1/31/2025

 Friday, January 31, 2025

D+85

2022 Wordle bought by the New York Times

In bed at 9:15, awake at 3:40, up at 4:00, thinking of Geri's feeling miserable with pain and discomfort since the surgery, Lilly last month. I lit my Kitty candle, thinking of her, Aunt Mary, my Dad, Jim.       

Prednisone, day 287, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 24, Kevzara, day 10/14.  5 mg., prednisone at 5 a.m. with some Dave's Bread, cream cheese, and jam.  Other meds at 5:40.  Trulicity injection at  11:30.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 8 p.m.           

Germany 1933, America 2025.  Trump has been in office for only 10 days and already his myrmidons have wreaked havoc in the country.  I acknowledge (to myself) that I have a tendency to catastrophize, that I am deeply pessimistic and cynical about Donald Trump and his people, including especially Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, J. D. Vance, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and all Christian Nationalists.  "Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."  That's me.  Also, the bumber sticker: "If you're not appalled, you're not paying attention."  Bertold Brecht, To Those Born Later:

Truly, I live in dark times!

The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead

Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs

Has simply not yet had

The terrible news.

What kind of times are they, when
A talk about trees is almost a crime 

Because it implies silence about so many horrors?   

 . . . .  

III
You who will emerge from the flood / In which we have gone under / Remember / When you speak of our failings / The dark time too / Which you have escaped.
For we went, changing countries oftner than our shoes / Through the wars of the classes, despairing / When there was injustice only and no rebellion.
And yet we know: / Hatred, even of meanness / Contorts the features. / Anger, even against injustice / Makes the voice hoarse. Oh, we / Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness / Could not ourselves be friendly.

But you, when the time comes at last / / / And man is a helper to man / Think of us / With forbearance.

Are we not witnessing something at least akin to Germany in 1933?  It took Hitler only 53 days to destroy the Weimar Republic and secure his dictatorship; how long will it take Trump and his smarter, wilier henchmen?  The "shock and awe" of cascading Executive Orders, the nomination of Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and suchlike deputies, the firing of inspectors general, investigating the investigators, the zone of public conciousness flooded with lies, the inept freezing of grants and loans, the silencing/muzzling of agency and department communications till vetted by political appointees, the threats to Denmark, Panama, and Colombia, the blaming of  DEI for the mid-air collision over the Potomac, daily denigration of immigrants and deceitful denigrations of prior adminsistrations, and the acquiescence of Republicans in everything Trump and his myrmidons do.  Next steps?  Prosecuting the prosecutors?Repealing the Impoundment Control Act? Repealing the Filibuster Rule in the Senate?   Increasing the number of federal judges and packing the courts with MAGA judges.  Creating special MAGA loyalist units in the military for in-country use, e.g., brown/black shirts, and within the FBI/DEA/ATF, e.g., Gestapo,  Privatizing VA Health Care.  Means-testing Social Security and Medicare.

Pessimize, n., neologism, to think pessimistically, doomsday thinking, a lesser degree of catastrophize.  How long will we, or either rof us, be able to live in this house?  Geri's left leg has been out of commission for much of the last 9 months and I'm next-to-useless around the house except for kitchen clean-up chores.  If not here, where? when?

Journal entry one year ago yesterday.   "I'm grateful for the Veteran's Administration.  This morning's WaPo has an article by Linda Searing entitled "Seniors spend the equivalent of 3 weeks a year on health care, study says: About 11 percent of people over 65 spend 50 or more days each year (nearly one day a week) obtaining routine health care"  I wondered what my statistics are for last year, 2023.   I had 53 engagements with the VA Medical Center, a tad more than one each week on average.  Some of them are arguably net medical, i.e., 4 or 4 podiatry visits for a pedicure.  Some of them were video appointment with my personal diabetes pharmacist who transitioned me away from Metformin, on to Jardiance/empagliflozin, and increased my Trulicity dosage for 1.5 mg. weekly to 4.5 mg.  Some were video meetings with my 'health coach' who provided advice about yoga, tai chi, meditation, acupuncture, etc.  Others required many hours, e.g., my visit to the ER in severe IC pain, my 'double dip' endoscopy & colonoscopy.  Others required at least, on average, 3 hours, counting travel time, wait time, and treatment/examination time, like visits to the Eye Clinic, the Physical Therapy Clinic, Urology Clinic, and semi-annual check-ups with my Primary Care physician.  Of the total 53 appointments, 40 required a trip to the VA Medical Center.The study also found that about 11 percent of people 65 and over spend even more time — 50 or more days each year (nearly one day a week) — obtaining routine health care away from home. The research was based on Medicare data from a nationally representative sample of 6,619 people 65 and older.  So the average for folks 65 and over is 21 days a week, actually only 17 days, the other 4 were for ER visits, nursing homes, etc.  My stats include 40 days (subtrackting the podiatry visits, 36 days) physically present at the VA, only one at the ER. That comes out to about 3 on-site visits every two weeks.   Add to that about 13 video visits.  It looks like I'm a rate-buster.  I am mindful of how fortunate I am to be enrolled in the VA health program.  What is the cost of all the medical assistance I receive at no cost from the VA?  I'm sure it is tens of thousands of dollars, especially when the cost of my medications are added to the total.  It's not entirely accurate to say that I receive the medical care and medications at no cost.  The VA charges my Medicare account, my Medicare Supplement insurer, and my Medicare Part D prescription drug insurer for my care and I am responsible for those insurance premiums, but I pay no deductibles or co-pays."

I haven't done a similar count for my visits to Zablocki in 2024.  The numbers may be similar or perhaps less but I am most assuredly a regular costomer.

Geri is not well.  She suffers.  I worry.

1/30/2025

 Thursday, January 30, 2025

D+84

2019 A continuous 24-hour church service lasting 97 days to prevent deportation of Armenian asylum seekers ended after Dutch authorities relented at the Protestant Bethel Church in The Hague

2019 An approaching polar vortex prompted a state of emergency to be declared in Wisconsin and other states.  US Postal Service suspended deliveries to ten states

In bed at 110:15, up at 4:30, perseverating on Don McNeil's Breakfast Club theme from the 1940s: 'Good morning, BreakfastClubbers, good morning to ya. We got up nice and early just to howdy-do-ya.'     

Prednisone, day 286, 5 +2.5 mg., day 23, Verzana, day 9/14  5 mg. prednisone at 4:55.  Other meds at 8 a.m.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 4:10.    

Judgment at Nuremberg.  I posted a comment to SCC's post suggesting to her FB friends that they watch "Judgment at Nuremberg."

I finished watching "Judgment at Nuremberg" this morning. You mentioned in response to Matt Czosnek's comment that the film is about how the courts were used in the Third Reich to advance fascism and of course that's true, but it is also about how the Allies' used ad hoc courts (or 'tribunals') to punish government leaders of the vanquished Germany and about the legal and moral culpability of government workers for complicity in carrying out the policies of their government. The Americans were able to put the four judges on trial and imprison them because the Americans won the war and the Germans lost. General Curtis LeMay, who led the massive firebombing attacks on Japanese cities toward the end of World War II said "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals" and "There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders." He was rewarded by being made commander of our Strategic Air Command after the war. I wonder what would have happened if America and South Vietnam's military government had won their war against other Vietnamese, which North Vietnamese and VC leaders would have been placed on trial and killed or imprisoned after the war. Or if Vietnam had won AND been powerful enough to exert its will against the vanquished Americans whom they would have tried and punished. LBJ, Robert McNamara, General Westmoreland, how low would they go. The point made by the German defense counsel in the film is that everyone was complicit in the Nazi crimes. It's been almost 60 years since I was sent to Vietnam by my government to participate in the killing, wounding, burning, and poisoning of people who posed no threat to me or my fellow Americans. I still am haunted by my small but complicit role in all that human suffering. I was reminded of it by Russia's gratuitous invasion of Ukraine and again by "Judgment at Nuremberg."    

Anniversary Facebook post:  Today is the anniversary of the ending of perhaps the world's longest continuous religious services.  On October 26, 2018, in the Hague in the Netherlands, a religious service started in the Bethel Church to protect an Armenian immigrant family from deportation, under a Dutch law that forbade police from disrupting a church service to make an arrest.  Every day, for more than three months, the church service at the small Dutch chapel went on around the clock. Pastors worked in shifts. Volunteers worshiped.  For 96 days, the Tamrazyan family lived in the red-brick church building in a residential neighborhood. The family of five had resided in the Netherlands for nearly nine years since fleeing Armenia, and the country's highest court ruled the previous year that they had to return, pending the processing of their asylum claims.  Hundreds of pastors from the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium rotated through the church between October and January to carry on the service.  The service lasted about 2,300 hours.  Pastors said they were taking part on behalf of all the children of asylum-seekers, not just the Tamrazyan family.  The government relented and allowed the family to stay in the Netherlands as their asylum claim was processed.  The United States government does not have a law restricting arrests during church services, but enforcement agents have usually been sensitive to the bad optics of interrupting a church service to effect an arrest.  We'll see whether that practice will continue under ICE's arrest quota system.   

A passing thought.  Following Geri's surgery, a Jewish friend brought us a banana cake.  A Lutheran neighbor offered to bring us a dinner.  Another Jewish friend called to see whether he could go to the grocery store for us.  Another Jewish friend and a Chinese immigrant friend brought us a lasagna, a homemade cake, and a salad.

No surprise.  Trump holds a presser and blames Obama and Biden DEI policies for the midair collision at Reagan National Airport approach path.  Former Wisconsin congressman and current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared and licked Trump's boots, as did DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth and VP J. D. Vance.  All spoke of DEI policies as if the accident occurred because of air traffic controllers at Reagan National.  A disgusting, demoralizing, depressing demonstration of Trump's base character, raising yet again the question of whether he is the worst person in the world, or merely one of the worst.  His appearance started out with him reading, almost verbatim, a statement writtten by one of his aides with the normal, meaningless pap words, "thoughts and prayers," "loving God," etc., none of the words reflecting Trump's own thoughts, beliefs, or values.  Then he launched into the broadside against hiring policies of the Obama and Biden administrations designed to help with the extreme shortage of air traffic controllers at the nation's airports and air traffic control centers.

1/29/25

 Wednesday, January 29, 2025

D+83

I started noting anniversaries on June 1, 2023, so there seems to be no reason to continue except for events that occurred very recently.  As I recall, I started the practice at a time when I was having difficulty finding subjects to write about, but I wanted to continue writing something each day.  I have this challenge increasingly frequently (age, mental acuity?) and wondered just today whether I should stop journaling.  The issue is a bit like my abstinence from coffee, tea, carbonated, and alcoholic drinks, which I take day to day.  Mostly, I consider having a cup of coffee rather than a Coke or cognac, but so far have stayed away from all of these bladder irritants, knowing what a coffee-binger I was most of my life and the pain price I've paid over many years.

In bed after 10 and up at 6:05 from a long, vivid dream of being hired as the exec at The Spanish Center but not speaking Spanish and suggesting serving as 'acting' exec with a press release listing my background with experiences helpful to the requirements of the Center, JD, MULS, USMC, HOP, etc.  Like most dreams, strange, weird.  Geri got up at 7:30 saying 'It was the best night I've had since the surgery.'  Her PT session also went well and she felt fine all morning but turned unwell early in the afternoon and has been in bed, using an ice pack under her knee.  She got up around 3:30, feeling better, but noting that the day in the ER at CSMO set her back on her recovery, a full day of inactivity, and a missed physical therapy appointment.  This morning's PT session has taken a toll this afternoon.

Prednisone, day 285,, 5 +2.5 mg, day 22  Verzana, day 8/14.  5 mg..prednisone at 6:25.  Other meds before 9:00.      

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days: He used the constitution to shatter the constitution  is an article by Timothy W. Ryback in the January 9, 2025 edition of The Atlantic.  Excerpts:

Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.

What follows is a step-by-step description of carefully, methodically, Hitler used legal means to destroy the Weimar constitutional republic and install himself as a dictator and his National Socialist Party as his enforcers.  Germany was politically deeply divided at the time, or "polarized" as we say now.  Six million Germans were Communists.  The Social Democrats and Communists collectively commanded 221 seats, or roughly 38 percent, of the 584-seat Reichstag, enough to prevent Hitler from getting the 2/3rds vote he needed to pass an Ermächtigungsgesetz (“empowering law”) that was crucial to his political survival. Passing such a law h would dismantle the separation of powers, grant Hitler’s executive branch the authority to make laws without parliamentary approval, and allow Hitler to rule by decree, bypassing democratic institutions and the constitution—required the support of a two-thirds majority in the fractious Reichstag.   He started by calling a national election in March 1933 and declaring war on his own government. 

The story that follows details the step-by-step process Hitler used to destroy Weimar, relying on what the author describes as "his unerring instinct for detecting the weaknesses in structures and processes."  I note that Hitler was operating with  a deeply divided, multi-party government,  with multiple Nationaist parties and multiple socialist parties, unlike the current American government with Republican Trumpists in control of the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.   In Hitler's and Germany's case, the burning of the Reichstag provided an excuse for declaring a national emergency and banning the Communist Party, which in turn Hitler form a coalition with other parties and pass the  Ermächtigungsgesetz (“empowering law”) that made Hitler a dictator.  What 'national emergencies' with Trump and the Republicans declare in his march to dictatorial power?  Or will he simply, like Andrew Jackson, simply refuse to obey court orders.

The 2008 documentary, Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency, which aired on PBS, depicted Jackson as the United States’ first imperial president. One of Jackson’s most infamous presidential actions was his enforcement of Native American removal that resulted in the Trail of Tears and the deaths of approximately 4,000 Cherokees. The Trail of Tears occurred despite the Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) that favored the rights of Native Americans. In response to the ruling, Jackson allegedly said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Although this statement, which has been repeatedly attributed to Jackson, is likely apocryphal, neither Jackson nor the state of Georgia enforced the ruling. Whether Jackson uttered the famous phrase or not, both Jackson’s contemporary critics and modern historians, such as Daniel Walker Howe, who have studied his presidency have depicted him as a powerful executive who pushed the constitutional boundaries of presidential power. [“Now let him enforce it”: The long history of the imperial presidency, 27 MARCH 2017 – LAURA ELLYN SMITH, ncph..org]

Trump has already defied Congress' power of the purse with the two-page OMB memo instructing agencies and departments of the government to 'temporarily pause' all grants and loans despite Art. I, sec. 8 of the Constitution and the Impoundment Control Act.  Trump argues that the 'temporary pause' is not an 'impoundment' because it is only 'temporary.'  Will the craven Court agree?  Will the craven Congress?  Is Trump following in Hitler's footsteps?  I do believe.

LTMW at the voracious birds flocking to our feeders, including a murmuration of starlings, my regular house finch visitors, and what is becoming my favorite (though I love them all), the red-breasted nuthatch who lets me come within 18 inches of him or her while he munches on a suet cake.  A red-bellied woodpecker is doing a job on the capacin suet cake while hairy woodpecker perches atop the other shepherd's crook.

1/28/25

 Tuesday, January 28, 2025

D+82

2021 Bernie Sanders' mittens that he wore to Biden's inauguration raised $1.8 million for Vermont charities after the images went viral

In bed at 8:45, awake at 415, and up at 4:30 remembering my brief encounter at CSMO yesterday and my text to ASC on her birthday. Lit a log in the fireplace.  Geri got up at about 4:40, got an ice pack from the freezer, and returned to bed, declining my offer to fill the cooling machine with ice. She's a trooper.  29°, wind chill chill 18°, high 43°.  WIND ADVISORY: Southwest winds of 20 to 30 mph, gusts up to 45 to 50 mph expected.   

Prednisone, day 284, 5 + 2.5 MT., day 21, Vezana, day 7/14  5 mg. prednisone at 5 a.m.  Other meds around 2 p.m.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 4 p.m.

A Brief Encounter.  After Geri and I had been in her room at the Emergency Department at CSMO yesterday, a staff member asked me to move my car from the entryway.  On my way back into the hospital, an old Black lady on her way out waited for me to come through the doorway.  I said 'Thank you kindly' and she said 'You're very welcome.'   I said 'How are you doing today?' or somesuch pleasantry and she replied "I'm doing fine.  Today's my birthday.  I'm 83 years old.'  I said "I'm 83 years old too.  We have something in common.  Actually, we have much in common.".  Then I said "God bless you" and she said "God bless you" and we hugged each other.  I proceeded back to the ER to rejoin Geri and she went on her way, each of us blessed by a stranger in a moment of Grace.  

CSMO ER; Ascension Health Care,  The disinformation, hype, & spin:

ABOUT ASCENSION

Listening to you, caring for you

From the moment you walk through our doors, you’ll hear the sounds of hope, health and strength, because we’re more than just hospitals, ERs and clinics. Ascension care teams start by understanding you, your health and your life to deliver care that’s right for you. The compassionate, personalized care you’ve come to expect is close to home and connected to a national network of care and the expertise of a wide range of doctors and specialists. So, you’ll be connected to all the care you need for you and your family.

The real experience. 

(1)  Geri was in the ER from about 10:30 a.m. until about 4:45 p.m., more than 6 hours.  During our 6-hour stay, neither of us was offered a drink of water, a cup of coffee, or food of any kind.  There were vending machines in the waiting room from which one could purchase, e.g., a small bag of M & Ms for $2.25.   

(2)  During those 5 hours, she never saw a doctor.    The closest she got was occasional visits from a Physician's Assistant.

(3) A CT scan of her abdomen was taken at about 11:30.  The 'read' from an off-site radiologist wasn't received until almost 5 hours later.  It was the 5-hour delay in obtaining the results of the CT scan that mostly contributed to our 6-hour residency in the ER.  After a while, it felt like we were prisoners.

(4)  The private room in which Geri was treated and where we waited for 6 hours was cold, indeed very cold.  I had left the house wearing a hooded sweatshirt but no coat, hat, or gloves, thinking I would be either in the warm Volvo or in the warm waiting room of the orthopedic surgeon where we were headed.  Twice we asked that the temperature in the room be increased and twice we were told that it would be, though it remained uncomfortably cold.

(5)  Geri pushed the "Call" button for assistance from a nurse.  A nurse didn't arrive until 10 minutes later.

(6)  When Geri alerted the nurse that she had to use the bathroom, the nurse asked her if a urinalysis had been ordered, then checked the chart and saw that one had been ordered, and then provided Geri with the bonnet to collect a sample.

(7)  The electronic device that monitors blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart rate beeped audibly, very audibly.  After a few hours of listening to it, Geri asked that the sound be turned down or silenced since the only ones present and listening to it were she and I.  One nurse tried, but soon the annoying beeping returned, heard only by the patient, Geri, and me, attending her.

The hospital administrators at Ascension Healthcare have earned some national and local notoriety for increasing the company's net revenue by reducing staff levels.  The headlines are revealing:

How a Sprawling Hospital Chain [Ascension] Ignited Its Own Staffing Crisis, N Y Times, December 15, 2022

ER docs in Detroit strike over long wait times, low staffing,  Michigan Public Org.health, 4/18/24

Texas [Ascension] nurses plan strike over low staffing, recruitment  Statesman, June 2, 2023

Physicians union at Ascension St. John on verge of strike , msn.com

4 Updates on the Problems at Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s, January 27, 2023, January 27, 2023

Ascension Healthcare is a Catholic organization, at least in its marketing.  "As a Catholic health ministry, Ascension has a unique obligation and calling – reflected in our Mission – to advocate for a more just and compassionate society in words and actions."    "Ascension" refers to the Christian doctrine that Jesus of Nazareth ascended or elevated into Heaven after he was crucified and rose from the dead.  Cynics might say that the business corporation Ascension pimps the Catholic religion to sell its product, health care.   In the lobby of CSMO is a lifesized statuary of a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul with small children.  The Daughters of Charity founded Milwaukee's St. Mary's Hospital on Water Tower Hill in 1946.  The last of the sisters left Milwaukee in 2012.  My children were born there.  I briefly dated a student nurse at St. Mary's Nursing School as an undergraduate at Marquette.  Our children's first babysitter was a student nurse at the Columbia Hospital Nursing School.  Both hospitals were respected institutions before becoming a part of Ascension.  Alas.

Dan Goldberg called Geri today and offered to go to the store for us or to do anything else that needs doing.  He's a blessing, as is Caren. 

Karoline Leavitt, Trump's Press Secretary, held her first White House press briefing today.  I caught the last part of it and saw that she is (1_ a younger, prettier Sean Spicer, and (2) as gratuitously willing and eager to insult Joe Biden and his administration as her boss is.  Like so many Trump aides, she is a Roman Catholic, having attended Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, MA and St. Anselm College.  According to Wikipedia, "She advocates for private education and credits her Catholic schooling for instilling pro-life values, discipline, and the importance of public service."  In the first Trump administration, she served as an assistant press secretary under Kayleigh McEnany, another Roman Catholic product of Catholic education, graduating from the Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa and the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington.

 

 

 

1/27/35

 Monday, January 27, 2025

D+81

1825 US President James Monroe urged Congress to approve the creation of Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi River, for the relocation of Eastern Indian tribes to 'promote their welfare and happiness" 

1945 Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland - now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day

1973 Paris Peace Accords signed ending America's then-longest war and the draft.

1992 Presidential candidate Bill Clinton & Genifer Flowers accused each other of lying over her assertion they had a 12-year affair

In bed at 10:15, up at 5:50 from a dream of being at a hotel in the Everglades with the Goldbergs and the Lowes, a booking mixup with the room, and an offer to buy swampland.   The temperature outside is 21° but the wind chill is 1° with wind gusts up to 36 mph.  WIND ADVISORY; West winds of 20 to 25 mph with gusts up to 45 mph expected and isolated 50 mph possible.  Geri got up around 6, very miserable from the side effects of pain medications.  She sees the surgeon at 9:15 this morning.

Prednisone, day 283, 5 + 2.5 mg, day 20, Kevlara, day 6/14.  Prednisone at  6:15.  N.B.  The sore right shoulder reappeared this morning.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 5:30 p.m.  Other meds at 6:45 p.m.

CSMO ER.  After Geri's visit with Dr. Graf to have her sutures removed and her condition assessed,  we went directly to the ER because of her continuing problem with abdominal pain.  We were there from 10:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon, mostly because of an almost 5-hour wait for her CT scan to be read by some radiologists downtown.  I will write some thoughts about this visit later.

My dick is bigger than your dick.  Trump got into a showdown with the president of Colombia over the weekend.  The Colombian refused to allow American military aircraft to land in Bogota with their loads of Colombian deportees.  Civilian passenger aircraft would be allowed, but not military aircraft.  So Trump slapped a 25% tariff on all goods imported from Columbia with the tariff to double to 50% in one week if the prohibition continued.  He also ordered visa sanctions on Colombians in the U.S., "enhanced inspections" of Columbians and Colombian goods entering the U.S., and other sanctions   Columbia at first ordered retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products but soon relented and agreed to permit the landing of U.S. military aircraft loaded with deported Colombians.  Trump claimed a major immigration, deportation, tariff, and foreign policy victory.  

Further thoughts on worldviews.  Yesterday I wrote about the Donald Trump worldview, life as a series of zero-sum games of winners and losers in which the goal is always to be a winner and never a loser, or Beat thy neighbor.  As TSJ used to say, it's also a game in which 'he who dies with the most toys wins.'  There is of course a contrary worldview in which our purpose in life is to love our neighbor, to support him and help him in in his times of need.  It is the worldview of the Good Samaritan and of Matthew 25: 31-46:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’  

The Trumpian worldview is "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," retribution and revenge,  “My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades” and "“Be paranoid. I know this observation doesn’t make any of us sound very good, but let’s face the fact that it’s possible that even your best friend wants to steal your spouse and your money.”

The problem with loving anyone is that love opens one up to hurt, not only from betrayal but also from simple non-reciprocity or from loss. "Love, love changes everything  / Days are longer, words mean more  / Love, love changes everything  / Pain is deeper than before" Trump avoids the risk of loss and pain by loving no one but himself.  He is the man in Simon & Garfunkel's I Am A Rock:  "I am a rock / I am an island. / I’ve built walls / A fortress, steep and mighty / That none may penetrate. / I have no need of friendship / Friendship causes pain / It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain."

[I had intended to develop these thoughts today.  I started thinking about them and writing the above thoughts before I drove Geri to the orthopedic surgeon's appointment at 9:30.  By the time we got back from the CSMO ER at 5, we were both worn out, too tired to think much or write.  Tomorrow's another day.]

1/26/25

Sunday, January 26, 2025

D+80

1920 Amedeo Modigliani's fiancé Jeanne Hébuterne jumped out of a window a day after the artist's funeral killing herself and her unborn child

1934 Nazi Germany & Poland signed a 10-year non-aggression treaty

1962 Bishop Burke of the Buffalo Catholic dioceses declared Chubby Checker's "The Twist" to be impure and banned it from all Catholic schools

1998 President Bill Clinton said "I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"

2024 US Federal jury said Donald Trump must pay $83 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll after he denied raping her 

My knockoff of one of Modigliania's many Jeanne Hébuterne portraits

In bed at 10 after 'tucking in' Geri with her wedge and cold therapy wrap, up at 5 a.m.   15° outside with a wind chill of 1°, high temp of 29°.  Geri got up around 6:00, had a cup of coffee, read some newspaper and worked on Wordle, then went back to bed around 7. 

Prednisone, day 282, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 19.  5 mg. prednisone at 5:10 and other meds at 8:35, 2.5 mg. at 9 p.m.        

Predawn musings. (1) Ezra Klein's column in this morning's Times includes this: "We’ve been warned for decades that America is or is becoming an oligarchy." Is becoming?  Hasn't the country been an oligarchy, a plutocracy, from its very beginning?  Who were those revered "Founding Fathers" who convened in Philadelphia to publish the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution?  Were they not the the colonies'/states' rich and powerful, many of them slaveowners, or some (like Benjamin Franklin) former slaveowners?   Was there a time in American history, or world history, where the Golden Rule, i.e., he who has the gold makes the rules,  hasn't been true?  Thucydides: The powerful do what they will, and the powerless suffer what they must.  Weren't both the Articles of Confederation and the U. S. Constitution drafted to create a weak, anti-democratic national government, reserving most of the power "to the states  . . . or to the people:?  Were the French and Russian Revolutions different?  Other Communist revolutions?  Was the United States different under Teddy Roosevelt's Progressivism, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and LBJ's Great Society, or were those reformers trying to preserve and protect Capitalism favoring the wealthy against predation by the super wealthy on the one hand and socialist egalitarians on the other?  In any case, can there be any doubt that today without the backing of substantial wealth, gaining federal political office is virtually impossible? That Wall Street, K Street, and Silicon Valley rule Washington and not 'We, the People'?

In the 2020 election cycle, the average successful campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives spent over $2 million. However, competitive districts often see spending that far exceeds this average. For instance, the 2020 campaign for Georgia's 7th Congressional District saw total expenditures surpassing $14 million from both major party candidates.

The stakes are even higher in U.S. Senate races, where campaigns can run into the tens of millions. The average successful Senate campaign expenditure in 2020 was nearly $20 million. High-profile races, such as the 2020 South Carolina Senate race, saw combined spending from the candidates exceed $130 million, making it one of the most expensive Senate races in history.

There are three levels of every federal election: the public general election; the primary elections, which are public; and the donor-private support primaries.  It is the donor-support primary that determines who can stage a credible public primary campaign.  You need money to run a primary campaign, not so much if you are running for a local office, but very much if you are running for a congressional seat, Senate seat, or the presidency.  Small individual contributions of $25, $50, or $100 aggregate to a great deal of money eventually, but it's the Big Hitters, the donors contributing thousands directly and more indirectly, who enable a campaign to get off the ground and ready to appeal to the small individual donors.  It's the Big Hitters, the people who have or control Big Money, who have the greatest influence and it's their interests that the political campaigner and officeholder is most beholden to.  As the anarchist Emma Goldman reminded us, "If elections made any difference, they'd make them illegal."  He who has the gold makes the rules.

(2)  I'm wondering if we all would have been better off if our parents, teachers, clergy, et al., had raised us to believe that all of us are basically selfish and inclined to take advantage of others for our own benefit, if we had been taught that man is a wolf/predator to other men.  Homo hominis lupus.  Fred Trump taught this to Donald and presumably, Donald has taught it to his children and they to theirs.  Instead, most of us are taught that Man is made in the image and likeness of God.  Similarly, would we be better off if we had been raised to believe that there is no God or at least no personal God and that we are 'on our own,'  Instead, most of us have been raised to believe that we are "children" of a personal, indeed paternal, God our Father, who loves us and created each of us to live forever in perfect happiness in Heaven with Him and his angels unless we fuck it up by disobeying his rules?  Catholics are taught that we are created good, but inclined to evil by Original Sin.  Protestants take a harsher, and truer? View, especially Calvinists, who believe that man is "bound to Satan" or "enslaved to sin."  And where did this idea of God being "loving" and desirous of our happiness come from?  The God who created Hell?  We, his children who act so often in accordance with our fallen nature, our enslavement to sin?  How can we not be angry with such a God?  Life becomes more endurable if we stop believing in God altogether rather than perpetually second-guessing Him and blaming Him.  Or if we believe that God is a mean prick rather than a loving father.  Or, like the Manichaeans, believe that there are 2 Gods, one good and one nasty.  Or, like the Hindus and pagans, believe that there are many gods with many different qualities that change from time to time  Instead we are taught to believe that there is only one God, that He is a person (or 3 persons, but in unitary way that we can't begin to understand because it's a divine "mystery"), that He loves us and that He he shows his love by giving us "free will" so as to make each of us eligible for Heaven - or Hell, depending on how things work out.  So the God of our fathers is kind of like King George III in Hamilton:

You'll be back / Like before

I will fight the fight and win the war

For your love / For your praise

And I'll love you till my dying days

When you're gone / I'll go mad

So don't throw away this thing we had

Cuz when push comes to shove

I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love

If there is no God, there is no one to blame for Life's shit, for evil, pain, suffering, for Putin, for Sinwar, for Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich, for Donald Trump, for January 6th, for childhood cancer and conjoined twins, for harelips and cleft palates, for hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.  On the other hand, if "His eye is on the sparrow" "He's got the whole world in his hands," and "It's all in God's plan," I for one am plenty pissed, including for letting 21-year-old Jeaane Héburterne kill herself and her 8-month-old fetus.  Was His eye on those sparrows? 😡  

Modigliani's original

Geri seems to be better today.  She showered again without a problem.  I helped her with her compression socks and her outer socks.  David came over and helped her with a couple of matters.  I've become adept with refilling the ice-cooling device.  She has been sleeping a bit more than usual but still not eating much at all and is suffering from the effects of her pain medication.  Hong Anh's fried rice combo with vegetables for dinner.

1/25/24

 Saturday, January 25, 2024

D+79

1939 1st nuclear fission experiment (splitting of a uranium atom) in the US, in the basement of Pupin Hall, Columbia University by a team including Enrico Fermi

1949 First Israeli election was won by David Ben-Gurion

1959 Pope John XXIII proclaimed the 2nd Vatican council

In bed around 9:15, awake around 3 and up at 3:30.  I heard Geri moving her walker after I woke up but before I got up.  I lay in bed wondering if I should get up to see if I could help her in any way or leave her 'unmolested' by my attention as she coped with her challenges.  She has been admonishing me lately for staring at her which I confess I do, worried about her pain and various discomforts.  My heart aches to see her so burdened by the consequences of the knee replacement.  It's been 9 days since the surgery.  She walks very well and the physical therapist says that her therapy is going well, but her overall recovery is a struggle.  Cousin Sue, a blessing on her head, leaves today and just as I was sorry to see Steve leave for Chicago a week ago, I am sorry to see Sue leave today.  She has served as a personal nurse, maid, and housekeeper all week, an extraordinary gift to both Geri and me.  After I drop her off at the airport, it will be just Geri and me, she in her challenging condition and me in my arthritic decrepitude.  Sue returns to her husband Tom who has long been coping with a bad knee, a knee replacement, and recovery of his own, all with considerable pain.  Saint Sue! (I think of St. Susanna Church in Rome which I have visited.  Until 2117, it was the official American national church in Rome run by the Paulist Order under the patronage of Bernard Cardinal Law, of whom nothing need be said.)      

Prednisone, day 281, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 18.  5 mg. of prednisone at 4:45 with the last of CBG's banana bread and my other pills.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 5 p.m.

I dropped Sue off at the airport at about 1 p.m. I told her - again - how much we appreciated her thoughtfulness and assistance in spending the week with us, helping Geri and me the week after Geri's knee replacement surgery.  She could not have been more attentive and solicitous to Geri's health and comfort needs.  Geri & I are discussing what might be appropriate thank-you gifts.     

Early morning Facebook post:

Charles D. Clausen is  feeling thoughtful.

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I don't think "ironic" is the right word for it, but isn't it somewhat ironic that the great majority of those subject to the ICE roundup are Hispanic Catholics or evangelical protestants and that they are being rounded up as a top priority of of DJT, God-sent hero of many evangelicals and conservative Catholics, and DJV, an early evangelical and later Catholic convert.?  May we not wonder what role, if any, the teachings of the Prince of Peace has on those who profess to adore Him?  Love they neighbor as thyself, the Good Samaritan, and all that.  I'm thinking of all the religiosity incorporated into the recent inaugural ceremonials.  Also, I am reminded of the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller's famous confession after WW II 'First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist . . . "  Niemoller got in hot water with the Nazis because he wouldn't embrace the Deutsche Christen movement that portrayed Jesus as an Aryan and denied that he was a Jew.  For that, he was imprisoned from 1937 to 1945, after which he lectured frequently on personal responsibility and the consequences of not speaking up on behalf of those disfavored by the government. "And then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."

Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not ommunist.

Then,  they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

WOMAN, WHY ARE YOU WEEPING? by Jane Kenyon

One morning after the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene came to see the body of Christ. She found the stone rolled away from an empty tomb. Two figures dressed in white asked her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"

"Because," she replied, "they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."

Returned from long travel, I sit

in the familiar, sun-streaked pew, waiting

for the bread and wine of holy Communion.

The old comfort does not rise in me, only

apathy and bafflement.

                                India, with her ceaseless

bells and fire, her crows calling stridently

all night; India with her sandalwood

smoke, and graceful gods, many-headed and many-

armed, has taken away the one who blessed

and kept me.

            The thing is done, as surely

as if my luggage had been stolen from the train.

 

Men and women with faces as calm as lakes at dusk

have taken away my Lord, and I don't know

where to find him.

                             *

What is Brahman? I don't know Brahman.

I don't know saccidandana, the bliss

of the absolute and unknowable.

I only know that I have lost the Lord

in whose image I was made.

Whom shall I thank for this pear,

sweet and white? Food is God, prasadam,

God's mercy. But who is this God?

The one who is not this, not that?

The absurdity of all religious forms

breaks over me, as the absurdity of language

made me feel faint the day I heard friends

giving commands to their neighbor's dog

in Spanish.... At first I laughed,

but then I became frightened.

                             *

They have taken away my Lord, a person

whose life I held inside me. I saw him

heal, and teach, and eat among sinners.

I saw him break the sabbath to make a higher

sabbath. I saw him lose his temper.

I knew his anguish when he called, "I thirst!,"

and received vinegar to drink. The Bible

does not say it, but I am sure he turned

his head away. Not long after he cried, "My God,

my God, why have you forsaken me?,"

I watched him reveal himself risen

to Magdalene with a single word: "Mary!"

It was my habit to speak to him. His goodness

perfumed my life. I loved the Lord, he heard

my cry, and he loved me as his own.

                             *

A man sleeps on the pavement, on a raffia mat --

the only thing that has not been stolen from him.

This stranger who loves what cannot be understood

has put out my light with his calm face.

Shall the fire answer my fears and vapors?

The fire cares nothing for my illness,

nor does Brahma, the creator, nor Shiva who sees

evil with his terrible third eye; Vishnu,

the protector, does not protect me.

I've brought home the smell of the streets

in the folds of soft, bright cotton garments.

When I iron them the steam brings back

the complex odors that rise from the gutters,

of tuberoses, urine, dust, joss, and death.

                             *

On a curb in Allahabad the family gathers

under a dusty tree, a few quilts hung

between light posts and a wattle fence

for privacy. Eleven sit or lie around the fire

while a woman of sixty stirs a huge pot.

Rice cooks in a narrow-necked crock

on the embers. A small dog, with patches of bald,

red skin on his back, lies on the corner

of the piece of canvas that serves as flooring.

Looking at them I lose my place.

I don't know why I was born, or why

I live in a house in New England, or why I am

a visitor with heavy luggage giving lectures

for the State Department. Why am I not

tap-tapping with my fingernail

on the rolled-up window of a white government car,

a baby in my arms, drugged to look feverish?

                             *

Rajiv did not weep. He did not cover

his face with his hands when we rowed past

the dead body of a newborn nudging the grassy

banks at Benares -- close by a snake

rearing up, and a cast-off garland of flowers.

He explained. When a family are too poor

to cremate their dead, they bring the body

here, and slip it into the waters of the Ganges

and Yamuna Rivers.

                                Perhaps the child was dead

at birth; perhaps it had the misfortune

to be born a girl. The mother may have walked

two days with her baby's body to this place

where Gandhi's ashes once struck the waves

with a sound like gravel being scuffed

over the edge of a bridge.

"What shall we do about this?" I asked

my God, who even then was leaving me. The reply

was scorching wind, lapping of water, pull

of the black oarsmen on the oars....