11/30/24

 Saturday, November 30, 2024

D+25

1891 Pope Leo XIII's encyclical "Rerum Novarum" was published

1922 Adolf Hitler spoke to 50,000 national socialists in Munich

1938 Germany banned Jews from being lawyers

1967 Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) announced he would run for the presidency on an anti-Vietnam war platform

1998 Deutsche Bank announced a $10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world

1999 In Seattle, protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters forced the cancellation of opening ceremonies

2020 Los Angeles County began a three-week stay-at-home order for 10 million people to combat COVID-19 surge

In bed at 9:15, awake, and up at 3:15.  The outdoor temperature is 17° and wind chill = 0°. I'm doing a load of laundry around 4 because of a leaking situation last night. (???)  Lilly showed up at 6:30 and went out into the 16°/-1 wind chill morning with snow flurries.  She didn't waste any time outside.  By 8:30, she has been out 3 times and still she stands in front of me, asking for what?  To be let outside or for a treat?  Her rump and hind legs collapse as she stands there, having to consciously cause them to stand erect.  When will it be time to have her "put down" or "put to sleep," such anodyne euphemisms for having her killed.  I think Geri has thought it's been time for a few weeks, but I hesitate.  I say that she doesn't seem to be in pain but Geri raises her pacing and apparent confusion and of course her drooping butt and hind legs and her deafness.  No easy answer to this unwelcome challenge.  [Blogger formatting glitch again.  Rats!)

Prednisone, day 200, 7.5 mg., day 15.   Prednisone at 5:05.  Both shoulders sore, seeing Dr. Cheng at the VA PM&R clinic on Wednesday.  Meds around 11 a.m.

Christine A. Klaer Obituary

Christine A. Klaer, nee Cummings, age 83, beloved wife of the late James O.; loving mother of John F. (Joan) Klaer, Michael D. Klaer, and Colleen A. (Alex) Nitchoff; cherished grandmother of Lauren N. Nitchoff, Conor J. (Rebecca) Nitchoff, Jordan A. (Samantha) Nitchoff, Olivia A. Nitchoff, John N. Klaer, Jason M. Klaer, and Josephine R. Klaer; great-grandmother of Jesse J. Carrizales, and Jameson C. Carrizales; dear sister of James D. (Nora) Cummings, Douglas M. Cummings; caring sister-in-law of the late Nancy Cummings; caring aunt to nieces and nephews. Funeral Wednesday, 9:15 a.m. from Modell Funeral Home, 7710 S. Cass Avenue, Darien to Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, Mass 10:00 a.m. Int. Private. Visitation Tuesday from 3 to 8 p.m. for info. 630-852-3595 or www.modelldarien.com

How inadequate an obituary is as a description of a life.  Most of my memories are of Christine as a girl, almost my age, my only girl cousin, and a friend.  She was vivacious as a girl and stayed vivacious as a woman, even after being widowed at a young age when he husband Jim died leaving her with Johnny, Michael, and Colleen to raise on her own.  I remember when we were teenagers we went on a 'date' of sorts, taking the CTA buses (and "L" ?) downtown to see "No Time for Sergeants" starring Andy Griffith on stage.  We grew up together along with her brothers Jim and Doug and my sister Kitty.  She suffered grievously from bad relations with her daughter-in-law and was a rock of support for her younger brother Doug with his challenges.  I remember Chris coming up to Saukville to visit my Dad when he left Florida to live with Geri and me in the warmer months and with Kitty and Jim during Wisconsin's colder months.  They stayed so long chatting we all feared they were planning on staying overnight.  Mostly I remember her brave, committed, and upbeat attitude when she was widowed so young with her three young children.  Quite a woman.  Quite a hero and we get no sense of that from her obit.

Factoids:  Of the 9 justices on the U. S Supreme Court, all but Amy Conant Barrett graduated from either Harvard Law or Yale Law.  Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law which has become a favorite hunting ground  and speaking place for the Corurt's conservative justices, as described in an article by Anne Marimow in the November 28th WaPo, "Notre Dame is a pipeline for Supreme Court clerks, a magnet for justices."

The school ranks fourth, behind the University of Chicago, Yale and Stanford, for clerkships at all levels of the federal judiciary, according to American Bar Association statistics for 2023. Between 2017 and 2021, the school was tied for fifth in the nation for Supreme Court clerkships, according to the most recent analysis by University of Chicago Law Professor Brian Leiter.

Every law school vies for visits from Supreme Court justices, but there, too, Notre Dame is doing better than most. During a single month in 2021, three justices were on campus. Barrett taught a one-week seminar on statutory interpretation. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. each gave lectures.

Sportscaster Dick Vitale, left, and Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh pose together after meeting in the Morris Inn restaurant on Sept. 28. (Courtesy of Dick Vitale)

The next year, the law school paid for Alito’s five-day trip to Rome to participate in a summit sponsored by Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative and Religious Liberty Clinic, according to the justice’s financial disclosure report. There, Alito made his first public comments following the decision he wrote to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion, responding sarcastically to criticism from foreign officials. 

. .. .

Of the 52 full-time law school faculty, 14 have clerked for Supreme Court justices — all nominated by Republican presidents. Two recent hires, Sherif Girgis and Haley Proctor, clerked for Alito and Thomas, respectively. Three faculty filed briefs in support of overturning Roe v. Wade when the Supreme Court heard the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

And all of the school’s graduates with experience clerking at the court also have worked for GOP nominees. 

Church of the Gesu to close for about a year for $10 million improvements.   It was a similar expenditure at Gesu many years ago that led me to start attending St. Francis of Assisi.  “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”  The man walked away sorrowful, because he had much wealth.. Jesus then says his famous: “Truly I say to you that with difficulty a rich person will enter into the kingdom of heaven! And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19)

LTMW I see a pair of goldfinches parked on the niger tube taking in their fill of niger seeds.  Out the kitchen window over the sink, I see a large doe nibbling on berries fallen from the trees along County Line.  Looking out the window over our clothes dryer, I see voluminous steam coming from the dryer as its heat vaporizes the water in the wet clothing inside and the frigid air condenses it over the exhaust.  It looks like the house is on fire.  While the goldfinches seem to be semi-permanently stationed on the niger tube, chickadees show up to nab some sunflower and safflower seeds or some suet cake, dash in, dash out.  How do the birds deer and other animals function and survive in this cold weather, and in the colder weather ahead?  I've read the scientific, biological explanations, feathers, and fur, etc., but still, I wonder - how can they do it?   

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."  Matthew 6:25-34.

Ten million dollars to fix up the church.   The man walked away, sorrowful, for he had much wealth.

Some anniversaries thoughts.  1891: I suspect that Rerum Novarum is the most renowned encyclical from the Vatican,  It laid out what became Catholic social teaching, especially about the relationship between capital and labor.  It was followed by Quadragesimo Anno from Pius XI, Mater et Magistra by John XXIII, and Centessimus annus by John Paul II.  I remember studying Rerum and Quadragesimo in Father Lasance's Theology class on Catholic Social Teaching.

1922: Hitler addresses his big rally in Munich.  No one in power or in the German Establishment took him seriously.  Ten years later, he was calling the shots

1967 was the year of "Get clean for Gene" when draft-age folks strove to persuade older folks to vote for McCarthy over LBJ and then HHH and RMN.  Johnson withdrew from the 1968 race when he was advised by a trusted aide that he was going to lose the April primary election in Wisconsin.

1998 was when Deutsche Bank became the world's largest.  Quaere also the most criminal?  Look at its record.

1999 and the demonstrations against the WTO, part of the reign of neoliberalism and globalization and the shipping of American workers' jobs to Mexico, Guatemala, China, Vietnam, Ireland, and any place where corporate capitalists could find a competent and cheaper workforce.  Cities like Milwaukee got screwed but corporations, their executives and shareholders made out.  USA, USA, USA!!!!

2020 and the lockdown orders.  We thought they were just an attempt to keep people like Geri and me and millions of other geezers alive.  It turned out to be a socialist, Marxist assault on personal liberty and played a significant role in getting Trump a second term in the White House. 

11/29/24

 Friday, November 29, 2024

D+24

1947 Anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo erupted after UN votes to partition Palestine, with the cost of 75 lives and the disappearance of the medieval manuscript the Aleppo Codex

1948 Puppet TV show "Kukla, Fran, & Ollie" starring Fran Allison debuted on NBC's WNBQ in Chicago, Illinois

1961 Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion CIA Director Allen Dulles resigned and was replaced by John McCone

1961 Freedom Riders were attacked by a white mob at a bus station in Mississippi

1963  LBJ set up the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of t JFK

1964, The Roman Catholic Church in the US replaced Latin with English

1967 Robert McNamara was elected president of the World Bank

2019 Wood fragment believed to be from Jesus'manger was returned to Bethlehem after 1400 years by Pope Francis

In bed around 9:30, up with a LOW GLUCOSE ALARM (68) at 2:45, remedied by a cough drop, up for good at 5:35l.  Outdoor temperature is 21°, wind chill 2°, expected high of 27°  

Prednisone, day 199, 7.5 mg., day 15.  Prednisone at 6 a.m.  Both shoulders are sore, the right one sorer.   

Geri got home around 8:15 yesterdaywith Steve and Nikki and a leftover pumpkin pie (!) from David's dinner.  We schmoozed for an hour or so and then everybody went to bed, stuffed with Thanksgiving dinners.  Today, they put up the Christmas tree and OMG, t'is the season already!

Thank you letter to the VA.  Today I drove to the post office, bought a book of stamps,  and mailed the thank you letter I drafted some time ago but only signed yesterday

 

November 28, 2024

Thanksgiving Day

James D. McLain         Andreea Anton, M.D.

Executive Director        Chief of Staff

VA Milwaukee Medical Health Care VA Milwaukee Medical Health Care

Zablocki VA Medical Center Zablocki VA Medical Center

5000 West National Avenue 5000 West National Avenue

Milwaukee, WI 53295-1000 Milwaukee, WI 53295-1000

 

Dear Director McLain and Dr. Anton:

I have been receiving medical care from the providers and staff at the Zablocki Medical Center since 2017.  I am an 83 year old former Marine and Vietnam veteran.  I did not enroll in the VA medical program until I was 76 years old because I had some skepticism about the program and I had good health care from local private providers.  

I write to tell you that I regret having waited so long to enroll in the VA program.  It would be hard for me to overstate how grateful I have been for the highly professional care I have received not only from my primary care physician and the staff in the Gold Clinic, but also in the many specialized clinics within the Medical Center.  It is hard for me to imagine receiving superior care anywhere else, though my long experience with private providers in the Milwaukee was, on the whole, excellent.  I needn’t tell either of you what a great group of health care providers you have at Zablocki but I want to put my appreciation in writing, ‘on the record’, and, by copies of this letter, to personally thank at least some of the many professionals who have helped me over the last 8 years.  

I am assigned to the Gold Clinic where my primary care physician for the last 6  years has been  Doctor Kumkum Chattopadhyay.  I have also received much help from nurse Kim Kitzke , pharmacist Jill Hansen, and from staff member Verniece  Bearden and others.

I have also received much help from the therapists and staff members of the Outpatient Physical Therapy Clinic, from the doctors, nurses, and staff of the Physical Medicine & Rehab Clinic, from the Urology Clinic, the Dermatology Clinic, the Audiology Clinic, the Eye Clinic, the Pain Clinic, the Prosthetics Department, the Whole Health Program, the Rheumatology Clinic, and the Emergency Department.  This list is not complete.   I know I haven’t exhausted the resources of the Medical Center, but I sure have taken advantage of many of them over the last 8 years and I am grateful to all of them.

I especially want to mention another aspect of receiving help at Zablocki, an aspect that has been every bit as important to me as the professional care I have received.  There is a spirit at this Medical Center that is unlike that at any other private or public hospital, medical center, or clinic where I have been a patient.  I know I won’t succeed in putting it into words and I want to avoid getting maudlin about it, but I feel the spirit each time I come in for an appointment.  There is a sense of kinship or fellowship with the other patients I encounter.  It comes from the fact that all of us are military service veterans.  I usually drive in from the Mitchell Boulevard entrance.  I drive through the National Cemetery looking at the thousands of headstones, all the same size and shape, none larger than any other based on rank, length of service, or decorations earned.  I drive through the historic Soldiers Home campus to arrive at Zablocki where I see so many vets, most of us but not all old, many of us in some stage of decrepitude.  Some are missing limbs.  Some are in wheelchairs, or are holding onto walkers.  Some are carrying wounds no one can see.  They were all young once and for a time  wore a uniform.  None was above serving, some in the worst of circumstances.  Sometimes we talk with one another in an elevator or in a waiting room, other times we don’t.  We sit quietly and await our turn.  But when I see someone needing help with anything, I always see one or more  of the other vets offer to help.  It’s an unusual visit when I don’t see some act of kindness in the corridors, elevators, and waiting rooms.

The main point of my letter is this: I believe that the spirit of good will at Zablocki is due in very large measure to the generally welcoming and caring treatment the vets receive from the health care providers and staff at the Medical Center.  If Zablocki had a different spirit, if we patients were made to feel like numbers processed through an indifferent government bureaucracy, the spirit in the elevators and waiting rooms would be very different.  In the military, it’s called morale and anyone who has served in a unit with bad morale knows that it drags everybody down.  The opposite is true here.  So I say thank you to each of the hundreds of Zablocki workers who  have smiled at me in the corridors, who have asked if he or she could help me find my destination, who have asked me whether I could use a wheelchair when I arrive, who have been patient with me when I am confused or troubled about something, or who have otherwise been kind to me and to the thousands of other vets who regularly rely on all of you at the Zablocki VA Medical Center.

I am an old guy feeling older every day and I’m not a Pollyanna.  I know there are occasional problems at Zablocki, some misunderstandings, some employee and management problems, some patient problems, and some bad days.  But I have had many hundreds of encounters with  Zablocki workers, professional and otherwise, over the last 8 years and I am thankful that the overwhelming majority of those encounters have been positive and spirit-lifting.  I’m grateful for that and thankful to all those who have eased and enriched my life and the lives of so many other veterans.  Thank you to all of them.

Sincerely,

Charles D. Clausen “6341”

Anniversaries thoughts.  First, lest we forget that just as Zionist Jews drove Palestinian Arabs out of Palestine in the Nakba, neighboring Arab states drove Jews out of their territories. Zionism gave rise to multiplicious wrongs.

Second, I was a 7-year-old Chicagoan who lived Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Burr Tilstrom's creation.  I would never miss the show when I could see it, but we didn't have a television set in those days after the war.  When our neighbors the Semraus got a tv, Kitty and i would watch the show with Cathy and Rosemary Semrau.  The cast included not only Kukla and Oliver J. Dargon, but also Madame Oglepuus, Fletcher Rabbit, Ollie's neice Deloras Dragon, and Cecil Bill.  One day at St. Leo Grammar School, my classmate Robert Schulke was asked a question by the teacher and he didn't know the correct answer.  I whispered it to him:  "Cecil Rhodes."  Robert answered: "Cecil Bill."  The class cracked up and I think I got in trouble with the nun, but I can't remember for sure since it was so long ago.  What I can't forget, however, was Robert's "Cecil Bill" answer.

Third, the bellicose Dullles brothers, John Foster and Alan had a lot of bad ideas.

Fourth, 1961 was the summer of the Freedom Riders down South and the summer that my best friend Ed Fellesthat and I decided it was a good idea to hitchhike through the Deep South from the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, TX to the Naval Amphibious Station, Little Creek, VA, where we had left Ed's car. when we were airlifted to Corpus Christi.  From my memoir:

When we were released from active duty, Ed and I stuck out our thumbs and hitchhiked 1700 miles back to Little Creek.  We hitched day and night.  One of us would stand at the side of the highway with his arm extended while the other stretched out alongside the road trying to get some sleep until the next ride came along.  I don’t recall whether we used a hand-lettered sign (“U. S. Navy”) or not.  I think probably not because I vividly recall being asked upon being picked up “You boys ain’t freedom riders, are you?”  We stayed at a motel one night for sure (we were in bad need of shower facilities) and perhaps two.  The motel night I remember was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  Hattiesburg was a ‘dry town,’ no bars or liquor stores.  Ed and I were wiped out after a few days on the road and wanted to relax with a drink.  The gentleman who picked us up on the highway and drove us into town dropped us off at the motel and went to his private club to get us a bottle of whiskey.  We thanked him for his kindness as he left our room and he said “No need, boys.  We do this for ‘most anybody, ’cept’n niggers.”  Another driver in North Carolina, a dentist, gave us a jar of his moonshine that he kept under the passenger seat of his car.  Spending days on the road in the summer of 1961 mooching rides from drivers in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia was a unique introduction to civility and incivility of the South during the bloody era of the civil rights movement, but not one I would like to repeat.

Fifth, the Warren Commission was supposed to answer all questions about the assassination of JFK.  People are still arguing about its conclusions today.  Was there a second shooter on 'the grassy knoll"?  Were the Soviets behind it? .

Sixth, moving away from the "Tridentine" Latin mass to the vernacular English mass was a tremendous jolt for practicing Catholics, a 'Protestant' move.  Here again, people are still arguing about it  with reactionary traditionalists pressuring for a return to the Latin mass, or "the magic show" as we used to call it.]

Seventh, having very badly screwed up the American situation in Vietnam, with his 'best and brightest' team of Ivy Leaguers at the Pentagon, McNamara was finally ground down by his errors and resigned only to be rewarded with the presidency of the World Bank.  So it goes.

Lastly,  a wood fragment from Jesus's manger in Bethlehem?  Words fail me. 

 

11/28/24

 Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024

D+23

1994 Jeffrey Dahmer was clubbed to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver in the Columbia Correctional Institution gymnasium

In bed around 9:15, up at 4:05.  It's 26° outside, with a wind chill of 15°, and an expected high of 32°.  Yikes, brrrr.  Lilly showed up at 6:35 by which time it had warmed up to 27° as I let her out and Ghassan, bundled up, and Athena walked by on Wakefield.

Prednisone, day 198, 7.5 mg., day 14.    Prednisone at 5:00.  Sore shoulders. 2 cookies at 5:20.  Morning meds at 7.

Dinner at Andy's and Anh's.  Geri and I split up today, she at David's  and Sharon's house with Elllis, Steve and Nikki, and others, me at Andy's and Anh's with Peter, Lizzie, Drew and Anne.  I had a lovely time schmoozing and eating and my worry about the custard pie ended up be a waste of emotion.  The pie was delicious and enjoyed by everyone.  Andy's quite the cook; his turkey was moist and tasty and was accompanied by stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and brussels sprouts - all very tasty.

Thanks-giving.  I'm thankful for my wife who keeps me alive, on course, on an even keel, as balanced as I can be, and who teaches me every day how to live properly.  I'm thankful for my former wife, Anne, who shared with me our early adulthoods and brought our two children into our worlds and nourished and flourished them.  I'm thankful for my mother who loved, protected, and nourished me and for becoming friends with my father at my age of 55 and his of 75.  I'm thankful for my children and my grandchildren and for my stepsons, Steve and David.  I'm thankful for Christian and Anh, Nikki and Sharon and Ellis.  I'm thankful for my sister Kitty, who held me dear throughout her life and was my daily communicant, confidante, friend, and advisor in her last years.   I'm thankful for our friends and for the friends I've lost, especially Ed Felsenthal, Tom St. John, and David Branch.  I'm thankful for the rich friendships I regretably let slip away, especially Vicki Conte and Ara Cherchian.  I'm thankful for Larry Anderson.  I'm thankful for decades of dinners with Caren and Dan Goldberg and David and Pip Lowe.  I'm thankful for Tom Devitt, Bill Hendricks, Jerry Nugent, Joe Daley, Cam Wakeman, and the whole Notch House gang.  I'm thankful for good neighbors starting with Carl and Ann Semrau ('movin' on up, to a deeluxe apartment in the sky') and then so many more; Lance and Mary Ann Herrick, the FitzGeralds, John McGivern, Howard Schoenfeld/Paula Simon, Reuben PetersonCheri Bubrick, John/Debbie MacGregor.  I'm thankful for Mr. Kelly, who kept us fed 'on the cuff' during hard days.  I'm thankful for Brother Coogan who extended himself to extend me and my classmates.  I'm thankful for Wally Halperin, my first Jewish friend and Dave Sinclair, my first Protestant friend.  I'm thankful to Moses and his bible in the guard shack at 73rd and Emerald, my first Black friend, and to Major and then General Frank Peterson, a later Black friend.  I'm thankful for Father Matthew Gottschalk and our daily morning and afternoon chats.  I'm thankful for Uncle Hardy and Aunt Evelyn.  I'm thankful for my Uncle Jim who gave me my first bike, a green J. C. Higgins, and took me to Brookfield Zoo and Riverview and Comiskey Park, and taught me how to drive stick-shift in south side Chicago alleys in his exterminator's panel truck.  I'm thankful for Ray J. Aiken, 'Old Miscellaneous', who mentored and loved me.  I'm thankful for Bob Friebert for what he taught me about the law and about living. I'm thankful for Lilly, and for Blanche, and for Ralph, Bear & Ruby, for Alley, for Freckles and Cookie who sits on kitty's and my lap in the photo,  and for all the pets who have enriched and softened my life, even the hamsters., parakeets, turtles, and goldfishes.   I'm thankful to the many physicians, physicians' assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, and therapist and medical technicias of all kinds who care for me at the VA.   I am thankful to the techeers of all sorts who have helped e learn, especially those who have inspired me to continue learning outside of schools and classrooms.  There are many more to whom and for whom I am thankful, people who have helped me along the way over the last 83 years.  

 Christine Cummings Klaer.  My cousin Christine died yesterday.  Her daughter Colleen called me from Lamont, Ill., where she and Chris lived with Colleen's husband Alex.  Chris would have turned 84 in January had she lived.  We were only 5 months apart in age and were close friends in our childhood and youth.  She died of granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune diseaste that affected mainly her lungs and kidneys.  She started home hospice on Tuesday of this week and died on Wednesday, peacefully, with Colleen, her brother Jim, and other family members with her.

Anniversary thoughts.  I was only a degree or two removed from Jeffrey Dahmer and a few degrees separated from his murderer.  Dahmer was represented in court by Gerry Boyle, my Schroeder Hall freshman dorm counselor and lifelong casual friend, and by Gerry's daughter Bridget Boyle, who was my student at MULS.  Christopher Scarver's family were users of services at the House of Peace.  Before his arrest, Dahmer worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate factory in downtown Milwaukee.  When I was a student at the law school, in the warm months the windows would be opened to let in fresh air and, if the wind was easterly, we would smell chocolate from the factory all day.

11/27/24

 Wednesday, November 27, 2024

D+22

1868 Battle at Washita River, Oklahoma. General George A. Custer attacked a group of Native Americans, their chief Black Kettle dies in the attack

1957 US Army withdrew from Little Rock, Arkansas after Central High School integration

1978 San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White at City Hall

In bed at 9:45, low glucose warning alarm had me up at 1:06, back to bed after eating a cookie, awake and up at 5:55.  Lilly showed up at 7:00. 

Prednisone, day 197, 7.5 mg., day 13.  Prednisone at 6:03.  Morning meds at 7:10.  

This busy day started with going over to Andy's house to pick up gluten free pie crusts which I used to make a custard pie for tomorrow.  I have no idea how this pie will turn out.  Taking the 2 gluten free crusts out of the aluminum pans they were in and fitting them into the deep dish glass pie plate I used was a rough process resulting probably in pie dough of uneven thickness and probably an negative effect on the pie crust itself and on the custard within it.  We'll find out tomorrow.  Also I took the pie out of the over when the thermometer registered only 160° or so, less than the 170°-180° recommended in ost recipes.  Again, tomorrow may tell.  It was really a ragged exercise.  At leasst I was able to transport the pie from the kitchen counter into the over without spilling any of the filling, thanks to the deep dish.

     After baking the pie, I left for my appointment at the VA Outpatient Physical Therapy Department with Carl, the lymphedema specialist, 2ho provided me with 3 new pairs of compression socks and complimented my legs. 😇  Then home for a while to try to fix the situation with the TV in the TV room.  The new Roku remote doesn't work as it should.  I got it partly fixed: it can turn the TV on and off and change channels but it doesn't control the sound volume.  It's always somethin'.  After that I pricked up Andy and drove him to Ogui's Garage to pick up his Infiniti.

LTMW at 7:15 at our very busy bird feeding station.  Chickadees, red and white breasted nuthatches, goldfindes, snowbirds down below.  Noting the very different behavior of the birds, how the chickadees dash in, nab a seed, and dash off again in maybe 2 or 3 seconds whereas the goldfinches 'set up shop' on the tube feeders.  They take their time   I wonder where all the birds come from before they arrive here in front of my window.  The ones that come from the pine trees on the corner of our lot I can see, but most of the birds fly in from the north or south, not east.  Do they still live in their nests in December?  Have they all nested nearby or do they fly around all over Bayside and Mequon, from feeder to feeder, or from one natural feeding spot to the next?   Looking out our kitchen window, I saw tiny birds in the western berry tree.  I thought perhaps they were wrens but then saw that they were chickadees prying open the sunflower or safflower seeds they had taken from our feeders.  Initially I hoped they were cedar waxwings, but no such luck.  No waxwing sightings so far this year.

Assisted Dying - You're right and you're right.  There is a bill pending in the British Parliament that would legalize medically assissted dying subject to some safeguards.  It is being strongly supported and strongly opposed by different groups, each of which is right.  "You're right and you're right" said the seer. "How can we both be right when we're opposed to each other?" said the opponents.  "You're right", said the seer.  The pro faction argue that assisted dying is the humane thing to do for people who are in great pain and distress.  They are right.  The anti faction argue that, if legitimized, it will create great pressure on many people to seek it not because they want to die but because they don't want their limited resources being used to care for them in extremis, leaving nothing for surviving spouses and/or children.  They fear that the right to die will inevitably become, for some, a duty to die as in The Ballad of Narayama or something like the program in Plan 75.  They are right, too.  Is Plan 75 so unthinkable?  I think not.

Anniversaries.  General Custer, just a reminder of our racist, settler colonial history that inspired Adolf Hitler, who used the U.S. as a model for his racial policies.

Little Rock, more evidence of profoundly racist our country was with another disfavored minority, the Blacks, perhaps even more disfavored than the indiginous Americans.

Dan White killed George Moscone and Harvey Milk on this date in 1978.  Moscone was the mayor of San Francisco and Milk as a gay rights leader on the Board of Supervisors.  He was a hero and an icon  in the city's large gay community.   White's defense theory at his trial  for 1st degree murder was that he had 'diminished capacity' because of his depression, one sign of which was his heavy consumption of junk food and sugary foods, including Twinkies.  This became known as 'the Twinkie defense.'  He was found guilty of volunary manslaughter and sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment which outraged the gay community.  He was paroled from Soledad Prison on January 6, 1984,   a day when I was in San Francisco for the annual law school convention.  I was staying at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square where, at noon that day, a huge demonstration protesting White's release was held.  I attended the demonstration with my law school colleage Patricia Nelson who was also staying at the St. Francis.  The only speaker I remember was 'Sister Boom Boom,' a gay man dressed in a nun's habit.  Sister Boom Boom, a member of the politically active gay male group 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,' refrained from calling for violence against White but indulged in some plausible conjectures about White's future. “Yesterday was the last day Dan White could be assured he’d live through the whole day. Today he begins his life sentence, and I’m sorry to say it’s going to be a short one.  I don’t call for violence, but who knows, maybe one of us someday will be a little depressed, maybe off our diets, and who knows what may happen." At this point he began eating a Twinkie, symbolic of White’ successful defense of “ diminished capacity” due to too much stress and to a diet of junk food.  Then he raised another Twinkie into the air, threw it into the crowd, and shouted "Take this and eat it.  This is my defense!", mimicking the words of the consecration of the host at Catholic masses.   After a half-hour of speeches the crowd took to the streets for an impromptu march through the financial district stopping traffic for blocks. Dem onstrators blew shrill police whistles and banged pots and pans. The m arching crowd quickly swelled to about 5000 as men and women in business attire joined the casually dressed mostly gay protestors.  Many protesters were calling for White's death.  It was one of the most memorable, eeries, and chilling experiences of my life - a great many people calling for the cold-blooded murder of another person.  I remember thinking at the time that if White was not murdered, he would probably commit suicde, which is what he did two years later.

11/26/24

 Tuesday, November 26, 2024

D+21

1865 "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll was published in America

1941 Japanese naval carrier force left its base & moved east toward Pearl Harbor

1942 "Casablanca" starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman premiered at Hollywood Theater, NYC (Academy Awards Best Picture 1943)

In bed at 9:10, awake at 1:30, and up at 1:40, thinking of custard pie.  Lilly showed up at 2:45 to be let out into the 27° air with brisk winds and wind chill of 8°.  Then the pacing.  Back to bed at 4:10 with a badly aching right kidney area, slept or helf-slept for an hour or more til 5:50.  Lilly is sleeping in the TV room, or is she breathing?  Sleeping

Prednisone, day 196, 7.5 mg., day 12.   Prednisone at  5:55.  My shoulders are hardly painful at 6 a.m.  Custard pie around 7 and morning meds at  7:50.

Subterranean sanctuary

  

Two years ago this date:

Memory Lane

Geri & I went to Whole Foods on the East side this afternoon.  Drove over on Locust Street through Riverwest, past my old chiropractor's offices.  Such an interesting neighborhood, working class, old frame single-family homes and duplexes, some apartment buildings, lots of young people, integrated,  Through my old Lake Park neighborhood, down Downer where we used to shop at the original Sendik's, watch movies at the Downer, browse in the book store, haircuts at Linus Malarkey's, Coffee Trader before the era of Starbucks, Alterra, Collective.  Returned via North Ave, Oriental Theater, von Trier's tavern, Ma Fischer's, Brewer's Hill, St. Francis of Assisi parish, Black Holocaust Museum, Garfield Avenue School now apartments, Judge Reynolds' school busing order, the North Avenue Reservoir and the weeping mulberry, my enjoyable drawing lessons in the teacher's attic, memories everywhere I turn.  A long adult life lived in this city, so changed in the 63 years since I arrived, barely 18, starting a new life in the new city.  How much have I changed in that time?  how little?

Emily Dickinson

In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much - how little - is within our power

LTMW and enjoying a very busy day at the bird feeders with 'all the usual suspects', chickadees, goldfinches, house finches, English sparrows, song sparrows (or pine siskins?), red breasted and white breasted nuthatchs, downey and red-bellied woodpeckers.  slate colored juncos, no doves yet.  I was surprised at the clearly aggressive behavior of a white breasted nuthatch toward other birds wanting to feed on the sunflower tube, threatening wing spreading.  I also was surprised that the gray squirrels can get to the suet cakes and tube feeder by climbing up the nearby shepherd's crook and leaping across to the the crook with the suet and tube feeder, quite a feat of athleticism, agility, and balance.  The neighborhood goldfinches have consumed fully half of the tiny niger seeds in the new tube feeder.  Along County Line Road, the robins have been feasting on the berry trees.

Mishap.  While dressing after my shower, I put on a sweatshirt and knocked off the continuous glucose monitor on my arm, 5 days before its expiration.  Rats!

Let the Sunshine In  I watched the last half of this Claire Denis movie with Juliet Binoche.  I've admired her work since The Unbearable Lightness of Being and think of her as like the great Michael Caine, but this movie doesn't do much for me.  Binoche plays a middle aged, divorced painter/artist in relationships with several men, none of whom is satisfactory.  I suspect it reasonably accurately reflects the very real plight of women trying to find a male mate who is broadly acceptable or satisfactory, if not satisfying.  Though I didn't much enjoy the ploy, I always enjoy watching her act.

A trip to Sendik's two days before Thanksgiving.  I went to get some sugar, some bananas, and a couple Pink Lady apples that Geri needs to pie-making.  There were hardly any spots available in the parking lot and the store was crowded but no long wait to check out.  Then I went to Wild Birds Unlimited, or 'Birds R' Us', and picked up a couple cakes of suet, one of which I put in a holder on the shepherd's crook when I got back home.

 

   

11/25/ 24

 Monday, November 25, 2024

D+20

1957 President Dwight Eisenhower suffered a mild stroke, impairing his speech

2023 VA ER, IC flare; first day of one year without coffee, carbonated & alcoholic drinks

A favorite drawing

In bed at 8:40, awake at 4:30, and up at 4:40.   

Prednisone, day 195, 7.5 mg., day 11.  Prednisone at 4:50.  Sore shoulders, especially the right shoulder, painful right side mid-back.  Morning meds at 6:25.

One year of cold turkey: no coffee or tea, no carbonated drinks, no wine, beer, or booze.  All it took was horrific pain from my long-abused bladder and Andy's taking me to the VA Emergency Room.  My journal entry:

Treadmill; pain.   I woke up OK but the CPP started early on.  Last night's pain was pretty nasty right up to bedtime.  Intense pain this morning around 7:45, a 7 or 8, right kidney area, had me moaning and thinking about calling Andy to see if he or Anh or Peter could drive me to the VA emergency room since Geri is quarantined with COVID.  It got better after 10 minutes or so.  Where did that come from???  It came back @ 8:25.  I typed out a text message to Andy but didn't send it; again the pain went away.????  Pain worsened at about 2, sent the text to Andy, who picked me up and took me to the Zablocki ER.  Got there at 3, got home at 9.  UTI or a flare of my IC.  

How does a condition of the bladder (which turned out to be lesions or ulcers result in intense pain up around the right kidney?   I was sure it must have been a kidney stone but the CT scan revealed none.  It was my second trip to the VA ER with intense pain in my back that I (and Geri) thought had to be a kidney stone but on that first visit it was diagnosed as a UTI.  Hard to figure.  The lesions in my bladder were fulgurated on March 5th of this year with no bladder pain, or chronic pelvic pain since.  Fingers crossed.🙏

How can we not hate them?   The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism, alarming civil liberties groups about how a second Trump presidency could invoke it to punish political opponents.  Trump has appointed right-wing, reactionary, billionaire/millionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom won the 'birth lottery' having 'come from money,' to dismantle government programs designed to make life more sustainable for millions of our fellow Americans who are not billionaires or millionaires, programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start, ObamaCare, and others.   Trump wants to put soldiers and Marines on the streets of America when civil rights demonstrators get unruly, perhaps to 'shoot them in the legs.'

Bicycle Thieves.  I watched it again yesterday.  Vittorio de Sica's masterpiece.  I think of the plight of the Ricci family in that film when I think of people whose lives will be affected by the kinds of "efficiencies" that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would bring to the federal government.  I think of those families now at the holiday season when I shop at food stores with their shelves chock full of expensive foodstuffs which I buy without concern about their prices but which so many cannot afford.  I so often remember the long tracking shot in Godard's Tout Va Bien, hundreds of shoppers lined up in checkout lines at a supermarket.  I think of being sent to Mr. Kelly's to get food without the money to pay for it.  From my memoir:

Because my Dad could not hold onto any job for long, we had precious little money.  We lived from paycheck to paycheck, but sometimes there was no paycheck except what my mother earned waiting on tables at a neighborhood ice cream parlor and luncheonette at the corner of 74th and Halsted and later in restaurants.  When we were out of money, I would be sent to Mr. and Mrs. Kelly’s small grocery store, a literal “mom and pop” operation on 73rd Street not more than 40 or 50 yards from our apartment to get what we needed for dinner.  Mr. or Mrs. Kelly would add up the bill by hand (no cash register in the store) and write it on a piece of meat wrapping paper which was kept in a cigar box.  When there were some earnings, I’d be sent to pay the bill.  The Kellys were also our neighbors; they lived in an apartment building across the street from us.  They had to know of the notorious crime against my mother and that my father was a wreck returned from the war.  This knowledge may account for their willingness to put our food purchases “on the cuff” and their patience waiting to be paid.

We bought clothing through a ‘factor’ named Dave Fein.  A factor was like an ambulatory bank or living credit card.  Dave had credit accounts with clothing merchants on Roosevelt Road, just north of Maxwell Street. We bought clothes on Dave’s account because we couldn’t pay cash[and didn't have credit anywhere except with the Kelly's].  Dave went from door to door servicing his accounts.  Every week or so, he would show up at the door to collect a payment on the account, sometimes 25 or 50¢, sometimes one dollar, rarely more.  Dave carried his account book with him so he could enter his customers’ payments and inform them of their balances.  If we had no money for him, we would ‘lay low’ in the apartment, not answering the door, keeping quiet and staying away from the kitchen and the bedroom.  Dave (or anyone else) could see into the kitchen from the passageway next to our door and into the bedroom from the steps from the passageway up to the sidewalk outside.  A few minutes after Dave stopped knocking, ‘the coast was clear’ and we could resume normal activity.  The new clothes my parents bought me to go away to Marquette in 1959 were purchased at a store on Roosevelt Road on Dave Fein’s account.

Tuition at St. Leo’s Grammar School, which Kitty and I attended through 8th grade was sometimes an issue between my mother and my father.  The tuition was $1.50 per month and there were times when we were slow paying.  We also had to wear uniforms, for me a tan shirt and blue tie, for Kitty a blue jumper.  My Dad didn’t think we needed to be going to a Catholic school but my mother would not hear of us going to the public school. The tuition at Leo High School was $15 per month, 10 times the grammar school tuition.  My cousins also attended Catholic grammar school and high schools: Sacred Heart Grammar School, De La Salle High School for Jim and Doug, St. Martin (my mother’s alma mater) for Christine.  The tuition payments for the five of us represented quite a sacrifice for our parents.

I don’t know that I thought of us as ‘poor’ in those days.  We never went without food or clothing or a roof over our head (complete with hot water pipes) and we attended the Catholic school.  It was impossible however not to be always aware that money was in short supply.  This expense or that, like the Catholic school expenses, often led to bickering between my mother and father.  His spending money for beer at the North Pole Tavern was a sure source of tension in the house.  When he would occasionally pick up the tab or buy a round, my mother would “let him have it with both barrels.” The strain of living from hand to mouth, from payday to payday, is great and it takes a toll on people.  The toll is greater when a member of the household is an alcoholic wasting precious money on beer or booze.  Even as a child, there was some embarrassment or mortification at having to get food from the Kellys’ ‘on the cuff’’ or at avoiding Dave Fein when we had no money to pay on his account or no money to pay the tuition at St. Leo.

I got my going-off-to-college clothes on Dave Fein's credit at a store on Roosevelt Road, one block north of Maxwell Street.  I wonder how much that set back my parents.  Many parents today get their school clothes at Goodwill or St. Vnnie or from the House of Peace.  I can't forget those millions of people who live hand-to-mouth, paycheck-to-paycheck, pinching pennies and nickels, often going without, and living with a deep, low-intensity but ever-present anxiety about money.

I've become quite mistake-prone.  The first mistake was offering to bake a custard pie for Thanksgiving at Andy's.

Anniversaries.  First, Dwight Eisenhower's stroke. occurred in 1957 when he was 67 years old.  He had a serious heart attack in 1955 when he was just shy of his 65th birthday.  He had multiple serious health issues during his presidency.  Donald Trump is 78 and will be the oldest person to assume the presidency on January 20, 2035, 78 years, 7 months, and 6 days, older than Joe Biden was on his inauguration day, 78 years and 61 days.  What are the odds we will see a President J. D. Vance during Trump's term?

Second, the IC flare was my 3rd visit to the Zablocki emergency department in the last 4 years.  Getting old is not for wimps.  Early on, I suggested to Andy that he leave me there and that I would call when I was released, but he insisted on staying with me for the several hours that the process required.  God bless him

11/24/24

Sunday, November 24, 2024

D+19

1922 Italian parliament gave Benito Mussolini dictatorial powers "for 1 year"

1948 "Bicycle Thieves", Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica, starring himself and Cesare Zavattini, was released (Honorary Academy Award 1950)

1979 Senate report proved US troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic chemical defoliant Agent Orange

2015 Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder of 17-year-old African American Laquan McDonald in 2014

2020 My TIA or ocular migraine

2021 Three men were found guilty by a jury of felony murder of black runner Ahmaud Arbery, with Travis McMichael also convicted of malice murder in Brunswick, Georgia [

In bed at 9, awake and up at 3:35.   Lilly showed up at 4:15.  Long hesitation before leaving the doorway.  Pacing for a while when she returned.

Prednisone, day 194, 7.5 mg., day 10.    Prednisone at 5 a.m.  Soda bread at 6.   I have my normal persistent, right-side, mid-back pain and shoulder pain, especially in the right shoulder. 

Presumptuous Poppycock?  Peter Wehner, a respectable, intelligent, accomplished, humane, Republican, Presbyterian columnist for the NYTimes and a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.  He occasionally writes in The Atlantic and elsewhere.  I usually read whatever he offers up in his essays.  This morning his Times column is an interview with Richard Hays,a respectable, intelligent, accomplished, humane, United Methodist minister who is an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, and is "one of the world’s leading New Testament theologians."  The specific topic of Wehner's column is the morality of gay marriage but the broader topic is about changing interpretations of the Bible and understandings of God.  Here is one exchange from the interview:   

Wehner:  The central argument of “The Widening of God’s Mercy” [one of Hay's books] is that God often changes his mind in Scripture. And you and your son Chris cite many examples of that happening in the book. Is it your view that God has gotten wiser and more merciful as history unfolds?

Hays: I wouldn’t put it that way. It would be presumptuous for me or anyone to say God has gotten wiser. I think the way I would put it is that for reasons that I don’t understand, God has chosen to act in ways that gradually, over time, unfold the wideness of mercy. And that over time, God reaches out to embrace more and more folks in the scope of the people that he regards as his own people.

 Another exchange:

Wehner: Let me ask you about God on this cluster of issues. Is it your view that in A.D. 30 and before, God did believe homosexuality was sinful and that he’s since changed his mind? And if so, would you say that God was wrong in the views that he held in A.D. 30 and during the time the Hebrew Scriptures were written and that God has since evolved into the correct view. Or do you have another understanding of God on this question?

Hays: Well, I certainly wouldn’t presume to say that I know better than God, that God was wrong. I think I would say that God had reasons for telling the children of Israel in the wilderness to observe a limitation of sexual relations to heterosexual relationships. And it was tied very much, I think, to the command, from the creation story in Genesis, that human beings are charged to be fruitful and multiply and in the perilous circumstances of life in the desert. Maybe God had very good reasons for promulgating such a law. I think it’s wrong to say that we can presume to say that God was simply wrong.

I don’t understand the purposes of God fully, but the way I understand it is filtered in part through the stories in the Book of Acts about how the church is impacted by the experience of seeing that the gentiles are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so even though there would have been previously a lot of restrictions in place about the ways in which Jewish people could or couldn’t have table fellowship with gentiles, a new thing was happening.

And Peter and Paul, along with the whole church, finally came to recognize that that was the case. So if my son Chris were in the interview — he’s fond of quoting the passage from Isaiah where the prophet, speaking in the persona of God, says: See, I’m doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? And that’s the way I understand it. God is doing a new thing. And it’s beyond me to understand why things are different now. But that’s God’s prerogative. It’s not mine to judge one way or the other.

The immutability of God (His quality of not changing) is clearly taught throughout Scripture. For example, in Malachi 3:6 God affirms, "I the Lord do not change." (See also Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Isaiah 46:9-11; and Ezekiel 24:14.)  Also, James 1:17: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  Thomas Aquinas also taught that God is immutable and that the only way to understand this and to square it with His effects in time (like the Incarnation, miracles, answering prayers, etc.) is to accept His existence in Eternity, i.e., his timelessness and pure Actuality, not Potentiality.  This is hard stuff for us poor earthlings to grasp and it raises yet again my questioning of how one can believe in the God of the Bible, the God of the Summa and the Catechism, the God of the Evangelicals and Pentecostals.  We speak of God as if "He" (masculine singular pronoun) were a "person," indeed 3 "persons. "  (1) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.  Jews and Muslims, the other People of the Book, can't understand this and most of the rest of us can't either.  It's another of those 'mysteries' we were taught about in Catholic grade school and high school religion classes and in Catholic university theology classes.  All very philosophical and metaphysical and Scholastic and incomprehensible.

 ...........

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.

Isaac Asimov 

Decade of Descent?  On Friday, the anniversary of JFK's assassination,  I ruminated about America's 'decade of descent (not the right word)" between 1963 and 1973/75.   I struggled to pull from my aged brain the right word and got fixated on "d" words: descent and deconstruction,"  I'm still looking for the right word and still a bit fixated on 'd' words: dissolution, disintegration, deterioration, debilitation, decline, or decay.  They all seem suitable in one way or another and perhaps descent is less suitable than the others but then there's Descensus Averno facilis est so perhaps not.  In any case, this morning I am wondering whether we are in another protracting decade of decay (I'll settle on that 'd' word), from Trump's descent (whoops!) down the escalator in 2015 to the present.  Was there something symbolic in the fact that he was descending, not ascending?  I suppose that's a reach but it was the opening scene leading to his announcement speech smearing immigrants and calling Mexicans 'rapists', later to his inauguration speech and "American carnage." and the fact that this wicked, nefarious man has succeeded in noxiously living in our heads virtually every day for almost a decade with more to come.  He has degraded political discourse and normalized so much that in the pre-Trumpian Era would have been shameful, unacceptable, unthinkable political conduct.  OMG, there's another "d" word: degradation.

. . . .

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Isaac Asimov

Anniversaries thoughts.  First, Mussolini's dictatorial powers grants "for one year"" reminds me of Trump's claim to dictatorial powers only for the first day of his administration.  Ha ha.  I wonder whether, at the first sign of some civil disturbance or threat of any kind, he will demand that Congress give him the equivalent of dictatorial powers, e.g.,. the suspension of some civil rights or normal restrictions on the use of the military or constitutional limitations on police practices.  My guess is that he will.

                Second, for many years I considered  Bicycle Thieves my favorite movie,  Eventually, there were so many excellent films that I enjoyed or admired (it's hard to say I 'enjoyed' Bicycle Thieves or The Passion of Joan of Arc) that I gave up on calling any one film my favorite.

                Third, there's no doubt that I and my fellow Marines at the Danang airbase were exposed to Agent Orange.  The 'Marine side' of the airbase is where the toxins were delivered, stored, loaded, unloaded, etc.,   That whole area where we lived and worked was designated a pesticide "hot spot" in the years after the war when efforts were made to clean up the toxins.  I wonder about the two little boys from "Dogpatch" whose photo I took in late 1965 or early 1966.  They probably lived in that area for years and would have had greater exposure than I had.  My exposure to Agent Orange over 234 days and my subsequent development of diabetes was enough to get me a disability rating and benefits from the VA.  Those little guys, their families, and their neighbors were not so fortunate.

                  Fourth, Chicago cop and the cold-blooded murder of an unarmed, Black 17-year-old.  It seemed like it took forever to charge the cop with the crime and for the CPD in Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration, to release the body cam evidence.  Emanuel appropriately lost the next election because of the cover-up.

                  Fifth, my TIA or ocular migraine manifested as an inability to see the last portion of words on my computer and on the television screen.  Very weird.  The TIA specialist from Froedtert reviewed the CT scans and other records and concluded it was most probably a TIA.  I've been taking 325 mg. of aspirin every day for the past 4 years because of that diagnosis.  

                 Sixth, the Ahmud Arbery murder occured in Brunswick, Georgia, where I was stationed for a couple of months of air control training after graduating from Basic School in Quantico..  I loved being down there, not because of the "locals" or the city of Brunswick, but because of the barrier islands off the salt marshes between them and the mainland:  St. Simon's, Little St. Simon's, Sea, and Jekyll islands.  Arbery was killed for 'jogging while Black' in an all-White neighborhood in a Brunswick suburb.  It reminds me of my kids referring to Black drivers being stopped by the Shorewood police when we lived in that desirable suburb for the suspicious act of  "driving while Black."

Christmas is a-coming and the goose is getting fat.  I know because Geri is digging out the Christmas decorations from the basement and starting to put them up.

11/23/24

 Saturday, November 23, 2024

D+18

1963 Following the protocol after Abraham Lincoln's death, JFK's body lay in repose in the East Room of the White House and was viewed by officials and heads of state 

In bed at 8:45, awake around 3:15, and up at 3:35 to load the dishwasher, light a log, etc. Lilly showed up precisely at 6 a.m. for her first outing, with much hesitation before stepping out from the doorway.  At 6:15, she started loud barking in the living room, probably at whitetail, a tom turkey, or perhaps a coyote on the prowl in our front yard. 

Prednisone, day 193, 7.5 mg., day 9.   Prednisone at 5:10 with some Irish soda bread.  Morning meds at 6:20.  Both shoulders with normal soreness.  Ditto the right side of my mid-back.

Losing interest in the news.  Something has happened to me over the last few months: I've lost interest in the news.  It must have started sometime before Labor Day weekend which is when I stopped watching cable, broadcast, and local television news.  I do watch PBS Newshour regularly and parts of some opinion programs on MSNBC (some Rachel Maddow, some Lawrence O'Donnell and, since Trump's reelection, I watch some cable news, but nothing like the amount of viewing I did before Labor Day.  Additionally, I've noticed that I pass over most articles in the newspapers and magazines I purport to read: the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, JSOnline, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. Few articles pique my interest enough to go beyond the headline or the blurb beneath the headline.  For much of my life, I was a fairly voracious consumer of whatever newspaper editors and television producers were putting out.  No more.  Years ago I read some Dorothy Sayers mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.  Lord Peter used to refer to his newspapers as "the daily twaddle" or "the daily drivel."  TV producers need to fill air time and newspaper editors need to fill column inches and much of what they put out serves only that purpose.  Why did I waste so much of my life on their output?  I suppose I was engaging in my own form of filling airtime or column inches.  I'm also listening to more articles now, rather than reading them.  My ability to focus my eyes is increasingly impaired, affecting not only my ability to read print media but also my ability to paint.  I appreciate media that offer audio renditions of articles for 'readers' like me.  I wonder whether this will become a standard offering with the growth of AI and automated voices.  Why do I bother to write stuff like this?  What else does one do in the middle of the night when reading and painting are challenges, there is no laundry to do, the dishwasher is loaded and running, and the kitchen counters are cleaned?

Thoughts on Trump's Reelection and Impending Inauguration:

America was having trouble, what a sad, sad story

Needed a new leader to restore its former glory

Where, oh where was he?

Where could that man be?

We looked around and then we found

The man for you and me and now it's

Springtime for Donald and America

Americs is happy and gay

We're marching to a faster pace

Look out, here comes the master race!

Springtime for Donald and America

Winter for Europe and China

Springtime for Donald and America

Come on, Trumpies, go into your dance!

Pace Mel Brooks.

Yesterday when I was young

The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue

I teased at life as if it were a foolish game

The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand

I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day

And only now I see how the years ran away

Yesterday, when I was young

So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung

So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me

And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out

I never stopped to think what life was all about

And every conversation I can now recall

Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all

Yesterday the moon was blue

And every crazy day brought something new to do

I used my magic age as if it were a wand

And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride

And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died

The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away

And only I am left on stage to end the play

 

When-when I was younger, so much younger than today

I never needed anybody's help in any way

But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured

Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways

My independence seems to vanish in the haze

But every now and then I feel so insecure

I know that I just need you like I've never done before

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me?

God bless David who came over this morning, helped Geri trim Lilly's nails, and climbed a ladder to clear out our gutters.

One of my favorite drawings, done several years ago, hanging in the TV room.

 

11/22/24

 Friday, November 22, 2024

1963 US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald

In bed at 9, awake at 2:15, unable to sleep and up at 3:00.    Lilly showed up at 5:20 to be let out.  I loaded and turned on the dishwasher and washed a load of napkins in the washing machine.

Prednisone, day 192, 7.5 mg., day 8.   Prednisone at 5:50.  Trulicity injection at 7:15, morning meds in between sometime.  Both shoulders sore, as normal.

On this date in 1963, I sat on bleacher seats somewhere in the woods of Northern Virginia with my class of other 2nd lieutenants at the Marine Corps Officer Basic School.  I don't remember what the subject of the class was or who the instructor was.  I was 22 years old.  From my memoir:

Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, November 22nd, I was sitting with my class on some risers out in the woods waiting for a class of some sort to begin.  An officer drove up in a Jeep and spoke to the instructor and then to us.  President Kennedy had been shot to death in Dallas.

What happened next?  Were we dismissed?  Was the base secured?  Did we continue with the instruction?  Was there any discussion of what the assassination might mean for the military?  I have no memory of it.  I was so stunned that I think my mind dropped into low gear.  The enormity of the crime was too much to absorb.  Your mother and I spent that night and all day Saturday watching the news.  I don’t remember this; I am assuming that we had a television.  In any event, we were at least listening to the news and learned that the assassin was a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.  Kennedy’s body was returned to Washington and lay in repose in the East Room of the White House until Sunday when it was moved to the Capitol rotunda for public viewing.

On Sunday morning, your mother and I drove the short trip up US 1 to Washington.  I wore my uniform.  With thousands of others, we stood on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill.  As we waited for the cortege, someone in the crowd with a portable radio announced that Oswald had been shot and killed while in police custody in Dallas.  Shortly thereafter the vanguard of the cortege passed and we could hear the approaching muffled drums and nothing else.  All were silent, solemn.  The shock and pain of the assassination and the knowledge that the assassin was a former Marine was now compounded by the almost unbelievable news of Oswald’s death in police custody.  The muffled drums drew closer and louder, the caisson carrying the President’s body came into view and passed, as did the riderless horse behind it.  I saluted as the body passed and then we went home, wondering what was happening to the country.

Years later, I was in Dallas for a conference or on some legal business and I went to Dealey Plaza and to the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building where Lee Harvey Oswald lay in wait for Kennedy's caravan to pass.  The building was no longer used as a schoolbook warehouse but was a Dallas County Administrative Building housing county offices and The Sixth Floor Museum.  My visit was a chilling experience, even more chilling than my visit to the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima.  I stood a couple of feet from the window from which Oswald shot Kennedy.  I am remembering that austere warehouse space and my numb feeling as I type these words.

If America had a post-war Age of Innocence or Triumphalism (which it didn't), it surely ended on November 22, 1963.  The assassination started a decade of descent and social deconstruction: LBJ's fatal invasion of Vietnam in 1965 leading to years of anti-war protests, the assassinations of MLK and RFK in 1968, the Chicago police riot at the Democratic Convention in the same year, almost countless riots by Blacks in American cities, the killings of students at Kent State and Jackson State and the bombing of Sterling Hall at UW-Madison in 1970, and the final withdrawal of American troops in defeat from South Vietnam in 1973.  And much more.  Extend the 'decade' until April 1975 and we had Watergate, Nixon's resignation in disgrace, the inevitable fall of Saigon, the photos and videos of desperate people climbing into Marine helicopters on rooftops, and the humiliation of the United States and its vaunted, supposedly invincible military power.  It was the decade (or so) when I moved from my early 20s to my early 30s and it had profound effects on me and my attitude toward the American government and the whole "power Establishment."  I have long thought that my pessimism and cynicism were rooted in my experiences as a child growing up within the cloud of my father's post-war PTSD, but I wonder how much of my 'abiding sense of tragedy' comes from that decade of descent between November 22, 1963 and 1973/75.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  These are words attributed to Jesus at John 14:27.  I thought of them as I crawled out of bed in the middle of the night, thinking of Thanksgiving.  The ultimate promise of Christianity, other than eternal life in Heaven, is peace of mind here on earth.  "Do not let your hearts be troubled." John 14:1. "Peace be with you." "Go in peace."  Peace, peace, peace.  Shalom.  Pax vobiscum.  " When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things." Mark 6:L34.  What was it about the lives of the people who sought out Jesus as their teacher, their helper, their reliever of spiritual troubles, and their provider of hope and understanding?  The same questions for John the Baptist.  Was it the rigors of Temple Era Judaism and Halakah?  Was it the burdens of Roman occupation?  Or was it just the trials, the challenges, the anxieties, vicissitudes, and uncertainties of life?  What is it that leads people today to the Gospel narratives of Jesus, to any of the mainstream religions, to the fundamentalist, pentecostal religions, or to New Age religions or cults?  It must be some kind of need-satisfaction or people wouldn't do it.