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.
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.
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