11/26/2025

 Wednesday, November 26, 2025

1865 "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll was published in America

1941 Japanese naval carrier force left its base & moved east toward Pearl Harbor

1942 "Casablanca" starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman premiered at Hollywood Theater, NYC (Academy Awards Best Picture 1943)

Vat vas, vas.  Bob Friebert

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4:30, up at 4:45, with unwelcome memories & thoughts.  35°, wind chill 20°, high of 41°.

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 8:30 a.m. 

Posted on Facebook this morning:

My friend Janine Geske sent this to me, knowing it would touch my heart, as it did.  We’ve been friends for 50 years, since she was one of my students at Marquette Law School.  As often happens, this professor learned more from his student over the years than she ever could have learned from me.  Mr. Arnold’s message put me in mind of two periods of my life: the last 10 years, when I have received comprehensive medical care from the Veterans Administration,  and my childhood.  I, and thousands of other military veterans, benefit from excellent medical attention at the Zablocki VA Medical Center on National Avenue in Milwaukee.  I’ve written about it more than once on my Facebook page.  We are all thankful for it, especially on Thanksgiving Day.  My father was also a veteran, having served in the Marines in World War II, in the war in the Pacific and on Iwo Jima.  He returned from the war badly damaged, emotionally and spiritually.  Today we call it PTSD.  He was unable to hold a steady job for years, and my young mother supported him, my little sister, and me with her meagre earnings as a waitress for years.  We were poor.  We had no health insurance.  I had the run of childhood illnesses, including measles, chicken pox, and whooping cough, but I can’t remember now all the medical conditions in the family faced during those years.  My mother was the victim of a savage and notorious sexual assault in 1947, a crime which created additional medical needs for our family, which could be financed only by the meagre tips she earned, my father’s irregular, low pay income, and the largesse of our family doctor at the time.  Somehow, we all survived those years, though with differing lingering consequences.  The American medical system was simpler in the late 1940s and 1950s than it is today.  I wish I could say that it is far superior today than it was then, but that is not true.  Tremendous technological and scientific advances have been made, but tremendous barriers to access and problems of maldistribution exist.  Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act were created and funded by the federal government to address and to remediate at least some of those problems.  The VA Health Care System does so for military veterans.  All of these programs are most necessary for Americans with low or moderate income, which means most working and middle-class Americans.  The fight that has been going on since the Restoration of the Trump regime, since Elon Musk’s disastrous DOGE regime, and now under the One Big Beautiful Budget Bill, and the government shutdown, is mainly over medical benefit programs that are so necessary for so many Americans.  I hope we won’t forget them amid all the misleading BS we are regularly fed by the current government.  As for me, I’m like the old vaudeville singer and comedian Sophie Tucker who said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and, believe me, honey, rich is better.”  Today and tomorrow, I’ll give thanks for Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, and the VA’s Health Care System and I’ll pray that my fellow human beings who so vitally rely on them are not sacrificed by the ruthless people in charge of our government in Washington.

I 

Robert Arnold 

LTMW I see a female cardinal, 3 mourning doves, a red-bellied woodpecker, a red-bellied nuthatch and a male house finch all arrive at the same time, in the snow, at our bird feeders, making me wonder if they are a team, flying from bird feeding station to station.

We have been receiving steady but light snow most of the day.

Running errands.  I went to CVS to pick up some hospital gloves for Geri, who sustained a cut on her finger today while doing much prep work for tomorrow's dinner.  She also scalded her tummy with some hot water, but the burn doesn't seem to be very bad.  It hasn't kept her from continuing to work.  I also went to Total Wine and picked up another bottle of Gewurztraminer, a Riesling, and Zinfandels.  Then I went to Whole Foods and picked up two Urban Pie frozen pizzas.  I received a coupon good for two Milwaukee Bucks tickets, which I offered to Andy, who will offer them to Peter, who is, no surprise, at his girlfriend's house.  I did some mop-up work, washing bowls and pots that Geri had used earlier this afternoon.  Lastly, I filled the flat feeder tray for the birds, but saw that somehow a gray squirrel was able to get up there and fill his cheeks with seeds.

My extraordinary Lizzie