11/14/23

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

In bed at 9:45, awake at 4:50, onto lzb until 5:25, let Lilly out, 35°, high of 57°, wind SW at 4 mph, 2-15/27.  Sunrise at 6:43 at 114°SE, sunset at 4:28 at 245°WSW, 9+45.  Did a load of laundry at 6 a.m.           

Treadmill; Pain. Some moderate CPP this morning, gove by the time I got to the VA for my 10:30.  It came back this afternoon, fairly bad, while I shopped at Walmart, MetroMarket, and Sendiks.

Nyad.  We watched this remarkable film last night.  It features a tour de force performance by Annette Bening as Diana Nyad.  Geri and I had the same thought - that it is Academy Award worthy.  The on-screen relationship between Bening and her co-star Jodie Foster is also remarkable.  These are two of our favorite actors so we were eager to see this film starring both of them.  It's a tale of obsession, determination, grit, arrogance, self-determination, goal-fulfillment, egoism and foolishness, depending on your point of view.  I am reminded of the story in the news last week of a 17 year old boy who solved a Rubik's Cube in record time while free-falling during a skydive.  He's in the Guiness Book of World Records.  And???  What will be his next death-defying feat?  Will he survive it and what's the point?  I suppose we can ask these questions of many human endeavors - why do it, what's the cost, why is it worth it?  Bening's Nyad - and apparently Nyad herself - is a character that is not easy to like or perhaps even to admire, again depending on your point of view.  Her obsession exacted a toll not only on her, but also on others, particularly her coach and best friend Bonnie and on the navigator  John Bartlett who plotted the route Diana had to follow between Cuba and Key West, and the valorous assistants who jumped in the water to fight off an attacking shark with tennis balls mounted on long shafts.  I will probably want to watch this flick again to focus less on Diana's feat and more on the relationship between her and Bonnie, not amorous but supportive, at least on Bonnie's part.  To use a Trumpism, what was in it for her?

     I'm thinking also about 65-year-old Annette Bening's preparation for and execution of her role as Nyad.  It fairly mirrored Nyad's dedication to her goal in real life.  It wasn't death-defying like Nyad's, but it was demanding and indeed grueling so it raises the same kind of questions I asked above, why do it, what was the cost, why was it worth it?  In this sense, the movie seems more than a little philosophical about much of what we do in our lives, the 'why' and 'at what cost' and 'is or was it worth it?'  It also raises questions re goal-setting, shying away from difficult goals, and quitting.  I'm thinking of Dr. Baugrud calling me from her office one Friday evening, and my asking her (presumptuously) what she was doing in her office at that hour and her response: "It's what I do."  Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and all that.  It's what they do.  And Ecclesiastes: vanitas vanitatem. . .

Supreme Court promulgates unenforcible ethics rules for itself.

Since . . . it has been my intention to write something of use to the understanding reader it has seemed wiser to me to follow the real truth of the matter rather than what we imagine it to be. Imagination has created many principalities and republics that have never been seen or known to have any real existence; for how we live is so far different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

Niccolo Machiavelli, THE PRINCE, ch. XV.

and

[L]aw was superb as a code. And the more perfect and logical a code was, the more magnificent it was. But this was at the cost of increased artificiality, rendering it less capable of existing in reality. Hence the opportunity to study and reflect on law offered the greatest satisfaction while the requirement to implement it was the saddest or most painful fate that could befall one. The practice of law led either to cynicism or madness. We could see examples of the former all around us and, as for the latter, suffice it to recall Kafka, who, though few realized it, was a Prague lawyers.

Ivan Klima, JUDGE ON TRIAL A. G. Brain trans., 1993

VA day:  "Healing Touch" with Jody.  Sights and Sounds: One of the administrative workers stopped me in the hallway on my way out and asked if she could thank me for my service.  I asked her if she worked for the VA and when she said she did, I said 'thank you for your service.  We old vets really appreciate it."  An announcement on the PA system about a program in the auditorium celebrating the service of Native Americans.   I said 'good morning' to an elderly Black lady in the elevator, pushing a very old man in a wheelchair with a Korea veteran baseball cap.  I said 'how are you?' and she replied "I'm blessed."  I said "I'm blessed too."  She told me the vet whose chair she was pushing was 93 years old.  An old vet on the house phone in the lobby as I was leaving, saying to someone on the other end that he would have some money on the 15th and then again on the 30th, living from check to check, SSA?  Disability?  Discussing co-pays?

Netanyahu to Biden and Blinkin: fuhgedaboudit.  At a press conference last Saturday, Netanyahu stated that the U.S. and Israel do not agree on 'the end game' of the Gaza war.  Israel will take responsibility for security in Gaza 'for an indefinite period.  Biden and Blinken are pushing for the seemingly unattainable "two state solution" with the Palestinian Authority governing both the West Bank and Gaza.  Netanyahu says NO but keep sending us $3B each year  on top of the $14B you have requested for us from Congress even though we are a wealthy nation in our own right and don't give a shit what you want after we destroy most of the infrastructure in Gaza and make it unlivable and perhaps ungovernable.  In other words, kiss my ass, Joe.  It's not easy to judge who is right on this issue,   Do Blinken and Biden really believe that a two state resolution is really possible with 600,000 to 750,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and other prepared to move into Gaza once that territory is demolished?  And with the West Bank carved up with roads and checkpoints designed to keep the resident Palestinian communities separated?  There was hell to pay when a much smaller contingent of settlers were forcibly removed from Gaza back in 2005.  Removing the religiously militant Zionist settlers from "Judea and Samaria" would lead to civil war.  Failure to remove them would lead to a non-contiguous Palestinian speckled throughout with hostile Zionist communities and guaranteed conflict.

 

11/13/23

 Monday, November 13, 2023

In bed by 10, up at 5:05, after several odd dreams, immediately forgotten,  let Lilly out, 42°, high of 54°, sunny day ahead, wind WNW at 11 mph, 5-15/25, wc= 36°,  Sunrise at 6:41, sunset at 4:29, 9+47.

Treadmill; pain.  Woke up with some back pain but no CPP.   On the treadmill at 7:45   20:11   0.52

Trump goes full Hitler on the campaign trail.  At a Veterans Day rally in New Hampsihire:  "In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Faschists, and the Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie, and steal, and cheat on elections and will do anything possible,they'll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and the American Dream.  The real threat is not from the Radical Right; the real threat is from the Radical Left, and it's growing every day, every single day   The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within."  Trump campaign response to WaPo re comparing "vermin" rhetoric to Hitler: "Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.

VA day. 10 o'clock with Deena, my lymphedema therapist and 11 o'clock with Melinda, my Whole Heath coach. . . . AOK re lymphedema.  Sought an appointment with VA hypnotherapist re pain tolerance/management.  Sights and sounds:  an old vet sitting on the steps in the parking garage, struggling to breath while another vet stands over him, waiting for a security guard coming forward with a wheelchair to take him into the hospital, perhaps to the ER, perhaps not.  In the entrance to the hospital, another old vet with skinny legs, wearing shorts, getting into another wheelchair, assisted by an aide.  While in the basement Physical Therapy department, 3 separate announcements within a half hour: "Your attention, please.  Medical emergency.  Rapid response team needed at . . ."

Arwa Mahdawi wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian yesterday titled "Is it too much to ask people to view Palestinians as humans? Apparently so."  The second sentence in it is "I do not want to ever hear Western democracies lecture the rest of the world on human rights ever again."  Then this:

As I write this, more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – almost half of them children. One child is being killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. Those numbers, it should be noted, only count the kids who are dying as a direct result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing. The kids who were “lucky” enough to die instantaneously in an airstrike. And the not-so-“lucky” ones: innocent children buried under rubble, dying painful and protracted deaths as they are suffocated by the eviscerated remains of their home.

Those numbers don’t count the kids slowly dying of hunger and thirst. The kids getting sick from drinking sewage and sea water. They don’t count the kids with cancer who will not be able to get any care now that the Israeli siege has forced the only cancer hospital in Gaza to suspend operations. They don’t count the kids who are going to die from entirely avoidable diseases because hospitals in Gaza are ceasing to function. They don’t count the kids who are so traumatized from being born in an open-air prison, so scarred from having their neighbourhoods and loved ones eradicated in an apocalyptic act of collective punishment, that their lives have changed for ever. . . .

Those numbers certainly don’t count to the president of the United States. The empathizer-in-chief; the man who likes to make a big song and dance about what a decent guy he is. Joe Biden came right out and said: we don’t believe Palestinians about the death toll.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking horrific, so fucking insulting. I’m sorry … what does Biden think is happening, exactly? . . . Does he think the pictures of entire neighborhoods being wiped out are some sort of AI deepfake? . . . .

 I will absolutely condemn Hamas but I ask that the absolute condemnation goes both ways. And it doesn’t, does it? People demand that Palestinians denounce violence while screaming that Israel has the right to defend itself at the top of their lungs. Israel has the right to defend itself, you see, but Palestinians do not. Everything that the IDF does has some sort of justification, explanation; violence by a Palestinian is never justifiable. 

 As for non-violent resistance? That’s not allowed either. The US has long been trying to criminalize the peaceful boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Calls to boycott the 2019 Eurovision song contest, which was held in Tel Aviv, was described as an “weapon of division,” and demonized. Going on a pro-Palestinian march is smeared as antisemitic – the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, branded them as “hate marches” – even if half the people marching are brave Jews in organisations like Jewish Voices for Peace. Not even children’s art is tolerated if those children are Palestinian. Earlier this year a London hospital took down artwork by Gaza schoolchildren after UK Lawyers for Israel said that “Jewish patients … feel vulnerable, harassed and victimised by this display.” Those children some people felt so harassed by? There is a good chance they are now all dead.

So what are we supposed to do, I ask you? What are Palestinians supposed to do? That’s a rhetorical question because the last three weeks have made the answer to this crystal clear: we are supposed to shut up and die.

Indeed, Israel is not even being coy about its intentions for Palestinians right now. Craig Mokhiber, a top United Nations human rights official who stepped down last week, wrote in his resignation letter that what is happening is “textbook genocide.” In an interview with Al Jazeera, Mokhiber noted: “Usually the most difficult part of proving genocide is intent, because there has to an intention to destroy in whole or in part a particular group. In this case, the intent by Israeli leaders has been so explicitly stated and publicly stated – by the prime minister, by the president, by senior cabinet ministers, by military leaders – that that is an easy case to make.”

Tell that to the US government. Tell that to the cowardly and hypocritical US press. Twenty years from now, when it is far too late for journalism to make any difference, someone will win a Pulitzer for telling the truth about this moment. They’ll be celebrated for unequivocally and unapologetically using the words that people are currently losing jobs or being targeted by hate campaigns for saying: occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing. Only when every single Palestinian is dead or displaced will it be acceptable to treat us as human.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist

Mahdawi was interviewed by Scott Detrow on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday and said, in response to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's comment that the US doesn't want to see firefights in hospitals:

It's not enough for the U.S. to say we do not want to see. The U.S. can pick up the phone and tell Israel to stop this. This is being done with U.S. taxpayer money. The U.S. government isn't just allowing this to happen. It's actively cheering it on, and it could stop it at any moment. This is why so many of us are so incensed - because not only is this horror unfolding, we're all complicit because our taxpayer dollars are paying for this. . . . 

DETROW: As you wrote about, as we have seen over and over again, we have seen many Palestinian leaders and advocates be pressed in interviews to publicly condemn Hamas. And in your piece, you offer that condemnation. But then you say, you, quote, "ask that the absolute condemnation goes both ways." Can you explain what you're asking for there?

MAHDAWI: You know, it's always Palestinians are asked to condemn, condemn, condemn violence. Meanwhile, I never hear Israeli commentators being asked to condemn the occupation, to condemn the killing of Palestinians. I mean, I think, you know, what frustrates me is that the media attention is only ever when Israelis get killed. Like, the violence did not start on October 7. And obviously, what happened on October 7 was horrific, and I will condemn that. But I do ask that the condemnation goes both ways, and it does not happen.   I think that people talk about the conflict being complex, but human rights, human dignity - you know, that is not complex. Anyone who has been to the occupied territory, anyone who has seen how Palestinians have to live, will realize that that's not complex. That is unfair.

David Ignatius: A silent desperation on the slow march out of Gaza City "This war has produced deeply horrifying images: Israeli children assaulted in barbaric ways by Hamas terrorists; Palestinian children left to die under Israeli bombardment. It’s a war in which we’ve all looked into the abyss."

Psalm 137: 7-9 "GOD, remember those Edomites, and remember the ruin of Jerusalem, That day they yelled out, “Wreck it, smash it to bits!” And you, Babylonians—ravagers! A reward to whoever gets back at you for all you’ve done to us; Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies and smashes their heads on the rocks!"

Hosea 13:16  "Samaria will pay the penalty for her guilt, Because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their children will be slaughtered, And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

Isaiah 13:18  "Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children."

Isaiah 14:21  "Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities."

The Siege of Berlin by Alphonse Daudet.  My reading while waiting for my meeting with Melinda, my Health Coach.  An old colonel in Napoleon's army, in his apartment overlooking the Arch de Triomphe, fooled by his doctor and his granddaughter into thinking the French army was laying siege to Berlin instead of the reality of the Prussian army entering into Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.  On the day he believes the French troops will march foen the Champs Ulysses, he pulls himself out of bed, gets dressed in his old military uniform with his sword, and stands on his balcony to salute the returning victorious heroes.  He sees instead the Purssians, shouts "To arms!  To arms!", collapses and dies.  

Another one bites the dust; and then there were four on the stage.  Tim Scott is out.  Who's next?

11/12/23

 Sunday, November 12, 2023

In bed at 10 after dozing on BL, awake at 4:15 and up at 4:30, let Lilly out.  43°, high of 53°, mostly cloudy, windy, wind S at 15 mph, 8-18/30, w/c=36°.  Sunrise at 6:40, sunset at 4:30, 9+50.

Treadmill; pain.  Went to bed with CPP and woke up with CPP, hoping this won't be another day lost to pain. . . . Got better at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  21:42    0.51

Random thoughts: Old age, debility, incapacities, pointlessness, chronicity as in The chronicity of neurodegenerative diseases allows the brain to engage compensatory mechanisms …, on a scale from 1 to 10, . . . ,,  side effects,  may I have your attention please medical emergency rapid response team needed in red clinic room 1106,  how often, how severe, how long, how often, . . . 

Such a gorgeous photo, such an awful reality

Israel and America.  I can't resist it - the thought that Israel became, some time ago, a racist and fascistic country.  But I also entertain the thought that perhaps it was practically inevitable, inexorable.  I have the same thought about the United States: perhaps it is inevitable that we will become if not a racist country (but who knows?) at least a fascistic, authoritarian, right wing country.  Israel has always been a militaristic country but that was due to its being surrounded at all its borders by enemies. The U.S. has become a militaristic country with a homegrown Hessian army, not mercenaries in the same sense as the Hessians, but all-volunteer with many of its members induced to join up because of the valuable benefits that are provided to military members and veterans.  Israel's militarism is rational, existential, and defensible; it needs to defend its citizens.  America's militarism is also rational but less existential and defensible; America defends its markets and suppliers of raw materials.  Israel relies to a large extent on its reserves, citizen soldiers subject to conscription, unless one is too busy studying Torah and Talmud while being supported by the State.  Maybe being an orthodox true believer does have some salvific value?!?!  At least in Israel, it'll save you from the draft!  In large measure Israel is right-wing because of its religious wackos and Jewish nationalists.  In large measure America is right wing because if its religious wackos, Evangelicals and Christian nationalists.

    

Many thoughts, many memories, many emotions

I rested on my basement recliner chair after I dismounted the treadmill this afternoon.  The thought came to me that the space I use as my basement 'sanctuary' is larger than the basement apartment at 7303 S. Emerald Avenue that I lived in throughout my childhood.  The apartment had one small bedroom, a small living room, a small kitchen, a closet, and a bathroom.  My sister and I slept  in bunkbeds in the one bedroom; my parents slept on a hide-a-bed in the living room.   The apartment featured asbestos-wrapped steam heating pipes running along its ceiling and Oriental cockroaches hiding here and there on the floor.  We called them "water bugs."  I think we lived there for the first 12 years of my life before "movin' on up', like the Jeffersons, "to a deluxe apartment in the sky", i.e., a second floor flat next door at 7307 S. Emerald, thanks to the kindness of our neighbors, Carl and Ann Semrau, who owned the building and lived in the 1st floor flat.

11/11/23

 Saturday, November 11, 2023

Veterans Day

In bed by 10, awake at 2:10, uneasiness, IC, CPP, on to lzb, up at 3:15, thinking of EGF at Lyn's wake, hitchhiking through the Deep South in 1961, unwelcomeness at a bar in Waycross, GA with Andy Furlong early 1964, Yankees in Jim Crow's Dixie.  32°, WC is 26°, high of 47°, wind WNW at 7 mph, 3-11/20.  Sunrise at 6:39 at 104° ESE, sunset at 4:31 at 253° WSW, 9+52.  Solar noon at 11:35, altitude 30°.

My Dad, upper right, with 3 other Marines in 1944 or early 1945.  I am assuming this photo of these young, healthy-looking, smiling and happy-looking Marines was before Iwo Jima.  My Dad survived, in a manner of speaking.  I don't know about the others.  Though he was clearly wracked by PTSD, I don't know that he ever received any veteran's benefits.

Treadmill; Pain.  Another bad pain day. CPP, shooting pains.  Back to bed at 11:30, up at 1:40.

Israel, Hamas, Gaza.  The more I see, the more I read, the harder it is for me to accept what Israel is doing in Gaza.  The highest estimate I have seen for the number of Hamas members in Gaza was about 50,000.  That's out of a total population of about 2,100,000 people, approximately half of who are youngsters.   That's about 2 or 2.5% of the population that belong to Hamas, but the entire population, including thousands of children, is being subjected to virtually non-stop lethat attacks, destruction of infrastructure, and withholding of food, water, electricity, and fuel.  

11/10/23

 Friday, November 10, 2023

In bed at 10, up at 7:20, let Lilly out, 36°, high of 44°, sunny now, cloudy later, wind WNW at 11 mph, 7-14/20. The sun rose at 6:38 and will set at 4:32, 9+54.    

Treadmill   30:12    0.74 at 4:45 p.m.

Marine Corps 248th birthday.  Arond the world, U.S. Marines will gather for "birthday" dinners or other obseervations of the creation of the corps by the Continental Congress.  Officers and senior staff NCOs will dress in "mess dress" or "dress blues" for formal birthday balls or dinners with toasts to the Corps, the Commandant, the President, et al., and a cake cutting.  From Wikipledia: 

"MARINE CORPS ORDERS

No. 47 (Series 1921)

HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS

Washington, November 1, 1921

The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,

Major General Commandant

------------------

It would be hard to overstate the importance of history and tradition in the Marine Corps.  Not all of the history is so glorious, as amply demonstrated by Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler's War is a Racket and in our  own experience in Vietnam.  My father had no love for his Marine Corps affiliation, which was in part at least involuntary, and my feelings are at best mixed, although my association was entirely voluntary and against the advice of my father.  It's not easy to become a Marine, quite the opposite, even for officers, so it seems pretty normal to take some pride in having passed through the gauntlet.  Oqn the other hand, I take no pride in the purposes to which we were put in Vietnam by LBJ or that my successors were put in Iraq by GWB, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.  The topmost photograph above is of Maj. Gen. John Kelly observing the Marine Corps Birthday in Fallujah, Iraq in 2008.  Little did he know what he was getting into when he agreed to serve as Donald Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security and then as his Chief of Staff.  Now is has been identified in the press of one of the former aides Trump intended to punish by DOJ investigation and indictment if Trump is elected once more to the presidency.  Sic transit gloria mundi.  Semper fi, General.  The lower photo is of a Marine officer in "mess dress" uniform.

"Far too many Palestinians have been killed" says Anthony Blinken.  "Far too many have suffered these last few weeks."  These words are certainly true enough and welcome, but they ring a little hollow after all the words spoken by Biden, Blinken, and Austin the last month seeming to give Israel to do what it will in response to the slaughter of its people on October 7th.  It's a little late now to be ruing "far too many" deaths and far too much suffering.  

My posting on FB today. " Today is the 248th 'birthday and Marines around the world will mark the occasion in various traditional and respectful ways depending on their location and their missions.  I still think sadly  of my friend "Moon" Mullen and of this family.  I learned of his being shot down over Laos when I had been transferred from Vietnam to a Marine base on Okinawa and I am re-experiencing the feeling of numbness I had when learning of it.  I remember too my loss of innocence about being repeatedly lied to by our government during that time which led to a lifelong skepticism, indeed cynicism, about what we are told by the politicians and bureaucrats who control our government.  Just as I can't believe what I am told by our own government, I am just as skeptical, indeed cynical, about information by the governments involved in the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the Israel/Hamas conflict.  It is truly said that the first casualty of war is always Truth and that applies whether we are being provided information by our friends or our enemies.  We need to be at least skeptical, if not cynical, about information provided by those deeply engaged in warfare.

3 Years Ago

Charles Clausen   November 10, 2020.

Today is the 245th Birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps and the 38th anniversary of the Vietnam Wall being opened to the public in Washington.  On panel 7E, line 11 of the Wall is the name of a friend of mine at the huge airbase at Danang, RVN, Captain William F. Mullen, known to his fellow Marines in Headquarters Squadron 1 of the 1st Marine Air Wing as "Moon."  My warmest memories of Moon are of him reluctantly giving in to coaxing from others at the Officers' Club to sing "Danny Boy," solo and a cappella.  Moon worked at the Wing's Intelligence Office or "G2" but he also flew combat missions in A4 aircraft.  On one of those missions, on April 29, 1966, he was shot down over Laos.  The telegram sent to his wife Barbara (after a personal visit from and notification by another Marine officer) said he "became missing while on a flight mission in the Republic of Vietnam" because the US was maintaining to American citizens and to all the world that we conducted no military operations in Laos where the Ho Chi Minh Trail was located.  On the Wall, Moon is listed as among the "missing," the MIAs, and, as far as I know, neither he nor his body was ever recovered.  So on this birthday and anniversary, I am feeling regret for Moon, for his widow and two sons, and for the other 58,279 men and women whose names are on that Wall and for their families, and for the perhaps 3 million Vietnamese men, women, and children who died there.  I feel regret for the untold number of Vietnamese people who today suffer the consequences of our promiscuous use of Agent Orange and other teratogenic defoliants.  I feel regret that our government generated so many lies to try to justify the tremendous suffering that it caused to so many millions of people over so many years.  And I feel regret for my early personal participation in that horrific misadventure.  Mea culpa.  Would that the end of that war had marked the end of lies being generated to American people by "our" American government.  Regrettably, no."

A photo I took in 1965 of two boys in "Dogpatch", our racist name for the hamlet across the road from our tents in 'officers' country at the Danang airbase.  Were they still alive when I left RVN?  When the US withdrew its troops in 1973?  When Saigon fell to the NVA and VC iin 1975?  Did they support the corrupt military government in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh?  Did we and the  generalissimos in Saigon ever win their "hearts and minds" by bombing, burning, and defoliating their country and bombing, burning, poisoning, and terrorizing their countrymen?  What became of their daily exposure to Agent Orange and other defoliants and poisons from living across the road from our Death and Destruction factory?  The American government gives me and millions of other American veterans monthly disability payments for spending even one day in Vietnam presumably exposed to Agent Orange.  What did these boys get for a lifetime of exposure not only to Agent Orange, but to years of warfare, burn pits, polluted water, so much?  I get a monthly disability check and free health care for the rest of my life for my piddly role in the invasion.  What did these boys get?

Did LBJ ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he did.  Did RMN ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he didn't.  Did Robert McNamara ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he did.  Did Henry Kissinger ever lose sleep over boys like these?   I suspect he didn't.

[One of the aspects of this photo that touches my heart is that the shorter of the two boys has his right arm around the sholder of the taller of the two.  Are they brothers?   cousins?   'just' friends?  And theyare holding on to the barbed wire that we had strung around our tent city to keep them away from us, their  nominal protectors and saviors.  We protectors and saviors referred to the little village in which these boys lives as "Dogpatch", the mythical home of hillbillies L'il Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, Marryin' Sam, and Stupifyin' Jones.  At some time after I took this photo, a boy came onto the base holding a hand grenade, probably a concussion grenade.  The weapon blew up in his hands, ripping open his stomach and abdomen, and blowing off his lower jaw.  Was it one of thse boys?  I'll never know.  Was it a "VC sympatizer" intending to throw the grenade into one of our tents, to 'frag' us"  I'll never know.  Was he bringing the grenade onto the base to turn it in to us, as a 'friendly'?  I'll never know.  In any case, this snapshot that I took almost 60 years ago, haunts me.]

A portion of an oil on wood board that I did many years ago, "The Annunciation", my view of what would have been the reality of the Angel Gabriel's 'annunciation' to the BVM.  The image of the horrified virgin has come to represent for me other horrifying percipiences.

11/9/23

 Thursday, November 9, 2023

In bed at 11, awake at 4:50 and up at 5:13. Let Lilly out, 40°, high of 50°, back and CPP, windy, sunny day ahead, wind 16 mph, 9-19/34, 0.5" of rain in last 24 hours.  Sunrise at6:36, sunset 4:34, 9+57.

Treadmill.  Not looking good, exceptionally bad perineal pain day, both frequency & intensity. I sent a secure message to Jennifer Garrison at the VA PT.  Tom and Sue coming soon for an overnight visit.  Keeping my fingers crossed. . . .  Went to bed from 1 to 2 p.m., felt better rest of day.  No treadmill time.

From Tom Friedman's column in this morning's NYT:  "The euphoric rampage of Oct. 7 that killed some 1,400 soldiers and civilians has not only hardened Israeli hearts toward the suffering of Gaza civilians. It has also inflicted a deep sense of humiliation and guilt on the Israeli Army and defense establishment, for having failed in their most basic mission of protecting the country’s borders. . . While the army insists that it is hewing to the laws of war, it wants to show that no one can out-crazy Israel to drive them from this region — even if the Israeli military has to defy the U.S. and even if they do not have any solid plan for governing Gaza the morning after the war.

. . . . . 

Netanyahu had just told ABC News that Israel plans to retain “overall security responsibility” in Gaza “for an indefinite period” after its war with Hamas.

Really? Consider this context: “According to Israel’s official Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2021, 9.449 million people live in Israel (including Israelis in West Bank settlements), the Times of Israel reported last year. “Of those, 6.982 million (74 percent) are Jewish, 1.99 million (21 percent) are Arab and 472,000 (5 percent) are neither. The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics puts the West Bank Palestinian population at a little over three million, and the Gaza population at just over two million.”

So, Netanyahu is saying that seven million Jews are going to indefinitely control the lives of five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — while offering them no political horizon, nothing, by way of statehood one day on any demilitarized conditions."

----------------------------

I am remembering Biden's arrival in Tel Aviv, the hug with Netanyahu and my thinking Biden is going to regret that warm embrace of the thug.  I'm wondering now whether Biden hugged Bibi or Bibi hugged Biden.  I suppose the facts don't matter; it looked like a mutual embrace.  It linked Biden and Netanyahu in the minds of millions of Arabs, Muslims, and even Americans as 'brothers-in-arms' in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, especially those ubiquitous Palestinian children.

Biden didn't help himself, or the U.S., when he cast doubt on the accuracy of the casualty counts from the Gaza Health Authority.  WHO and Red Cross authorities have said that the numbers are consistent with their counts, but Biden is being accused of minimizing the Palestinian casualties and devaluing Arab lives.  If 10,000 deaths isn't the accurate number, what is?  only 9,000?  only 7,500?  What's the point?

11/8/23

 Wednesday, November 8, 2023

In bed by 10, up w/ backache at 6:39, 45° and a high of 50° on a windy, rainy day, wind ESE at 20 mph, 9-21/32, 0.3" of rain in last 24 hours, 0.45" expected in next 24,  The sun rose at 6:36 and sets at 4:34.

Treadmill and Yoga.   20.00   0.51 followed by 1/2 hour of VA chair yoga stretches.  The combo fairly wore me out.  I got up to 1.7 mph on the treadmill comfortably.  The yoga that involved leg lifting was difficult, especially with the leg leg, left hip muscles.  I don't have much lower torso/upper leg strength.

Call me Ishmael.  I should have written about Melville's opening paragraph today, "a damp, drizzly November" day.

Willa Cather documentary.  What an extraordinary person!  I went through a Cather period in my reading but I can't remember what-all I read other than O Pioneers! and My Antonia.  Did I read The Professor's House and Death Comes for the Archbishop?  I think so, or perhaps I started but never finished them.  I think I also read Youth and the Bright Medusa and Lucy Gayheart.  The documentary makes me want to pick up her novels again.  I noted one quote of hers: "I try to keep myself fit fresh.  One has to be in as good form to write as to sing."  It reminded me of how impossible it is to write in this journal, or to paint, on days when I am troubled by a lot of pain, or on days when I have no usable energy, when I am awake only in the sense that I am not asleep, "dragging major butt" as a faculty friend used to say.

"Cather in The Professor's House wrote I think as dark a book as has ever been written in America and what she did, it really kind of takes your breath away.  She wrote about the experience that very few people write about which is what happens when the meaning of your life is over long before your life is over."

"Old Mrs. Harris . . . once again we're looking at something that's pretty grim which is an old lady dying quietly in the midst of a bustling household which pays to her no attention whatsoever.. . Thus Mrs. Harris slipped out of the Templeton story but Victoria and Vicky had still to go on to follow the long road that leads through things unguessed at and unforeseeable.  When they are old they will come closer and closer to Grandma Harris and their lot will be more or less like hers.  They will regret that they heeded her so little but they too will look into the eager unseeing eyes of young people and feel themselves alone.  They will say to themselves I wa heartless because I was young and strong and wanted things so much but now I know."

Republican Presidential Debate.  The first one I watched.  Words fail me.