5/11/2025

 Sunday, May 11, 2025

D+185/110

1949 By a vote of 37-12, Israel became the UN's 59th member

1955 Israel attacked Gaza

1963 Racial bomb attacks in Birmingham, Alabama

1965 Ellis Island was added to the Statue of Liberty National Monument

1968 Students & police battled in Paris, 100s injured

1973 Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg had the charges for his involvement in releasing the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times dismissed

1989 US President George H. W. Bush ordered 1,900 additional troops to Panama, which we had invaded in 1989

2022 The first-ever US government report into Indian boarding school deaths was released (not complete), documents more than 500 deaths across 400 schools and 50 gravesites over 150 years [1]

In bed at 9, awake at 4, and up at 4:15 to remove eye patch & apply Sarna to lower legs.  Cellulitis??? 42°, high of 61°.    

Prednisone, day 361; 1 mg., day 3/21; Kevzara, day 12/14; CGM, day 8/15; Trulicity, 3/7.  Prednisone at 5 a.m.  Other meds at  6:05 a.m.  Plus, antibiotic eye drops and steroid eyedrops, 4 times/day in the right eye. 5 a.m., 12 p.m.,  4 p.m., and   

The best government money can buy.  In yesterday's NYTimes, "Trump, Raking In Cash, Expands His Power in the G.O.P. Money World  His super PAC, which is said to have amassed $400 million alongside its nonprofit arm, has grown even more influential. And powerful groups for congressional Republicans are being stocked with Trump allies."  Theodore Schleifer and Shane Goldmacher. Excerpts:

President Trump is harnessing the Republican Party’s all-encompassing deference to him to exert even greater control over the G.O.P. big-money world, which had long been one of the party’s final remaining redoubts of Trump skepticism.

For years, the super PACs allied with House and Senate Republicans have been some of the most powerful and independent fiefs in American politics, raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in each election.

But even though Mr. Trump is in his second term and cannot run again, he is quickly bringing them inside his sphere of influence — a sign that his dominance over the party could endure well into the future.     

Both super PACs, the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund, have new leaders this year, and they are working closer than ever with the White House, overhauling their boards of directors and installing veteran Trump strategists in senior positions. 

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., and its allied nonprofit group have already amassed roughly $400 million since the 2024 election, according to two people briefed on the fund-raising who insisted on anonymity to discuss the organization’s finances. That sum is without precedent so early in an election cycle, especially for a termed-out president. The Trump super PAC is expected to play a major role in the midterm elections, scrambling the usual flow of cash and encroaching on the traditional dominion of the congressional super PACs.

The changes — both in personnel and financial firepower — amount to a fundamental reordering of Republican finance, and an extraordinary expansion of Mr. Trump’s already overwhelming sway. Interviews with senior Republicans allied with leaders on Capitol Hill reveal private fears about a power imbalance if the G.O.P.’s top super PACs are weakened and overly submissive to Mr. Trump.

The Stolen Child

W. B. Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland / Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, / There lies a leafy island / Where flapping herons wake / The drowsy water rats; / There we've hid our faery vats, / Full of berrys / And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses / The dim gray sands with light, / Far off by furthest Rosses / We foot it all the night, / Weaving olden dances / Mingling hands and mingling glances / Till the moon has taken flight; / To and fro we leap / And chase the frothy bubbles, / While the world is full of troubles / And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes / From the hills above Glen-Car, / In pools among the rushes / That scarce could bathe a star, / We seek for slumbering trout / And whispering in their ears / Give them unquiet dreams; / Leaning softly out / From ferns that drop their tears / Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going, / The solemn-eyed: / He'll hear no more the lowing / Of the calves on the warm hillside / Or the kettle on the hob / Sing peace into his breast, / Or see the brown mice bob / Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child, / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the woratororld's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Life is Worth Living; To be or not to be, that is the question.  When I was a child, one of the most popular programs on prime time television was Life if Worth Living, which was essentially a long, weekly sermon by Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, an auxiliary bishop of New York.  We wouldn't miss it mainly because my dear mother, may she rest in peace, wouldn't miss it.  Bishop Sheen was a compelling, powerful orator, and some of his programs are still available on YouTube, but he was part of the power structure of the Church Militant, and I am no longer a big fan of his.  Nonetheless, I think of the title of his program this morning after I read an op-ed in the NYTimes by Dr. L. S. Dugdale, titled "There Are Ways to Die With Dignity, but Not Like This ."  It is about the "Medical Aid in Dying" bill pending in the New York senate. He opposes the bill because he argues that it fails to adequately protect against decisions to die based on depression, disability, the cost of continuing life-supporting care, or loneliness.  I am always interested in articles about the right to die, or whether there ought to be a legal right to end one's life.  I was doubly interested in this article because of my discussion Friday morning with young Dr. Saladi about my Do Not Resuscitate POA on file with the VA Medical Center.  I am still perplexed by the issue.  I made the decision to ask for resuscitation, if needed, during the surgery, and of course, that decision requires no justification, but I still wonder whether, selfishly, I made the right decision.  Dying quickly and probably painlessly on the operating table wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Right below Dr. Dugdale's essay is a citation to another article I've referred to in my journal, " There’s a Lesson to Learn From Daniel Kahneman’s Death" by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, published on April 14, 2025.  Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate psychologist, chose to end his life in Switzerland at age 90, not because he was terminally ill, in severe pain, or clinically depressed, but rather because his life was "complete" and because his future would only be going downhill.  I reread the article about his choice to die, wondering how one decides that one's life is "complete" and it's time to go.  The letter he left for his surviving friends read;

“I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief. I am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man. But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am 90 years old. It is time to go.”

The authors of the op-ed opine that

 [I]f, after careful reflection, you decide that your life is complete and remain firmly of that view for some time, you are the best judge of what is good for you. This is especially clear in the case of people who are at an age at which they cannot hope for improvement in their quality of life. 

and

Professor Kahneman signaled concern that if he did not end his life when he was clearly mentally competent, he could lose control over the remainder of it and live and die with needless “miseries and indignities.” One lesson to learn from his death is that if we are to live well to the end, we need to be able to freely discuss when a life is complete, without shame or taboo. Such a discussion may help people to know what they really want. We may regret their decisions, but we should respect their choices and allow them to end their lives with dignity. 

I have long believed that every person's ultimate freedom in life is the freedom to end it, so Professor Kahneman's decision makes sense to me, but I'm left with the perplexing question of how one decides that one's life is complete.  That was the quandary I was in when Dr. Saladi asked about my DNR wishes.   Ezekiel Emanuel argued very rationally, scientifically, and perhaps persuasively that his life (and everyone else's) should be considered complete at age 75.  "WHY I HOPE TO DIE AT 75; An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly."  The Atlantic, October 2014 issue.   (I note that he was 57 when this article was published, and he will turn 68 late this summer.)  One of the big reasons he wanted to die at 75 was the same as Professor Kahneman's: to avoid the 'miseries and indignities' of old age and the fear of losing control over the last years of life.  

So here I am approaching my 84th birthday, which is the midpoint in my 9th decade of life, 9 years beyond Zeke Emanuel's ideal death date, and half a decade before Daniel Kahneman's ideal death date, wondering whether I should have instructed young Dr. Saladi to let me die in the OR if my heart stopped pumping.  Why did I do otherwise?  Because I didn't want Geri to be informed in the waiting room that there was no need to wait for me, that she would be going home alone, a widow.  Because I still find enjoyment in life, in sharing life with Geri, in watching out my window the birds and the deer and the young families out with their children.  Because I find enjoyment in the beautiful clouds in the sky and in the trees that are all over the place, everywhere I turn.  Because I enjoy writing in this journal, or daily notes, or whatever this collection of rants, raves, recollections, and other thoughts is.  Because I enjoy painting and drawing, though I'm not very good at either, and though descending and climbing the stairs to get to and from my basement 'studio' has become a real challenge.  Because I enjoy going to Sendik's and MetroMarket and Costco and Meijer's and Michael's and Blick's Art Supplies and schmoozing with other shoppers and store clerks.  Because I (usually) enjoy going to the VA and chatting with other veterans and the staff.  Because, despite all my kvetching about my painful back, hips, and shoulders, my increasing weakness and ferkrimptitude, my predictable liklihood of falling and not being able to get up by myself, my intermittent pity-parties, my too-frequent thinking and too-little acting, my too-often thoughts on "things done or said, or not said or not done, my conscience or my vanity appalled," despite all that and more, I am still enjoying life and am thankful for it.  So, on Friday, I asked Dr. Saladi to help me and to get the VA's Rapid Response Team if my heart quit on the operating table.  So it goes.  A roll of the dice.  Will I get another roll?