11/5/24

 Tuesday, November 5, 2024

1967 US troops conquered Loc Ninh South Vietnam

1968  Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States, defeating Democrat  Hubert Humphrey and Independent George Wallace

1996 Bill Clinton was re-elected President of the United States, defeating Republican candidate Bob Dole

2019 Actress Emma Watson interviewed in Vogue magazine said she was happy to be single "I call it being self-partnered" launching a worldwide discussion on the term

2021 NFL Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers admitted in an interview he was unvaccinated and taking unapproved treatment after testing positive for COVID-19.

In bed before 9:30 CST, awake and up at 5:13 from a very unpleasant dream of law practice days and an argument with TSJ, a bad way to start the day.  It's another of Ishmail's 'damp, drizzly November in my soul." 

Prednisone, day 175, 15mg., day 1/5.   Prednisone at 5:28.  Morning meds and two slices of Dave's Bread w/ preserves at 7:10,  Having taken 20 mg. yesterday afternoon, the morning pains in my shoulders and hips have disappeared.  From what Dr. Ryzka said to me yesterday, it looks like I could remain on prednisone for a year, perhaps a year and a half.  On November 13th, I will have completed 6 months of daily prednisone.  I can't kvetch about the med when I imagine what my life would have been without it.  I wrote a long letter to Dr. Chatt about my chronic pain condition on Geri's 80th birthday, April 18th, and concluded it:

These conditions and challenges have arisen over the last 4 months and they have turned my life upside down.  When I am hoping to know is whether they are simply the result of age-related, wear-and-tear osteoarthritis treatable with OTC NSAIDS and physical therapy, or whether some other factor is causative.  Ultimately, I’m wondering whether this is what the rest of my life will look like.

That last line is not so subtle.  I was thinking about suicide every day during that period, or more accurately, every night as I lay awake on the recliner, my shoulders and arms useless for anything other than bearing pain. 

Two years ago today:

Donald Hall: Essays After Eighty

Death: "It is sensible of me to be aware that I will die one of these days.  I will not pass away.  Every day millions of people pass away -in obituaries, death notices, cards of consolation,-mails to the corpse's friends -but people don't die.  Sometimes they rest in peace, quit this world, go the way of all flesh, depart, give up the ghost, breathe a last breath . . . . At some point in my seventies, death stopped being interesting. . . In my eighties, my days have narrowed as they must. . . I try not to break my neck, I write letters, I take naps, I write essays. . . My goal in life is to make it to the bathroom."

Anniversaries:  Loc Ninh, 80 miles northwest of Saigon, site of two major battles during the Vietnam War.  The first, in 1967, a PAVN rehearsal for the Tet Offensive, was 'won' by the U.S.  The second, in April 1973, was won by the PAVN.  Many Americans and Vietnamese were killed in both battles.  Today, if I were to stand on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Water Street and ask 100 passersby what or where Loc Ninh is, not a one would have a clue.  Today, Loc Ninh may be home to manufacturing plants where Vietnamese workers earn a living making tee shirts or running shoes for American markets.  Vietnam won the war not only against the American military but also against American workers thanks to the capitalists who run America's economy and America's government.  Betraying our military is called treason.  Betraying our workers is called good business.

The 1968 presidential election was won by Nixon with 43.4% of the popular vote, Humphrey garnering 42.7% and George Wallace and Curtis LeMay 13.5%.  With less than a single percentage point separating them in the popular vote, Nixon received 301 Electoral College votes to Humphrey's 191 and Wallace's 46.  Nixon carried 32 states, Humphrey only 13 plus the District of Columbia.  Wallace carried 5, not surprisingly Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas.  Wallace's running mate Curtis LeMay led the firebombing raids on Japanese cities in 1945.  

And the bombs would be incendiaries—M47 phosphorus bombs and M69 napalm cluster bombs—for which traditional Japanese homes of wood and bamboo, walled with paper screens and floored with rice straw mats, would be little more than tinder and kindling. “No matter how you slice it,” LeMay told himself, “you’re going to kill an awful lot of civilians. Thousands and thousands. But….We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have more Americans killed?”

To this day Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of Tokyo by 279 B-29s on the night of March 9-10, 1945, remains the single most destructive air raid in history. The Superfortresses flew single file over the city, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiaries, utterly destroying almost 16 square miles. More than a million people were left homeless and as many as 125,000 were wounded. Japanese authorities needed three weeks to clear away the bodies. How many burned to ashes in the inferno will never be known. Estimates range from 80,000 to over 200,000 dead—more than in the atomic blasts of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki—and almost all of them were women, children and the elderly. The Americans lost 14 bombers and 96 airmen.

“I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal,” LeMay reflected years later. “Fortunately, we were on the winning side….All war is immoral, and if you let it bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”

We need to remember our own history as we condemn Israel's history with Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

The Clinton-Dole election.  I voted for Clinton even though I never liked him and couldn't help liking Bob Dole.  I think of Clinton as a DINO though no one would ever accuse Dole in those days of being a RINO.  I blame what has happened to Milwaukee and similar industrial cities on Clinton and NAFTA but note that Dole voted in favor of NAFTA and was one of its strong supporters.  Comics, including SNL, used to have a lot of fun poking fun at Dole's referring to himself in the third person.  He was impersonated by Norm MacDonald and by Dan Akroyd.  

Emma Watson is a very famous actress but I think I've never seen any of her movies.  She was born in 1990, so she's almost 50 years younger than me.  She's happy with her life as a single person, or "self-partnered."  I've been other-partnered almost my entire adult life, since I was 17 actually.  I never really had an active 'single life' or 'dating life.'  There have been times when I have considered this a loss but on balance I'm persuaded that "partnering up" is the more satisfying way to navigate life.  For most of us, it's the only way to grow up, to get outside of ourselves, to learn of the need to accommodate people other than ourselves.   By "partnering up," I don't mean only marriage but rather any exclusive life-sharing relationship in which the wishes and welfare, idiosyncracies and even the faults of the partner are as important as one's own.  For those who are fortunate, a long-term partnering relationship will lead to a deepening experience of love, of appreciation of the goodness of one's partner. an ability to see the continuity of the child in the old person and the partner's saintliness, specialness, and unique value.  Seeing these qualities in our partner can also remind us those qualities may exist in other persons, including people we run into on the street or in the food market.  It may also get us to see some of those qualities in ourselves without falling prey to conceit.  I don't express my thoughts very well, but I'm persuaded that some goods in life grow only out of "other partnering" or long-term sharing relationships.  Some such relationships don't work out of course but at least people try.  With 'self-partnering,' it's a lost cause.  God was All-Wise in the Garden of Eden, looking at Adam bored and forlorn: "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a companion suitable for him."  Most versions of Genesis say " a helper" rather than "a companion" but exegetes argue whether the original word implied subordination.  For most of human history of course, subordination of the helper has been the rule, rarely the exception.  The MAGA people would take us back to those days.  The main thrust of making America great again is reestablishing White male Christian hegemony.  Let's see what today's election brings.

Aaron Rodgers is into 'self-partnering.'  He is coming up on his 41st birthday in a few weeks and he's never been married or, so far as I know, in a presumably permanent or committed relationship.  It's one thing for a 'self-partnered' person to eschew a covid vaccination.  It's quite another thing for an 'other-partnered' person to do so, putting not only himself but also his or her partner at risk.  Notably, Rodgers put his teammates - players and coaches - at risk.  I can't see inside his heart or soul of course but I suspect he may be a pretty selfish guy.  Perhaps he would be less so if he were not 'self-partnered.'

I picked Lizzie up at Nicolet at 3:15.  What a mess!  Construction on the freeway, construction on Jean Nicolet Drive, and construction on the Nicolet parking lots.  It was a miracle that I got there on time - and at the right place.  I would have gone to the athletic area for the pickup which I'm used to, but (1) I couldn't exit the freeway at Good Hope because of ramp construction and (2) exiting at Silver Spring and going north on Jean Nicolet, I got shuttled to the main entrance, where she was.  Lucky me, lucky Lizzie! (It was raining.)

Then I went to the pet store and got a bag of kibble for Lilly and to Sendik's where I got some bananas, oatmeal for Geri, All Bran for me, and a bottle of Bogle Pinot Gris in case Geri gets despondent during the election reporting.  I told Andy that, after a year off the sauce following my last trip to the ER for a bladder "flare,", I may need a martini tonight or tomorrow if it looks like Orange Julius Caesar is crossing the Rubicon.