1/7/24

Sunday, January 7, 2024

In bed at 9:15, awake at 4:17, and up at 4:52 after some meditation.  Let Lilly out, and again at 5:20.  31°. high of 35°, cloudy then partly cloudy day ahead.  Windd WNW at 11 mph, 5-11/19.  Wind chills today, 21°-27°.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:32, 9+9.

Treadmill; pain.  30.32 & 0.75  while watching a 2-hour, multi-national, 2016 documentary titled "The Settlers," a pretty thorough history of the settler movement in 'Greater Israel' from Rabbi Kook before and after the 1967 war through the time of Naftali Bennett.  It confirmed my most negative thoughts about the movement, its crazy religious roots, the overall complicity of the Israeli government in the movement, and its dominant role in making a 2 state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict practically impossible.  On the other hand, it also made clear the political difficulty and perhaps impossibility of the Israeli government stopping the movement once it began.  As I watched it, I noted the male settlers with their "srugim" or knitted or crocheted kippahs and thought back to the Srugim television series that we enjoyed so much, ignorant of the role of the Religious Zionists in the settler movement.  

I'm grateful for water, for the water I d,rink and that Lilly drinks after consuming one of her treats.  I drink water when I am thirsty and, increasingly, even when I am not particularly thirsty.  I've come to appreciate that drinking water is important in keeping my aged organs functioning, not only for my kidneys and painful bladder, and not only for all the hollow organs of the GI tact, but for every cell in my old body.  Since my terrible day on November 25th, I haven't consumed any wine or other alcohol, any carbonated drink, or (with 3 exceptions) any caf or decaf coffee or tea.  I have come to accept that most of the pain and discomfort I am living with now is probably due in very large measure tooverconsumingg coffee throughout the day and my favorite wines in the evening.  Coffee to wind up and wine to wind down.  The coffee habit started at 19 while aboard the USS CONEY, DD 508 on the North Atlantic, my first active duty assignment in the Navy.  Ships re  manned 24 hours a day while at sea and because of disrupted sleep schedules, sailors tend to drink a lot of coffee 24 hours a day.  It's a habit that stayed wmeh my through my adult life and the coffee, when accompanied by other 'assault elements' of carbonated soft drinks and beer and wine, finally led to lesions in my bladder, 3 outpatient surgeries, and chronic interstitial cystitis.  So now I'm a drinker of unflavored, non-carbonated, non-alcoholicolic water and some herbal teas.  Even now, I fear I do not regularly consume as much plain water as I should but I try and for the water that I do drink, I am grateful.

I have mostly warm memories of my summer aboard the USS Coney and I am grateful for them  Relatively few people are privileged to spend weeks at sea on a Navy destoryer.  It is a unique experience and on the whole a good one, watching sunrises and sunsets on the ocean, sitting on the foc'sle watching the stars at night while listening to the wind whistling through the weighed anchors, watching pods of dolphins or porpoises racing the ship,  taking part in underway transfers of fuel or other supplies, etc.  The Coney had a distinguishedshed record in the Pacific campaign of WWII, in the Korean War, and even during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  She received 11 battle stars in WWII and another 2 in the KoreanWarr.  She participated in the 1944 assaults on Saipan and on Tinian, from which the Enola Gay took off to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, where I was to visit as a tourist 21 years later.  When I served aboard her, in the summer of 1960, she was part of Task Force Alfa, an experimental tactical force concentrating on anti-submarine warfare.  In 1961, she was part of he  disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and, in October 1962, she took part in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  On 27 October, Cony intercepted the Soviet submarine B-59, an incident that nearly led to war between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Service on the Coney provided me some brushes with pretty significant world history.  Alas, the Cony was decommissioned on 2 July 1969 and was sunk as a target off Puerto Ron ico 20 March 1970.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

I wrote that I have mostly warm memories of my service on the Coney.  Not-so-warm memories include 2 bouts of mal de mer, the first after 3 days at sea and the second during a hurricane or tropical storm.  An even less welcome memory is that when I returned to Chicago from my active duty, during which I nightly dreamed of and daily longed for my First True Love Charlene, she told me that she was dating another and that we were through.  I was devastated.  I walked home and wept on our back porch.  My mother and sister tried to comfort me but I was forlorn.  I wonder whether I ever truly 'got over it.'  My homecoming after my year away in Vietnam, Okinawa, and Japan didn't help.

SecDef Lloyd Austin's Mysterious Concealed Hospitalization.  The mystery gets moproblematictic every day.  He was admitted to Walter Reed on Monday and remained hospitalized yesterday (and today?).  The cause of his hospitalization has not been revealed, other than it was initially for some "elective" procedure during or after which he developed "complication that required treatment for 4 days in the ICU.  President Biden and the National Security Council were not informed until Thursday and Austin didn't resume full duties until Friday night, but on Thursday, while Austin was hospitalized, U.S. forces launched a rare airstrike in Baghdad, killing the leader of an Iranian-backed militia that the Pentagon said was plotting attacks against U.S. personnel there and in Syria. The incident prompted an outcry from Iraqi officials and raised questions about how long U.S. troops will be allowed to remain in the country.   Que pasa?  What was the 'elective procedure'?  Was it expected to be an outpatient procedure?  Was he under a general anesthetic or local?  What was so personal and private about it that Austin ordered that the President and NSC not be informed?  What were the 'complications'?  How unexpected are those kinds of complications?  What was his cognitive condition while he was hospitalized?  Why, when he was admitted to the ICU, was the President not informed?  Who should have informed the President, notwithstanding Austin's orders to the contrary?  Why did he or she or they not inform the President?  Who ordered the bombing in Baghdad?  What role did the President and the NSC have?  Did he or they talk with Austin about it?  Should Autin resign?  Should he be fired?  How will this play out in his next testimony before the House and Senate Armed Forces committees?  In the presidential election campaign?  The big classic question all along the route: What was he thinking?  What were his subordinates thinking?

1/6/24

 Saturday, January 6, 2023

3rd Anniversary of insurrection

In bed around 9, awake at 4:40 thinking of J.A., up at 5 as I heard Lilly walking noisily, let her out into falling snow, 33°, high of 35°, sinc SE at 11 mph, 2-12/18, wind chills today from 24° to 32°, 0.15" of snow expected this morning.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:31, 9+8.

Treadmill; pain. PP continuing this morning and this afternoon.  Big struggle to put the sheets back on my bed after laundering them, back pain, pelvic pain combo.  30:01 & 0.65 at 4:30 watching Youtube lecture on Chomsky's theory of mass media as propaganda/

I'm grateful for having had J.A. as a regular part of my life for almost 4 years during which he became a friend, a friend I now miss.  I'm also grateful for K.A.T. and J.T. for assuming the responsibiltiy of caring for him as he grew older.  K. texted yesterday that J. is in a hospital again for a bleeding problem and may require some minor surgery, though at his age, it's hard to think of any surgery as 'minor.'  How wise it was of G.A.C. and K. to recognize that it was time for J.A. to be moved closer to K. and Jo. as J. moved closer to his 90th year and G. moved closer to her 80th.  G. received a text this morning that J. will undergo surgery/fulguration at 9:30 a.m. our time, a procedure with which I am very familiar.  My heart is with him. . .  Around 12:30, we got the word that the surgery was successful and that J. would stay in the hospital until Monday.  

LTMW at an intrepid gray squirrel hanging upside down on the suet cake basket, nibbling away at the suet and seeds.  How hard she works to get some nourishment in the cold and snow while I sit on my recliner in my warm, dry house just a few feet away from the refrigerator and pantry loaded with fooder.

Trees and other entanglements is a remarkable documentary by Irene Taylor, " a poetic meditation on nature, mortality, and the passage of time in her exploration of our symbiotic nexus with trees.  I watched it yesterday and today.  A remarkable film, especially for a tree-hugger, full of a sense of reverence, of poetic insight, of commoness and of singularity, strength and fragility, life and death.  At left, an ancient bristlecone pine.

Greenfields, The Brothers Four, 1957

Once there were greenfields kissed by the sun;
Once there were valleys where rivers used to run;
Once there was blue sky with white clouds high above;
Once they were part of an everlasting love.
We were the lovers who strolled through greenfields.

Greenfields are gone now, parched by the sun;
Gone from the valleys where rivers used to run;
Gone with the cold wind that swept into my heart;
Gone with the lovers who let their dreams depart.
Where are the greenfields that we used to roam.

. . . . .

I thought of this sad song from my past as I watched the Trees and other entanglements documentaries.  The song seems more timely now living with the entanglements of climate change and what is likely to happen as our planet gets ever warmer.  I wish I could be optimistic that the politically and economically and militarily powerful of our species can stop or reverse the warming, but alas . . . 

Current Readings.  In the 12/21/23 issue of NYRB, Sherrilyn Ifills essay on How America Ends and Begins Again and Linda Greenhouse's How U.S. Law Failed our Covid Response.  In Greenhouse's essay, she assesses ". . .an American exceptionalism of a particularly disquieting form: a legal mindset that has come to value individual freedom over communal welfare and so has “lost sight of contagion’s most compelling lesson: Our own health depends on the health of others.”  

Main reading: the nonfiction Killing a King, by Dan Ephron, about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the remaking of Israel.  Rabin's death and the killing of the Oslo Accords started Bibi Netanyahu's rise and that of Likud and its more noxious allies in the current Israeli governemnt.  An interesting read about events that occurred 30 years ago, still somewhat fresh in my memory.

1/5/23

 Friday, January 5, 2023

In bed at 9, awake at 2 with a nasty case of GERD and onto the lzb until 3:30, then back to bed but still awake at 4, fell back to sleep at some time, and awakened by alarm at 6:30 to get dressed to pick up Andy and Peter at 7:20 for trip to Nicolet and Ogui Garage.  Lilly was sound asleep on tv room floor and didn't awake until I was already sitting down on the recliner.  When I returned at 8:30, she was asleep on her mattress and didn't wake up at all from the noise of the garage door opening and closing, the back door, and my footsteops moving to the recliner.  25°, high of 35°, cloudy all day, wind SW at 6, 3-7/12.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:30, 9+6.    

Treadmill; pain.   Considerable CPP this morning and afternoon.

I'm grateful for many and for much, but not very conscious of it today because of too little sleep last night and too much p&d today.  I need to SNAP OUT OF IT!

Daughters of the Cult.  We watched this long documentary series on the cult of Ervil LeBaron and the 33 murdeers and 9 suicides it led to.  The members were polygamous, fundamentalist Mormons resideing in Mexico but later spread throughput the SouthWest - Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City, elsewhere.  It made me wonder, yet again, how so many people can believe the nonsense of religious doctrines, whether the doctrine is that Ervil LeBaron is God's "Prophet Mighty and Strong" or Transubstantiation.  It also made me wonder about the MAGA crowd, their belief that the 2020 election was "stolen" and in various conspiracy theories from "QAnon" and the internet.

"Killing a King" is a book I've been reading about the Oslo Accords i 1993 and the 1995 assassination of Yitxhak Rabin by 25 year old religious Zionist Yigal Amir.  The murder was brought about by the right-wing opposition to the Accords, led in large part my Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party who ended up succeeding Rabin as prime minister (after a short succession by Shimon Peres) and has dominated Israel's policies ever since.  Amir believed that the land that Rabin proposed to hand over to the Palestinians had been promised by God to the Jews - Samaria and Judea - and that Rabin was not simply wrong in agreeing to the Oslo Accords, but a traitor.  Reminds me of the thinking of the followers of Ervil LeBaron an the belief in "blood atonement."

Eldest Statesmen by Fintan O'Toole in NYRB, Jan. 18, 2024.  Excerpts:

Just 39 percent of respondents in that New York Times poll viewed [Biden] as too old to be an effective president. On the face of it, this makes little sense. Trump’s mental sharpness is at least as questionable as Biden’s—he has recently claimed that Biden would lead the US into “World War II” and that he himself defeated Barack Obama in the 2016 presidential election. He claims that “Kim Jong-un leads 1.4 billion people,” apparently confusing the North Korean dictator with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He told supporters at a rally that the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has recently called on “President Obama” to resign and be replaced by Trump. Nikki Haley’s repeated calls in her Republican primary campaign for cognitive tests to be made mandatory for officeholders over seventy-five are aimed as much at Trump as at Biden. Yet it seems to be Biden alone whose age will matter in the coming presidential election.

 . . .Yet there is an underlying reality. Biden is not just chronologically old—he is politically ancient. Trump has clocked less than a decade in the electoral arena. Biden has been around for half a century as senator, vice-president, Democratic primary candidate, and president. He launched his first bid for the presidency in 1987, when today’s median American was four years old.

Those who now make light of his verbal slips note, as Franklin Foer does in his recent book The Last Politician, that the problem is less “Biden’s age or acuity” and more “his indiscipline and imprecision, traits that stalked the entirety of his career.” This may well be true, but reminding voters that Biden was always thus is no great help when that “always” seems to stretch back into what is, for most of today’s voters, a fuzzy prehistory. Biden’s longevity in public office means that, unlike Trump, he can appear as an embodiment of the gerontocracy that Americans do not want but have ended up with anyway.

Trump, meanwhile, exudes a dark energy. . . .

 [I]in 2020, Biden could be embraced for what he was not (Trump) rather than for what he was. Being a very familiar face was, in a time of strangeness and disorientation, quite appealing. But by insisting on running again, Biden risks stirring the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt—not just for him but for the whole gerontocratic system. He already had a problem with young voters, who were not particularly excited about him in 2020. Now, polls consistently suggest that young voters are by far the most likely to say that he is too old to be an effective president.

. . . . 

None of this is Biden’s fault—but it is his problem. He stands for a grim continuity: thirty consecutive years, so far, of boomer (or, in Biden’s case, technically preboomer) occupants of the Oval Office. He is caught in a generational paradox. He does not, in electoral terms, actually represent the boomers: a majority of “old white people” voted for Trump in 2020 and will, if given the chance, surely do so again in 2024. But he can be seen nonetheless as a representative boomer figure, the most prominent and powerful embodiment of the demographic group that has dominated American wealth, politics, and culture since the 1970s. He suffers on both sides of this contradiction—most of his own generation does not identify with him, but many younger Americans identify him with the age-related injustices that have shaped their lives. It is this incongruity that makes Biden so vulnerable. Being the old white man brings him no rewards, only resentments. And resentment is the medium in which Trump thrives.

Yet Biden himself does not seem to have much awareness of the seriousness of this threat to his reelection. He has little instinctive sympathy with the specific struggles of younger Americans. In 2018, when he was briefly out of public office, he told Patt Morrison of the Los Angeles Times:

The younger generation now tells me how tough things are—give me a break! No, no, I have no empathy for it, give me a break! Because here’s the deal, guys, we decided we were going to change the world, and we did.

That “we” is an explicitly generational identity. In Biden’s mind, he and his age cohort changed the world in much tougher circumstances than those that millennials and Gen Z face today. He seems barely conscious of the implication that it’s their fault if they fail to change it again.

In the public mind, the risk that Biden might die or be incapacitated during a second term is inflated beyond its real probability. Polls show only around a third of respondents expect him to finish a second term if he wins one. Though Biden seems able to blot out those hazards, it is not at all obvious that voters will do so. Death will be on the Democratic ticket but he will not acknowledge its icy presence.

Biden is troubled by strange notions of political succession. His touchstone was the Kennedy family, and he dreamed of achieving what it could not: the creation of a presidential dynasty. The Bidens, very unusually for Irish Catholics, have that monarchical habit of using Roman numerals after their names. Biden himself is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.; Beau (also christened Joseph Robinette) was III; his brother Hunter’s son is IV. This is more than a private affectation. It was intended to mark a governing bloodline. As Biden wrote in his memoir Promise Me, Dad, “I was pretty sure Beau could run for president some day and, with his brother’s help, he could win.” Before his untimely death, Beau was apparently ascending in this direction. Having served two terms as attorney general of Delaware, he had announced his candidacy for governor. His father had also suggested, when he vacated his Senate seat to become Obama’s vice-president, that “it is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden, would make a great United States Senator.” There is surely a feeling that a one-term Biden presidency is a poor substitute for what should have been eight years of Joe, followed by eight years of Beau.

God save US (if only) from Joe Biden's screwed up psyche, his overweening ego, and his coveting of power, fame, mansions, Corvettes, and pride of place.  Ditto Trump, except for the Corvettes.

1/4/24

 Thursday, January 4, 2024

In bed at 9, awake at 4:30 and up at 4:50.  Let Lilly out at 4:56 and in at 4:58, again at 5:25 and in at   .  25° with high of 31°, wind NNW  at 9 mph, 3-10/14.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:29, 9+5.

Treadmill; pain.  Awoke w/ upper & midback pain.  Big scare in early afternoon with pain around right kidney area, like pain on 11/25, but not as intense.  Took 3 Advil and laid down on bed under beach towel.  It felt better lying  on right side rather than left.  3 false starts but pain/discomfort held me back. 00:00

I'm grateful to the Veterans Administration for all the medical care, medication, and other help it provides.  I thought of this while I was lying down, post Advil, and received a call to confirm two appointments next week, one with Jody for Healing Hands, the other with the VA hypnotherapist.  I have two Rollators from the VA, a 'low boy' ("Judy")and a 'high boy' ("Rachel"), neither of which I have used in more than a year, probably out of vanity and a silly sense of embarassment about 'rollating'  down the street where all my neighbors live.  The treadmill in the basement lets me get a half hour of walking in almost daily in the privacy of the home, but it's awfully boring, relieved only by YouTube, for which I am also grateful.  This morning I called in again for the weekly VA discussion group focused on Mindfulness Meditation, this week led by Mary.  I enjoy hearing each of the participants in this group and I chip in a comment myself when I think it might be useful or otherwise welcome.  It's only through the VA that I am able to take part in this activity with a group of other veterans, male and female and to address this practice of mindfulness and meditation with support.  I've read about M/M and tried it before but I've never stuck with it and felt it would be helpful to me until I became connected with this VA telephone group.  This is probably the least costly help the VA provides me, compared to the cost of all the doctors, nurses, therapists, medications, etc., but it's certainly one for which I am very grateful. 

"Rachel," my VA-provided rollator, serving as a coat rack and a stand for towels used to wipe off Lilly when it's raining or snowing out.  Foolish pride.😔

Picked up Andy at the Ogui Garage at 8 a.m.  Luxus is acting up again.  Uh oh.  Left at 7:30, back home at 8:25.

Callback from the vet re: Lilly.  He says it looks like she injured her knee, which could have happened when we struggled to help her into the back of the Honda to go to the groomer's shop yesterday.  But that doesn't address the distress I witnessed and recorded in this journal a few days ago.  Hmm. . . .

1/3/23

 January 3, 2023

Andrew Charles Clausen, 1972😊

Interstim installed, 2012😠

In bed by 10 and up at 4:30.  Let Lilly out at 4:49 and in at 4:55.  Out again at 6:45 and in at 6:48.  Early earworm of Linda Ronstadt singing "When You're Alone" on the Lush Life album with Nelson Riddle.  31°, cloudy day ahead with high of 35°, wind W at 8 mph, 5-13/18.  Sinrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:28, 9+5.     

Treadmill; pain.   30:16 & 0.70  

I'm grateful to Uncle Hardy and Aunt Eleanor, for welcoming me into Geri's families so long ago.  I have nothing but warm memories of each of them.  I remember having trears in my eyes in the car outside the church at Eleanor's funeral and how sad I was when Uncle Hardy died.  Cousin Michael paid a terrible price for our invasion of Vietnam, a price he still pays and Eleanor and Mac paid a high pricee as well, as they did when Cousin Dickie died in an accident.  Well I remember so many conversations with Uncle Hardy, including the one on his enclosed back porch in Edison Park about his mother's death and burial during the Spanish Flu pandemic, the one at Edith's funeral about the Church (" What do you think, Chuck," pointing to the priest leading prayers, . . . . "It's just a business."), and the one on Newton Avenue about trapping sparrows with his friend. in Blue Island.  Each of them was a blessing in my life.  And I shouldn't forget Cousin Joey who treated me so respectfully.  He also suffered a big loss in his life.  I got such a kick out his conversations with his brother-in-law Fe(lix). I'm grateful too to Robert and Jimmy, each so different in some ways but each a friend.   And for their children, two of whome became my students during my academic days.  They all enriched my life and I'm grateful to each of them.

Cannabis use by elderly users and heart disorders.  An article in this morning's WaPo: "Seniors are embracing marijuana, which offers relief — and risk" by Fenit Nirappil includes this:

A study presented at an American Heart Association conference in November found that adults older than 65 with “cannabis use disorder,” which is essentially addiction, and cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure are at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes while hospitalized. The data could be skewed by hospitals having different standards for cannabis use disorder.

Loren Wold, a cardiac specialist at Ohio State University’s College of Medicine, said the research should give pause to older adults who are prone to irregular heartbeats or have high blood pressure and want to use marijuana.

This makes me think of  -------- who was not addicted but was a regular user to help with insomnia.

There is also this from a November, 2023 reserarch report from the American Heart Association:

In one study, daily use of marijuana raised the risk of developing heart failure by about one-third, even after considering other factors, compared to people who reported never using marijuana.

In a second study, older people with any combination of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol who used marijuana, significantly increased their risk for a major acute heart or brain event while hospitalized, compared to those who reported not using marijuana.

One wonders.

 Interstim implant anniversary.  2012, a move I regret.  (1) It never worked to reduce uninary frequency, and (2), with my IC and Jadiance/empagliflozin, I need to void often to avoid painful bladder and flush kidneys.  Plus, it precludes MRIs because of the metal content.

Lilly distressed.  Geri returned from the groomer's with Lilly in rough shape, her rear legs very weak.  We had to lift ther out out the Honda.  Grim.  Heartbreaking.

 

1/2/24

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

In bed at 9 and up at 5:30.  26°, high of 34°, clear skies all morning and windy, cloudy afternoon, wind SW at 13 mph, 8-16/30, wind chills  14 ° to 24°.  Sunrise at 7:23 at 121°SE, sunset at 4:27 at 239°SW, 9+4. Lilly got Geri up at 6 to let her out - a change of routine.

Treadmill;pain. Woke with the usual PFM tightness, and high back pain.   Mild spasms during the morning & early afternoon, but by 2:30, on the treadmill and 30:38 & 0.65 while watching Robert Sapolsky again discussing biological determinants of human and primate behavior with Nate Hagens on YouTube.

I'm grateful for Lilly, especially after my two big scares with her scary behavior yesterday, suggesting a stroke or something terrible going on inside her brain or other part of her body.  I'm grateful for all the pets I have had over a long lifetime, from Blanche, through Ralph, Bear, Ruby, Moose, Barkis and Pegotty, back to Freckles, Cookie, Fuzzy the hamster and Petey the parakeet  They have all given me companionship and comfort in one way or another, even when I was sleeping and, in Blanche's case, especially when I was sleeping 

Homo hominis lupus.  The Soviet Union designed the S-300, a mobile, surface-to-air defense weapons system, during the Cold War to hit incoming U.S. bombers or ballistic missiles. An S-300 can fire a projectile with a 293-pound high-explosive warhead, capable of stopping targets moving at more than 2,600 miles per hour. On Friday,  12/30, Russia unleashed 14 of these deadly devices, not defensively against airplanes or missiles, but offensively at cities in Ukraine. They were part of a wave of missiles and drones that marked the largest one-day aerial attack on Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion 22 months ago.

The barrage ripped into 45 multistory buildings, including schools, churches, hospitals, maternity wards, shopping centers, and warehouses, as well as Ukrainian military installations and a defense factory. It killed 40 people in all: 17 in Kyiv, nine in Zaporizhzhia, six in Dnipro, four in Odessa, three in Kharkiv, and one in Lviv. The onslaught wounded 160.

Today,  Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with an overnight assault of drones and missiles, extending a vicious wave of holiday-season strikes on population centers by Moscow and Kyiv that has left dozens of civilians dead and suggests a brutal new stage of the war that is being felt well beyond the stagnating front lines.

Proving yet again that the best place to look for savages, barbarians, and cruel, heartless beasts is not in Africa or Asia, but in 'civilized' Europe, the home of White Supremacy and world wars.

Israel: Judicial Supremacy?  With an 8 to 7 vote, Israel's Supreme Court has rejected the Netanyahu government's judicial reform that precludes the court from invalidating laws deemed "unreasonable."  The question becomes whether the far-right government will accept the court's split decision.  Which will be 'supreme' in Israel - the Court or the Legislature and Executive?  Once again, Israel seems to be America's doppelganger, our canary in the coal mine.  We assume that the U.S. Supreme Court has the last word on the constitutional validity of laws passed by Congress and approved by the president, and on actions taken by the other branches of government or by state government, but says who?  The Constitution doesn't say so.  So-called 'constitutional issues' arereally rareely 'legal.'  They are political. public policy questions.  In what sense was the Warren Court deciding a legal question rather than a public policy issue when it ordered the desegregation of public schools in 1954?  Ditto Harry Blackmun's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1974 and Samuel Alioto's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2023?  In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote: "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."  But why?  On these huge public policy issues, why are the few unelected members of a court, any court, better able to decide the issues than elected representatives?  The issue has been with us since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 and the Judiciary Act of 1789 and its still with us.  This tension between the political branches of government and the judicial branch is even deeper in the case of Israel, which has no constitution.  

Susan Glasser's piece on Trumpschmerz in The New Yorker:

Four years ago, on the threshold of a critical election year that would decide whether Donald Trump won another term in the White House, I asked a German friend, Constanze Stelzenmüller, of the Brookings Institution, to come up with one of those long Teutonic words for the state of constant, gnawing anxiety that Trump’s disruptive tenure inspired. She came back with a true mouthful, a thirty-three-letter concoction that pretty much summed it up: Trumpregierungsschlamasselschmerz. Helpfully, she suggested that it would be fine to shorten this to Trumpschmerz. It means something like “Trump-worry,” but on steroids. At the time, I defined it as “the continuous pain or ache of the soul” that comes from the excessive contemplation of the slow-motion Trump car crash. Well, here we go again. Headed into 2024, America is stuck with another bad case of Trumpschmerz.

Biden’s miscalculation was not about Trump—the President has always been dead serious about the threat posed by his predecessor and by the party that embraces him—but about himself. Having aspired, for the better part of four decades, to the office he improbably won on his third try, Biden has been reluctant to relinquish it in favor of a younger Democrat. His theory of the case seems to be rooted in his belief that he, and he alone, can insure Trump’s defeat. But that rationale has become harder to sustain as his polling has grown worse and worse. As of the end of the year, Biden is, at best, tied with Trump; the Real Clear Politics average has him down 2.3 points.

Trump’s victory is by no means assured. It may well be that predictions of him winning in 2024 will turn out to be just as wrong as the forecasts of a recession were at the start of 2023. But the past few years of Trump, Trump, Trump have taught me, if nothing else, that hoping for the best is not necessarily a winning strategy. With American democracy on the line, I’m taking the only defensible position toward the New Year: full-scale dread. I plan to pull up the covers and hide under my pillow as long as possible come January. It’s going to be a long 12 months.

Hear, hear!  Me, too. 

Robert Sapolsky's arguments on free will and determinism has me thinking about a lot of stuff, and of course, mostly solipsistically.  Ordinarily I would be writing here about some of those thoughts but I'm driven - deterministically? - to try to get some organization in my iPhotos library.

1/1/24

 January 1, 2024

In bed at 8:40 and up at 5.  Let Lilly out.  26°, high of 31°, clear morning, partly cloudy afternnon.  Wind NNW at 11 mph, 7-13/24, wind chill at 15°.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:27, 9+3.

Treadmill; pain. Woke up with upper back pain and having some PF spasms this morning.  On the treadmill around noon, 30:17 & 0.60, listening to Robert Sapolsky argue that "Free Will" is non-existent on the University of Chicago "Big Brain" podcast on YouTube.  It was a good program that left me wanting to hear more on the subject of determinism.  Not surprisingly, it had me thinking solipsistically of my own life and my sister's, considering our childhood with all the PTSD in our lives, and about my 3 cousins, each so different.

I'm grateful that 2023 is finished.  It was in some ways a rough year, starting with TSJ's death and the long ordeal of the eulogy.  Considerable pain challenges, IC, CPP, RP, Meijer's parking lot, the 11/25 visit to VA ER and Dr. Uilein, visits to Dr. Chatt, Dr. Cheng in PM&R, Dr. Shankar in the Pain Clinic, visits to the Urology Clinic, PT Jennifer Garrison in Physical Therapy, OT Melinda Matusewic in Whole Health Clinic. LPN Jody Kressin with Healing Touch, Lou and Mary with the Mindfulness Meditation group, etc.  This month alone starts the year with Jody on 1/8, hypnotherapy on 1/9, Eye Clinic on 1/11, Urology on 1/25, acupuncture on 1/29, PM&R on 1/31, plus 5  separate 'video connects', some with Melinda, some with I'm not sure whom.  I'm grateful to the VA for the comprehensive medical care they provide and for Ed Felsenthal's help in enrolling me.  I look at a list like this and wonder if I'm a hypochondriac, a Munchausen misfit, but I don't imagine the pain and discomfort, the failing eyesight, diabetes, etc.  As my Dad used to say, "My parts are failing."  If we were cars, the parts could be replaced.  As it is, they can realistically only be treated, but nonetheless, I'm grateful.

Lilly distressed?  6:20 a.m.  Something is wrong with Lilly.  She noisily clomped or stomped into the TV room from the living room, stood by my chair, walked backward a couple of steps and a couple of times, and then plopped heavily onto his mattress, not in her customary location, but rather on the very edge, leaning against the book cabinet, with her left front leg off the mattress.  Something is not right.  She lays her head down for a minute or two but then raises it again, unable to rest.  After some time, she fell asleep.  At 7:15, she got up and stretched and lay down in her favorite spot, on the carpet but abutting her mattress.  Crisis over?

    No.  At about 3:15 this afternoon, she had a similar distressing experience.  I let her out and she lay on the cold ground for 11 or 12 minutes before I lured her back inside with treats.  Something is definitely not right with her.  Back to the vet?  (Geri is out visiting Ellis and her new puppy, Peaches.  I texted her but it seems she didn't get the text.)

Real existential threats presented by right-wing, Republican thinking.  Climate change: Republicans deny it and oppose governmental restrictions required to stall or minimize its effect.   Guns: Republicans deny they are a cause of injury (people kill, guns don't), and oppose legislation banning assault weapons, and virtually any restrictions on possession/ownership.   Epidemics/pandemics: Republicans oppose public health mandates, like masking, limitations on the size of gatherings, required vaccinations, etc.

LTMW at a female hairy woodpecker perched atop the far shepherd's crook patiently waiting her turn while a red-bellied woodpecker goes to work on the suet cake I just moved there from the near crook. Meanwhile, the house finches, chickadees, a song sparrow or pine siskin, and red-bellied nuthatch,  fill up on the near crook and a downy woodpecker arrives to work on the diminishing suet cake.  Down below, two squirrels and some snowbirds feast on the little suet nugget and larger seeds I dropped there when I filled the sunflower/safflower tube this morning.  In a while, I'll fill both suet cake baskets with fresh suet to start the New Year.  Yesterday's treat was many visits by our handsome local tufted titmouse(s).

The increasing threat of climate change.  From this morning's WaPo:

Even if its extremes are ultimately eclipsed, as seems inevitable, 2023 will mark a point when humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global boiling,” as United Nations Secretary General António Guterres called it. The year included the hottest single day on record (July 6) and the hottest ever month (July), not to mention the hottest June, the hottest August, the hottest September, the hottest October, the hottest November, and probably the hottest December. It included a day, Nov. 17, when global temperatures, for the first time ever, reached 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial levels.

Discomfort, destruction, and death are the legacy of those records.

And we can't say we weren't warned. 

Facetime call from Sarah and Christian this morning and a Happy New Year email from Gerhard and Olga.

4, 282 weeks.  I believe that is how long I have lived.  I've read that the average American lifespan is about 4,000 weeks so I'm 'living on borrowed time' as they say, or 'playing with the house's money.'  My long-term friend TSJ lived about 4,134 weeks and other dear friend DSB much less.  My father lived about 4,500 weeks, my mother fewer than 3,000 weeks and my sister about 4, 030.  I'm thinking of these numbers because of Isabel Fattal's article in The Atlantic "How to Make Better New Year's Resolution" in which she cites Oliver Burkeman's book "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mere Mortals."  Four thousand weeks is just about 77 years which is pretty close to the average American life expectancy.  Breaking down a life span to weeks instead of years and fractions of years gives us, or at least me, a different perspective on a lifetime.   I think of this on this date relative to the idea of "resolutions," and goals, how we hope to live a better life, to be a better person, not simply self-improvement but in accomplishing something worthwhile in terms of others, not wasting the discrete number of weeks in our lives.  OTOH, Emily Dickinson: "In this short life that only lasts an hour, how much - how little - is within our power."  I look back on my life with a lot of regrets. Yeats' Vacillation.  Is this the Last Judgment mirror?  Do I make old age more or less bearable by looking into it?  Should I call it quits with this journal and all the remembering and reflecting it prompts?  Or is it a way of recognizing the regrets and trying to come to terms with them?  

On this date in 1660, Samuel Pepys recorded the first entry in his famous diary: "This morning (we lying lately in the garret), I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them."  

Is this who we are? is the title of Karen Tumulty's op-ed in this morning's WaPo.  Excerpts:

In 1964, when the radical right John Birch Society was near the peak of its influence, renowned journalist Martha Gellhorn, who had launched her career covering the Spanish civil war three decades earlier, wrote a friend: “Unless there’s a Johnson landslide, the country and world will know how many incipient and energetic home-grown Fascists we have. I never for a moment feared Communism in the US but have always feared Fascism; it’s a real American trait.”

. . . .

If, knowing everything Americans now know about [Trump], they reelect him — or even come close to doing so — it will be time for all of us to quit lying to ourselves.

This is who we are. 

Forget the "if", Ms. Tumulty.  We know the truth already and you pointed it out in this very op-ed, as you wrote:

Yet with Trump himself back on the ballot [in 2020], the outcome was far closer [than in 2016]. Though Trump lost the popular vote both times he ran, in 2020 he increased his totals, both in the number and the share he received. Were it not for about 45,000 voters in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, he would still be president. 

Mene, Mene, tekel upharsin. 

Geri's walking partner Shirley and her friend dropped off a gift for Geri at 3:45.  Very thoughtful.