Tuesday, September 10, 2024

1943 German troops occupied Rome and took over the protection of Vatican City

1984 First episode of the daily TV game show "Jeopardy!" with Alex Trebek as host

1991 US Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on Clarence Thomas' nomination to the US Supreme Court

In bed at 9:15, awake at 3:30, 3 sets of 10 suprine bridge reps at 4:00, up and out at 4:10 to let Lilly out.  At 5:45, I did 3 sets of 10 knee extensions with resistance and 1 set of 10 sit-to-stand,  I did another 10 reps of sit-to-stand in the bedroom at 9 a.m. and a supine bridge and knee extension at 3 p.m., holding off on the sit-to-stand, which is very difficult for me.

Prednisone, day 26, 10 mg., day 26/28.  Prednisone at 5 a.m.  Will this be my last 10 mg. dose?  I should get a call from Dr. Ryzka this afternoon with the results of yesterday's blood draw, i.e., the level of inflammation 'markers', and hopefully instructions to reduce my daily dose to 7.5 mg.  Morning meds at 6:00.  Two slices of buttered Dave's Bread at 6:30.  . .  I got the call from Dr. Ryzka at 4 p.m., the inflammation markers were both good, sed rate and c-reactive protein.

"Uncle Bob"  Every so often, including yesterday, I receive a notification from Academia.com that someone has read my 1997 introductory speech to the initial Robert F. Boden Lecture at the law school, or a law review 'recent decision' I wrote as a law student in 1969, or one of my articles on Wisconsin's adoption of the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the proposed political and election campaign ethics rules for judges. (The faculty photo above is how I looked in my 'salad days.') Often the names of the readers suggest that they may reside in another country and I sometimes wonder why they are reading these articles now in the 2020s, especially the "Uncle Bob" memorial which was so personal and non-legal.  Boden died at age 55 in 1984, 40 years ago.  He spent almost his entire life in Milwaukee and Waukesha, Wisconsin, and never left the U.S.  He was a train-lover and never flew in an aircraft.  The entire basement of his ranch house in Waukesha, except for one corner where there was a washing machine and a dryer, was filled with his model train sets laid out on replicas of the Wisconsin cities and towns through which the various trains ran, the Milwaukee Road, the Chicago, Northwestern, the Soo Line, etc.  I wonder why anyone is still referring to this old speech of mine.

Holy Week.  I listened to episode 4 while tidying up the kitchen and doing my PT exercises.  Informative interviews of participants in the sanitation workers strike in Memphis and of the financial and public acceptance challenges the SCLC was going through at the time of MLK's murder.  Part of episode 5 of the podcast addresses the Kerner Commission Report that "White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II . . . What white Americans have never fully understood--but what the Black can never forget, is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."  The Report was published only 5 weeks before the assassination of MLK and warned: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."  One wonders how much progress we have made as a nation in the 57 years since the issuance of that warning.

Each of the episodes of the Holy Week podcasts reminds me of what a violent period of American history the mid and late 1960s was, from the assassinations of Medgar Evers and JFK in 1963, and of MLK, and RFK in 1968, up to the Kent State and Jackson State shootings and Sterling Hall bombing in 1970, with literally hundreds of 'race riots' or 'uprisings' (pick your term) throughout the decade and throughout the country, it was a violent era, with the Vietnam War and incidents of police violence always in the background.  It was a period of intense polarization, children against parents, co-workers against co-workers, spouses against spouses, and friends against friends.  The period invites comparisons with our current era, but for me, the comparison is invidious in that the current era appears to be less hopeful, and less honest, than the 60s.  On the other hand, I know that comparisons are always iffy or subject to error.  Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken" and Reinhold Niebuhr: "We must see the error in our own truth, and the truth in our opponent's error." From a Leftist's point of view, the Johnson and even Nixon eras brought much progress despite the Vietnam and civil rights challenges.  Furthermore, despite their failings, neither LBJ nor RMN was as dangerous as Donald Trump; their followers were not as delusional as the diehard MAGA crowd.  'Social media' in those days was radio, network television, newspapers and magazines. 'Silo-ing' occurred, but not as it does today on X/Twitter, Facebook, etc., with the aid of algorithms.  We are 8 weeks away from the national elections and virtually all the polls show a neck-and-neck race between Harris and Trump.  This is to say, knowing all that is known of character and political propensities, half of the American electorate still wants to put him in charge of the federal government and to make him commander-in-chief of the largest armed forces in the world.  What does this say about us as a nation, a culture and society, a people?  Let's not forget that we put George W. Bush back in the White House in 2004 fully knowing how he tragically misled us into Iraq in 2003, chasing nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.  As Moses is supposed to have said to God "What shall I do with this people?" (Ex. 17:4)  God had Moses perform a miracle, drawing water from a rock, to get him out of a jam with his people.  How likely is it that we will see another miracle on November 4th?  Is it more likely that Oriana Fallaci will prove correct: "No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it's always the strongest, the cruelest, the least generous who win."

Cold Turkey.  Today is the 11th day of watching no network or cable news programming.  I intend to watch the Harris/Trump debate tonight, not with any notion that my vote may be affected by it, but because of historical interest and to see whether the debate may have an effect on the votes of the few undecided voters who are said to exist in America, hard as that is to understand.

Anniversaries thoughts.  On October 18, 1943, the German occupiers of Italy deported 1,035 Jews from Rome. The sweep was part of their drive to exterminate the Jews of Italy too, after the Fascist regime headed by Benito Mussolini "failed" to do the job for them.  The Italians were never as anti-semitic as the Germans and Eastern Europeans; they resisted Nazi demand to exterminate the Jews.  I remember standing on a sidewalk on the road abutting the Tiber River, looking at a plaque commemorating the spot where the Jews who had been rounded up were kept until they were transported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps.  I looked over my left shoulder, across the river, and saw the Synagogue of Rome.  I looked over my right shoulder and saw one of the portals into Vatican City.  Each was within sight of the other, a chilling closeness.

Anne was a contestant on Jeopardy during my last year in the Marine Corps when we lived in Doylestown, PA.  She had to pass a qualifying exam of some sort, I can't remember the particulars. and once she did so, she was given a date to show for the taping.  We took a train from Philadelphia to New York City and she came in second, winning $500, which we thought would cover my first semester's tuition at the law school, where I was headed.  In those early years of Jeopardy, Art Fleming was the host and Don Pardo the announcer.  I sat in the audience and remember Don Pardo telling the audience to keep saying "spaghetti, spaghetti" at the beginning of the taping of the show as if we were all talking.  It was an exciting experience and I was (and am) very proud of Anne for qualifying for the show and almost winning.  My best recollection is that she could have won if she had bet more on the "Final Jeopardy" question, but she didn't want to risk her winnings since we were living on Marine Corps compensation in those days.  The Final Jeopardy answer was "cave canem" and the correct question was what is 'beware of the dog', which Anne answered (or questioned) correctly.  My memory of that day so many years ago is fuzzy at best.

Ah, the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings.  For the last 33 years,  I've held a grudge against Joe Biden for the way he chaired those hearings.  It was more important for him to keep the peace with his Republican buddies on the committee, Arlen Spector and Orrin Hatch among others, than to do right my Anita Hill, whom he threw under their bus.  Shame on him.

Q: What is the worst pharmacy in Milwaukee? A  The Walgreen;s on Port Road south of Brown Deer.

We watched the Big Debate tonight.   My thought is that Trump didn't help himself with the crucial undecided voters and probably Harris did, but who knows.  I need to sleep on this.