1/20/25

Monday, January 20, 2025

D+75, DT Day

1905  The US began supervising the Dominican Republic's national and international debts, testing President Theodore Roosevelt's "Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine

1942 Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews

1980  President Jimmy Carter announced the US boycott of the winter Olympics in Moscow after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

1993 Maya Angelou was the 1st African American and woman to recite a poem at an inauguration of a US President - "On the Pulse of Morning" for Bill Clinton

2001  President Bill Clinton issued 140 executive pardons on his last day in office; recipients include Marc Rich, Susan McDougall, Patty Hearst, and his brother Roger

2021  President Joe Biden signed 15 executive orders on his first day in office, including US re-joining the WHO, affirming the Paris Climate Agreement, revoking the Keystone XL Pipeline, mandating masks on federal properties, and halting construction of the southern border wall

2024 Large weekend protests began across Germany against far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), after the group's 'master plan' for mass deportation of migrants revealed 

In bed at 9:15, Geri called for help with the Cold Therapy wrap at 9:50, half-awake at 3:45, and up at 4:20.   The outside temperature is -1° and the wind chill is -15°.  The temperature in the house is 71°, 70°, or 68°, depending on whether the measuring instrument is the thermostat, the room hygrometer, or the room humidifier.  The humidity in the TV room is either 16% or 20%, depending on whether the measuring instrument is the hygrometer or the humidifier.  The humidity outdoors is 59% with a dew point of -12°. A cold day, in more ways than one.

Prednisone, day 251, 5 mg. + 2.5 mg., day 13.   Prednisone at 5 a.m.  Yesterday I bought what looks like the world's smallest pill organizer at Walgreens when I picked up Geri's nausea prescription.  I'm using just for the tiny 2.5 mg. prednisone pills in the hope of avoiding yesterday's confusion about whether I had taken my morning 5 mg.  Other meds at 6:30.  2.5 mg. at  5 p.m.

DT-Day = Donald Trump Day, delirium tremens day, Inauguration Day, the beginning of the end, the inflection or turning point,  It's Stephen Miller's Shock and Awe Day, the day when the executive orders he has been drafting since Election Day will 'flood the zone.' It's also 'border czar' Tom Homan's day to start rounding up 'illegal aliens,' anyone in the country without proper 'papers.'  'Show me your papers,' or some such, will become as common in America as it was in the WWII movies about fascist countries of Europe.  What most bothers me about Homan is that he appears to take delight in the havoc he will wreak on tens or thousands (or millions?) of people who came to America for the same reason my Irish grandparents did - to seek a better life.  His ICE myrmidons will be heralded as heroes by anti-immigrant Americans and denounced as 'jack-booted thugs' by some others.  They will nominally be supervised by South Dakota Snow Queen  Kristi Noem, but it's no secret that the roundup will be managed out of the White House by Reichsleiter Stephen Miller.

I took Geri to her first physical therapy appointment at 9:15, ran some errands, and picked her up at 10 so I missed much of the pre-inaugural formalities.  I tuned in around 11:30 in time to have my stomach turned.  I was especially disgusted to see Timothy Dolan deliver the opening invocation followed by Franklin Graham.  Pass the basin, please.  What a freak show.  All toxicbombastic nationalism and formulaic religiosity.  The Inaugural Address was almost beyond belief. insulting to Joe Biden and Democrats who were present, narcissistic in terms of his self-references, and megalomaniacal in terms of what was promised.  His impromptu speech to MAGA supporters in the overflow room in the Capitol was similarly narcissistic and megalomaniacal but also embarrassingly rambling, incoherent, muddled rehashing old, never-ending grievances.  This is supposed to be a day of celebration but I am not celebrating.   I watch today's celebrants and I think of the celebrants in Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt in 1933.  I think of the celebrants in Rome in 1922, and Francisco Franko's rise to power in 1939.  Am I catastrophizing? 

Tree hugging.  “​​In their highest boughs the world rustles,” Hermann Hesse wrote, “their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.”