8/29/24

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Geri's second knee surgery

In bed around 9 and up and about at 5:40!😊  Let Lilly out around 6:15 as a doe and 2 fawns crossed the Pandl's property across the street, causing Lilly to give her half-hearted warning barks.  Woof, woof which caused the 3 deer to stop in their tracks, look at Lilly, and calmly walk on.  Life in a wildlife sanctuary.

Prednisone, day 109, qo mg., day 14/28.   I took the prednisone at 6:15 and applied diclofenac at 6:45.  Morning meds at 7:50.

Geri's second knee surgery appears to have gone well.  We picked up some meds at Walgreen's on the way home from the Orthopedic Hospital and she's resting in bed with her knee elevated on pillows and under an ice pack, having a toasted peanut butter sandwich for dinner.

'Captain Bone Spurs' at Arlington.  He's done it again.  He visited Arlington National Cemetery at the invitation of the family of a Marine who is buried there and used the occasion to film a campaign video and photos at the gravesite.  This violates federal regulations against campaign and political activities at national cemeteries.  When a female staff member tried to enforce the rule, Trump's campaign workers pushed her aside and did the filming despite the regulation.  The staff member filed an "incident report" but declined to press charges because, she said, of fears of retribution by Trump supporters.  In response, the Trump campaign spokesman smeared her as "clearly suffering from a mental health episode" and "a despicable person."  On Wednesday, Representative Mikie Sherrill, Democrat of New Jersey and a former Navy helicopter pilot, called Mr. Trump’s actions in Arlington “an absolute disgrace.” Representative Jake Auchincloss, Democrat of Massachusetts and a former Marine went further, writing on social media that they were “part of a pattern” and that Mr. Trump was “a draft-dodger who called American war dead ‘suckers & losers’, attacked a Gold Star family & POW, & wants to cut veterans’ benefits.”  It amazes me that any military person, veteran, or family of a service person or veteran can support this guy. considering his long history of disrespect for those who served, including John McCain and the Marines who died at Belleau Wood.  I have a certain reverence for military cemeteries and I have never been entirely sure why that is.  It's why I drive through Wood National Cemetery on my way to the VA Medical Center.  I've written about this special feeling several times in this journal, usually wondering why I am so moved by the row after orderly row of headstones marking so many dead soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.  Seeing Donald Trump standing among so many headstones at Arlington makes me want to puke.  Pass the basin, please.

Kamala Harris for the people or Choose Freedom.  Which is the better campaign slogan?  Is this even a close question?  What does "chose freedom" mean, denotatively or connotatively, explicitly or implicitly? With respect to one big issue, abortion or reproductive rights, the meaning seems clear enough, but what does it mean about any other big issue?  Immigration, inflation, the economy?  The slogan leaves me cold.  Indeed it's the same idea promoted by the Trumpies, i.e., that Trump and the MAGA bunch are the promoters of freedom, from an oppressive government, from 'the deep state,' from high taxes and burdensome regulations, from the administrative state, from oppression and discrimination against Whites  and Christians, etc.  Why in the world would anyone pick "Choose Freedom" as a slogan?  On the other hand, the lines in her acceptance speech at the DNC in Chicago, "Kamala Harris for the people" suggest defending the ordinary people against the rich and powerful, the oligarchs and plutocrats, the Donald Trumps and Elon Musks of the world.  They have a particular resonance with her background as a prosecutor in court, both as DA in San Francisco and as Attorney General for California.  They also suggest democracy rather than autocracy, the people vs. dictatorship or autocracy, a very big issue in this election.  

Fintan O'Toole on PBS Frontline re Biden.  Biden was considered a bit of a joke during the first years of Obama's presidency.  "Uncle Joe," a bit of a gasbag, a gaffemeister. long-winded.  "He does think of himself as a person of destiny, and the way in which he expressed that politically which was, what do I say if I'm a person who's going to change America, if I'm going to be a historic person?  I don't think he ever worked out what does a person of destiny sound like.  Obama knew what a person of destiny sounded like.  Whether you like Obama or didn't like Obama, there's a rhetoric; there's a grandeur which is historically rooted in classical speech, in biblical speech.  It has a high standing to it.  And Biden has always struggled to find a rhetoric or language which matches his sense of himself.  And this is where you get the long-windedness, the gaffe-prone Joe, because what is he actually expressing?  "I'm a really nice guy and you should like me and here's a few things I'd like to say.  So his speech is almost pitched at the level of a parish.  The priest gets to talk at length because nobody can interrrupt him up there on the pulpit. . .  but Biden has this rhetorical problem and its not accidental that he gets disrepected in an administration whose great strength is the rhetorical power of its leader. . . 

The only way to deal with the age issue is to be up front about i- stop the thing of trying to run when can't walk, as it were, trying to enact some sense that "I'm really not as old as I look."  Yes you are and that's who you are. . .  One way or the other, America is going to have a president in his 80s**. . . It also has consequences for how Americans see themselves. . l There's a great deal of generational resentment in America, because the American Dream has stopped.  The American Dream was this intergenerational machine where my kids' lives are going be a bit better than mine, and I have that expectation, and their kids' lives are going to be better than theirs. . . but that's stopped.  That is not what's happening in America right now.  You have a generation of people who are poorer than their parents, whose expectations are lower than their parents'.  And that's a very profound thing to have happen in America.  It's of historic consequence.

He looks like an elderly man because that's what he is.  There's nothing shameful about that.  That's just life. . . When you're towards the end of that human life cycle, everybody knows what the destination is. . . This election is one of the most important in American history.  It really matters very profoundly to America and to the world who's going to get elected.  With the stakes so high, it means that Biden is putting an enormous bet on his own instrincts for survival.  He sees himself as someone who comes through immense challenges.  And that's true, right? . . . Oddly, because havng been so vulverable of invulnerability- 'I've dealth with these things,; I know I can stand it, and and I know I can come out the other side.'  And the question for America is, has that led him into a certain kind of delusion? 

** The interview was taped before Biden withdrew from the presidential contest.