8/4/24

 Sunday, August 4, 2024

1919 Rodin Museum opened in Paris containing works left to the state by the sculptor Auguste Rodin

1925 US Marines left Nicaragua after a 13-year occupation

In bed at 9, awake at 2, and up and out at 2:15.  Lilly showed up around 3 to be let out.  She stood on the stoop and then the sidewalk for quite a long time before stepping onto the south lawn to relieve herself (or not?).  She constantly looks back through the storm door to see that I am still waiting there, just as she used to frequently look back when she would get ahead of us at the dog park, always maintaining eye contact with us.  She is losing more control over her hind legs when she is standing without moving.  They collapse under her until she decides to move, at which time they become functional, allowing her to walk and run normally.  I dozed off at some point and I woke up, or Lilly woke me up with her heavy breathing and staring to be let out, at 6:40.  Glucose has been holding steady at about 143 since my drumstick and Dave's Bread breakfast - no surge. . . . I dozed off again at some point and woke up at 10:45.

Prednisone, day 84, 15 mg., day 6/14.  I took the 15 mg. at 4:30, followed by a chicken leg and a piece of bread.  

The Zionist Wars, Herzl's War, or The Second Hundred Years War.  The world teeters on the brink of a major conflagration in the Middle East between Iran and its Muslim proxies and Israel and its Christian patron, the United States.  One-third of the world's oil supply comes from this region.   Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar belong to the world’s top suppliers of fossil fuel.  Almost half a billion people live in the Middle East: Egypt with 100M,  Iran with 83M, Turkey with 80M, Iraq with 37M, Saudi Arabia with 28M,  and Yemen with 27M,  Lebanon and Israel are among the least populated nations, Lebanon with about 6M people and Israel's population depending on who gets counted.  According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, the country's population is 9.9M, but . . . (from Wikipedia) "The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics ("CBS") definition of the Area of the State of Israel:  includes East Jerusalem since 1967, which Israel unilaterally annexed;  includes the Golan Heights since 1982, which Israel unilaterally annexed; and excludes the West Bank other than East Jerusalem.  The CBS' definition of the Population of Israel, however: includes non-Israeli Palestinians (as well as Israeli Arabs/Palestinians) in East Jerusalem who have permission to live there; including Israeli settlers and others with Israeli residency permits living in Area C of West Bank; excludes Palestinian/Arab/other residents of Area C and East Jerusalem who do not have Israeli citizenship or residence; and excludes persons who are not registered (from 2008 on) and/or entered illegally, and foreign workers.  The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics defines the population of Israel as including Jews living in all of the West Bank and Palestinians in East Jerusalem but excluding Palestinians anywhere in the rest of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and foreign workers anywhere in Israel.  How many Arab Palestinians live under Israeli occupation depends on where the Arabs live and who is doing the counting, but the number appears to be at least 5M.  Israel's population consists of about 1/10th of 1% of the world's population but for the last 100 years or so, it has contributed mightily to the world's troubles because of Zionism.  Thus I wonder whether we ought to consider this current crisis, or these current crises, as the Zion Wars, Theodor Herzl's Wars, or the Second Hundred Years War, and not as just the October 7th war in Gaza, following, e.,g. the 2014 war in Gaza, the 1st and 2nd intifadas, the 1982 Lebanon war, the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1948  War of Independence.

The 'original' Hundred Years War lasted about 116 years, from 1337 to about 1453.  It was fought between powerful dynasties in England and France, all claiming the right to the French throne.  It was grounded in a form of medieval nationalism and greed, a lust for power and riches.  My proposed Second Hundred Years War started after the British conquered Ottoman Palestine in 1917, issued the Balfour Declaration, and encouraged Jews to move there.  Arab violent resistance was almost immediate and the resistance continues to this day.  The Second Hundred Years War is may well be longer and more deadly than the First Hundred Years War, but, who knows?, perhaps we are on the verge of a cataclysm, perhaps nuclear, that will bring it to a close, one way or another.  Netanyahu perhaps believes the cataclysm will produce an irredentist Eretz Yisrael, from the Euphrates to the Nile and from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.  Many Palestinians believe it will finally result in the destruction of Israel as a Jewish State, already badly fractured and weakened, and the return of the Muslim, Arab, Palestinians to their Holy Land.

Anniversaries thoughts.  Rodin Museum, pleasant memories of our last visit to Paris,  

Occupation of Nicaragua - "War is a Racket", Smedley Butler.

Feeling low today, brain fogged.  Unable to think clearly, or write.