5/5/2025

 Monday, May 5, 2025

D+180/105

1916 US Marines invaded the Dominican Republic and stayed until 1924

1965 First large-scale US Army ground units arrived in South Vietnam

2022 WHO study of excess deaths worldwide said 15 million more people had died than normal, far above the official COVID-19 death toll of 6 million 

In bed at 9, awake and up at 4:30. 45°, high of 54°.  I lit a candle for Kitty. 

Prednisone, day 356; 2 mg., day 18/21; Kevzara, day 7/14; CGM, day 3/15;  Trulicity.   Prednisone at  5 a.m.  Other meds at 6 a.m.   

Anniversary thought.  I note that we call the Marines' operations in the Dominican Republic an "invasion" but never refer to our operations in Vietnam that way.  The governments in Saigon, first that of the Diems and then the successive military governments that followed them, were never really popularly elected.  Diem was an imperious, elite Catholic installed by the U.S. in a heavily Buddhist country.  He was a puppet, a bad puppet, but a puppet.  The military governments that overthrew and murdered him ruled by force of arms.  Diem, with the support of the U.S., cancelled the 1956 elections that were supposed to permit the reunification of the country after the 1954 Geneva Accords.  We cancelled them because it was a foregone conclusion that the popular Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's George Washington, would win the election, which the U.S. couldn't tolerate.  When we landed the Marines at Danang in March 1965, it was an invasion, just like when the Marines invaded the D.R., and so I call it.

I received a text from Caela yesterday, while Geri was sitting shiva with Barb.   "Love you, Sweetie.  I know I'm not Tom, but I consider you a best friend.  So stick around awhile and keep me company."   Tom has been gone for more than 2 years now, and widowhood has been far from easy for Caela.  She stopped over on Saturday afternoon and visited for a couple of hours.   As we sat in the sunroom and chatted, I thought what a blessing it was to be together, talking, sharing, just being present to and with each other.  Very easy and enjoyable conversation.  I think she was responding to my statement Saturday that I experience some loneliness from having outlived so many best friends:  Kitty, Ed Felsenthal, Tom, and David Branch.   And of course, I have foolishly let other very good friendships evanesce, like Ara Cherchian and Vicki Conte.  Caela and I have been friends for about 50 years.

LTMW I finally see a goldfinch gathering nesting material from the big cotton ball.  If both the sparrows and the goldfinches use that cotton ball this season, I may have to get another one.  The crows are becoming more regular, in fact, too regular, visitors to the two suet cakes I have out there.  The goldfinches are also showing up more at the niger seed tube.  I think I need to empty the tube of the seeds, which are pretty weathered by now, and refill it with some fresh feed. 

FB posting this morning on a shared past:  I re-shared Herrick Goldman's sharing of an essay by Oliver Kornetske, who said he came from a small town in Wisconsin.

This is fine and thoughtful writing, better than I could do, but it seems pretty simplistic or reductionist in its description of "rural people."  The great Sarah Smarsh, who wrote "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth," has been writing for years that farmers and other rural folks are not all stamped out from the same cookie cutter.  The election results show the same thing, as do the enormous crowds attending the Bernie Sanders/AOC rallies in Idaho and other deep red states.  Nonetheless, the writer is simply trying to make points about some and perhaps many rural voters, who often predominate, and it's hard to argue with them.  One of my pleasurable pastimes, one that I used to share with my Dad, is driving the country roads in the beautfiul farmlands of Ozaukee, Washington, and Sheboygan counties.  While I do so, I often think it's hard to imagine people living in these sparsely populated rural areas voting Democratic, for a party so identified with high taxes, high regulation, and domination by the interests of largely urban minority groups.  The lifestyles, cultures, employment patterns, and economic interests of rural vs. urban pleople can be pretty dissimilar, so it's not all that surprising that one group tends to vote one way and the other group the other way.  It's not helpful to look down our noses at the group of which we're not a member.  Also, I took special note of the writer's point that the vision many people have of the 1950s as a halcyon era in America is illusory.  Ditto for the late 1940s after World War II when America emerged victorious and the only land, people, and economy not devastated by the war.  We were at each other's throats in those days too, especially over the paranoid fear of communism and of the not-so-paranoid fear atomic warfare (Joe McCarthy, bomb shelters and fallout shelters, atomic bomb drills in schools.) 

I read the last "In Conversation" column in this morning's NYTimes.  For the last 8 years, the column has been a written conversation between liberal Gail Collins and conservative Bret Stephens.  It is always not just civil but friendly, because they are indeed friends despite their differing politics.  Collins lives on the Upper West Side of New York City, an area more densely populated than Gaza.  I don't know where Stephens lives, but he travels a lot and apparently does a lot of outdoorsy stuff.  It got me thinking again that the area in which we all live, work, and thrive has so much to do with our politics and our view of the world.  Urban dwellers know from their lived experiences that life is complex, complicated, involving a lot of dependencies and interdependencies, and the need for rules that help people of different backgrounds and cultures share the same spaces.  We must sacrifice some freedom and independence to live cheek-by-jowl with others.  When I lived in the rural Town of Saukville, I was free to have a fire pit in my backyard and to burn my copious autumn leaves.  I could - and did - erect a garden shed in my backyard without having to get a permit from the Town or the consent of my neighbors.  Life is different in suburban Baysidewhere I live now and even more different in urban Milwaukee, where I used to live - or in Gail Collins' Upper West Side of Manhattan.  These differences contribute mightily to differing political persuasions, or at least I think they do.  Those of us who are accustomed to living without much governmental involvement and interference in our lives, including by way of taxation,  like it that way and tend towards the Republican Party.  Those of us who live shoulder-to-shoulder with diverse others recognize the need for rule-making and for taxation to support public services; we tend to develop an accommodationist attitude toward life and government and to vote Democratic.  The toxins from the large piles of dead leaves that I would burn in my yard would blow into my neighbors' houses.  The eyesore garden shed I want to throw together in my backyard would interfere with my next-door neighbors' enjoyment of their backyard and probably diminish the marketability and value of their house.  Personally, my move to rural Ozaukee County didn't turn me into a Republican, but I grew up in Englewood on the south side of Chicago and have lived in urban-suburban areas most of my life.  I think I understand how folks who grew up in different circumstances couldn't imagine voting Democratic.  A big determinant of personal politics is whether one is a business owner and an employer, rather than an employee.  The older I get, the more I appreciate the challenges of the millions of fellow citizens who start and grow - or not - their own businesses, how taxes and seemingly endless governmental regulations can make their lives, their ability to survive and thrive, difficult.  I grew up in a blue-collar, working-class family.  I've been an employee most of my life.  It's almost (but only almost) predictable that I would vote Democratic, but the same is true for many and perhaps most who vote the other way.  I'm guessing that we would all benefit from developing more humility and understanding of why both we and our political opponents vote as we do,

That said, I confess that I find it hard to understand how 77 million of my fellow countrymen could, under any circumstances,  vote for the man who is systematically turning the United States into an autocracy, and not only an autocracy, but a grossly incompetent one, witness Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and RFK, Jr.  No one should be able to claim that it's a surprise how Trump is ignoring the Congress and the courts and is intimidating into craven submission the media, the universities, and most of the legal profession.  People wonder whether we are on our way to a constitutional crisis.  Stop wondering; it's been here since at least January 29th, perhaps since November 5th when he was freely elected. 

I love Earl and Opal Pickles.  Thank you, Brian Crane.