3/12/24

 Tuesday, March 12, 2024

In bed at 9 and up at 2:30.  49°, high of 62°.  We continue to get warming winds from WSW, 16 mph, 6-16/28.  Sunrise at 7:08, sunset at 6:55, 11+47, moving toward longest average daylight on June 20, 15+23.

Treadmill; pain.  I continue to avoid the treadmill, mostly because of my shoulder, which hurts now 3 a.m., including the deltoid and upper arm.   I'm feeling pretty blue this morning about chronic pain, related stress, effect on basic life functions, and inadequate sleep at night,even with the improvement in the chronic pelvic pain.    

I'm grateful for my old, heavy, bulky, warm, cotton bathrobe which is quite a comfort to me especially when I sleep on the LZB or the the BL.  It keeps me warm which seems to become more important to me the older I get.  The robe has an ample collar and lapels which I can bundle up around my neck and large pockets where I can keep my hands warm.  The warm neck and upper torso and warm hands are a big boost to my efforts to sleep on the recliners.  I don't know why, perhaps only it's the avoidance of noticeable temperature differentials in different parts of my old frame.  In any case, this warm bathrobe is a sleep enhancer on the recliners during nighttime and also for naps early in the day and I'm grateful for it.  I bought it 90 or 100 years ago at a now-deceased department store in West Bend that Geri and I used to patronize.  For a long time, it hung on a hook unseen and rarely used in a corner of my closet.  Now, in my senectitude, I keep it readily accessible on a hook on my bathroom door, proud of its newfound attention after years of neglect.

Thinking with Yeshayahu.  Last night, I started reading the introduction to the book, written by its editor, Eliezer Goldman.

- Born in Riga, Russia now Latvia, in 1903, died in Jerusalem in 1994.

- An orthodox Jew and a Zionist, he arrived in Palestine in 1934. 

- A biochemist, neuroscientist, philosopher, public intellectual

- According to Isaiah Berlin: ". . . he is the conscience of Israel: the clearest and most honorable champion of those principles which justify the creation of a movement [Zionism] and of a sovereign state achieved at so high a human cost both to the Jewish nation and to all its neighbors."

- p. vii-ix: "Leibowitz expresses his indefatigable opposition to the Israeli occupation of the territories conquered in 1967 in terms of political and religious considerations, not humanistic ones.  Politically, the occupation is corrupting the state of Israel.  All its mental and physical resources are squandered on dominating the recalcitrant population of the territories.  It has none left for dealing with what ought to be at the center of attention of a Jewish state.  The exigencies of political and military domination are converting it into a police state with its attendant evils.  Power interests of the state tend to become ends in themselves, thus giving rise to the most insidious form of idolatry in the modern world. . . The conquest of the territories has fanned the ever-smoldering embers of idolatrous tendencies, the overcoming of which is a constant religious challenge.  One instance of idolatry, prevalent among religious Zionists today, is to ascribe inherent holiness to the land and even to the state.  For Leibowitz, himself a pious Jew, this is one of the most fearful consequences of the occupation.

Life in Hell.  From this morning's JSOnline: 

A 32-year-old Milwaukee woman is charged with child neglect resulting in death after prosecutors say a 6-year-old found a loaded handgun in her purse and fatally shot her 4-year-old son.  Tiara Edwards is accused of irresponsible gun ownership resulting in the death of Jamero L. Edwards of Milwaukee.  The shooting took place on Feb. 18 on the 7900 block of North 64th Court.  According to a criminal complaint, Tiara Edwards fell asleep on the couch at a friend's residence with her purse next to her, allowing access to her gun and cellphone. Her friend has five children with Edwards' cousin.

and

A three-day hearing to decide whether a 12-year-old boy charged with first-degree intentional homicide should be prosecuted in juvenile or adult court began in Milwaukee County on Monday. . . The boy was 10 years old in November 2022 when he was charged with homicide in connection with the shooting death of his 44-year-old mother in Milwaukee.  According to court records, the boy told police he was upset at his mother for not buying him something on Amazon and for waking him up early one morning. Prosecutors allege he retrieved his mother’s gun from a lockbox using his mother’s key and shot her.   The boy has a history of mental health concerns and disturbing behavior. Monday, defense attorney Tanner Kilander tied much of those issues to a concussion he suffered in late 2021 when he fell off a swing set. . . And the laws that put juveniles in the adult system have disproportionately affected Black children, advocates argue. Of the nearly 200 people age 19 and younger currently in that system, almost 72% are Black.

 

I had a "Healing Touch" meeting at the VA this morning, which was very relaxing as usual.  Jody the therapist took a photo of the lipoma on my back.  I was surprised at how large it is.