5/13/2026

 Wednesday, May 13, 2026

1958, French settlers rioted against the French army in Algeria

1958 The motorcade carrying Vice President Richard Nixon was attacked in Caracas, Venezuela; several of Nixon's staff were injured

1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by a Turkish gunman  in St Peter's Square

In bed at 9 and up just before 5; 124/77/59 121 203.8; 46/35/55/45, cloudy and windy (again) day ahead.    

Morning meds at a.m, half dose of Bisoprolol at 6:15 a.m., bitching to myself about the difficulty of splitting those tiny 5 mg. tablets. Mumble grumble.

2 years ago today:

Polymyalgia rheumatica

    HOPE

Rafal Ryzka, M.D.

Froedert/MCOW/ZABLOCKI

Jagiellonian University, M.D., 1999

May 13, 2024 marked the day my polymyalgia rheumatica self-diagnosis was confirmed by Dr. Ryzka, I received a prescription and supply of prednisone that evenually provided relief from the severe and disabling pain I had been experiencing since the end of December, 2023.  It also marked the first day of resuming my daily journal since the preceding April 26th.

Today, I opened the blinds on the window next to my recliner to see a male red=breasted grosbeak and what appeared to be a young white-breasted nuthatch on our feeders.  Life is good.  I'm enjoying watching a lot of activity at and under the feeders after sun-up.  I see a beautiful red-breasted nuthatch first pleasure himself with a seed from the suet cake and then immediately snatch some nesting material from the cotton ball just above it, and fly away home.

I started the morning reading My Friends, and being astounded and emotionally moved by Fredrik Backman's writing, thinking again I should be and have been taking notes, wondering whether I should read it again with pen and notebook at hand.  Passages like "Death has good taste.  It always takes the best first" (or something near that) reminding me of my mother's death at 51, and David Branch, Kitty's dying before me, Christine dying before Jimmy, Dougie, and me.  What a writer, what a writing!  I'll lay off writing my thoughts about it to Caren for fear that I'll become (and maybe already am) a pest in her life already quite full with her children, grandchildren, husband, and a zillion friends.  She and LOA seem like my last ones, the only ones who will make contact just 'to see how you're doing' and make arrangements to share a meal.  Of course, it's my own fault.  Like Ted in the novel, having been afraid to take responsibility for living a full life.

Dear Lord, protect us from your followers!😱  In this morning's Washington Post, White House aims to link U.S. history and Christianity in 9-hour prayer festival, by Michelle Boorstein, Laura Meckler and Natalie Allison:

The Trump administration is hosting an all-day prayer festival on the National Mall on Sunday that organizers say will reflect the country’s Christian origins and, they hope, spark “a movement of renewal” in America.

“Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” is partly funded by millions in public dollars earmarked for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration, organizers said. It will feature mostly evangelical Protestant leaders and members of the Trump administration, many of whom have embraced the message that America’s founders wanted the country to be explicitly Christian. . . . . 

While U.S. presidents through history have typically marked major commemorations with generic prayers of thanks to God, scholars of American religious history say the national jubilee is unprecedented in the modern era.

They say that’s because of its scope — nine hours and dozens of Christian speakers, including top U.S. officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) — and its focus on American identity as aligned with a specific slice of conservative Protestantism. 

 

Words of wisdom from Tom Friedman in this morning's NYTimes:

Dear NATO Members: I get it. You despise President Trump for all the right reasons. He has walked away from Ukraine. He has threatened to seize Greenland and annex Canada. He has coddled Vladimir Putin. He is eroding America’s democratic institutions and norms. He insulted each of you so much that the German chancellor recently barked back that Trump’s America was being “humiliated” by Iran. I get it.

Now get over it.

Get all your navies together and proceed to the Persian Gulf immediately to join the American armada to make clear that Iran will never, ever be allowed to decide who shall pass and who shall not through the Strait of Hormuz. And, if it insists on trying to do so, it won’t just be taking on the United States and Israel, it will be taking on the entire Western alliance.

For you to sit on the sidelines and let Iran’s malign regime, with its poisonous ideology, take hostage the Strait of Hormuz — as well as the modernizing Arab Gulf states lining it — would keep the world’s most critical oil lifeline in a state of permanent instability. This is not a small matter for Europe, which is highly dependent on gas from the Gulf to heat and power its economies, unless it wants to return to dependency on Russia.

I know this is a big ask, and it would be a lot easier if either Trump or the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would ever summon the integrity to apologize for launching this war without NATO consultation, without any strategy for the morning after if things did not go as planned and without even a fig’s leaf of international legitimation from the United Nations.

Alas, these two reckless egomaniacs, who are nowhere near as smart as they think they are, have now boxed themselves in. Unfortunately, we are all in the box with them.

. . . 

Trump and Bibi have done nothing to earn such high-minded NATO support even though the future of Hormuz so directly impacts every member of the alliance. This leads to my sad conclusion: Our NATO allies will almost surely reject this appeal.

The necessary may now be impossible. Trump has so regularly denigrated NATO, undermining the alliance’s deterrence against Russia, launched the Iran war without an iota of consultation and been utterly indifferent to the devastating inflationary impacts and energy shortages the war has inflicted on NATO members that the people in these countries may simply not allow their leaders to help us.

That is especially likely at a time when Trump sounds more and more unhinged every day. Who wants to stand with him, other than the sycophants in his cabinet and party 

. . . 

So, I end where I began. I understand why our NATO allies want to watch Trump and Netanyahu reap what they sowed. But these two awful leaders have sowed the wind — and we will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger. 

Text to SCC:

I think I’m a day early, but would you wish Christian a Happy Birthday from me.  I hope you’re all doing well.  We’re emerging from a rough Spring (cold, rain, wind) into something resembling Summer.  I can’t remember whether I’ve already told you I have some heart surgery coming up on June 15th, a catheter ablation for some ventricular tachycardia.  I’m a bit anxious about it, though I understand it’s quite safe, even for an old timer.  My doctor/surgeon is s Sikh and I’m wondering how he deals with his turban in the OR.  I’m told he is very competent (on the staff at Froederdt and faculty at MCOW), but not exactly Dr. Warmth. I hope all is well with my Geretsried family.❤️ 

I later remembered that I did tell Sarah about the catheter ablation, when we corresponded about her visit in June. 

 I see Dr. Cheng in the PM&R Clinic this afternoon.  Plus ça change, . . .  I saw him a year ago tomorrow too, and wrote this in this journal:

Visit to PM&R Clinic, where I saw Dr. Cheng, one of my favorite docs.  Nothing came of the visit except for a prescription for menthol patches for my shoulders, some exercises to try with resistance bands, and an examination of my shoulder, but it was nice seeing him.  On the way in from the parking lot, I chatted with an old Marine who served at NAS Atsugi during the Korean Era.  We shared as many experiences as we could in the distance between the garage and the hospital check-in booths.  On the way up the elevator to PM&R, I chatted a bit with another vet and with yet another in the PM&R waiting room.  As is often the case, I felt better leaving the VA than I did going in, though, as Jane Kenyon wrote, 'someday it will be otherwise.'  By the time I left, the outpatient clinics were largely shut down; there was no one to schmooze with.

Today, I'll inquire about the recurrent pain under my right rib cage which is particularly nasty today, and hope for some more brief but good encounters at the VA. . . . .  As it turned out I had no conversations at the VA today, other than a very pleasant one with Dr. Cheng, whom I like very much.  I did hear from one stranger who noticed my 1st Marine Air Wing baseball cap, and gave me the fraternal greeting, "Semper Fi, Marine!"  The younger ones more usually say, "Semper Fi, ooh rah!", which this old Corps Marine never heard during his years as a Jarhead.  . . . .  Dr. Cheng ordered a CT scan of my spine to see if it looks like I have arthritis in my thoracic spine to account for my recurrent pain.

Geri did the kitchen clean-up for me tonight.  She could see I was in bad shape because of my back, which I was.  I was in bed by 9, hoping for relief.