Friday, June 20, 2025
D+205/138/1310
Sick day #7 Summer Solstice
1919, The Treaty of Versailles was signed.
1945 Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr. approved the transfer of the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his specialists to the US
1967, Mohammed Ali was sentenced to 5 years for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces during the Vietnam War
1977 Menachem Begin formed a new Israeli government
1979 Jimmy Carter unveiled 32 solar panels installed on the roof of the White House; his immediate successor had them removed
2018 US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order ending family separation at the border for illegal immigrants
In bed at 10, after watching my esteemed columnist Catherine Rampel subbing for LOD.
😱 I accidentally deleted everything I wrote this morning. Rats!😡
"Subdued Mood" Dr. Chatt referred me to the Mental Health Clinic because of my subdued mood due to declining health. I received a call from a psychologist at the clinic asking if I were willing to come and I agreed, mostly (I think) out of curiosity. What does a behavioral health specialist say to a guy in his mid-80s in declining health, chronic pain, and increasing disability? I don't think I'm depressed, certainly not clinically so, though I confess to being 'subdued'.
06/17/2025 ADDENDUM STATUS: COMPLETED Dear PC MHCI, please work with the pt again whose mood has been subdued due to his declining health issues. Thanks. /es/ KUMKUM CHATTOPADHYAY PHYSICIAN
The letter to me from the psychologist confirming the appointment suggests that the precipitating concern is not merely a 'subdued mood" but a risk of suicide which is a towering concern at the VA.
Dear Charles Clausen, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing as a reminder of our upcoming appointment on Monday, July 7th at 10:15am. This appointment should last approximately 1 hour. I am located in the main hospital 3rd floor. Please check in at the 3100 desk, located on the 3rd floor next to Gold clinic. Please don't hesitate to call me at 414-384-2000, ext. 42086 with any questions or concerns in the meantime! In the event of a mental health emergency: 1) Call the Veterans Crisis Line 24/7 at 988 and press 1 for support. 2) Text the number 838255 to communicate with Crisis Line staff. 3) Chat confidentially online via www.veteranscrisisline.net 4) Come to the Milwaukee VA Immediate Mental Health Access Clinic (Room 1252 Mon-Fri: 8am-4pm) or contact at 414-384-2000 x45760 5) Mental health professionals are available in our Emergency Department all hours of the evening, early morning, weekends, and holidays.
Sincerely, Kelly Bergstrom, PhD Primary Care - Mental Health 414-384-2000 ext. 42086 Kirsten Schmidt, PhD Primary Care - Mental Health 414-384-2000 ext. 41213
Much food for much thought. More later.
My anniversary thoughts from last year.:
Anniversaries. First, the Treaty of Versailles, by which the Allies, their own nationalisms having contributed to causing World War I, contributed to the arguably inexorability of World War II.
Second, three weeks after my discharge from the Marines, a federal jury in Houston convicted Muhammed Ali of refusing to the drafted. Having served in Vietnam two years earlier and having seen the devastating costs the war was imposing on the Vietnamese and the American people, I supported Ali who argues: ""Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong. Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" The federal judge gave Ali the maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. By this time, public opinion in America was already turning against the war and Ali was accurately seen as a national security threat for encouraging draft resistance. At the time of Ali’s conviction, media reports suggested that 1,000 Vietnamese noncombatants were being killed each week by U.S. forces, one hundred U.S. soldiers were dying every day, and the war was costing $2 billion a month. The Supreme Court later overturned Ali's conviction on technical grounds and Ali eventually came to be regarded as a hero by many Americans, including me.
Third, on this date in 1977, Menachem Begin became the first Likud prime minister of Israel, initiating a line of such PMs including Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon, and culminating in Benjamin Netanyahu. Begin was a murderer and a terrorist in the Irgun, as related in Wikipedia:
Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre that killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948.
The organization committed acts of terrorism against Palestinian Arabs, as well as against the British authorities, who were regarded as illegal occupiers. In particular the Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments; in media such as The New York Times newspaper; as well as by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the 1946 Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency. Albert Einstein, in a letter to The New York Times in 1948, compared Irgun and its successor Herut party to "Nazi and Fascist parties" and described it as a "terrorist, right wing, chauvinist organization".
Yitzhak Shamir waa the leader of anoher terrorist group, Lehi, orr "The Stern Gang." Again, Wikipedia:
The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out acts of terrorism.
Lehi split from the Irgun militant group in 1940 in order to continue fighting the British during World War II. It initially sought an alliance with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Believing that Nazi Germany was a lesser enemy of the Jews than Britain, Lehi twice attempted to form an alliance with the Nazis, proposing a Jewish state based on "nationalist and totalitarian principles, and linked to the German Reich by an alliance". After Stern's death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move towards support for Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union and the ideology of National Bolshevism, which was considered an amalgam of both right and left. Regarding themselves as "revolutionary Socialists", the new Lehi developed a highly original ideology combining an "almost mystical" belief in Greater Israel with support for the Arab liberation struggle. This sophisticated ideology failed to gain public support and Lehi fared poorly in the first Israeli elections.[25]
In April of 1948, Lehi and the Irgun were jointly responsible for the massacre in Deir Yassin of at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children.
Ariel Sharon was the 11th prime minister of Israel. Again, Wikipedia:
As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War. An official enquiry found that he bore "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees, for which he became known as the "Butcher of Beirut" among Arabs. He was subsequently removed as defense minister. From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. He became the leader of the Likud in 1999, and in 2000, amid campaigning for the 2001 prime ministerial election, made a controversial visit to the Al-Aqsa complex on the Temple Mount, triggering the Second Intifada. Sharon remains a highly polarizing figure in Middle Eastern history. Israelis almost universally revere Sharon as a war hero and statesman, whereas Palestinians and Human Rights Watch have criticized him as a war criminal,
This is the political provenance of Benjamin Netanyahu whose racist, right-wing, genocidal government is even worse than those of his Likud predecessors.Nonetheless, the United States Congress, including the Democrat-led Senate aitst's majority leader Chuck Schumer, have given Netanyahu the high privilege of addressing it in a joint session.
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