5/28/2026

 Thursday, May 28, 2026

1431 Joan of Arc was accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution

1830 US President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, a key law leading to the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states, setting the stage for the Cherokee Trail of Tears

1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy won Democratic presidential primary in Oregon

1972 White House "plumbers" first broke in at the Democratic National Headquarters and installed listening devices at Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.

1996 US President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, were convicted of fraud

2021 Discovery of a mass grave with the remains of 215 children from Kamloops Indian Residential School was announced by First Nation in British Columbia, Canada 

2024 The Pope apologised for using a homophobic term in a private assembly of Italian bishops, where he reconfirmed the churches ban on gay priests 

2025 Three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade unanimously ruled President Donald Trump exceeded his authority in using the International Emergency Economic  Powers Act of 1977 to justify his "Liberation Day" tariffs; administration immediately appealed

In bed at 9:15, awake around 3:30, onto LZB, up by 4; 0420 144 (130)/77/55. 120 203.5; 48/38/62/48, sunny day ahead. 

Morning meds at 9 a.m., and half-dose of Bisoprolol at 5:10 a.m.  

I had my appointment with NP Maggie Angeli this afternoon, and Geri was present also for most of it.  By the end of it, I had resolved to go through with the catheter ablation.  I will so advise Nurse Lisa tomorrow unless I send her a secure message today.  Among the things I learned was that I am not 'frail' compared to many of the patients who undergo ablations, many of whom are not outpatients as I will be but rather are not only in-patients at the time of the procedure, but in the ICU.  I also learned that the question I asked ChatGPT was based on an incorrect assumption, i.e., that the procedure is for ventricular tachycardia.  Rather, it is for PVC, or premature ventricular contraction.  My blood test readings were all good: potassium, magnesium, and some cardiac-relevent BNP.  So it's off to the races on the 15th.  I still dread it simply because of the nature of the assault on my body.  I'm reminded that, absent consent and its performance by a state-licensed professional, the procedure would be a crime, like all surgeries.   Nasty, icky in the extreme, but well-purposed and hopefully beneficial in results.  Fingers crossed.   Maggie is terrific.  She reallly knows her stuff and really does her homework.  Good-hearted on top of all that.   

Another experience at the VA.  While sitting in the waiting room of the Congestive Heart Failure clinic, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Nurse Michelle and the veteran/patient on the other side of the room divider.  They were talking about the fact that the veteran had suffered the loss of his mother and of some siblings within the last couple of years.  When they finished talking, the veteran came out to the waiting area while Michelle went to brief NP Maggie on his situation before returning to bring him to her examination room.  I mentioned to the vet that I overheard the conversation about his losses, and told him that I was sorry for his losses, that life is hard enough as it is without the loss of people we love.  That led to further conversation between the two of us about our families and about family members that each of us had lost.  While we were engaged in a heartfelt conversation, Michelle returned to the space to get the vet and take him to Maggie, but when she got to the door, she saw that we were engaged in that conversation.  She stopped in the doorway and waited.  She clearly didn't want to interrupt that heartfelt conversation between two strangers, me in my mid 80s, he considerably younger, me White and he Black.  When we finished, my fellow vet stood up, came over to shake hands, and asked me my name which I gave him, and I asked his name, which was "Mike."  I encouraged him to take advantage of whatever resources the VA might have available for him and he told me he had an appointment with a VA chaplain.  We thanked each other and wished each other good luck.  It was only then that Nurse Michellle stepped into the room to lead Mike to Maggie's room.  I was moved by the experience, both the conversation with Mike and Michelle's thoughtfulness and sensitivity in reading the situation and waiting for our conversation to be completed before carrying on with her business.  

After the meeting between Maggie, Geri, and me was completed, we proceeded to the elevators where I complimented another old vet on his tall walking stick.  He complemented my cane.  He was Black and I had a hard time understanding all that he said to us, but I heard him say that at his church, folks called his walking stick his Moses stick.  I told him the story of my friend Father Matthew Gottschalk at St. Francis of Assisi church at 4th and Brown streets, who, back in the day when Capuchin friars all wore the long brown Franciscan robes and had long beards (pre-Vatican II), children in the neighborhood would see Fr. Matthew coming down the street on his daily walks, and would run into their homes, shouting "Mama, mama, Jesus's coming!"  It turned out the gentleman attended St. Francis Grammar School, back in the day when it was still operating, before I joined the parish.  The whole encounter between me and him lasted only a few mintues, but it was a few minutes of human contact between two men who were strangers to each other, making caring and respectful contact, just as Mike and I had done earlier.  I left the hospital thinking, as I so often have, that things happen there that surely don't happen, at least on any regular basis, at other hospitals, good things, and it's because of what all the patients share, i.e., that we're all veterans.  Some are White, some are Black, some are Hispanic, Asian, or 'other.'  Some are well-off and many are not.  Some are highly educated and others are not.  Some have all their limbs and faculties, while others don't.  Some are on their last legs and others have a way to go, but everyone is a military/naval veteran and that fact removes barriers that would keep all of us strangers in other settings, separate from one another, ships passing in the night.  It's one of the reasons why I've come to love the place, despite its imperfections and challenges.  As I write this, I'm thankful for Maggie, Michelle, Mike, and 'Moses.'  And to Nurse Lisa who called me yesterday.  And to the VA.