Monday, September 1, 2025
D+300/225/-1237
1939 Adolf Hitler ordered the extermination of the mentally ill, arguing that wartime "was the best time for the elimination of the incurably ill"
1939 Germany started World War II by invading Poland
1941 Jews living in Germany were required to wear a yellow Star of David
2015 Pope Francis told priests to pardon women who have had an abortion, in a letter released by the Vatican
2016 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt in protest during the national anthem objecting to racial injustice and police brutality in the US
2018 Memorial service for Senator John McCain at Washington National Cathedral with his daughter Meghan McCain, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush speaking
2021 Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks came into effect, now the most restrictive in the country
q2w
In bed at ?, up at 6:40. High of 72° and sunny all day.
Meds. etc. Morning meds at 1:30 p.m .
There isn’t one single name to describe these groups, instead, they vary according to circumstances and include flock, gang, rafter, gaggle, and even posse.
Historically, groups of domesticated turkeys were known as rafters. This term is not in common usage today, although it is still used among turkey farmers. Although it’s unclear exactly when this term originated, one theory is that the name comes from a turkey’s habit of roosting up high overnight, in the rafters or eaves of a barn, or in the wild in the branches of a tree.
Another name for a gathering of turkeys is a ‘gang’, or less commonly a ‘mob’. This refers to the noisy and sometimes intimidating behavior when large groups of young and older male turkeys assemble.
Occasionally a group of noisy turkeys may also be called a ‘gaggle’, calling out the loud, gobbling sounds that are characteristic of a large gathering of turkeys (and geese!).
In the wild, mixed groups of turkeys are sometimes also known as ‘runs’, while groups that consist solely of adult males (known as ‘toms’) might be referred to as ‘posses’.
Groups containing young turkeys are often referred to as broods and consist of a female, with several young.
It's a beautful, summery day. Geri has spent much of the day working with her gardens. I've made two two runs to stores. The first was to Meijer's looking for Breadsmith's sourdough bread; they were out. The second was to MetroMarket to get two strip steaks and two baking potatoes and some corn for dinner tonight, a rare treat. We hardly ever have steak for dinner. Geri didn't want to tonight, but I prevailed on her.
Why do I write anything on Facebook? Should I post something like this?
To my friends who have long indulged my rants on Facebook: First, to those who have read those rants and commented on them, thank you. Secondly, to those who have read those rants and refrained from commenting on them out of kindness, thank you. Thirdly, to those who have learned to skip my rants and move on to more uplifting postings, thank you also. To all of you, I share some personal thoughts. I have become an old man. I’m not sure when this happened. It may have happened early in my life without me knowing it, but it surely has happened late in my life. At 84, there is every reason to belief I am not only ‘playing the back 9,’ but on the 18th green. This is a challenging but rewarding time of life. In it, I have developed a much deeper appreciation for people, places, things, and events that, for a lifetime, I took for granted, or failed fully to treasure. This has been a gift for which I am deeply grateful. I remind myself a bit of Emily in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, who died young but returned to life only to be beset by how the living fail to see so much of the beauty and goodness all around them. She laments of the living: “We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. . . Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?.” Had Emily lived into her 80s, she would probably have come to look at ‘all that was going on in life’ and to be grateful for so much good and so much beautiful. It’s a gift that comes as we slow down.
But old age also brings burdens, regrets, and fears. I won’t tax your patience by describing mine except for the one that prompts me to write these thoughts, and that is what has happened to the United States of America in my lifetime and what is happening now. I was born when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, America was coming out of the prolonged Great Depression, and about to enter the Second World War. I’ve lived through 15 presidents. I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s when the country was at its apogee after the war, through the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam horror in the 60s and 70s. There was a time when I believed America was headed in the right direction, when I at least hoped that Martin Luther King, Jr. was right that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Actually, I may have lost that hope in Vietnam, but I was encouraged in the 60s and 70 not only by the passage of much good legislation under both LBJ and Richard Nixon, but also by public acceptance of the goals of that legislation: equal justice, expanded economic opportunities, clean air and water, safer workplaces, etc. There was some pulling back of that public acceptance during and since the Reagan era, but there was not a fundamental change in the identity or public perception of the nation and its government as a constitutional, democratic republic with a diverse citizenry and a government of limited powers operating under the rule of law. All that changed on November 5, 2024, when Donald Trump was elected to a second term of office as president.
I will not further try your patience of any who have read this far by repeating my many rants against the current administration of this nation. I do however want to focus on what is becoming our national character. When I was a boy, movies about Nazi Germany were still popular. We all grew up with movie images and mental images of a deluded people hailing a morally twisted leader of a government that persecuted all it disfavored for any reason and all who disagreed with its exercise of power. Those who can’t see the resemblance of our government and that government are closing their eyes to reality or haven’t seen enough Nazi movies or read enough history. What most characterized the Nazi government and the German populace in the 1930s was cruelty on the part of some (indeed, many) and a widespread indifference on the part of others to the sufferings of yet others who were not members of the dominant group of ethnic Germans. It was that cruelty and indifference that let led to the Brown Shirts, and then the Gestapo, and the SS. How much cruelty or heartlessness do we see in our own government’s policies and actions? I focus, as our government has, on immigrants because they are the current targets of government
I can't figure out where to go with this. Focus on cruelty? on lawlessness? forget about it? Scatterbrained. Manifesto of an old guy?
Photo by Tina Menotti, Worker''s Hands, 1927
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