4/3/24

 Wednesday, April 3, 2024

On the BL and lights out around 10, up around 2:45.  34°, high of 40°, snowy conditions from 4 to 11, then more rain.  The wind is WNW at 14 mph, 12-17/30.  1.4" of rain in the last 24 hours, 0.25" expected in the next 24.  Sunrise at 6:29, sunset at 7:21, 12+52.

Pain, etc.  The shoulder and wrist pain upon awakening is not as bad this morning as before.  Am I nonetheless awake because of it or is it simply insomnia?  Later in the early morning, however, the pain became pretty bad again, especially in my right wrist and hand.  I applied Diclofenac to the wrist and to the top and palm of my hand, concerned about my grip of the steering wheel to and from the VA this morning (the Hand Clinic re-scheduled appointment for the one on missed last Friday.)  It took me a good half hour to get dressed this morning, even without the compression socks.  It's getting harder to take care of myself.  Unless something changes for the better, I'm in real trouble.

I'm grateful for the decreased pain during the night and early morning.  Is it because of the 1300 mg. of Tylenol I took at 'bedtime'?

Marlon Brando's 100th birthday.  I watched a clip of the On the Waterfront scene of him and Rod Steiger in the car.  "It was you, Charlie. . . And what happens, he gets a title shot outdoors in a ballpark and what do I get?  I get a one way ticket to Palookaville.  You was my brother, Charlie.  You shoulda looked out for me a little bit.  You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money. . . . You don't understand.  I coulda had class.  I coulda been a contender.  I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.  Let's face it.  It was you, Charlie."  Is there a greater scene in movie history?

No good deed goes unpunished.  From this morning's WaPo: "Wisconsin voters opted Tuesday to ban private funding for election administration, joining more than two dozen states that have ended or limited the practice after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife spent $350 million to help local governments run elections during the coronavirus pandemic.  Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were the primary funders of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which gave grants to election administrators around the country in 2020 so they could expand their mail voting operations, set up curbside voting programs, and purchase ballot tabulators, face masks and other supplies.  I'm feeling some shame at not having learned about the origin and significance of the two referenda questions on Tuesday's ballot.

VA Hand Clinic.   I apologized for missing Friday's appointment.  I was given a tight glove to try at night and a sponge squeeze-thing for strengthening my hand muscles, but basically was told I better learn how to live with the hand/wrist pain.

Israeli drones killed 7 humanitarian workers in clearly marked vehicles delivering food to starving Gazans in clearly marked vehicles.  Netanyahu says it was "unintentional."  Bide says he is "outraged and heartbroken."  The U.S. keeps giving Netanyahu bombs, bullets, and F-35s to keep killing anything that moves in Gaza.  I am reminded of the "free fire zones" in Vietnam.  Two thoughts: There is about a zero chance that the destruction of the World Central Kitchens vehicles was "unintentional."  Drones don't fire their missiles without a command from a ground controller.  The controller can see what he is targeting.  That 'eyelock' is what permits the drone to target so precisely.  The IDF controller clearly intended to strike the 3 vehicle humanitarian convoy and to kill the occupants.  Perhaps the strike was somehow based on a mistake or negligence but it was not unintentional.  And about poor Joe Biden's being "outraged and heartbroken", spare us your feelings, Joe and stop being the principal enabler of Israeli bloodlust.

No bad deed goes unrewarded by the wicked: A group of Republican congressmen want to rename Dulles International Airport Trump International.

John Barth has died at age 93, the author of one of my favorite books, The Sot Weed Factor, published in 1960 and read by me some years thereafter.  I started Giles' Goat-boy but never finished it.