2/1/2025

 Saturday, February 1, 2025

D+86

2021 Wisdom the albatross, the world's oldest known bird, hatches a chick at 70 at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, North Pacific

In bed around 9:15 and up at 4:15.  I loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the counters, and put a load of napkins in the washing machine.  Geri got up at 6:30 and reported moving her leg wrong during the night, causing intense pain, but she says she's OK this morning.  She also continues to have abdominal pain, which is very worrisome.  She says she slept well last night except for the painful movement involving her 'bad' knee.

Prednisone, day 287, 5 + 2.5 mg., day 25, Kevzara, day 11/14.  5  mg. prednisone at 4:30 and other meds at 9:00.  2.5 m9. prednisone at 5 p.m.

Geri is not well.  I've encouraged her to call Dr. Baugrud's paging service for advice.  When they communicated yesterday morning, Dr. B. presumably had not seen the blood test results Geri received from CSMO yesterday afternoon.  She continues to complain of great weakness.  I'm worried about not knowing the significance of the blood work results and the continued weakness. and stomach pain or discomfort.  At a time when she should be getting stronger, she is getting weaker.

Germany 1933, America 2025.  Russell Vought is Donald Trump's nominee to lead the little-known but powerful White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  He graduated from the evangelical Christian Wheaton College whose motto is "For Christ and His Kingdom: and whose mission " is fueled by a firm dedication to biblical truth and boundless love."  He describes himself as a 'Christian nationalist.'He served as deputy director, acting director, and finally director of OMB during Trump's first term.  During Trump's interregnum, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America (CRA), served as a co-author of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, and was policy director of the Republican National Committee's platform committee.  Not surprisingly, CRA's website parrots much of the philosophy and policies promoted in Project 2025.  One of the segments on its website is labeled simply "Legal."  It contains a 40-page legal brief authored by Jeffery Clark, whom Trump wished to appoint as U.S. Attorney General during his attempted steal of the 2020 election.  The brief is very lawyerly and facially scholarly, using the Greek philosophical term telos, for example instead of its English equivalent purpose, goal, or end.  The telos of the brief, however, is to justify and to provide a legal roadmap for  Donald Trump's obviating the U.S. Senate's right to "advise and consent" on presidential appointments to high executive branch offices.  I tried to copy and paste portions of it into this document but wasn't able to do so.  Suffice it to say that with its references to the Unitary Executive Theory, and its interpretation of the Constitution's Appointments and Recess Appointments Clauses, and the Presidential Adjournment Clauses, Clark concludes that Trump is constitutionally authorized to adjourn the Congress for a period sufficient to trigger the Recess Appointments Clause and appoint all his nominees to their posts without the advice and consent of the Senate, another step on the road to what is euphemistically called "authoritarianism" and is what we all know is "dictatorship."  

Other documents within the Legal section deal with the presidential impoundment of spending authorized by Congress, ethics complaints against Joe Biden and Jamie Raskin, and an amicus brief in support of Texas AG Ken Paxton's claim in Netchoice v. Paxton in which the question was whether Texas law prohibiting social media platforms from censoring users’ content and imposing stringent disclosure requirements violated the First Amendment.  The 5th Circuit found for Paxton and the Supreme Court unanimously reversed, and more, all of the kind one would expect from a right-wing, Christian Nationist think tank promoting an imperial presidency so long as Donald Trump is the Emperor.

And speaking of right-wing religionists, there is some brouhaha going on among Catholics over arriviste J. D. Vance's suggestion last Sunday on Margaret Brennan's show that America's Catholic bishops may be in the refugee and immigrant aid game 'for the money,' i.e., to improve the bottom lines of their ministries.  Not surprisingly, the bishops and non-right-wing Catholics took some offense at this impugning of their Jesus-inspired motivation for 'helping the stranger,' feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick.  See Matthew 25: 31-46.  In reading about this kerfluffle, I learned that there is a conservative Catholic blog originating in Milwaukee called "Cream City Catholic."  A member (and perhaps the only member) posted this photo of J. D. on a pile of firewood  and looking Heavenward with an assault rifle (our kind of Catholic) with the following bit of wisdom:

A Milwaukee Catholic

@CCityCatholic

The Catholic Vance will give liberal bishops a challenge they aren’t used to: a young, appealing, intelligent, articulate & muscular counterpoint to the effeminate (but fading) ecclesial zeitgeist of the '60s. He likely has a far better grasp of *real* Catholic social teaching.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Anniversary thought about Wisdom the Albatross.  When there's snow on the roof, there's a fire in the furnace.  Wisdom's species of albatross have a normal lifespan of 12 - 40 years, but Wisdom was first identified back in 1956.  The father is Wisdom's partner, Akeakamai, who she has been with since 2012, US wildlife officials said.  Albatrosses usually mate for life, but it is believed Wisdom had other partners in the past that she outlived.  "Soon after Wisdom laid her egg, she returned to sea to forage and her mate Akeakamai took over incubation duties. Albatross parents share incubation duties and once the chick hatches, share feeding duties.😶

Trump declared economic war on Canada, Mexico, and China today.  25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, 10% tariffs on China, our top three trading partners.  Prices Americans will pay for imported agricultural products, lumber, automobiles, vehicle parts, and other goods will increase.  This is from the guy who pledged to lower prices and cut inflation.  So now he has made enemies out of Mexico, Canada, NATO ally Denmark, Greenland, and Panama (and perhaps Colombia?)  All this in his first 2 weeks in office.    

A sadder anniversary, a journal entry on this date, 2023.  "On this date 16 years ago, we received a call from Kitty telling us that our Dad was in the hospital and would not survive.  Geri and I got airplane tickets and flew out to Phoenix to be with him, and with Kitty.  As it turned out, he was probably already gone, kept alive by a heart-lung machine until we could get out there.  The next morning he was taken off the machine and died, with Kitty and Jim, Geri and me, and, as best I can recall, Chrissie at his bedside.  I kissed him before they disconnected him and let his body die.  He was 86 years old, I was 65.  What a long, fraught history both Kitty and I had with him.  How we missed him when he was gone.  How I miss both of them now.  RIP"

The photo is from one of our favorite haunts outside North Port, Snook Haven on the Myakka River.

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