9/18/24

 Wednesday, September 18, 2024

1850 US Congress passed Fugitive Slave Law as part of the Compromise of 1850

1943 Adolf Hitler ordered the deportation of Danish Jews (unsuccessfully)

1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres - Christian militia massacred at least 700 Palestinians

1987 US & USSR signed an accord to remove mid-range missiles

1997 Voters in Wales voted yes (50.3%) in a referendum on Welsh autonomy

2014 Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom in an independence referendum

In bed at 9, awake at 4:09m, and up at 4:25.     

Prednisone, day 127, 7.5 mg., day 6.   Prednisone at 5:10, Breakfast of 2 slices of Dave's Bread, toasted, with blueberry preserves and morning meds at 7:45.     

A modern reminder of Madame Ngô Đình Nhu, the "dragon lady." Madame Nhu in 1963, referring to the self-immolation of Buddhist monks protesting government actions:  "I may shock some by saying 'I would beat such provocateurs ten times more if they wore monks robes,' and 'I would clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show, for one can not be responsible for the madness of others."  Laura Loomer, Trump's girlfriend, in 2024 has cheered the drowning of 2,000 migrants and called for “2,000 more.”  In June she said that Democrats should not just be prosecuted and jailed, but “they should get the death penalty. You know, we actually used to have the punishment for treason in this country.”   The cover of the Saturday Evening Post on September 28, 1963 is interesting.  First, the magazine's newsstand price is only 10 cents, a reminder of the good old days when a dime bought me a national magazine or a full-sized candy bar.  Secondly, I note the headline: 'The Crisis in Vietnam: How We Drifted Into A Mess.'  The reference is to the military coup in Saigon that overthrew the government of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, the 'Dragon Lady's" husband.  Two months later JFK would be assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and less than two years later, the Marines would land at Danang and then at ChuLai, where I would land on July 12, 1965.

And then there is Elon Musk, a multi-billionaire defense contractor who has $15 billion in federal contracts, who posted on X/Twitter, which he owns: "“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”

NYTimes Magazine podcast: Israel's Existential Threat From Within: The Growing Sway of the Far Right Settlers in the West Bank Has Pushed Israeli Politics to a Crisis.  I listened to this podcast featuring Ronen Bergman.  It's almost one hour and 12 minutes long and describes Israel's history with the settler movement from the time of the 1867 Three Day War in which Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.  All of those occupied areas were eventually settled by Israeli Jews although such settlements in militarily occupied lands are against international law.  In the West Bank, the first illegal settlement occurred during the administration of Shimon Peres and Peres was politically afraid to force its evacuation.  This led to more settlements with the settlers' realization that the government either was afraid to oppose it or, in the case of Likud and other right-wing governments, approved of the settlements despite the illegality.  The hope for peace with the Palestinians and with neighboring Arab states culminated in the election of Yitzhak Rabin who led Israel to the Oslo Accords with the PLO and Yasser Arafat.  The hopes for peace were shattered when 25-year-old Egal Amir assassinated Rabin in 1995.  It's been a long coast downhill ever since, culminating in the current genocidal war on Hamas and the Gazan Palestinians.

I have been struck for some time by the unmistakable similarities between Israel and the U.S., seeing  both countries as strongly nationalistic and militaristic with understandings of themselves as 'exceptional' in the sense of not subject to the same rules as other countries,  moving ever rightward in its politics, strongly influenced by right-wing religious minorities opposed to their secular countrymen,  not only opposed to opponents but viewing such opponents as traitors who need to be punished, and basically  'coming apart at the seams.'  I have wondered whether Israel is our "canary in the mineshaft."  What kind of future are the Israelis and the Palestinians facing?  How much depends on the American election on November 5?  Will the Gaza War end with a whimper or a bang?  Will it ever end?  If Trump prevails in November (or December or January, 'by hook or by crook;), what will happen in the U.S.?  In Ukraine and Europe?  in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon?  If Harris prevails, what will her administration propose as a "Palestinian State"?  What will she propose as its borders?  Its government?   What will she propose about the illegal settlements and outposts all over the West Bank, with their Jewish inhabitants numbering more than 500,000?  Will there be an explosion in Israel between now and November 5?

Anniversaries thoughts.  The infamous Compromise delayed but inevitably led to the Civil War.  Dred Scott, Joshua Glover, Underground Railroad, Milton, WI and David Branch.

Hooray for the Danes and their resisting Hitler's demand for Denmark's Jews.  One wonders how this was possible when so many other nations cooperated in gathering and turning over Jews to the Nazi extermination machine.

Memories of the Crusades, Christians killing Muslims.  So much for the beneficent value of Religion.

On Aug. 2, 2019, the United States formally withdrew from the INF Treaty.  The world is heading in the wrong direction.

There is strong minority support for independence in both Wales and Scotland and of course among the Catholic population of Northern Ireland.  I confess to harboring a wish for the United Kingdom to come apart.  My Irish peasant roots in Kilgarvan, County Kerry, account for my antipathy for English hegemony.  England has been a pathetic wreck since the end of WWII, pretending to be a great power but being in fact a paper tiger.  Nonetheless, it continues to spend enormous sums on imperial and royal pageantry, like QEII's funeral and Princess Di's funeral.  All that royalty, nobility, and imperial stuff makes me gag.  Pass the basin, please.

Physical therapy.  I've not done any for the last couple of days.  Fatigue, low spirits.  Today I've done 3 sets of 10 quad lifts with resistance and sit-to-stand.  My quads are too weak to try supine bridges on the floor.

I'm feeling half braindead today, not enjoying being alive.  The feeling of going downhill, losing capacities, functionalities, abilities, physical and mental.

Insomnia at the Solstice by Jane Kenyon.

The quicksilver song 
of the wood thrush spills 
downhill from ancient maples 
at the end of the sun’s single-most 
altruistic day. The woods grow dusky 
while the bird’s song brightens.

Reading to get sleepy . . . Rabbit 
Angstrom knows himself so well, 
why isn’t he a better man? 
I turn out the light, and rejoice 
in the sound of high summer, and in air 
on bare shoulders—dolce, dolce—
no blanket, or even a sheet.
A faint glow remains over the lake.

Now come wordless contemplations 
on love and death, worry about 
money, and the resolve to have the vet 
clean the dog’s teeth, though 
he’ll have to anesthetize him.

An easy rain begins, drips off 
the edge of the roof, onto the tin 
watering can. A vast irritation rises. . . .
I turn and turn, try one pillow, 
two, think of people who have no beds.

A car hisses by on wet macadam. 
Then another. The room 
turns gray by insensible degrees. The thrush 
begins again its outpouring of silver
to rich and poor alike, to the just 
and the unjust.

The dog’s wet nose appears 
on the pillow, pressing lightly, 
decorously. He needs to go out. 
All right, cleverhead, let’s declare a new day.
Washing up, I say 
to the face in the mirror, 
“You’re still here! How you bored me 
all night, and now I’ll have 
to entertain you all day. . . .”