1/14/24

 Sunday, January 14, 2024

In bed at 10:30 after another scare with Lilly, up at 7, Lilly sleeping in the living room.  NO SPECTRUM INTERNET AGAIN.  -2°, high of 10°, Wind Chill Advisory, -20  to -34°° .   The wind is W at 20 mph, gusting to 35 mph.  The wind chill is -24.  Sunrise at 7:21, sunset at 4:40, 9+19.

Treadmill; pain.  20:01 & 0.50 at 3:30 while watching Israel's defense to South Africa's charge of genocide at the World Court.  

I'm grateful to be alive and to see sights like this on a cold, windy Sunday morning.  

Another Lilly scare.  I got up to go to bed at 9 last night but Geri called to me that Lilly was in trouble again, couldn't stand up, again, and appeared to be in pain.  She called David who came over to help get her into a car to take to the Blue Pearl Pet Hospital.  By the time David arrived, she was on her feet and walking, even wagging her tail.  She went outside twice, the first time to no avail.  We are facing the grim reality with her.  We are probably unable to lift her or get her into or out of a car to take her to the vet's office or hospital.  Geri gets down on the floor and comforts her.  If I get on the floor, it's a struggle to get up.  I still call Lilly "Puppy" but she is 14 years, 3 months, and 1 week old.  Our hearts are aching.

She has been lying on the floor of the living room since I got up an hour and a half ago.  Ordinarily, she gets up when I get up and goes out to relieve herself.  Should I wake her up or let her sleep?  If I wake her up and she can't stand, what do I do?  I'll get dressed to be ready to take her to the emergency hospital if necessary. . . I just noticed she has an open sore on her left front elbow.  Is this from her struggles to stand up?

I see Lilly's struggle with standing and with her gait and I see myself.

Spring and Fall

• 
• 
• 
• 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1844 – 

1889

              to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Bitterly cold temperatures today through Tuesday.

Medical discrimination against seniors with disabilities.  This morning's WaPo has a feature story about America's lack of preparedness for the approaching tide of elderly baby boomers with disabilities.  A shocker: only 57% of surveyed doctors said they welcomed patients with disabilities.  Another shocker: during the height of the pandemic, when crisis standards of care were developed, people with disabilities and older adults were deemed low priorities. These standards were meant to ration care, when necessary, given shortages of respirators and other potentially lifesaving interventions.  Also, most doctor's offices don't have accessible equipment, including examination tables, for people with disabilities.

World Court, South Africa v. Israel, day 2.   The proceedings remind me a bit of the U.S. and our two different worlds situation between Republicans and the rest of us.  Israel's opening argument is strong and powerful and reminds the Court and the world both of the barbarism of the October 7th massacre and kidnapping of Jewish citizens of south Israel and of the hundreds (thousands?) of rockets fired into Israel but also of Hamas' avowed purpose to repeat such attacks to the end that the state of Israel be destoryed.  I noted however the advocate's description of the 2007 accession to power of Hamas in Gaza as a result of violence and Noam Chomsky's description, in his talk at the UN which I watched yesterday, of the same event as the result of a free and fair election by the Palestinian people of Gaza.  And of course there is the widely believed theory that Israel withdrew from Gaza, which it had occupied since the 1967 war, mainly to create a split within the Palestinians so as to make negotiations for a 2 state solution futile.  Israel's second advocae, a Professor Shaw, who appeared in English barrister's regalia, also referred to Hamas's violent taking of power in 2007.  Which is it?  Free election or force of arms?  Professor Shaw had an embarassing situation while arguing.  He was reading his 'speech' and stumbled when a page was missing.  On another occasion, his pages were out of order.  A public speaker's nightmare.  The two arguments so far have been largely jurisdictional, attacking both the existence of genocidal intent and the existence of a "dispute" within the meaning of the Genocide Convention, though delivered 'in high dugeon' and including charges that South Africa is a supporter of Hamas.  Israel's thrid advocate addressed 3 matters: (1) Hamas's military tactics and strategy; (2) Israel's efforts to mitigate civilian harm, and (3) Israel's efforts to address humanitarian needs in Gaza despite Hamas's obstruction.  There were two other presenters on behalf of Israel, the first of whom addresse the various relief sought by South Africa and the second of whom wrapped up.

The arguments on behalf of Israel was very professional and inpressive, but they were also not simply legal, but perhaps legalistic.  South Africa's case is perhaps not on terribly sound grounds legally, but it hit hard and is indeed gut-wrenching, describing acts and conditions caused by Israel's war in Gaza that arguably fit the definition of  genocide IF done with genocidal intent.  Consequently, much of the case seems to turn on that question, i.e., whether there is a basis for finding, at least preliminarily, that Israel is acting with genocidal intent.  The Court is composed of 15 members from all over the world and I have no idea how they may rule or when they may rule.

1/13/24

 Saturday, January 13, 2024

In bed at 8 and up at 3 with electric power restored.  Let Lilly out.  24°, high of 31°, low of 10°.  SEVERE WEATHER Advisory: from 3 a.m. until noon today, blowing, drifting snow, and wind chills of 20 to 25° below zero.  Wind NW at 24 mph, 16-24/38.  Sunrise at 7:21 at 119°, sunset at 4:39 at 241°, 9+17.  Solar noon at 12:00 p.m., altitude 25°

Treadmill; pain.  Woke up with a very sore left shoulder and even more painful right wrist and to a lesser extent, right hand.     32:29 & 0.75 at 12:45 watching the first day of the hearing before the International Court of Justice (World Court) on South Africa's complaint for genocide against Israel.   A devastating attack by South Africa on Israel's treatment of Palestinians.  Why is it South Africa that is bringing this case, rather than some other country?  If South Africa is right that Israel is guilty of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, what is the culpability of the United States as Israel's funder, supplier of lethal weapons, and protector in the Security Council?  South Africa's presentation was essentially a series of speeches by its lawyers.  The Court asked no questions.  The oral speeches appeared to be simply a repetition of the assertions made in its 64-page complaint.  Back on the treadmill at 4:30 for 25:02 & 0.65,  for Daily totals of 57:31 & 1.4.

I'm grateful for electricity and grateful to those who bring it to our homes and other important places.  I envy the Pandls across the street and Shirley and Tom Mara with their generators.  Geri noticed a succession of cars leaving our cul-de-sac street shortly after we lost power. I thought of Kitty and her oxygen equipment, wondering whether any of our neighbors required electricity for health or safety reasons.  Although Geri wisely reminded me early in the day yesterday to make sure my phone, computer, and watch batteries were charged, somehow (scatterbrained😧) I forgot to charge my phone.  When the power failed, my phone was down to an 18% charge so I turned it off to preserve its charge.  That act however deprived me of a 'hotspot' internet connection for my trusty laptop.  We had a fire in the fireplace when the lights went out and we lit our hurricane lamp and a votive candle to provide some extra light.  Geri retrieved our camping battery-powered lantern but we kept it turned off, at least temporarily, to preserve battery 'juice.'  I opened the venetian blinds to let in the small amount of light that was somehow coming from the snow-covered ground.  Then I had a startling realization: I couldn't get my BarcaLounger recliner to recline because it is electrically powered, unlike the recliners in the sunroom, bedroom, and basement!  Egad!  I knew then that I would be in bed by 8 p.m. and so I was.  Milwaukee had an official reading of only 6.1 inches of snow(compared to as much as 14 inches inland) and I suppose we received something similar or perhaps more.  The photo is Mr. Pandl manhandling his snowblower and reminding me that we need to ask Rustin to plow in front of our mailbox as well as the driveways.

Another tree bites the dust, er, snow.

LTMW I finally see a hardy chickadee filling up on sunflower seeds. Will other birds show up today???  I also see our neighbors in the Blutstein house, father and young daughter, out walking their dog in the cold, windy weather.  Hardy Midwestern souls, like Mr. Pandl.  Our Lilly was just outside for all of 5 minutes.  I'm dreading the bitterly cold weather on its way here tonight and all next week, for us but mostly for Lilly.

Israel, genocide, and the World Court.  In a 64-page complaint, South Africa has accused Israel of genocide in its war against Hamas (or is it a war against Gaza civilians?).  If Israel is guilty, so is the United States as a party to the crime.  We fund the war and provide the arms used both to kill the Gazans and to defend the Israelis and we protect Israel from sanctions in the UN Security Council.  We are partners in crime, if there is a crime.  Is there?  I don't know enough about the legal dimensions of the 1951 Genocide Convention to form any legal opinion.  I think it is fair to say that we, i.e., the US, have never been a big fan of the Genocide Convention.  We signed the treaty in 1948 when Harry Truman was president but didn't ratify the Convention/treaty until 40 years later in 1988, at the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency.  Israel, not surprisingly, signed the Convention in 1949 and ratified it less than a year later.

In any event, what are we to think of Israel, whose very existence is in some significant measure the result of the Nazi-led but Europe-wide genocide against European Jews, being itself accused of genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza?  Secretary of State Tony Blinken calls South Africa's case "meritless" as does NSC spokesman John Kirby.  We know they speak for Joe Biden.  Kirby has added that the case is "without any basis in fact whatsoever."  Is it?  I suppose it's easy enough, if facile, to take the position that statements from Israel's government are mere 'rhetoric' or do not represent 'official positions,' or as referring only to Hamas and not to Gazans generally, even statements like

- Netanyahu's reminding Israelis to remember the biblical carnage of Amalek ("“Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings.”)

- Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowing that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before — we will eliminate everything.”

- the minister of energy and infrastructure pledging, “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave this world. 

 - National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said the war in Gaza presented an "opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.

-  Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said in an interview with Israeli media that Israel should take steps to encourage the emigration of the majority of the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to other countries. 

Within hours of the October 7th slaughter and hostage-taking of Israelis by Hamas, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza cutting off all electricity, fuel, food, and water to a population of 2,200,000 people, about half of whom are children.  Food?  Water?  The siege has essentially continued for more than three months, leading to near-universal hunger, if not starvation, and disease among the population.  What would Tony Blinken and John Kirby and Joe Biden say if Russia were to do, or try, something similar in Ukraine?  We know the answer to that and we know why so many in the world consider the United States a hypocrite.

Israel has killed over 23,000 people in Gaza, according to the Gazan health ministry. More than 9,000 of the dead are children. More than 1,000 children had undergone amputations, sometimes with no anesthesia available, by late November, UNICEF says. Women giving birth have also been forced to undergo cesarean sections without anesthesia, according to doctors in Gaza. Entire neighborhoods are crushed, and more than 85 percent of the population has been displaced.  What would Tony Blinken and John Kirby and Joe Biden say if Russia were to do, or try, something similar in Ukraine?

Is what has been going on in Gaza since October 7th a legal genocide?  Others will answer that question.  But I am reminded of Chicago in 1968 and the chanting outside the Conrad Hilton hotel: "The whole world is watching."  We've all seen the photos and the videos.  We've all read and heard the media reports.  And we've all been sickened and horrified, or many of us in any case.  Lawyers and judges can deal with the legal questions under the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions regarding group punishment and the rights of civilians in warfare.  We know what we have seen and our moral judgments are in, on Hamas, on Israel, and on the United States.

Noteworthy lines in Maureen Dowd's NYT column today:  "Obama’s triumph in Iowa was about having faith in humanity. If Trump wins here, it will be about tearing down faith in humanity.  That it’s happening in a blizzard is fitting. Trump’s whole life has been a snow job."

Also in the NYT: On the Ballot in Iowa: Fear. Anxiety. Hopelessness.  "Across Iowa, as the first nominating contest approaches on Monday, voters plow through snowy streets to hear from candidates, mingle at campaign events and casually talk of the prospect of World War III, civil unrest and a nation coming apart at the seams."  And 'civil unrest' is a euphemism for political violence, insurrection, and civil war - "2nd Amendment remedies."  

I have roots in Iowa; my father was born in Fort Dodge in Webster County as was his mother and probably his father, who hailed from the little farm town of Duncombe, down the road.  My great-grandfather Jacob Clausen ran the grain silo there and was mayor for some time.  There are many Clausens in the cemetery there.  I was taken there as a child by my father when he returned from WW II and  I drove my father and grandfather there as a teenager for a relative's funeral.  For a few years, I handled a lawsuit against one of my clients in Sioux City on the northwest corner of the state.  I became friends with my co-counsel, Jim Sayre, in Des Moines and stayed at his home as a guest of his family. My friend Tom St. John also had roots in Iowa, as does my friend Mike Hogan whose father was also from Fort Dodge..  I have warm feelings for the state and its people but I am dismayed by its modern politics, i.e., deep red Republican.  I can't believe these people are all stupid, racist, or naturally fascistic, but they are clearly fed up with big D Democratic politics (especially identity politics catering to minorities) and with the government's chronic inability to address serious problems.  They've given up on traditional American democracy because that's what has gotten us to where we are and they don't like where we are or where they think we are heading.  Neither do we Lefties.  Their best answer to the problem is Trump?  Our is Biden?  Doesn't it prove that our traditional American democracy doesn't work well anymore for anyone, or either the Right or the Left?  Who is winning - the oligarchs and plutocrats, as always.  There's nothing surer, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Secretary of Defense Austin is still in the hospital.  Not a good situation,  bad for him & Biden both.

Rustin & his plow didn't show up until about 4 p.m.  I'm not pleased.  Thankfully though he shovels the walks.  A day like this makes me think of snowbirding.😎

1/12/24

 Friday, January 12, 2024

In bed at 9:10 and up at 4:15 to let Lilly out.  34°, high of 34°, wind ESE at 14 mph, 1-28/46.  WINTER STORM WARNING from 6 a.m. today until noon tomorrow.  3 to 7 inches near the lake, 7 to 12 inches inland.  Wind chills 16 to 25°°.  Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:38, 9+15.  Went back to bed at some time and woke up at 8:15 with considerable wet snow coming down and some tree damage already.    

Treadmill; pain.   My right wrist is hurting badly as I wake up.  Is it simply arthritis or do I strain it in my sleep?   30:09 & 0.65 at 1:30 while watching a YouTube English piece on the Great Fire of London and Samuel Pepys descriptions of it in his 1666 diary.  Also I rewatched episode 3 of Carol and The End of the World, trying to get the point. 

The patio and backyard at 11 a.m., before the worst of the storm has begun.

I'm grateful to be in my warm, lovely home with my warm, lovely wife and my warm, lovely dog on this cold, blustery, stormy day.  I'm thinking of those living in tents, or under bridges and viaducts today, and of the migrants arriving in Chicago today to weather like they have never experienced before. counting my blessings and feeling some guilt, Robert Sapolsky notwithstanding.  

Robert Sapolsky and Determinism: A Science of Life Without Free Will.  I've watched a few long interviews of Sapolsky on YouTube and wonder whether, or perhaps how, he is correct that free will is an illusion, that everything that happens is an inevitable consequence of the laws of nature and what the universe was like at one point, that we are bound to do what we in fact do.  The social, religious, and political consequences of this kind of thinking would be revolutionary.  Without free will, there is no sin and no culpable crime on the one hand and no praiseworthy conduct or achievement on the other.  All conduct is foreordained.

Sapolsky is a neurobiologist at Stanford who has written a lot, lectured a lot, been interviewed a lot, and appeared a lot on YouTube.  He is on the faculty in the Biological Sciences Department, the Neurology Department, and the Neurosurgery Department at the medical school.  He spent a year and a half studying in Africa and another 25 entire summers studying the same group of baboons for 8 to 10 hours a day.  He characterizes himself as a primatologist, an expert on primates, including humans.   He argues human actions are determined by neurobiology, hormones, childhood, and life circumstances.  He is an engaging, entertaining, and persuasive speaker.  He is a Brooklyn-born Jew, raised in an Orthodox family, and an atheist.  His conferences and talks are published on Stanford's YouTube channel and elsewhere.

Sapolsky relies a lot on biochemistry for his conclusions, as in "“Lots of glucocorticoids from Mom marinating your fetal brain, thanks to maternal stress, and there’s increased vulnerability to depression and anxiety in your adulthood,” but he also relies on physics, anthropology, sociology, and culture to support his arguments.  “All these disciplines collectively negate free will because they are all interlinked, constituting the same ultimate body of knowledge.”   “[T]here’s not a single crack of daylight to shoehorn in free will.”

Sapolosky's critics generally do not dispute his evidence of determinism but argue that determinism is compatible with freedom and moral responsibility.  This theory is called "compatibilism," a theory at which Sapolsky scoffs, treating as sort of the equivalent of the last part of OWH's quote about being 'tattooed in our cradles": I don't believe in ghosts but am afraid of them nonetheless.  Saplolsky himself admits that despite his conviction of the truth of his belief in determinism, he doesn't act like it.  “It’s been a moral imperative for me to view humans without judgment or the belief that anyone deserves anything special, to live without a capacity for hatred or entitlement, and I just can’t do it.” 

I can't hope to resolve these issues but the discussion makes me think about myself and the significant others in my life.  To what extent has my long life been simply a long series of predictable, indeed inevitable, responses to whatever cluster of causal predicates preceded them?  Did my cousin Doug live the troubled life he led, so different from his brother's and his sister's, because he was foredoomed from the moment of his conception?  Was the Second World War indeed inevitable, as was the First World War and all the wars before and after?  Were my little family's post-war miseries in our little basement apartment at 7303 S. Emerald Avenue all 'in the cards' long before any of us was born?  Every night and every morn / Some to misery are born. / Every morn and every night / Some are born to sweet delight. / Some are born to sweet delight. / Some are born to endless night.  Is this a way of understanding the belief that "God has a plan for me"?  Are we all indeed MacBeth's mere actors on a stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?  Are all our ideas of freedom, of sin and vice and virtue, free will and free choice, of commendability and culpability - is all of this illusion?

Curiously, we've watched a few episodes of an adult animation on Netflix called Carol and the End of the World.  The premise is that an asteroid is hurtling towards the end and will collide with it/us at a known time certain, some months, days, hours, ahead.  Everyone knows they will die come the collision (or before), so most people say 'fuck it', quit working at their jobs, and do whatever they want to do with the discrete time they have left - except Carol.  Her aged mother and father become flabby nudists and live with their male nurse as a "throuple."  Carole goes to work as an "administrative assistant" in the Accounting Department of a firm where all the other departments have closed, i.e., no workers, no work.  The people in the Accounting Department sit at their desks pounding away at their keyboards, staring at their computer screens, avoiding contact with the other workers, i.e., drone-like.  As with Sapolsky's Determinism treatise, this cartoon series has some pretty heavy existential messages - none very pleasant to think about.

A year ago this date we were experiencing an internet outage, just as we are this morning.  My journal entry:

Capabilities, dependencies, and vulnerabilities.  Each morning for many years now I get out of bed, fix my coffee (now herbal tea), sit on my recliner, open my laptop and check on the world outside my home. This morning: no internet, no wifi!  I restarted my MacBookAir a couple of times, but no luck.  OMG, I'm alone with only my wonderful (sleeping) wife, hundreds of great books, multiple televisions and radios, local channels plus HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, AppleTV+, Criterion, OVID, the PBS app, and oodles of food and water, but no internet😱😨😲😳😰  What's a person to do?!?!  (I'm reminded of the W. C. Fields poster in Doloris McCrimmon's living room: "There I was, stranded in the jungle with nothing to sustain me but food and water.)  As Geri woke up and asked me to 'push the button' on Mr. Coffee, I gave her the startling news, repaired to the basement, pushed the 'reset' buttons on our modem and router and voila!, problem solved. 😁😂😄😅😇  The experience reminds me again of how, with all the new technological capabilities we acquire, become habituated to and become dependent upon, we acquire new vulnerabilities.  Computers, the internet and cyber world are the most prominent examples.  How often have I thought that the retirement funds that we rely on are only digital data stored in some huge mainframes somewhere.  Not money, not currency, not a means of exchange, not a precious metal, just digital data somewhere, capable of being hacked, capable of being embezzled, capable of being destroyed by software or microchip failure, by a solar superstorm  or by an electromagnetic pulse e-bomb triggered by a hostile nation or terrorists.  Not comforting thoughts but accurate.  Ditto the effect of a forced national debt default caused by 'do or die' Republicans collapsing both equity and bond markets.  Vulnerabilities abound in our 'advanced' world.

Related: Yesterday the young ophthalmologist who examined me and my cataract asked "Do you drive?"  and I thought 'uh oh, is my driver's license in jeopardy?'  I admitted I have trouble driving at night, and avoid it, especially in the Fox Point/Bayside area with no street lights and road construction going on with lane markers obscured or difficult to read, especially when the ground is wet.

CPP is acting up all morning.

. . . . . . . . . 

Plus ça change, plus le meme chose. 

LTMW  Still no birds.  ????

1/11/24

 Thursday, January 11, 2024

In bed at 9 and up at 3:30 and 4:30, sleeping poorly.  31°, flurries, high of 32°, slippery roads this morning, winter storm watch for tomorrow.  Wind SW at 6 mph, 2-12/20. 1.5 inches of snow in the last 6 hours.  Tomorrow's snowfall is expected to be 11 inches.  Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:37,9+14. 

Treadmill; pain.   Woke with back, left shoulder, and right wrist pain and had quite a bit of plumbing discomfort & modest pain during the long trip to and visit at the VA. 00:00 & 0.00

0

I'm grateful today that we have a fireplace, actually 2 fireplaces, though we never use the one in the living room.  If I go out tonight or tomorrow morning, I should pick up more logs for the long week ahead.    

VA Eye Clinic.  I had what I thought was an 11 a.m. appointment that turned out to be a 12:30 appointment.  The opthalmologist who conducted the exam ordered a bunch of pre-exam tests and photos of the optic nerve, macula, retina, and whatever.  The doctor advised me that I am "glaucoma suspect", which is what Tom Alpren told me maybe 10 years ago.  I am sensitive to this diagnosis since Kitty had this disease and it destroyed a good part of her field of vision and resulted in her selling her car and giving up driving.  My pressure numbers have always been good, i.e., under 20, and today they were 14 in the right eye and 11 in the left.  The next exam is in 6 months.

As usual, while I was there there was a repeated PA announcement: "Your attention, please.  Medical emergency.  Rapid response team needed in Physical Therapy, Room B . . ."

Also, while I was in the waiting room, another young vet was sitting behind me with a playlist playing on a speaker, not in 'earbuds' or headphones.  It was annoying but no one asked him to turn it off.   He got up to use the restroom, came back, and sat in front of me where I saw that his right leg had been amputated below the knee and that he wore a prosthesis.  He appeared to be the youngest person in the clinic.  I wondered where and how he lost his leg, as did, I'm sure, most of the other vets in the large waiting room.  In any event, no one was inclined to ask him to turn off his music.

LTMW and seeing no birds at the bird feeders for the 3rd straight day.  I filled the sunflower/safflower tube 3 (or 4?) days ago and it's still about as full as when I filled it.   Same situation with the suet baskets.  What the heck is going on?

Tomorrow's Winter Storm Warning and the week-long arctic temperatures following it led me to fill up the Volvo's gas tank on the way home from the VA and to stock up on some 'essentials'😀 like nacho-flavored Doritors and chunky salsa, donuts, and cruller bits at Sendik's along with fresh eggs, bread, and milk.  As I write this, I'm tempted to drive up to Walmart or Michael's to get a few canvases just in case my Muse visits me in the next 7 days while we're homebound.  OTOH, I'm pretty tired.  I need to check Lilly's topper supply, too.

With each passing year, I feel more vulnerable to Wisconsin's winter weather and wonder whether we should become snowbirds for 2 or 3 months.

USDOJ will seek the death penalty for Buffalo race murder.  The United States wants to act as a cold-blooded killer.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.  Pool Pope Francis.  From this morning's WaPo:

Pope Francis is facing some of the most vociferous objection to papal authority in decades, in language that might have stunned past popes.  German Cardinal Gerhard Müller derided the pope’s new guidance allowing priests to bless same-sex couples as “blasphemy.” One Italian priest found himself rapidly excommunicated after he referred to Francis in his New Year’s Eve homily as an “anti-Pope usurper” with a “cadaverous gaze, into nothingness.” Still holding on to his title is Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who recently dubbed the pontiff a servant of Satan and announced a seminary to train priests free from the “deviations of Bergoglio” (Francis’s name before becoming pope).

Some of this resentment is long-simmering. Almost as long as he’s been pope, Francis has been confronted by dissenting church traditionalists. Viganò, for one, has previously called for Francis’s resignation.

The more frequently cited point of comparison is the 1960s, when the majority of a papal commission on artificial contraception advised approving its use. Shortly afterward, Pope Paul VI, wrote “Humanae Vitae,” a high-level papal document reiterating traditional teaching and classifying the use of the birth-control pill and other artificial contraception as a sin. Some bishops conferences and theologians rejected the document, saying Catholics should honor their own consciences.

The 1968 contraception ruling “was the last big time when we had such a strong disagreement with something that came out of the Vatican,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a political scientist and longtime journalist who has written several books about the inner workings of the Catholic Church. “But bishops did not criticize [Pope Paul VI] so publicly, the way that some of them are with Pope Francis.” 

Quaere: why is it that what most provokes division among Catholics, lay and clerical, are pelvic issues - matters pertaining to sex and sexuality? 

4 p.m. in the backyard

25,000 without power at 4 p.m.  Keeping our fingers crossed.

Power outage at 6:39 p.m. and off to bed at 8.😒

1/10/24

 Wednesday, January 10, 2024

In bed at 9:20, awake at 4:15, and up at 4:33 with mid back, left shoulder, and right wrist pain.  Lilly didn't show up to be let out until 5:40.  31°, high of 33°, windy, wind NW at 17 mph, 5-19/33, wind chill 19°, 0.7 inches of rain/snow in last 24 hours, 0,1 inch expected today.  Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:35, 9+13. 

Treadmill; pain.  The arthritic back pain clears up pretty quickly with movement, but the right wrist pain is sticking around and made the morning kitchen clean up, dishwasher loading, and pots and pans washing a bit of a challenge, hard to hold anything with my right hand.  Early exercise: 30:19 & 0.60 at 9 a.m., watching the 2nd half of "The World's Most Religious Community" about the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Very interesting.  Later, at 5 p.m., 20:00 & 0.45,  while watching a documentary on Trump's mental illness/pathology.  Daily total: 50:19 & 1.05.

I'm grateful for my home.  I'm grateful that I have never been homeless, that my family and I have always had a roof over our heads, protection from rain and snow, and from wind and cold temperatures.  The first home I remember was pretty basic: a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a closet, all in the basement of 3 story, 12-unit (plus ours) apartment building on the southeast corner of 73rd Street and south Emerald Avenue in the Englewood district of Chicago.  My current home is a palace, a mansion, a château, an estate compared to that first home and I've resided in each for about the same length of time, about 12 years.  

We lived in the basement apartment for years during and after World War II.  The small kitchen had a door opening onto a sunken passageway or ‘gangway’ that led from the building's concrete back ‘yard’ to Emerald Avenue.  The kitchen also had the only eye-level windows in the apartment, one looking out on the ‘gangway’, the other double window looking out on the entry area to the rest of the basement, the one used by the residents of the above-ground apartments.  This sunken entry area was the space beneath wooden back porches and stairways behind the upper apartments.  

The apartment’s one bedroom was adjacent to the kitchen as was the living room.  There was also a bathroom and a small walk-in closet next to a door leading into the rest of the building’s basement.  The kitchen and bedroom could not have been more than 10’ X 12’ and were more likely 8’ or 9’ X 12’.  The living room was perhaps 10” X 13’, but more likely a foot or so shorter in each direction.  Even by a child’s scale, the apartment was tiny, barely 400 square feet.  The main axis of the apartment building was east/west along 73rd Street and the entryways into the upstairs apartments faced 73rd Street.   Our apartment was probably intended as living quarters for a janitor or custodian and was the only unit with an Emerald Avenue address.  When I drove by the corner many, many years ago (and again in 2005), the building had been razed, leaving a vacant lot (which we called a “prairie” when I was young).  I was stunned to see how very narrow the lot was and to be reminded of how exceedingly small our apartment was.  The one window in the bedroom and the windows in the living room bordered the ceilings and looked out directly on the soil and lawn in front of the apartment.  The bedroom had a bunk bed used by Kitty and me and a single twin-size bed used sometimes by my Uncle Jim and sometimes by my Grandpa Denny.  My mother and father slept on a sofa bed in the living room.  Exposed hot water pipes servicing the radiators in the apartments above ran along the ceilings in our apartment.  

Frequent visitors in our subterranean dwelling were what we called “waterbugs” and the rest of the world called oriental cockroaches.  They were big, an inch or so, oblong, black and shiny.  They looked like someone had applied Vaseline to their wings.  They cracked and were messy when stepped on, but they usually were fast enough to avoid a stomping foot.  They would scurry under the refrigerator or stove or behind the bathtub.      The roaches have flattened bodies that permitted them to come into the apartment from the rest of the basement under the back door, through the openings for the hot water pipes running through our space, or the openings for our plumbing.  They liked warm, humid spaces which meant they loved our superheated apartment.  Each female could drop up to 18 egg capsules, each of which contained up to 16 eggs so efforts to rid the apartment of roaches were doomed to failure. 

It is said that our personalities are formed by the time we are 6 years old or so.  If that is the case, that little basement apartment was where my sister Kitty and I were formed.  It was home from infancy until I was at least 12 or 13 years old.

Geri and I joke that our current 3 bedroom, ranch home, which we love, is the neighborhood's 'slum house,'  surrounded by more expensive properties than our own.  But we love this house, even its full basement which I call my 'sanctuary', and dread the thought of moving away from it, or at least I do.  I'm not sure about Geri's view.  The idea of downsizing into an apartment or condo, or the terrifying thought of moving into a "continuing care" facility (independent, assisted, memory care, nursing care) makes me almost shudder.  I don't want to dwell on that today.  I'll just focus on being grateful for where we are and what we have.

Snow Day is a bust in Bayside; bad north and west.  We had precipitation most of the day and evening but it was mostly rain or snow that melted or turned to icy slush when it hit the ground.  Lake Michigan's warm temperature protected us from the heavy, wet snow that beset much of the state.  The bad news is that another "very powerful storm" is headed our way on Friday.  It's unclear what that means for us close to the big lake.  (The photo on the left is a selfie I took last night after schlepping the recycling cart out for pickup this morning.)

    Shelters were available for those in need last night, specifically Guest House at 13th and Juneau, Milwaukee Rescue Mission, at 18th and Wells, St. Ben's at 9th and State, and Repairers of the Breach at 13th and Vliet, on the North Side and Milwaukee County Hillview Health Care Center at 22nd and Lapham on the South Side.  Each lists its hours of availability as 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., making me wonder whether these shelters really put their overnight guests out on the street again before sunrise.  I note that the North Side shelters are all just north of the Marquette University campus.  Guest House is 3 blocks east of Notch House where my roommates and I lived in our 2nd and 3rd years at MU.  The Rescue Mission is across the street from Mr. Gate's drug store where I worked during my junior year.  Stl Ben's is across the street from the county courthouse, jail, and State Secure Detention Facility (i.e., jail for parole violators).  Repairers of the Breach is just north of the Guest House and has a 'tent village' in the vacant lot next to it.  The locations of these shelters tell us where most of Milwaukee's homeless are found, i.e., in the African-American neighborhoods surrounding Marquette.  All these North Side shelters are within walking distance from the House of Peace.  My mind is stuck on that 7 a.m. hour.  Where do the homeless go?  Perhaps most will go to the Central Library at 8th and Wisconsin, but it doesn't open until  ???  We know that many of the homeless have one kind or another of mental illness, from depression to schizophrenia.  Every night and every morn, some to misery are born.  Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight.  Some are born to sweet delight.  Some are born to endless night.

LTMW I see no birds.  Again.  What's up?  

The Christmas tree and decorations are back in the basement.

1/9/24

 Tuesday, January 9, 2024

In bed at 10, awake at 5 and up at 5:20 with Lilly sleeping at the foot of my bed.  I walked slowly and carefully to the bathroom to avoid waking her and got within 3 inches or so of her head before she awoke, more evidence of her sense of hearing and other senses dulling with old age.  I let her out but she stood on the sidewalk for 5 minutes or so in the very light rain, turned around, and came in.    35°, high for the day, low of 31°. WINTER STORM WARNING: 3 to 8 inches of heavy, wet snow, winds gusting as high as 35 mph.  Wind directly off the Lake.  Sunrise at 7:23, sunset at 4:34, 9+11.  I have a log burning in the fireplace and may stay in bedclothes all day.

Treadmill; pain.  I've had some tightness and spasms all day, not terribly severe but bothersome.   30:34 & 0.70 while watching Charlie Sykes' Bulwark with Tim O'Brien and a documentary on Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg and Crown Heights in Brooklyn. 

I'm grateful usually for snow days, but it usually doesn't last very long.  Today's snow has been less than expected.  Friday may bring a bigger storm.   

LTMW at 2:30 and I haven't seen a single bird all day.  It's been raining, with a little snow, since I got up this morning and the ground is covered with slush.  I filled the bird feeder at about 2 but no comers.  A village truck just went by spreading salt (or brine) on the road.   The rain/snow mix is blowing almost horizontally.  By sundown, I still haven't seen a single bird.

Lilly is having trouble with a lack of strength and control in her hind legs.  Very worrisome.

WTF, Gen. Austin? WTF, President Biden?  Defense Secretary Austin was released from ICU only yesterday, after a full week there, and he is still hospitalized "under doctors' supervision."  Moreover, the Pentagon says "it's still unclear when he may be released."  Still no semblance of any explanation about the elective surgery on December 22 with overnight hospitalization, the re-admission on January 1 with 'complications' and 'severe pain', the failure to notify the C-in-C in the White House, his deputy DefSec, and most of the Pentagon's senior leadership.    An intolerable, unacceptable situation that can only hurt Biden's campaign for re-election.  NSC spokesman John Kirby refuses to say whether Biden knows what Austin's medical condition is, saying “That would really be between the two men.”   Hard to believe.

The afternoon Pentagon press conference disclosed that Austin's 12/22 surgery was a prostatectomy for cancer.  This was so 'personal' that it couldn't be disclosed to the commander-in-chief?  To his deputy SecDef?  To his senior Pentagon leadership?  To the public?  WTF!  Unbelievable.

We are being lied to every day, everywhere, all the time and it will only get worse.   The headline in the NYT today: Elections and Disinformation Are Colliding Like Never Before in 2024.  Excerpt: 

Billions of people will vote in major elections this year — around half of the global population, by some estimates — in one of the largest and most consequential democratic exercises in living memory. The results will affect how the world is run for decades to come.  At the same time, false narratives and conspiracy theories have evolved into an increasingly global menace.

Baseless claims of election fraud have battered trust in democracy. Foreign influence campaigns regularly target polarizing domestic challenges. Artificial intelligence has supercharged disinformation efforts and distorted perceptions of reality. All while major social media companies have scaled back their safeguards and downsized election teams.

“Almost every democracy is under stress, independent of technology,” said Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “When you add disinformation on top of that, it just creates many opportunities for mischief.”

It is, he said, a “perfect storm of disinformation."

Every day now, I receive text messages on my phone, with BS and requests for money from Republican sources.  Every day on television and radio and in newspapers and magazines I see advertisements full of lies and half-truths.   Politicians lie to us daily.  Our governments lie to us regularly.  Church leaders lie to us and probably to themselves.  It's not hard to understand why so many of us are cynical and distrustful.

Taking out the recycling cart on a snow day.😀

1/8/24

 Monday, January 8, 2024

In bed at 9:15, up at 3, thinking of the predicted snowstorm tomorrow and feeling vulnerable.  Let Lilly out.  31°, high of 36°, cloudy.  Winter Storm Watch: heavy snow possible, 4 to 7 inches possible near the lake, and 5 to 9 inches further inland.  Wind SSW at 6 mph, 4-16/26. Sunrise at 7:23, at 120° sunset at 4:33 at 240°, 9+10.  Solar noon at 11:58a.m., altitude 25°.

Treadmill; pain.  I'm feeling semi-crappy all morning and as I wait to leave for my 2 p.m. Healing Hands session at the VA.  Lack of sleep?  Having to cancel dental & hypnotherapy appointments?   30:01 & 0.64 watching a YouTube program on physicist Richard Feynman,  He reminded me of Bruce Springsteen or Robert DeNiro.

I'm grateful to Milwaukee's VA Zablocki Medical Center.   I grumpily went to a 2 o'clock appointment for a Healing Touch session with Jody Kressin.  As usual, I parked in the big parking garage on the 2nd level.  On the way out of the garage, 2 different vets smiled at me and said 'hello.'  On the way into the hospital, one VA staff member plus another vet did the same.  I checked in with the same 2 lovely Black ladies I checked in with a week or so ago and received 2 more friendly welcoming greetings.  When I arrived at the 10th floor where the Whole Health offices are, the first receptionist greeted me and told me where the Whole Health offices are, saw I knew where I was going, and said, with a big smile,  'You're just trying to make me feel important to which I responded, 'you are important.  You're very important" and received more smiles.  In the Whole Health office, I checked in with Tasha who helped me reschedule my appointment with the WH hypnotherapist because of tomorrow's snowstorm.  I thanked her for her help this morning and got another big smile and a 'thank you' back.  Finally, I saw Jody for the restful Healing Touch session during which I meditated while sensing her presence and listening to biaural sounds and after which I had a friendly conversation with her about her upcoming Caribean cruise and a health concern of hers. On the way down the corridor to the elevators, I exchanged friendly smiling greetings with 2, or was it 3, staff members.  In the elevator on the way down from the 10th floor, I said hello to another Vietnam vet who said "U.S. Navy" to which I answered "U.S. Marine Corps."  Then another vet got on the elevator and we discovered that we all served on Okinawa, the Navy vet at Camp Hanse, the other Marine at Futenma Air Station, and I at Camp Schwab.  For the few minutes we shared on that elevator, we were all friends.   I relate all this as evidence supporting the experience I've often expressed about feeling better after my visits to Zablocki, feeling comforted or supported or - I'm struggling for the right word - just by being there.  Not everyone is friendly or outgoing and smiling, of course.  Everyone there, patients and staff, has his or her own problems and challenges, medical and otherwise, some very serious and besetting.  And I am not generally prone to Pollyannaism about people (or am I?).  But overall the Zablocki Medical Center for Veterans is a friendly, welcoming place and I am grateful for it.  And I'm grateful to Ed Felsenthal for keeping at me and assisting me in enrolling.

Biden retains confidence in Austin, but why?  Biden says he retains great confidence in his SecDef, but one wonders why.  Is it because 'good son' Beau was close to Austin, or some other reason?  The extent of the secrecy about Austin’s whereabouts was underscored by the fact that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who would typically assume the duties of the Pentagon chief were he to become incapacitated or otherwise unavailable, did not find out about the hospitalization until Jan. 4.  That was even though Austin granted Hicks, who was vacationing in Puerto Rico, “operational responsibilities that require constant secure communications capabilities” on Jan. 2., officials said.  Something seems very wrong here and it's hard to believe that Biden could keep 'full confidence' in Sec. Austin after this.  Indeed, if he does, how does the country maintain full confidence in Biden?  We need to keep in mind that Austin is one step below Biden in the military chain of command, the vital link between the Commander-in-Chief and the vast military forces he commands, including those central to nuclear attacks and responses.  I've admired Gen. Austin since his appointment by Biden, but it is inconceivable to me how this situation (1) could have occurred, and (2) can be tolerated.