1/22/24

 Monday, July 22, 2024

1946 Militant Zionist organization Irgun bombed the British headquarters for Palestine in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people and injuring 46

1991 Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to killing 17 men in 1978

In bed before 11 after watching more of Olivier's Hamlet and all the news of Biden and Harris. awake at 4:45, up q5 5;00 with painful hip and lower back. Very painful to walk from bedroom to TV room.   . . . In the afternoon, I am experiencing throbbing pain, even sitting on the recliner.  

Prednisone, day 71, 15+5, day 7.   I took 15 mg. of prednisone at 5:15 a.m., had breakfast of cottage cheese & raspberries at 5:30. and took 1,000 mg. of Tylenol at 5:50.

I'm grateful that Joe Biden dropped out.  I had no emotional response when I saw the news on TV,  none.  No excitement, no sadness, nothing.  I'm worn out by this election cycle, by all that has happened to Trump this week, and by all the waiting for Biden.  I'm pleased that Biden is out of the race though I realize he will continue to occupy the Oval Office and to exercise the powers of the presidency during Kamala Harris's campaign.  Will he choose to or be able to lie low during the campaign or will this be a  "never underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up" situation?  The latest reporting on his decision to bow out makes it clear that Biden lacks self-awareness of his condition and on its effects on the voting public. Or will there be occasion to do something helpful to her election?  Will the Republicans try legal maneuvers in a Trump-appointed court, as with mifepristone?  I suspect we can count on it.  Mika Brznski on Morning Joe reported this morning that the Republicans have already started "the hate campaign" against  Kamala Harris.  We are in for a hellish time between now, election day, and what follows.  God help us, but we know he won't.

The Apotheosis of Joe Biden.  It was, I suppose, inevitable that the anger that so many people were feeling toward Joe Biden because of his refusal to withdraw from the presidential race after the debate would change into effusive praise of him once he did so.  So it has been.  He is being lauded as a selfless patriot and a hero, almost a saint.  I know it seems chintzy of me, but I can't join in.  I continue to see him as a gladhanding, backslapping politician of modest natural talent with an immodest lust for power, place, and prestige.  He ran a ludicrous failed campaign for the presidency in 1988.  He explored running for president again in 2000 and 2004 and did announce in 2008 but blew up his campaign in 2008 with a bone-headed comment about Barack Obama (" "I mean, you got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy") that also backhandedly insulted Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Mosely Braun, and Al Sharpton.  He dropped out shortly after receiving only a handful of votes in the Iowa caucuses.  He has long been either a liar or a bullshitter, especially when it comes to stories that enhance his stature.  He simply makes things up when it suits his purposes.  In this trait, he is not unlike Donald J. Trump, just not as flagrant or as frequent an offender.  I think the most telling of his comments after his disastrous debate on June 27th was his response to NBC's Lester Holt's question about whether he had watched a video of the debate afterward.  He said, "I don't think I did, no."  First, that response seems patently disingenuous. Second, if he did watch it and said he didn't, what does that tell us?  If he didn't watch the debate, knowing that it had blown up his campaign, what does that tell us?  Joe Biden may have good qualities that inspire great admiration from his many friends, fans, and supporters, and he certainly had a generally successful presidency, but he also, right up until the end (and we haven't seen the end yet) has put the country through a major trauma and risk by his characteristic self-serving hubris in seeking a second term so late in life.  And probably reliable reports have it that he is filled with anger and resentment towards those who worked to persuade him to stand aside to have a better chance of preventing a catastrophic second Trump presidency.  It's hard for me to consider him a great patriot, a hero, or a saint when he finally capitulated to reality only as most of the world screamed at him that he was becoming a pariah.

    I posted the above on FB and my friend Howard Schoenfeld replied:

I never disagree with you except today. I met Joe at a UJA retreat in the 80’s. He is a warm, genuine, caring,individual that I have admired since then. Has he made mistakes? You bet but haven’t we all. He has endured terrible tragedy. He has rebounded from defeat. But he is the antithesis of the back slapping insincere politician. Sorry for taking exception friend.

and I surreplied:

I always appreciate and value your thoughts, Howard, and rarely disagree with them. I confess to a long term distrust of JB, probably since 1991 and his handling of the Clarence Thomas hearings as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lindsey Graham has said that if you don't admire JB, you've got a problem and perhaps I do, but I've long been leery of his desire to be liked by everybody, including guys like Lindsey Graham and his fellow Republicans who work to defeat programs and legislation important, or even vital, to so many Americans. I also have a real problem with his long record of making stuff up or confabulating. His famous or infamous gaffes are understandable, not the falsehoods. That said, I acknowledge and respect your disagreement. (And I don't claim that JB doesn't have any fine qualities that earn the admiration of many thoughtful good people like you. I'm just a grudge-bearing curmudgeon.)

Geri's niece Missy commented also and surprised me because I thought I was the only leftie with an abiding distrust of Joe Biden:

I’ve never been a Biden fan (going back as far as the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings)… I will say I’m happy he withdrew as a candidate. It wasn’t a selfless act, far from it. I do think that he needs to retire from public life, and deal with the issues that plague him that can no longer be ignored. Sadly, all the people in his orbit could only see how they benefit from him being President, not what is best for our country- in my opinion .

Can we trust J. D. Vance?  Here's what he said in his acceptance speech in Milwaukee: (1) "We're done catering to Wall Street" whose "barons crashed our economy." (2) "We'll commit to the working man." (3)  "When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good American manufacturing jobs to Mexico."  (4) "When I was a sophomore in high school, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good middle class jobs." (5) "And when I was a senior in high school, Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq." (6)  "It's about grandparents all across this country, who are living on Social Security and raising grandchildren they didn't expect to raise." (7) "We will protect the wages of American workers—union and non-union alike—and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building THEIR middle class on the backs of our hard-working citizens." (8) "We will send our kids to war only when we must."

Hamlet.  I watched the concluding minutes of Olivier's Hamlet.  It was good that so much of the dialogue was understandable despite the Elizabethan language and diction, but there's no question that I missed much, especially when the actors spoke rapidly (despite the closed captions.)

The Old Man and the Sea.  This afternoon, I watched this 1958 movie with Spencer Tracy.  I have seen it before, many years ago.  What interests me today about the film is not Hemingway's machismo stuff, but the idea that Santiago, the fisherman, was old and the suggestion of the owner of the cantina that perhaps he had gone 84 days without catching a fish not because he was unlucky, but because he was too old.  It reminds me of course of the plight of Joe Biden. 

"His shoulders were still powerful, but very old. . . His head was very old though,  and when his eyes closed there was no life in his face." 

"I went out too far, fish.  No good for you, no good for me, fish. . . You violated your luck when you went out too far. . .   I wish I could see the lights of havana.  I wish for too many things. . .  I am sorry I went out too far.  Ruined us boh, fish. 

He unfurled his sail and started to climb. It was then he knew the depths of his tiredness.

It's easy to see Biden as the Old Man and the marlin as his 2nd term.  He obtained his big wish when he drove away all serious competitors and won all the primary elections and delegates, but he went out too far, seeking to hold on to power until age 86.  He wished for too many things like Icarus getting too close to the sun.  Once his vulnerability was discovered at the June 27 debate, the sharks came at his prize catch, and made it unattainable, until he finally knew the depths of his tiredness during his Covid recovery and quit.

Anniversaries thoughts.  First, Irgun, terrorism, and Israeli political leadership.  Irgun was a terrorist organization dedicated to the creation of the State of Israel as the Jewish State.  It was led for a time by Menachem Begin, who would become prime minister of the State of Israel in 1977 as part of the Likud political party, the party of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon.  Irgun perpetrated two notorious atrocities, the bombing of the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946, and the Deir Yassin massacre that killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, carried out together with Lehi, another Israeli terrorist organization, on 9 April 1948.  What is most notable about Irgun's history is (1) that Israel has justified any number of harsh actions against Palestinians on the basis of 'combatting terrorism,' it has a long history of promoting and/or taking advantage of terrorism itself when it suited its purposes, and (2) Israel has elected terrorists as prime minister, notably Begin and Ariel Sharon.

Second, I have nothing to write about Jeffrey Dahmer except to recall my tangential connections to it.  He worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory in downtown Milwaukee.  When the wind was easterly, we would smell the chocolate fragrances in the classrooms at Marquette Law School.  (Stockyard smell from the south, and Red Star yeast smell from the west, depending on the direction of the wind.)  Gerry Boyle, my undergraduate freshman dormitory resident counselor, was Dahmer's lawyer, with help from his daughter and my former student, Bridget Boyle.  Both Gerry and Bridget would later have their law licenses suspended for professional misconduct.  I have occasionally driven past the empty lot on 25th Street where stood the apartment building where Dahmer lived and perpetrated his atrocities.  The lot was owned by Marquette University and was surrounded by a chain link fence.  I wonder if it is still empty or has finally been built upon.