Saturday, October 12, 2024
1492 Christopher Columbus's expedition made landfall on a Caribbean island he named San Salvador (likely Watling Island, Bahamas). The explorer believed he had reached East Asia
1972 46 sailors were injured in a race riot on the American aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk
1977 US Supreme Court heard arguments in the "reverse discrimination" case of Allan Bakke, a white student denied admission to the University of California Med School
In bed around 10 and up at 5:17. Let Lilly out at 5:30. I dozed off at some time after 8 and woke up at almost 10 to find Geri awake and on the sofa.
Prednisone, day 151, 5 mg., day 2/28. Prednisone at 5:35. I have tenderness/soreness in my left shoulder again this morning. Cottage cheese w/raspberries at 7:15, Morning meds at 7:50.
Six Weeks w/o network and cable news except for BBC America and PBS NewsHour. I occasionally check in on Morning Joe despite my non-fandom for Joe, Mika, Willy, the Rev, and some other regulars. I very occasionally watch Lawrence O'Donnell and sometimes watch Rachel Maddow's weekly program, but generally I've substantially reduced the number of hours wasted on televised news programming.
From the kishkes. Maureen Dowd's weekly column includes this comment on Kamala Harris's campaigning style: "She does her homework but her delivery seems more scripted than from the kishkes. Even though it can get weird and duplicitous, Trump is better at riffing." That's how I feel about the world's and especially the mainstream media's treatment of this entire presidential election. Despite regular statements that the election is 'existential' in terms of traditional American democracy, most of the network coverage of the Trump threat lacks what the headline to Dowd's essay calls 'the fierce urgency of beating Trump.' MSNBC is an exception of course but outside of MSNBC, one would never guess that America stands on the edge of an abyss not simply of autocracy, but of malignant, misanthropic, misogynistic, vengeance-seeking autocracy. Voting is already underway and with three weeks left until November 5th, with every somewhat credible poll showing that Trump is as likely to win the election as Harris is, with Republicans already 'flooding the zone' with election-related lawsuits, the world goes on as if this were the election between a Jimmy Carter and a Jerry Ford. I'm terrified, not for myself, but for our children, grandchildren, and all the other innocents who would/will be affected by a second Trump presidency.
Musée des Beaux Arts
By W. H. Auden
December 1938
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Anniversaries. Christopher Columbus made four voyages to the New World including Antilles, Venezuela and Central America. He served as Governor in Hispaniola but was later dismissed on charges of tyranny for his harsh rule. When he returned to Spain he was imprisoned but later released by King Ferdinand, after which he completed his fourth and final voyage. His discoveries and expeditions led to a period of exploration by European nations and directly to the founding of European colonies in the Americas, forming the modern Western world. His legacy as an administrator is controversial, especially his role in promoting slavery, destroying the Taino people and harsh punishments toward Spanish colonists. Columbus Day is also Indigenous Peoples Day, but for the Indigenous people of the Americas, Columbus's arrival was a Nakba, a catastrophe. White Supremacy led to their oppression and enslavement and near extinction. Some Italian-Americans celebrate Columbus Day the way Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but Columbus personally doesn't seem to be worthy of much honor..
The so-called "race riot" aboard the Kitty Hawk involved Marines as well as sailors. I included this incident in my anniversary list because it reminded me that the racial tension being experienced in the United States during the Vietnam War was also being experienced in the nation's military and naval forces engaged in the war. I wasn't aware of it when I was stationed in Vietnam for a simple reason: there were few Blacks in the Marine Corps in those days becasue the Marines had not started accepting draftees and it was the Vietnam draft (before the lottery system) that resulted in a disproportionate number of Blacks being conscripted. I may be wrong about when the Marines started relying on draftees; I can't find the answer on the internet but I don't recall many Black Marines at the 3rd Marine Air Wing Headquarters where I was stationed. That may be because draftees were much more likely to be assigned to infantry units that to air wing units. Moreover, the Marine Corps had a long history of discrimination against Blacks, second only to the Navy's. I wrote in my memoir of my friendship at Willow Grove, PA, with Major Frank Peterson, who became the first Black general in the Marine Corps. He was the only Black Marine officer that I met during my fourt years in the Corps.
I don't have the time or energy to write about the Bakke decision and my experiences with affirmative action at MULS other than to say that it was mostly bad. In 2023, the Trump/Roberts Court, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, reversed its former position, holding that considering race in college admissions violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ellis is visiting with us overnight. David and Sharon's wedding anniversary was last week when David was out of state on a work trip. Geri offered to take Ellis overnight tonight so D&S could go out and celebrate their anniversary tonight. She is 10 years old now and still a delight.
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