10/7/2025

 Monday, October 7, 2025

D+335 /260 /-120

1985 PLO terrorists seized the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro

1990 Israel began handing out gas masks to its citizens

1991 Law Professor Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments to her

1996 Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News with Roger Ailes as CEO

2016 Washington Post released a videotape of Donald Trump boasting of groping and kissing women without consent

2023 October 7th, Israel was attacked by Hamas

In bed around 9:30, awake at 6:15, and up at 6:33.  53°, high of 65°, cloudy.   

Meds, etc.  Linezolid at 8:30 a.m.  Morning meds at 9 a.m.   The redness and discoloration of my left leg seems to have receded a bit, and the leg is cooler to the touch, though I still have pain in my ankles.  The pedicurist at the VA today reported a noticeable difference in temperature between my left leg and the right one, so I guess there is still some inflammation as well as the swelling/edema.  I saw the nurse practitioner Kali Kisro, my new primary care provider, this morning. 

Armed troops in Chicago, memories of Belleek.  Geri and I visited the West of Ireland on our honeymoon in May of 1987.  We stayed first at a B&B in Sligo, whence we traveled one day to Belleek, on the border on the Northern Ireland side of the border with the Republic of Ireland, where we toured the famous porcelain factory.  Our plan was to travel from Belleek to historic Enniskillen and thence back to Sligo in the Republic.  After leaving the factory, however, we drove a block or two, turned a corner onto another street, and saw a stopped school bus with children inside, surrounded by a fire team of four armed British soldiers.  Two of the soldiers, one standing and the other kneeling, had their rifles or submachine guns 'at the ready' as they looked out to either side of the street for danger.  I said to Geri, "That's enough for me," turned our rented car around, and headed back over the border to the Republic.  Six months later, Enniskillen was the site of "The Remembrance Day Massacre," in which 11 people were killed by a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA.  It was only one, though the worst, of many sectarian killings in that town which is the size of Cedarburg, Grafton, or Port Washington.

    I am reminded of that experience as I think about the deployment of Illinois National Guard troops and Texas National Guard troops to Chicago, my birthplace and hometown for the first 18 years of my life.  Seeing soldiers in battle gear near school children produces a sort of cognitive dissonance; they don't belong together.  Soldiers and weapons signify death and destruction.  School children signify growth, nourishing, and hope for the future.  Military units belong on military bases, duty stations, and combat zones, not on domestic streets.  I did not take a photograph of the soldiers and the school bus in Belleek.  Had I taken out my camera and tried to do so, I suspect I would have been detained by the soldiers, perhaps with the undeveloped film removed from my camera, as I once saw happen in Rome to a tourist who took a snapshot of some carabinieri at the airport.  I found on the internet this photo that I have copied here.  While it gives some sense of the dissonance between the innocence and vulnerability of the little girls and the inherent threat and menace of the soldiers, it lacks the emotional impact of soldiers in combat gear, or in the type of outfits (including masks) that ICE agents have been wearing in our cities.  I think again of the iconic photo of the Jewish boy with his hands up and SS-Rottenführer Josef Blösche points a submachine gun in his direction.  

    I wonder where the troops will be deployed.  Will they be deployed, for example, to Englewood, where my parents and my sister and I grew up?  Englewood historically has one of the highest crime rates in Chicago, especially for violent crime. Many kinds of incidents (shootings, robberies, assaults) are much more common than city averages.  For example, one source estimates violent crime at around 2,837 per 100,000 residents in 2022.  Another source puts Englewood at ~ 32.1 per 100,000 for 2025.  The national rates are about 6.8 murders and 374 violent crimes per 100,000.  If the troops have been sent to protect against crime, Englewood seems to be as good a place to start as any other.  Or are they in Chicago only to protect federal property and personnel?  The only federal facility in Englewood is the post office at 611 W. 63rd Street, where I suspect troops are not necessary.  Chicago is estimated to have about 183,000 undocumented immigrants, but I suspect relatively few of them live in Englewood, which is almost more than 90% Black, and only 5% Hispanic.  The Chicago community areas having the largest estimated undocumented immigrant populations are Little Village, Belmont Cragin, Gage Park, Albany Park, and Brighton Park.  These are the areas where I would expect to see the greatest presence of ICE agents and ICE raids.  Are these the neighborhoods where we will see the largest presence of National Guard troops?

    I've gotten distracted from my original thoughts about troops in American neighborhoods and kids in school buses.  I may be too tired and in need of a nap to deal with this now.

Too pooped to pop today.  Tomorrow's another day.  Maybe this will go easier if I can get my laptop  to stop kicking me off WiFi every 4 or 5 minutes.