12/31/2025

 Wednesday, December 31, 2025

1930 Pius XI's encyclical Casti connubii against mixed marriages and artificial birth control and abortion, predecessor of Paul VI's Humanae Vitae

1946 US President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the  end of WW II

1965 There were 39,092 III MAF Marines in South Vietnam, of a total US deployment of 181,000.  Since March 8, 1965, 342 Marines have died in action, 2,047 have been wounded, and 18 are missing.  They claim to have killed 2,627 enemy.   Only God knows how many Vietnamese had been killed, wounded, bombed,  burned, poisoned, or otherwise harmed.

1970 President Allende nationalized the Chilean coal mines

1999 Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President

2015 US law enforcement killed 1,134 in 2015, young black men 9x more likely to be victims

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4:30 to move to LZB, and up at 5:10.  Geri's up too.  24°, wind chill 14°, high 32°, low 9°.   

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at 8:40  a.m.  

From last year's journal:  

Distrust/skepticism/cynicism.  I grew up in the Irish American Catholic Church.  I grew up in Chicago. I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.  I lived through 'light at the end of the tunnel' and Watergate and "weapons of mass destruction" and the Wall Street bailout.  Why would I accept "on faith" or "on authority" anything the faithful or authorities say?  If I can't believe 'my' clerics or 'my' government, why would I believe those of any other religion or any other government, including any plausibly accused of genocide?

A passing New Year's Eve thought.  When most of your life is behind you and you get feebler and less able each day, the coming of another year isn't entirely a thing to celebrate.  Will this be the year that I die?  Will this be a year when I take another fall?  Is it even conceivable that I won't take another fall?  Will the next one result in a trip to the emergency room?  to a broken hip or shoulder?  hospitalization?  When the New Year initiates 4 years of power plays by a wicked, selfish, malignantly narcissistic hegemon, one wishes for the Old Year, bad as that was.  How much human misery will he cause in his first year back in power, this time surrounded by his people, not traitors like Jim Mattis, Mark Milley, and John Kelly.  What havoc will be wrought by Stephen Miller, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth?  

Re: distrust.  It's only gotten worse in the era of AI.  The old joke (who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?) doesn't have the same punch as before because we know we can't trust 'our lying eyes.' AI images, AI writings, AI 'friends' and advisors.

Re: New Year's Eve thoughts.  Last year, I wondered 'how much human misery [Trump] would cause in his first year back in power.  Now we know, or do we?  (1) A peer-reviewed study in The BMJ (formerly the Brittish Medical Journal) estimated that cuts in Medicaid and related policies from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” could lead to ~16,000 additional deaths per year in the U.S. due to loss of coverage and related health impacts. (2) Researchers tracking changes to U.S. global health aid (including cuts to USAID programs) have found that disruptions in treatment for HIV, TB, malaria, and other conditions could translate into hundreds of thousands of deaths globally in a given year, with tens of thousands occurring in 2025 alone. One report suggests the USAID shutdown has already resulted in deaths from infectious disease and malnutrition in the hundreds of thousands.  (3) Analyses from ProPublica and The Guardian based on climate and emissions models project that Trump’s climate rollback policies could cause hundreds of thousands to over a million additional temperature-related deaths worldwide by 2115, with some estimates still in the hundreds of thousands even under more optimistic scenarios. 

There are all estimates or projections.  It's impossible to know exact numbers, but we can be sure that a great many human beings have died unnecessarily early and others will die unnecessarily early because of actions by Trump and his regime.  We can't know how many people will not die but will otherwise be adversely affected.  271,000 federal jobs have been eliminated since Trump took office (through late Dec 2025), according to the administration’s own statements.  It is estimated that ~42,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since tariff policy changes in 2025, with slowed hiring and fewer openings.  Other studies estimate that Trump's mass deportation policies could ultimately eliminate nearly 6 million jobs across the economy (both immigrant and U.S.-born workers).  I haven't found studies of the number of jobs lost because of the cancellation of research and other grants to universities, states, and local governments, but again, we can be sure the numbers are significant, and perhaps staggering. 

Additionally, Trump has installed his apparatchiks in all or virtually all departments and agencies of government.  Most of the organizational and mission-related mischief they are causing internally will likely never be known, and much of it is probably irreparable.  

Quaere why we should celebrate tonight. One year ago, we trembled in anticipation of what Trump would do once he was in office again, much more knowledgeable about the levers of government and surrounded by dyed-in-the-wool, incompetent, and mean-spirited loyalists.  Now we know.  It would be and was even worse than we imagined.  What do the next three years hold in store for us?  I shudder.

Maria Shriver, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Me

This morning, Maria Shriver posted a loving tribute on Facebook to her cousin Tatiana, who died from leukemia the other day. The tribute concluded: "[M]ay each of you who read this know how lucky you are to be alive right now. Please pause and honor your life. It truly is such a gift."

These words touched me deeply, especially because I am so ambivalent about my life in old age. If I make it to my next birthday, I'll be 85—almost surely in worse shape than I am today, and worse than I was when I began writing this journal nearly three and a half years ago. I've often complained here about decrepitude, debility, failing senses, chronic pain, and saddening losses.

Day to day, I'm like a yo-yo moving up and down the string between two extremes: deep gratitude for all the good in my life—family, friends, experiences, the natural beauty all around me—and the feeling that it's time to die, time to "get it over with," as my Dad used to say. During months of severe pain when I couldn't function, I've regularly wished I would die. I've thought of doing myself in. When those thoughts came every day—or more commonly, every night—I would try not to dishonor and devalue my life by reminding myself of all that my mother went through: giving birth to me, nurturing me, shielding Kitty and me from the worst of my father's PTSD, and providing me an education better than her own.

But it's hard to honor your life, to consider it a gift, or to feel lucky to be alive when life is dominated by intense pain and loss of autonomy.

On honoring life

I don't like writing about this because it reveals me as self-centered, whiny, weak. Micky the Mope. Denny the Downer. Wally the Wimp. I do it nonetheless—to avoid pretending that what's happening in my head isn't happening, and to clarify my thinking. I'm like Flannery O'Connor, who wrote to a correspondent: "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

I've long believed that a person's ultimate freedom is the freedom to choose death over continued life. When I was a kid, my mother tuned in every week to a popular prime-time network TV show featuring Fulton J. Sheen, auxiliary bishop of New York, delivering lectures that were half-sermon, half-encouragement. The program was called "Life is Worth Living." With all the hardships in her life, she probably needed what Sheen provided. Perhaps we all did—mother, father, Kitty, and me.

But we all know, I suspect, that life is not always worth living.

Geri and I have shared with each other the circumstances under which each of us would rather die than continue living. The significance of that choice came home to me twice this year when VA surgeons, prior to my eye and bladder surgeries, asked whether I wished to waive the Do Not Resuscitate instruction in my Health Care Power of Attorney. The first time, I said, "Resuscitate me if possible."  The second time, I said, literally, "Let me die."

In between, Geri and I had a serious talk about the options. We both reaffirmed our wishes not to prolong our lives by medical or mechanical means.

Was I committing passive suicide when I told the surgeons and the medical staff, "Let me die"?

Wearing Out

I had two experiences this afternoon. First, I went to Sendik's to buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, and a bottle of Coppola's Claret. Halfway through my shopping, I was very short of breath and would have sat down if a seat had been available. My legs were weak, my breathing rapid. I was exhausted. The likelihood of my having congestive heart failure seemed much more than a mere likelihood.

Later in the afternoon, I received a call from Amanda at the Cardiology Clinic at the VA, scheduling my first visit for January 15th. On Thursday, I have another appointment at the Cardiology Clinic to be fitted with a Holter monitor.

In his eighties, my Dad used to tell me that his parts were wearing out. So it goes with me. I accept that, at some particular time and place, my parts—or one of the vital ones, like my heart—will wear out for good. I think I'm okay with that. I hope I'm not fooling myself, but I seem to be like my Aunt Mary Healy, widow of my Uncle Bud, who spent her last months in a nursing home waiting to die. She told my sister Kitty that she prayed regularly to God: "What's the problem? I'm ready."

I don't want to end up in a nursing home like Mary or my Grandma Charlotte. I don't want to end up demented like my brothers-in-law. I don't want to end up living weeks, months, or years in increasing pain and decreasing autonomy.

So I do consider myself lucky to be alive right now—enjoying and sharing life with Geri, looking forward to a special New Year's Eve dinner with her, and to some good days ahead. I do honor my life, despite all my mistakes, sins, weaknesses, and failures, and I recognize it as a gift for which I am thankful. I would agree with Bishop Sheen that life is worth living. I would even tell him that there have been times in my agnostic life when I've thought that people invented the idea of God because, with all the goodness and beauty and glory that life offers, they needed someone to whom to say "Thank you."

Great-Grandparents Jacob and Martha, Duncombe, Iowa.