Friday, July 5, 2024
1937, Spam is first introduced by the Hormel Foods Corporation
2017, 101 people were shot, 15 were killed in Chicago over the 4th of July weekend
Lights out around 10 p.m., and up at 3 a.m. At 3:20, I let Lilly out into another rainy, warm morning, 0.15" in the last 24 hours with another 0.4" expected in the next 24. I wonder how all the rain this Spring and Summer affects the local farm crops. I need a ride in the country. I let Lilly out again at 5:30, with more rain, and then again at 7:30, with no rain. 2nd rainiest & 2nd warmest start to a year on record!
One year ago today: Welcome Rain. " I woke up from a midday nap to the sound of thunder in the sky and rain on our roof. A real downpour at last. It is such good news for our distressed trees and other growing plants after such a long dry early summer. I'm hoping this will save some crops in the thousands of acres of farm fields all around us. It is also announcing the arrival of a cold front pushing out the very warm, humid days we have been having over the holiday weekend. "
Prednisone, day 54, 15 mg., day 18. I took my pills at 4:30, and breakfast of CBH & eggs at 5. I nodded off at some point and woke up at 7:15. Morning meds at 9 a.m., 1 hour BP = 123/76. Trulicity injection at 10:39, 1.5 mg.
The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air. I don't like fireworks. I don't like firecrackers. They are intended to remind me of 'the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air' in the battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. They remind me of Vietnam, Iwo Jima, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, 'shock and awe,' Ukraine, and Gaza. Men slaughtering other men, in great numbers, industrial, semi-organized and semi-managed savagery. Every 3rd and 4th of July, I listen to fireworks being ignited in area parks and by neighbors and I wonder why they do it. I know children get a kick out of them and I can understand that, but I wonder about adults lighting off strings of firecrackers. Of course, they tend to upset Lilly and the other dogs in the neighborhood. I'm with the dogs, enough already. Grow up.
There was only one night we came under hostile fire at the airbase in Danang when I was there and I don't remember whether I saw or even heard the incoming explosives. I remember I had an early watch at the TACC which left me free to get polluted at the Officers Club that evening. I remember the sirens screaming, running from my tent with my .45 caliber pistol and my steel helmet to the TACC which was our 'battle station,' being afraid that I would be shot by another nervous or drunk Marine, "friendly fire," not by a VC. But I also remember hearing each night the self-propelled, 8-inch howitzers down the road from our tents, firing off "H & I rounds," harassment and interdiction fire intended to disturb the enemies but succeeding in disturbing us Marines. We were told it was H&I fire, but the only munition fired by the 8-inch howitzers in Vietnam were cluster rounds, releasing 104 "bomblets," a weapon banned by more than 100 countries, but not the U.S. These were the munitions sent by Joe Biden to Ukraine last year, despite objections from some NATO allies. In any case, I had enough fireworks in Vietnam and experience no pleasure in being reminded of them every 4th of July. Bah, humbug.
Anniversary thoughts. First, more memories of Vietnam. Every 3rd night, we drew the long mid-watch at the TACC, from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. the following morning. At some time during those long nights, a Marine would show up from the mess hall with a couple bags of Spam sandwiches with mustard. The grease from the Spam would leach through the brown paper bags creating quite an unappetizing presentation. It didn't take long to develop an aversion to Spam though I can't remember whether I stopped eating them in the middle of those long, long nights.
Second, the 2017 bloodletting in Chicago also reminds me of Vietnam and reading the hometown newspapers that were sent to various of us by family members, reading stories of so-called race riots, protests against what we were doing in Vietnam, and urban gun violence. It produced some cognitive dissonance. While we were 8,000 miles from home dropping cluster munitions, napalm, white phosphorous, and Agent Orange on the Vietnamese whose choice of government we disagreed with, America was A Clockwork Orange.
More Biden mangled thoughts yesterday. During a radio interview:
“By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman… to serve with a Black president . . . Proud to be involved of the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. There’s so much that we can do because, look... we’re the United States of America.”
On Wednesday, he had joked with visiting Democratic governors that his health was fine (as he made the motion of knocking on wood,) "it's just my brain." But he is right about both (1) the need for good luck with the continuation of his good bodily health at age 81, and (2) about his brain which already has endured two surgeries for aneurysms years ago and which has caused his stutter and his frequent inability to speak clearly.
The president of the Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
Vatican excommunicates Archbishop Viganò for refusing to recognize Pope Francis. "The Vatican on Friday excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, exacting a severe punishment on the most vociferous internal critic of Pope Francis for refusing to recognize the authority of the pope and liberal reforms made by the Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Such drastic steps are exceedingly rare in the church and illustrated the extent to which Viganò — the Vatican’s former ambassador to the United States — is perceived to have crossed a line. He has called on the pope to resign and excoriated him in harsh terms, including calling him “a servant of Satan.”
Biden has his schismatics, Francis has his.
Stephanopoulos interview of Biden. An exercise in denial, Biden's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality. What does he deny? His persistent low approval and high disapproval ratings. The polls showing him losing the popular vote to Trump. The polls showing him behind in battleground states. His decline over the last 3 and 1/2 years. Blue states turning purple. Likelihood of losing the House and the Senate.
Did you watch a rerun of the debate? Ans: "I don't think I did."
"I'm still in good shape."
How will you feel if you stay in the race and Trump wins? OK if I did my best, gave it my all.
The Oven Bird
Spring and Fall
to a young child
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