Wednesday, November 1, 2023
In bed before 10, awake at 4:52, onto the lzb till 5:09, let Lilly out at 5:15, 27°, WC is 18°, high of 39°, clear morning sky with Venus solely visiblehigh in the Eastern sky @ 85°, AQI=22, wind NW at 8 pmh, 6-12/21, 2.8" of snow in last 24h, @ twice more than forecast, some ice on the sidewalk. Sunrise at 7:26 at 109°, sunset at 5:43 at 251°, solar noon at 12:35, altitude 32°, 10+17.
Let's not be blind. We cannot reliably believe much of what Israel and Hamas say about what is going on in Israel and Gaza. If we cannot believe our own government, and we of course cannot, why should we believe other governments? But what is clear is that since October 7th, settlers and IDF have been busy exterminating and making life miserable for Palestinians on the West Bank, or as they would say, in Judea and Samaria. Heather Cox Richardson reports "Despite the administration's warnings, while international eyes are on Gaza, according to the United Nations, settlers in the West Bank encouraged by the policies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have killed at least 115 Palestinians, injured more than 2,000 more, and forcibly displaced almost 1,000. " All the happy talk about getting back to pursuing a "two state solution" to the 75 year old Israel-Palestinian problem as Israeli governments permitted, protected, and encouraged continued Israeli settlements throughout much of the West Bank. The settlers are all 'true believers' and militant. They won't move without a fight and no integral, coherent, contiguous Palestinian state is conceivable with the settlements in place. Israel killed the "two-state solution" long ago.
Pissing on my shoes and telling me it's raining out. More from HCR:
While the U.S. says it does not trust the numbers of casualties asserted by Hamas, it believes from other sources that there have been “many thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza thus far in the conflict…. Way too many.” [Quaere: how many would be just right?] Today the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, reminded reporters: “We aren’t on the ground fighting in this war. There’s no intent to do that…. [T]hese are Israeli military operations. They get to decide what their aims and strategy are. They get to decide what their tactics are. They get to decide how they’re going to decide to go after Hamas.
“We’re doing everything we can to support them—including providing our perspectives, including asking them hard questions about their aims and their strategy and—the kind of questions we’d ask ourselves.”
Including helping to finance the war, providing weapons, moving tremendous naval and military forces into the area to ensure that the Gaza people receive no help from their allies while we "ask hard questions" about thousands of dead non-combatants, more than half women and children.
Kirby's statement “We aren’t on the ground fighting in this war. There’s no intent to do that…. [T]hese are Israeli military operations" reminds me of a crowd of bullies surrounding and protecting another bully who is 'on the ground' beating a child to death. Their defense when charged as parties to the crime? "We weren't on the ground fighting . . . in fact, we were all 'providing our perspectives' and 'asking hard questions' the whole time."
American:Anti-American::Christian:Anti-Christian. The ascendency of sweet-looking, smooth-talking, harmless-looking, Bible-believing Mike Johnson to the position of Speaker of the House is emblematic of the ascendency of White Christian Nationalism's control of the Republican Party. He and his fellow White Christian Nationalists, a/k/a Evangelicals. believe that the U.S. always has been and needs to be now and always a [traditional Protestant] Christian Nation. He and they want a nationwide ban on abortions and same-sex marriage and sexual relations. He and they are staunch supporters of the State of Israel, especially under right-wing leaders like Netanyahu. He and they support prayer and Bible-classes in public schools. He and they are election-deniers. He and they are anti-democratic, favoring voting restrictions and low voter participation in elections, except for evangelical participation. He and they believe that to be truly American is to be truly Christian. He and they believe that God wants real Christians to determine government policies, such policies to be grounded in Christian values, as they understand them. He and they believe that discrimination against White Americans is at least as big a problem as discrimination against Black and Brown Americans. He and they believe that governmental discrimanation against Religion is a big problem in the U.S. He and they take pains to say that America is "a republic" and "not a democracy," meaning that the country is not to be governed by the majority but by the politically virtuous, meaning people like them.
VA Chair Yoga. I tried my first session today at 12:15 by video connect. I looked and felt like an old geezer at a retirement home or nursing home which I guess is pretty appropriate. There were 4 of us participating by video, 2 of us new to the program. I don't know how many were there in person. The leader led us through a good number of stretches and I had the feeling that I was benefitting from them and that I should probably continue participating.
A note from the journal one year ago: "All Saints Day, the day as children at St. Leo's Grammar School we attended mass, a holy day of obligation, which we could never quite get into as a real 'holy day,' like Christmas and Easter Ditto All Souls Day tomorrow. All Souls Day made sense within the cosmology of Holy Mother Church because we prayed for 'the poor souls,' the souls suffering and languishing in Purgatory, waiting to be burned pure, punished for their sins, and eligible for entry through the Pearly Gates. Of course, we wanted our loved ones, our ancestors, to be freed from the fires of Purgatory and prayers were presumably a ticket out, along with temporal and plenary indulgences. So attending mass and praying for them, something pleasing to God, made a lot of sense. But on All Saints Day, we just celebrated those who had already made it into the Celestial Kingdom, all the saints, known and unknown. It seemed almost cruel that All Saints Day was and is a Holy Day of Obligation and All Souls Day was not. But there you have it. Thoughts on awakening on November 1st. You can take the boy out of the Church, but you never take the Church out of the boy."
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