtue-signalling defenders of "democracy" feel about democracy yielding the return of Trump.  American democracy is about as fucked up as democracy can get, thanks to our 'sacred', 'God-inspired,' minority-rule-favoring Constitution, and practices like gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc., but nonetheless it is praised by Democrats and Republicans alike.  The Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade is justified by Republicans as removing the control of abortion policy from the undemocratic Supreme Court and returning control to the democratically-elected representatives of the people.  Steve Bannon's "deconstruction of the administrative state" is justified as returning control over important societal decisions to our democratically-elected Congress from the many undemocratic administrative agencies controlled by 'elites' and experts.  Even Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election being "stolen" and the January 6th attack on the Capitol is defended as a righteous attempt to defend democracy on the ground that Trump actually won the election "by a lot."  And of course, we Lefties are appropriately shaking in our boots over the prospect of Trump and his myrmidons gaining control of the federal government, abandoning "the rule of [democratically-enacted] law", and installing fascism and authoritarianism as our modes of governance.  Everyone waves the banner of Democracy in pursuing their own private goals.  But how many of us are really devoted to democracy?  Our revered Founding Fathers, dominated by wealthy, oligarchic slaveowners, feared too much democracy, hence the Senate and the Electoral College and the appointed federal judiciary.  How many of us, if given a choice between democracy and a 'benevolent dictator' whose benevolence is measured by the degree to which s/he shared our values and pursued only policies that we approved of, would choose democracy?  If I had a choice between my benevolent dictator and a democratically-elected Trump (or Hitler or Mussolini or Orban or Erdoĝan or whoever), why would I not choose my dictator?  I've been looking for a quotation I read some months ago by a political scientist/philosopher about our reluctantly accepting democracy only as a way of sometimes keeping our adversaries from getting their way.  I can't find it but found other food for thought:

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority. Edmund Burke

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. Isaac Asimov

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. John Adams

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid. Bob Dylan

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. George Orwell

We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life. Jimmy Carter

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy. Fran Lebowitz

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. Aristotle

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union? Abraham Lincoln

Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in - democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It's not about any of those things now. It's about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed. Michael Moore

Where liberals see as an ever-more-splendid diversity of colors, creeds, ethnicities, ideologies, beliefs and lifestyles, the Right sees the disintegration of a country, a nation, a people, and its replacement with a Tower of Babel. Visions in conflict that democracy cannot reconcile. Pat Buchanan

 Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States. Karen Armstrong

America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits - the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up. Bill Moyers.

 An oil I did of Geri, miffed at me,  many, many years ago.  She doesn't like it at all.

My sweetie, fully vaccinated, didn't deserve this very nasty case of Covid.

11/23/23

 Thursday, November 23, 2023

Thanksgiving Day

In bed around 9:15, awake at 1:40, onto the lzb till 2:35 and then up, let Lilly out, 36° and a high of 41°, clear conditions tonight and morning, then partly cloudy, wind WSW at 13 mph, 10/15/26.  Sunrise at 6:54, sunset at 4:21, 9+27.

Treadmill; pain.  Slight twinges on the lzb. Modest pain during the day.  3rd day of 3X3 Advil: 0500, 1200, & 1900.  I did a 30-minute full-body seated workout on YouTube which was worthwhile but I may have overdone it, especially of stressing the adductors in light of CPP.  I had quite a bit of pain temporarily when I got up from my chair.  I was reminded again of the weakness in my left hip and upper thigh muscles, much more than my right hip and upper thigh.  I got on the treadmill at @3:45.  25:01 & 0.57.  I may have overdone it with the 30-minute workout; I am a bit tender this evening.😞

Text message to Andy this morning:  Good morning, Son.  We’re out of circulation today.  Geri is about to start day 4 of her respiratory illness which I have been calling bronchitis but am now wondering whether it may be COVID or RSV or another respiratory influenza. She’s still congested and coughing.  The fever is gone but our home oximeter tells us her blood situation is low.  I haven’t come down with whatever it is yet and I’m keeping my fingers crossed and thankful that the VA has me pumped up with vaccines (7 total COVID vaccinations so far plus RSV, shingles, pneumonia, and flu.)  Geri’s had the COVID and RSV vaccinations this fall but not the flu shot yet;  it was scheduled for yesterday ironically.  In any case, we’re quarantining today and will miss your lunch and David’s dinner.  We’ll be receiving a ‘meal on wheels’ from David’s house this afternoon.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  You all deserve it.   And best wishes to all the Hoangs who will be gathering today.❤️ 

--------

Geri's malady, whatever it is, has really taken the wind out of her sails.  She's been out of commission for 3 days.

Democrats, Indians, and Caste Discrimination.  Gavin Newsome has vetoed a California bill that would have banned discrimination based on caste.  The bill was pushed by progressive Democrats concerned about high-caste Indians invidiously discriminating against lower-caste Indians.  The high-caste Indians, including wealthy donors to Democratic causes and candidates, say there is no discrimination and therefore no need for the law.  Lower caste Indians say there is and so the Dems are pulled in opposite directions.  Yet another example of how, in America, caste, class, and race are, at best, complicated social and political realities to deal with and how, in America, money talks.  The saga of this bill, and Gavin Newsome's veto of it, demonstrates how whorish and venal American political 'leaders' can be.  The bill passed the California Assembly 55-3 and the California Senate 31-5.  Both houses are controlled by Democrats but the bill received bipartisan support.  Nonetheless, Gavin vetoed it because 'it was duplicative of existing law.'  Real reason?  Gavin was personally lobbied by at least two high-caste and wealthy Indian Democratic donors, Ajay Jain Bhutoria, former deputy co-chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Ramesh Kapur, another DNC big Democratic donor.  Both high-caste, wealthy and powerful Indian Americans threatened Newsome with withholding financial and political support if he signed the bill protecting lower-caste Indians.  Guess what?  Despite the near-unanimous bipartisan and bicameral legislative support for the bill, Newsome vetoed it.  Let us remember America's Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

LTMW at 6:30 a.m., I see a neighbor driving down Wakefield Court on a mission.  Odds are that it's one of our physician neighbors off to make his or her rounds visiting patients who are hospitalized this morning, perhaps hoping to be released to go home for Thanksgiving.  I think of my father who was required to stay overnight at Columbia-St. Mary's after having his gall bladder removed.  Even in his 80s, he seemed to run down the hospital corridor in his desire to get out of there.  Also, I see that the tube feeder I filled two days ago with sunflower and safflower seeds is down only one inch, reinforcing my suspicion that there has been a raptor in the neighborhood, perhaps a kestrel or Cooper's hawk.  In any case, this morning there is brisk business at the feeder as one chickadee after another arrives for breakfast a few minutes before sun-up.  The finches show up later with song sparrows/pine siskins.  A FedEx truck drives by on County Line Road; they make residential deliveries on Thanksgiving?!?

Janine Geske commented on my FB posting yesterday about JFK's assassination:  "Janine Geske - I never heard this story. That is amazing.  I just remember that our Cedarburg Lutheran church did not memorialize that Catholic president—despite those of us in high school were very upset."  I replied:

It's hard to remember today how very dark the early 60s were, years that were really an extention of the 50s, of Joe McCarthy, the John Birch Society, of the assassination of Freedom Riders in the Deep South, of our brush with nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, of JFK and RFK deploying 20,000 troops to enable James Meredith to attend Ole Miss, and of the distrust of the patriotism of Catholic office-holders who were said to take orders from the Pope.. Today we're inclined to think of 'the 60s' as the era of 'drugs, sex, and rock 'n roll,' of Haight-Ashbury and free love, of Jefferson Airplane and Bob Dylan, and of anti-Vietnam demonstrations and violence, but all that came later and now many conservative Catholics join hands with many Evangelicals in a united effort to Make America Great Again. Those of us who lived through those days bear witness to the fact that they weren't all that great.

Wild turkeys are disappearing, and Thanksgiving has nothing to do with it.  An article by Dino Grandoni in this morning's WaPo: "Wild turkeys are on the decline in many parts of the country, baffling biologists who study the gobblers that Benjamin Franklin once lauded as a “Bird of Courage.”

For those living in areas where there are so many turkeys they cause traffic jams and raid grain silos, the idea that turkey numbers are actually dropping may seem far-fetched."  You couldn't tell there is a decline by our birds on Wakefield Court.  It's hard not to admire these birds; I certainly do.  If we were to lose them  I would consider it a big loss.  As I write this, I am recalling a day when Anh and I took an exploratory walk in the bog behind our house in the Town of Saukville.   We came upon a wild turkey hen roosting on her eggs (Is this a proper usage?) at the base of a big cedar tree.  The bird didn't fly away from her eggs until we were hard upon her and she did so probably to distract us from her vulnerable eggs, a variation of kildeer behavior.  In any event, I don't know who was more frightened by the loud flapping of feathers on the seemingly huge bird only a couple of feet in front of us, the hen or Anh and me.  We were sorry to have disturbed her sacred incubating, gazed at the precious eggs for a moment, and moved away, chastened.

A year ago I wrote "What I think of when I feel guilty about spending money on art supplies and suchlike.

GREEN BAY ‒ One — perhaps the only — benefit from the Green Bay Packers losing six of the last seven games is tickets becoming more affordable.  The average get-in price for two of the Packers' remaining six games is below $100 and all but one dropped in the last week after the Packers lost to the Tennessee Titans at Lambeau Field on Thursday. Prices are determined by averaging the lowest prices at 10 secondary market sites.  The average lowest price for the Packers game in Philadelphia on Sunday was $197 on Monday, down from $255 last week.

. . . . . . .

The cost of the box seat ticket to last Saturday's MSO concert that Geri attended with Caela was just under $100.  I don't doubt that attending the Brahms & Shostakovich concert was worth it  (if you enjoy their very different musical styles) but I'm mindful that it is two hours or so of enjoyment (for those who are into Brahms and Shostakovich, or into being seen at the symphony) followed by - maybe - a faint memory.  Ditto professional and college athletic events.  One can acquire a lot of paint, brushes, and/or canvas for the cost of those tickets.

Long FaceTime call from Sarah and Christian.  Very pleasant chat about this, that, and the other things.  She will be returning to the States again in January.  They will be vacationing in Thailand over Christman,  including a 3 day cooking school. 

Sharon and her sister picked up Geri's pumpkin pies at 11, along with a lot of freshly whipped whipped cream.  We'll get a 'meals-on-wheels' delivery of Thanksgiving scrumptiousities later.

The State of America on this Thanksgiving Day.  From Thomas Edsall's op-ed in today's NYT: "The Roots of Trump's Rage."

Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captured the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an Oct. 1 essay, “The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.”

Klaas argued that the presidential contest now pits

a 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power

against “an 80-year-old with mainstream Democratic Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.”   

“One of those two candidates,” Klaas noted, “faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit ‘takes’ arguing that he should drop out of the race. (Spoiler alert: It’s somehow not the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges.)”

Klaas asked:

What is going on? How is it possible that the leading candidate to become president of the United States can float the prospect of executing a general and the media response is … crickets?

How is it possible that it’s not front page news when a man who soon may return to power calls for law enforcement to kill people for minor crimes? And why do so few people question Trump’s mental acuity rather than Biden’s, when Trump proposes delusional, unhinged plans for forest management and warns his supporters that Biden is going to lead us into World War II (which would require a time machine), or wrongly claims that he defeated Barack Obama in 2016? . . . . 

Klaas of University College London concluded that a crucial factor in Trump’s political survival is the failure of the media in this country to recognize that the single most important story in the presidential election, a story that should dominate all others, is the enormous threat Trump poses:

The man who, as president, incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn an election is again openly fomenting political violence while explicitly endorsing authoritarian strategies should he return to power. That is the story of the 2024 election. Everything else is just window dressing.

Steve and Nikki arrived at @ 5 p.m. with our 'meals on wheels" and stayed until about 6 when they headed back to Chicago in the dark holiday traffic.  They have both been doing volunteer work at the Woodlawn  Food Pantry on Chicago's southeast side on Saturdays and enjoying it.   As usual, we shared some of our "leftie" thoughts while we were here.  They also described the terrible situation in Chicago with the flood of immigrants and the lack of housing and other resources to care for them.

 

 

11/22/23

 Wednesday, November 22, 2023

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:50, let Lilly out. 36°, mostly/partly cloudy morning ahead, then sunny, wind NW at 10 mph, 8-14/28.  Sunrise at 6:53 at 117°, sunset at 4:22 at 243°,  9+29.  Solar noon at 11:37, altitude 27°.

Treadmill; pain.  Awoke w/o pain, 🙏🤞 Alas, pain resumed while typing today's journal making me wonder whether sitting is a trigger in which case I'm in trouble.  I looked at standing/kneeling/ ergonomic angle chairs on the internet.  Hardly an easy adjustment.  Day 2 of Advil: 0700, 1400, & 2100.  CPP continued into the evening.  00:00/0.00     

VA Yoga.  I was unable to connect with either my computer downstairs or this one.  I took advantage of the missed connection to lie down and take pressure off my tailbone.  I need to find a good stretching DVD.  . . .  Not necessary: YouTube has many stretching & strengthening videos.  I'll drop the yoga and try to get disciplined with 'Sit and Be Fit' and  workouts and chair exercises for seniors in my 'sanctuary.'

GAC's not well.  Her bronchitis worsened.  Thankfully she has been able to sleep a lot, a blessing.  100° fever.  Thanksgiving???  Feeling better by the afternoon and busy making pies by 4:30.  It's uncertain whether she will be able to partake in the big dinner tomorrow and whether Steve and Nikki will be staying with us tomorrow night.

John F. Kennedy assassination, 60th anniversary.  From my memoir:

Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 22nd, I was sitting with my class on some risers out in the woods waiting for a class of some sort to begin.  An officer drove up in a Jeep and spoke to the instructor and then to us.  President Kennedy had been shot to death in Dallas.

What happened next?  Were we dismissed?  Was the base secured?  Did we continue with the instruction?  Was there any discussion of what the assassination might mean for the military?  I have no memory of it.  I was so stunned that I think my mind dropped into low gear.  The enormity of the crime was too much to absorb.  Anne and I spent that night and all day Saturday watching the news.  I don’t remember this; I am assuming that we had a television.  In any event, we were at least listening to the news and learned that the assassin was a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.  Kennedy’s body was returned to Washington and lay in repose in the East Room of the White House until Sunday when it was moved to the Capitol rotunda for public viewing.

On Sunday morning, Anne and I drove the short trip up US 1 to Washington.  I wore my uniform.  With thousands of others, we stood on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill.  As we waited for the cortege, someone in the crowd with a portable radio announced that Oswald had been shot and killed while in police custody in Dallas.  Shortly thereafter the vanguard of the cortege passed and we could hear the approaching muffled drums and nothing else.  All were silent, solemn.  The shock and pain of the assassination and the knowledge that the assassin was a former Marine was now compounded by the almost unbelievable news of Oswald’s death in police custody.  The muffled drums drew closer and louder, the caisson carrying the President’s body came into view and passed, as did the riderless horse behind it.  I saluted as the body passed and then we went home, wondering what was happening to the country.

I'm still wondering.  Sarah posted Dan Rather's reflection on the Thanksgiving tradition on FB today.  I thought it was appropriately grim, with comments like "There is no denying that we’ve had another year filled with tumult, uncertainty, pain, and suffering. As 2023 winds down and we look to the year ahead, there is little indication that these troublesome and dangerous trends will abate. If anything, they will likely intensify . . .               ' and " . . . we are a divided nation. We are angry, distrustful, and disoriented."  My comment: 

I am not entirely sure whether this message is intended to be spirit-raising or a forewarning of dark days ahead. As I read it, I thought that my life began with Franklin Roosevelt as president and the nation fighting fascism abroad and may well end with Donald Trump as president and the nation succumbing to fascism at home. And whether we go one way or the other seems to be almost as much a matter of chance as a matter of choice, with Trump's opponent being an unpopular octogenarian. While November symbolically represents the anniversary of the first mythologized Thanksgiving, it also marks the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch and Kristallnacht. Where are we? Where are we going?

I wanted to end it with Ubi sumus?  Quo veneris? just to get a little more mileage out of my 4 years of Latin with our beloved Brother Birmingham, or "Birmo" at Leo High School, but I realized it would be mighty pedantic and unwelcome to any reader.  What I was thinking of as I wrote it though was that I had lived through the greatest days, at least in terms of wealth, military might, world respect, and hegemony, to the present days of "tumult, uncertainty, pain, and suffering" in which as a nation, a people, we are "angry, distrustful, and disoriented."  Barack Obama and many other politicians are wont to say "This is not who we are," but we know now that this is indeed precisely who we are.  We are a people who tolerate minority rule and purport to revere as "sacred" a Constitution that was crafted by oligarchs to prefer it.  We are a people who have grown and prospered by White Supremacy, subjecting non-Whites, especially Blacks and native peoples, to oppression for centuries.  Now we know that about half of us, mostly the older half, consider the minority rule and  domination of minorities to be 'the good old days,' the days when America was 'great" as in "Make America Great Again."

 

11/21/23

 Tuesday, November 21, 2023

In bed at 9:30, up at 5, mis-ack ache.  Let Lilly out.  39°, raining, high of  41°, wind ENE at 13 mph, 11-16/27, WC is 32°. 0.3" of rain in the last 6 hours, total expected is 0.45". Sunrise at 6:51, sunset at 4:22, 9+31.  "a damp, drizzly November of my soul. . ."   

Treadmill; pain.  I'm following yesterday's advice from the VA doc to take 3 Advil 200 mg. pills 3 times a day.  Started last night, and another 3 at 5 this morning.  I'm experiencing mild tightness and spasms this morning.  Advil: 0530.1330, & 2030.  Pain intensified during the afternoon, quite bad at 4 despite 2 unrestful lie-downs.  Advils seem to be totally ineffective for the pain.  Relief came with MB at 5 pm, but returned 10 minutes later, worse.  Rough day.

Geri down with bronchitis (?)  Heavily congested for the last 2 days, spent the afternoon in bed resting.  I brought her 2 coricidin & water at 5:15.  Not sounding good.

LTMW at a flock of 17 wild turkeys crossing the bend of County Line Road into Wakefield Court and coming onto our front yard.  Sixteen of the birds head south onto the McGregor's property, while one outlier turns around and pecks her way back toward County Line Road until she realizes she is all alone, whereupon she turns around and runs and then flies back to join her posse.  I'm not sure why these birds give me a thrill, but they always do.  I'm reminded that I saw a partridge once in some high grass along a road in Ozaukee County on one of my rides in the countryside. . .  I've seen hardly any birds at our full feeders this morning, even with 2 new suet cakes out, just a couple of goldfinches on the niger tube . . . By nightfall, those two goldfinches and the flock of turkeys were the only birds I saw all day.  I'm wondering if there is a predator in the area.

Ruth Marcus' op-ed this morning is worth reading.  She writes of the generational divide among American Jews regarding Israel, older Jews much more supportive of the Jewish state and younger Jews much less supportive.  

 My childhood memories are of the Six-Day War and the accompanying joy over access to the Western Wall; of the shock of the Yom Kippur War. . .  And, I am obliged to confess, the narrative of Israel’s founding that Jewish children of my generation were offered in Hebrew school and on trips to Israel was deeply misleading at best, tinged with anti-Palestinian bias at worst. This account utterly failed to acknowledge the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 or consider Palestinians’ legitimate claims to a homeland. The tenor of our rabbi’s sermons, the discussions in my childhood home, were that Israel could do no wrong.

My children grew up in a different environment — more honest about the contours of the conflict, more complex in the nature of the political discussion, and more fraught. They have scarcely known an Israel without Netanyahu, which is to say an Israel whose aggressive settlement policy that has made a two-state solution increasingly unattainable, and an Israel that fails to treat Palestinians with fairness and dignity.

It is, in short, an Israel that has made itself hard to love. . .  It is hard to demand that Israel constitute a central part of [my children's] Jewish identity when Israel’s behavior, during their conscious lifetimes, has been so impossible to defend. 

Her essay strikes home with me.   I think of one Jewish friend with whom I was and am close speaking disparagingly of Palestinians, telling me the Palestinians left what is now Israel during the founding war voluntarily, or because of encouragement by the neighboring Arab states, that there was no expulsion.  Very black and white, brought on by her anguish and anger over the Holocaust and historic anti-Semitism, and the situation facing the Jews who survived the Holocaust after their liberation from the camps, her understanding of the need for a safe, secure Jewish homeland, then and now.  I think of our good, dear Jewish friends of a lifetime and how we never speak of Israel in political terms, nor of Palestinians, but only of their memories from trips to Israel, in youth and more recently, without any mention of Palestinian Israelis, or the West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem.  We never speak of Netanyahu, or Ben Gvir, or Smotrich, or the the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide, or the secular-religious divide, Likud and the religious parties, or the virtual disappearance of 'the Left' in Israel.  I think too of Marcus' admission of the bias infecting her indoctrination about the founding of Israel and its history (Israel can do no wrong) and how it parallels the bias infecting by indoctrination about the founding of the United States and its history (America can do no wrong), about Jewish superiority in Israel and White superiority in the U.S.

 

11/20/23

 Monday, November 20, 2023

In bed at 9 and up at 4 with CPP.  43°, windy, high of 45°, wind ESE at 15 mph, 9-18/26, w/c- 26°.  Sunrise at 6:50, sunset at 4:23, 9+33.

Treadmill; pain.  I awoke with CPP, seeing the VA urologist at 8:15 this morning, feeling sheepish.  I don't know what he can do that he hasn't done, i.e., prescribe meds I don't want to take b/c of sedative side effects, effects on driving, zombie behavior plus uncertain efficacy. . . Urologist thinks it's an overactive nerve problem and will order a consult with the Pain Clinic.  00:00   0.00

Another dead canary in the mine shaft?  Argentines gave the Trumpist far-right candidate for the presidency a solid victory yeasterday over the incumbent finance minister.  Trump congratulated him, saying he would 'Make Argentina Great Again.'  We'll see.

They're not that into you, Joe.  NBC poll: "Democratic voters on Biden's handling of war between Israel and Hamas:  Approve, 51%, Disapprove, 41%."  "Younger voters on Biden's handling of war between Israel and Hamas:  Approve 20%, Disapprove, 70%."

Biden was 6 years old when Israel became a state.  He was 25 years old during the 1976 war with the Arab states, and 31 years old during the Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria.  His impressions of Israel were of a young democratic state governed by Ashkenazi and American  (Golda Meir) Jews defending itself against hostile Muslim neighbors.  The 1967 war was ended 56 years ago and since then Israel has been a strong state, a nuclear power, occupying lands seized from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and treating the non-Jewish residents of the seized lands as colonial subjects, with no voting rights, with severe mobility restrictions, whose land is ever subject to seizure by settlers and expropriation by Israeli Jews claiming as in the theme from the movie Exodus "This land is mine.  God gave this land to me."

When I saw Biden literally embracing Netanyahu, the warm hug and pat on the back, as he arrived in Tel Aviv, followed by public statements that seemed to give the green light to Israel, indeed to encourage Israel, to crush not just Hamas but Gaza, I knew that was a step too far for many Americans.  NBC poll: Young voters on their presidential pick if the election were today:  Biden, 42%, Trump, 46%.  62% disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.  Netanyahu and his religious nationalist settler government are not Golda Meir and her Ashkenazi socialist government.

Today is Joe's 81st birthday.  Happy birthday.

Kristin Welker to WH Deputy National Security Advisor:  Are you confident that Israel is following international law as they try to wipe out Hamas.  Yes or no.  Answer:  We are confident that it is our position that it needs to.  When we have seen issues that are raised based on incidents on the ground, we raised them privately and directly with the government.  Welker:  Are you confident that they are following international law?  Answer:  What I can say is it is not our position, certainly not my position as a policy maker to play real-time judge and jury on the question of any particular of any particular incident.

From Sara Roy's 2008 Edward Said Memorial Lecture: THE IMPOSSIBLE UNION OF ARAB AND JEW: REFLECTIONS ON DISSENT, REMEMBRANCE AND REDEMPTION.

For the last forty-one years, [Israeli] occupation has meant dislocation and dispersion; the separation of families; the denial of human, civil, legal, political, and economic rights imposed by a system of military rule; the torture of thousands; the confiscation of tens of thousands of acres of land and the uprooting of tens of thousands of trees; the destruction of more than 18,000 Palestinian homes; the relentless expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands; the undermining and then the destruction of the Palestinian economy; closure; curfew; geographic fragmentation; demographic isolation.

Occupation is about the domination and dispossession of one people by another. It is about the destruction of their property and the destruction of their soul. At its core, occupation aims to deny Palestinians their humanity by denying them the right to determine their existence, to live normal lives in their own homes. And just as there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the Holocaust and the occupation, so there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the occupier and the occupied, no matter how much we as Jews regard ourselves as victims. . . . 

But in the post-Holocaust world, Jewish memory has failed in one critical respect: it has excluded the reality of Palestinian suffering and Jewish culpability therein. As a people, we have been unable to link the creation of Israel with the displacement of the Palestinians. We have been unwilling to see, let alone remember, that finding our place meant the loss of theirs. . . . 

Among the many realities that frame contemporary Jewish life are the birth of Israel, remembrance of the Holocaust, and Jewish power and sovereignty. And it cannot be denied that the latter has a critical corollary: the displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people. We celebrate our strength but at its core lies a counsel of despair.  For Jewish identity is linked, willingly or not, to Palestinian suffering and this suffering is now an irrevocable part of our collective memory and an intimate part of our experience, together with the Holocaust and Israel. This is a linkage about which Marc Ellis, in my view one of the greatest and most courageous Jewish religious thinkers of our time, has pondered long and hard. How, he asks, are we to celebrate our Jewishness while others are being oppressed? Is the Jewish covenant with God present or absent in the face of Jewish oppression of Palestinians? Is the Jewish ethical tradition still available to us? Is the promise of holiness—so central to Jewish existence—now beyond our ability to reclaim?

. . . . Why is it virtually mandatory among Jewish intellectuals to oppose racism, repression and injustice almost anywhere in the world and unacceptable—indeed, for some, an act of heresy—to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor, choosing concealment over exposure?  

Why have I struggled so much with the rectitude of Israel's action in Gaza?  Do I struggle with the rectitude of its occupation of the West Bank, and its degradation of the Palestinians living there?  I don't believe that the IDF and the settlers treat Palestinians humanely or with dignity.  I have to believe that the government's and the IDF's and the settlers' ultimate goal is to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that they will eventually leave, leaving something less than a 'critical mass' to support a Palestinian state.  I draw no significant distinction between the government and the IDF on the one hand and the settlers on the other.  Turning to Gaza, is there not something intrinsically evil in what the Israeli government and the IDF are doing there?  I can't come up with any worthwhile opinion on what other choices have been available to Netanyahu and his subordinates; I am not knowledgeable enough in urban warfare to hazard uninformed guesses.  But one needn't be an expert in the so-called international law (is there really such a thing?) of warfare or in the intricacies and nuances of the "just war" (is there such a thing?) theory to know that a policy of depriving 2 million civilian non-combatants of food, clean water, shelter, and medical care is wrong.  It is not the action of a gute neshama, of righteous people, of menschen.  Israel's answers are a combination of whataboutism - look what Hamas did to us on October 7! - and the Trumpist lie 'we have no choice'.   I think of Tom Freidman's op-ed weeks ago in which he implored the Netanyahu government not to do precisely what it is doing now - the killing of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children, and the wholesale destruction of Gazan infrastructure, including most significantly the homes and livelihoods of the people who live in that 'open-air prison.'  The photos of the dead and wounded children, especially the 'premies' in the NICU at al-Shifa hospital will persist for years as graphic condemnations of Israel's real attitude toward the Palestinians and of American complicity.  Biden and his minions keep asserting that 'Israel has a right to defend itself" as if any normal human being denies that truism.  Every person and every nation has a right to defend itself.  Biden speaks of it as if that's the beginning and the end of the analysis and the discussion, as if once that simple truth is recognized, Israel was free to do what it will not only to the perhaps 50,000 active members of Hamas but also to the 2,000,000+ civilians among whom they shelter.   This carnage will be a stain on Israel for years, perhaps decades, and on the United States and on Joseph Biden, with his fond memories of schmoozing with Milwaukee's Golda Meir.  One last thought about the futility of Israel's goal to destroy Hamas 'once and for all.'  It is much more likely that the current conflagration will strengthen Hamas as an Idea, a Movement, a Cult, almost a Religion whose central doctrine is that Israel is a predatory racist apartheid state that should be destroyed.  With all the hatred between the Israelis and the Palestinians, who can see any end to this conflict, either a two-state solution - whither the hundreds of thousands of settlers? - or a one-state solution, with equal rights for all?  The Nakba is Israel's Original Sin and the Occupation and Blockade extensions of it.  Slavery is America's Original Sin, the consequences of which we are still living with after 400+ years.  How long will Israel live with the consequences of its Original Sin(s)?