11/14/24

Thursday, November 14, 2024

D+9 

1851 "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville was irst published in the US

1965 The battle of Ia Drang began

2018 UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet approved the draft plan for country's exit from the European Union (Brexit)

In bed at 8:50 and awake from a half-sleep at 4:50, up at 5:00.  I let Lilly out at 4:45.  First a treat, then the pacing, pacing, pacing.  

Prednisone, day 184, 10 mg., day 5/5.  Prednisone at 5:15 with banana bread.  I woke with sore shoulders and a sore right upper back.  Morning meds later.  LAST DAY OF CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITOR.  No replacement is available yet from the VA.  The app keeps sounding an alarm after I removed the sensor.

Matthew 18:21-22 [King James Version]

21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

August 28, 2015  Bloomberg's Mark Halperin: "You have been talking about how [the Bible is your favorite book,  I'm wondering what one or two of your most favorite Bible verses are."

Donald Trump: "Well, I wouldn't want to get into it because that's very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible it's very personal so I don't want to get into it."

Halperin: "Are you more of an "Old Testament guy or New Testament,"

Trump: "Probably equal. I think it's just incredible, the whole Bible is incredible."

. . . 

Bob Lounsbury, WHAM Radio: "Favorite Bible verses?"

Trump: "When we get into the Bible, many, many, so many.  And look,   an eye for an eye, you can almost say that."

 . . .

"When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can."  Donald Trump, How to Get Rich, 2004

"Go for the jugular so that people watching will not want to mess with you."  Donald Trump, Think Big, 2007

"When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades."  Donald Trump, Think Big, 2007

"When this election is over, based on what they've done, I would have every right to go after [my opponents].”  Donald Trump, Fox News Interview, June 5, 2024

Foxes in the henhouse: Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, Kristi Noem at DHS, Pete Hegseth at DOD.   

A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character."

West Bank Annexation in 2025? Trump’s Mideast Team Has Israeli Right Exulting.: Arab Americans and liberal Jewish voters, however, have ample reason to fear the naming of pro-settlement, pro-Netanyahu officials to top foreign policy posts in the new administration.

Mr. Huckabee [Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel], an evangelical Christian who has frequently visited Israel, has said that its government has every right to annex the occupied West Bank, though the Palestinians have demanded that land for a future state and much of the world treats Israeli settlements there as illegal under international law.

“There is no such thing as the West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” Mr. Huckabee has said, using the biblical names for the territory. “There is no such thing as settlements — they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There is no such thing as an occupation.”

In 2008, Mr. Huckabee even rejected the idea that Palestinian was a distinct Arab identity, instead arguing that the term was a “political tool to try to force land away from Israel.” 

Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right minister in the Netanyahu cabinet, said on Monday that Mr. Trump’s election meant 2025 would be the year for Israel to begin annexing the West Bank.

“I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” he said.

If, with Mr. Trump’s assent, the Israeli right makes good on threats to annex large parts of the West Bank, to return settlers to Gaza and to begin to evict Palestinians, American and Israeli Jews could be driven apart irrevocably, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal Zionist group J Street.

“There’s a big, big philosophical question brewing here, a generational question about the concept of Jewish unity,” Mr. Ben-Ami said. The coming years, he added, could herald “a fundamental break between the threads of international Judaism.”

 Yuval Noah Harari.  I have watched several interviews of Harari lately and am very impressed with his knowledge and sagacity.  I have yet to read any of his books and don't know whether I have the wherewithal to take on any of them with my failing eyesight and withering brain, but I see there is quite a bit of criticism of him among scholars.  I suppose that is de rigeur.  On the other hand, I am rather astounded at the number of recorded interviews of him that are available on YouTube.  Wow.

Anniversaries thoughts.  First, I read Moby Dick many years ago  It ws the first book I received from the Franklin Library when I subscribed to their leatherbound book club.  It's still my favorite of the many books I acquired over many years.  I enjoyed sharing the opening paragraph with my freshman Property classes each November while giving them a pep talk.  Moby Dick also got me started on the whale-study period of my reading life.

Also, the British electorate's decision to leave the EU reminds me of how foolish, how perverse, how stupid people can be, witness Brexit and the re-election of Donald Trump.

Lastly, the anniversary of the battle of Ia Drang led me to watch again the third episode of the Ken Burns-Lynn Nivick documentary The Vietnam War which triggers many thoughts, some memories, and many emotions.  My brother-in-law Jim Reck was a soldier in the 7th Cavalry, General Custer's unit at the Little Bighorn, which was a major component of the 1st Air Cavalry that fought at Ia Drang battle.  Jim was too "short" on his enlistment to ship overseas with his unit when they deployed to Vietnam.  More than once he told me how he felt bad that he hadn't deployed with his unit thought of course it may have been the reason he was alive to share those regrets with me.  Some thoughts about that time: (1) I have a firm memory of sharing the thought with my fellow Marines in Danang that we were not going to win that war.  It was based in large measure on the intelligence briefing we received toward the end of the year that revealed that the number of 'hostiles' in the area around Danang had dramatically increased since the Marines arrived in March despite daily patrols, bigger operations, and a massive amount of artillery and air bombardment. (2) We never knew how close the VC and NVA were to winning the war in 1964 and 1964.  We knew the situation was bad or we American troops wouldn't have been sent there but I don't remember having a consciousness of just how bad the situation was.  And it kept getting worse which is why Westmoreland kept requesting more troops and JBJ and McNamara kept providing them.  The U.S. military presence in Vietnam peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 military personnel stationed in the country.  By the end of the U.S. involvement, more than 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 had been killed.  (3)  I'm struck by how much the American public, and we military guys were kept in the dark by LBJ and the government.  After the battle in the Ia Drang Valley, McNamara advised LBJ that there was only a 1 in 3 chance that we would win the war, even with providing Westmoreland all the troops he would request.  That was at the end of 1965 when I was there.  McNamara was saying it was most likely we would lose the war.  In July 1965 when I arrived there,"only" 509 Americans had been killed in Vietnam.  By the end of 1965, after Ia Drang and after McNamara's assessment that we probably would lose the war, 1,594 Americans had been killed.  More than 56,000 additional Americans were killed after McNamara advised LBJ that the war could not be won.  This is the same advice that Under Secretary of State George Ball had been giving LBJ: the war cannot be won,  How many millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians were killed from 1966 to 1973 when the last American troops were withdrawn?