Slogthrop Imponderables and Incommensurables: 9/30/2025

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

D+329/253/-1210

1938 Treaty of Munich forced Czechoslovakia to give territory to Germany. Chamberlain infamously declared "Peace for our time" upon his return to London.

1946 Twenty-two Nazi leaders, including Hermann Goering, were found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death or prison at the Nuremberg war trials

2022 In defiance of international law, Vladimir Putin announced Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian provinces: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia

2023 Bipartisan deal to avoid US government shutdown is signed just hours before the midnight deadline and provides funding for 45 days

In bed at 9:30, and up at 4:45. 60°, high of 73°, turning sunny later this morning.

Meds, etc. Amoxicillin with dinner last night (2nd pill.) Morning meds and Amoxicillin at 8:30 a.m.

Gratitude, Appreciation. I woke up this morning with my mind full of stream-of-consciousness, Ulysses, minnows-in-a-bait-bucket thoughts, but predominantly happy thoughts, thoughts of gratitude for being home, for Geri's sharing in my life and my sharing in hers, for our home and all the devoted spaces it has provided each of us for our activities, for the members of the medical team that looked after me at Zablocki, especially the young, Black, 4th-year medical school student who tended to me in the Emergency Room and on the 4th floor, in-patient hospital area. I regretted that I have become a tub of lard again and gained 14 pounds in 3 days of hospitalization, and wondered how that could be possible, but it didn't diminish my overall sense of gratitude and appreciation -happinesss? - at being home.

A comment I posted to a shared link by JJA this morning. JJA posted a link to a story about a 73 year old farmer in Arizona who moved from reacting to immigrants crossing his land by grabbing his rifle to leaving water and food for them. It is the kind of story that makes you wonder whether it is true or was made up simply to make a point. In any case, I commented:

My grandfather, Dennis Healy, left Kilgarvan, County Kerry, Ireland, in 1904, and travelled, probably on foot, 70 miles to Queenstown, now Cobh, in County Cork, to board the SS Oceanic and sail, in steerage, to Ellis Island, where he arrived with $6 in his pocket, and a railway ticket to Chicago where his sister Mary lived. Dennis's passage had been paid for by his brother. Ireland was at that time under British rule and was, for poor Irishmen, what would later come to be called a 'shithole country.'. Dennis later married Catherine O'Shea in America and raised a family, including my mother, who gave birth to me before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. I've never been able to trace the histories of my other grandparents, how and why they left Ireland and Denmark, but I am confident that they left their homelands seeking the opportunity to work hard and make a better life for themselves, their families, and their descendants, including my parents and me. With all that is going on now with immigrants in America, especially those with darker skin and non-Northern European names, I try never to forget Dennis, Catherine, Jacob, and Martha, and never to assume that most of today's immigrants came to America for different reasons than my grandparents', and always to remember that they are no less human and entitled to some decency and humane respect, as my immigrant grandparents. Or any human being, for that matter.

I played loose with the facts in the comment. It was only my maternal grandparents who immigrated here. On my Dad's side, it was my great-grandparents. Jacob Clausen came to America from the parish of Notmark on the island of Als in what is now Denmark, but I'm not sure when or whence my paternal great-grandmother, Martha Case, arrived in America. I didn't want to get so in th e weeds of genealogy that I masked the point of my comment.a

Various attention getters today. (1) Presidential Extortion: YouTube to Pay $24.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Brought by Trump. $22 million to go toward the cost of the new White House ballroom. Trump = stickup artist. ABC $16 million and CBS News $16 million, X/Twitter, $10 million, Meta/Facebook $25 million. Add in the big law firms and research universities. Extortion. Grift. Corruption.

(2) Hegseth/Trump Fiasco at Quantico. A national embarrassment, evidence of a national security risk with this kind of leadership. DJT spoke, doing his "weave," i.e., incoherency, for over an hour. If he were my parent, I would do an intervention and get him some help, or perhaps keep him sedated. Hegseth's speech was a lot of "tough guy" bravado, typical Fox News-type stuff. I've never been impressed by that kind of pure horseshit. I only saw a bit of it, but I will probably read or watch the whole thing later. Geri is doing that as I type.

(3) New primary care 'doc": I've been without a PCP since Dr. Chatt retired. The hospital docs treating my cellulitis said I need a PCP now. Kim Kitzke called to tell me my new PCP is a nurse practitioner, Kali something. I have an appointment to see her next Tuesday. Now I have to decide whether I want to have a physician as my PCP. If so, I will need to be transferred to a different clinic with a request for a physician as my PCP. I'm wondering if this is a DOGE/Big Beautiful Budget Bill/Trump thing. Probably so.

(4) My uninvited chat with the Catholic chaplain. I keep remembering the strange conversation I had with the Catholic chaplain in my hospital room the other day and wondering whether the priest was as much of a simpleton as he appeared. Perhaps he just wasn't prepared to discuss his belief in the existence of a personal God, the believability of the Bible, etc. In any event, he did strike me as almost incredibly simplistic in his defense of 'the Faith,' all of his arguments seeming incredibly question-begging. Tattooed in his cradle.

(5) Government shutdown is certain. The last one lasted 35 days at the end of 2018 into 2019. It will give Trump and Russell Vought more power, since Trump will be the one to decide what employees are "essential" and will not be furloughed. He and Vought will use the shutdown to fire many federal employees and shutter disfavored federal offices. This afternoon Trump said "a lot of good things can come from a shutdown" and "We can do things during a shutdown that are irreversible." I think this shutdown will hurt a lot of people and not help the Democrats politically. Trump 'has the cards' and he knows it.

(6) I sat on the patio this afternoon, feeling blessed, so fortunate, so surrounded by beauty. The sun was shining, the temperature about 70° with nary a breeze, and the only birdsong detected by Merlin chickadees and, later, a red-bellied woodpecker. I sat on my favorite patio chair, one of the comfortable, supporting ones Geri bought in Lake Mills, shaded by the Callery pear tree, but I could see the sun shining on the trees and bushes on our neighbors' lots. Quiet, peaceful, almost hypnotizing.

The zinnias are fading and more discolored tree leaves are appearing on the ground every day, but most trees and bushes are still in full leafage. Fall colorama has just started.

Cellulitis. I took photos of my left leg and of both legs for a record of the experience. The swelling doesn't seem to have subsided, but the redness has receded from its high point next to my knee.