2/7/24

 Wednesday, February 7, 2024

In bed at 9, awake and up at 6:04 but tired from hourly pit stops.  32°, high of 42°, cloudy and DENSE FOG ALERT until 10 a.m.    The wind is S at 6 mph, 4-12/20.  Sunrise at 7:00 at 110°ESE, sunset at 5:11 st 250°WSW, 10+10.  Solar noon at 12:05, altitude 32°.

Treadmill; pain.  Shoulder & wrist pain during the night and upon awakening.  CPP all day.  0.00 & 0.00, rough day.

I'm grateful that my left wrist and right shoulder are OK, along with my ankles, knees, hips, and fingers.  My back - not so much.  I never gave much thought to osteoarthritis as a seriously debilitating disease.  Is this just a backhanded way of kvetching rather than real gratitude for my unaffected joints?  Cheesy?  Dishonest?  In any case, I am very grateful that there is nothing on my schedule today or for the rest of the week that requires me to leave the house.  

I felt a bit blue yesterday from the cystoscopy experience in the morning, wondering whether I had made a mistake eschewing the fulguration with the catheter already in situ.  But also because of my continuing bad memory of my last fulguration: the pain beforehand, the pain afterward, myoclonic arm movements, the morphine drip, and no explanation from either the anesthesiologist or the urologist.  If fulguration can be accomplished with little or no pain, why was I anesthetized for my prior fulgurations?  Did it increase the profits at the surgical center where they were performed?  Did the prescribing doctor have a financial interest in that surgical center?  Also grumpy because of painful voiding and joint pains.  Geri did my kitchen chores for me, bless her.

The Clausen barometer on Biden's unpopularity and Israel's dilemma.  From this journal last year, 2/7/23 and 2/6/23:

State of the Union.  Joe Biden will deliver the speech tonight.  I suppose many will watch it; I intend to take a pass on it.  It's painful for me to watch Biden work to express himself.  It's not just his stuttering challenge, which is real enough.  It's not just his boundless capacity for uttering gaffes.  It's not just his inability to resist his predictable Bidenisms: 'my dad always told me,' 'my mom used to say,' etc.,  It's not just his tendency to just make stuff up, i.e., to lie.  It's not just the tired grudges I hold against him for Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, for the mass incarceration crime bill he authored or his protection of credit card companies chartered in his home state of Delaware in the bankruptcy reform act many years ago.  It's not just his insistence on seeking sympathy for the accidental deaths of his wife and daughter decades ago and the death of his son Beau.  It's all those things and more.  Despite his lifelong efforts to get everybody to like him, including Republicans, I'm "just not that into him" and his schtick.  And did I mention how I feel about his professed intention to run for another term at his age?   (2/7/2023)

Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin' down. Israelis killing Palestinians in Jericho, Palestinians killing Israelis.  Political vacuum among the Palestinians, and the fascist government in place under Netanyahu.  Plus ça change, . .  Has Israel known one moment of real peace in its entire existence?  Jews will always have their psychological identity, their souls, marked by the Shoah; Palestinians have theirs marked by the Nakba, their expulsion from British Mandate Palestine.  A peaceful '2-state solution' to the situation has been effectively abandoned by the Israeli government, rendered a practical impossibility by the ever-increasing Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.  A Jewish State that is also a democratic state also seems to be a practical impossibility.  Israel can be Jewish or it can be democratic; it can't be both.  We appear to have a state of perennial warfare, perennially waiting for the next intifada, perennial anxiety, distrust, and hostility with the United States not exactly in the middle but always in a highly compromised position because of Israel's schizophrenia about its own identity, its own values beyond mere existence as a Jewish homeland.  (2/6/2023, 8 months before 10/7/23) 

The Republican effort to impeach DHSSec Mayorkas failed yesterday, but barely.  Wisconsin's Mike Gallagher voted against the resolution, as did Colorado's Ken Buck and California's Tom McClintock.  A fourth representative changed his vote to "no" only to preserve the option of a motion to reconsider the motion later.  Can Gallagher, Buck, or McClintock be persuaded/bribed to change their votes to lessen the embarrassment to Speaker Johnny Reb Johnson?  Gallagher is an Irish Catholic former Marine intelligence officer with a couple of master's degrees and a Ph.D. from Georgetown.  I doubt that either he or Ken Buck will flip.  Probably the same for McClintock, but I know little about him.  Nonetheless, Johnny Reb promises he will bring the resolution back to the floor when Steve Scalise is out of the hospital and he has the votes to pass it.

Senate Republicans shot down Border-Israel-Ukraine bill today.  The $118bn bill includes $60bn in military assistance for Ukraine, $14bn in security assistance for Israel, and $10bn in humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by war in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank.  Another $4.83bn would be used to support US allies in the Indo-Pacific and “deter China”, while $2.4bn would be directed toward assisting US military operations related to the conflict in the Red Sea.

With our enormous national debt, the servicing of which will approach $1T next year, should we be borrowing money, mostly from China, to support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza?   In terms of its stated goals, the Ukraine war is lost already with the failure of last year's counter-offensive and the Gaza war may well come to be adjudged genocidal in the years to come, and is already so adjudged by much of the world.  I think of President Eisenhower's 1953 "Cross of Iron" speech, including: 

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Why do Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and Austin want to throw additional tens of billions of borrowed money into these efforts?  We find the answer in Eisenhower's 1961 'Farewell Address":

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Many companies and many people are making a lot of money from the death and destruction in Ukraine and Gaza.  At whose expense?

The Real State of the American Union revealed.  Tomorrow the Supreme Court hears the arguments in the Colorado ballot case.  There are 400 deputy U.S. marshalls whose duty is to protect the 9 justices who will decide the case.  Additionally, the Supreme Court has a police force of 125 officers whose job is to protect the building.  Who do the justices and the building need protection from?  Other Americans, mostly on the right wing.

2/6/24

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

In bed at 9:30, awake and up at 4:45.  31°, high of 42°, cloudy/partly cloudy day ahead, wind W at 4 mph, 2-8/12.  Sunrise at 7:01, sunset at 5:10, 10+8.  Geri let Lilly out at 4:55' I let her in.

Treadmill; pain.   I woke with considerable pain in my shoulder and wrist.  So much for my theory about the Apple Watch.  Also bladder pain, hoping it's not a harbinger of cystoscopy ahead. 0.00 & 0.00

I'm grateful I can walk into and out of the VA Medical Center on my feet, not in a wheelchair.  I noticed this morning that it has become common when I check into the medical center to be asked by an attendant whether I need a chair or help getting to my appointment.  With my various pains, discomforts, and other frailties my posture is stooped, my gait slow and unstable, and my gaze downward looking for obstacles or tripping/falling hazards.  

Cystoscopy and fulguration confusion.  I underwent a cystoscopy this morning and was asked by the attending physician whether I wanted any lesion he might discover fulgurated then and there.  I told him I wasn't prepared for that since I had driven to the hospital alone, i.e., I didn't have a ride home.  He said I wouldn't need one and that no anesthesia would be administered.  I was surprised and told him that I had undergone 3 prior fulgurations, all under anesthesia, all requiring driving assistance after the surgery and that the last one had been a daunting experience with me, post-fulguration, awakening in severe pain, unable to control movement of my left arm, and on a morphine drip monitored by a nurse.  We went through the cystoscopy and a somewhat large lesion was discovered.  The doctor asked me if I wanted it fulgurated or wanted to have that done later in the OR.  I opted for the latter, which was subsequently scheduled for March 5.

    I am confused, wondering:  (1)  Why did I undergo 3 separate fulgurations over a couple of years.  Perhaps new lesions? (2)  Why was each of my prior fulgurations performed with sedation or anesthesia?  Was that unnecessary?   (3)  How could it have been that regaining consciousness after my last fulguration I was in severe pain, unable to control (myoclonic) movements of my arm, and on a morphine drip monitored by a surgical nurse?

2/5/24

 Monday, February 5, 2024

In bed at 9:45, up at 4 to let Lilly out.  31°, high of 37°, mostly cloudy today.  The wind is N at 11mph, 4-11/18.  Sunrise at 7:03, sunset at 5:08, 10+5.  Solar noon at 12:05, altitude 31°. 

Treadmill; pain.   Coming up on 24 hours w/o wearing the Apple Watch, the right wrist is still somewhat painful and restricted but not as bad as before.  My left shoulder is still bad but I haven't tried the analgesic cream yet.  At 11:30 a.m., 31:33 & 0.65, while watching a  discussion by a panel of liberal Jews (Naomi Klein, Gabor Maté, and Simone ?) following a showing of the film Israelism.  The film itself does not appear to be available on YouTube.

Hanagatami is an almost 3-hour long, psychedelic, surrealistic, anti-war, 2017 film by director Nobuhiko Obayashi.  I watched it in two sittings, yesterday and this morning.  This is the second Obayashi film I have seen, the other being Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2012).  A third film, Seven Weeks (2017), which I haven't seen, completes his anti-war trilogy.   I can't say that I 'understand' the two films of his that I have seen, but I suspect that these films are sort of like the painting by Picasso who was asked what they 'meant.'  His reply was said to be "What does a bird's song mean."  Obayashi was born when Japan was at war with China (and soon with the Allies) and was a lifelong pacifist.  He grew up in the Japan which was ravaged by the war and especially by U.S. firebombing and atomic bombing.  His abhorrence of war is clear enough and that, I suppose, is what these two films 'mean.'  In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.  Herodotus.  Notes on Hanagatami:  (1)  One of the very unusual features of the film is the use of actors in their 30s and 40s to fill the roles of teenagers.  I wondered whether this feature came easier to Obayashi because of Japan's long history of Kabuki and Noh theaters with its use of masks.  (2)  I was struck by the beauty of the actress who played the protagonist's aunt, Takako Tokiwa.  Wow.  (3)  There were many suggestions of same-sex sexual relationships in the film, male and female.  I wonder why.  (4) I was struck by the foolish gung ho enthusiasm for the war by many of the young men, much like that of other young men called upon to kill and/or be killed in any nation's war.  [I see Seven Weeks is available on OVID.  It's another almost 3-hour long film, but I'll try to watch it to complete the trilogy.]

I'm grateful for medications, including prescription-only medications.  I have come to believe that I am probably alive halfway through my 83rd year of life because of medications, especially statins, anti-hypertensives, and diabetes meds, all of which I have taken for a great many years, plus the full-strength aspirin that I've taken daily to lessen the probability of a stroke after my TIA    I'm not aware of any history of heart disease in my family, although there probably is some, but strokes are common enough and I have a history of all the preconditions for a stroke: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes plus the 'mini-stroke.'.  And I've never been good at doing the stuff I'm supposed to do to avoid a heart attack or stroke, to wit, exercise and diet discipline.  So why am I still alive; I have to believe it's the rosuvastatin, 3 blood pressure meds, and the one diabetes pill I take every day for my diabetes along with my weekly self-injection of Trulicity.  On the other hand, in this nation of ours that, unlike civilized nations, permits pharmaceutical companies to advertise on TV and elsewhere directly to the public ("Ask your doctor about . . ."), we often see commercials that, in hurried tones or in barely-readable captions, warn us that the medication that the corporation says will help us may also kill us.  So it is with the analgesic cream prescribed to lessen the pain in my shoulder and wrist, Diclofenac:

Diclofenac can increase your risk of fatal heart attack or stroke, even if you don't have any risk factors.  The risk may be greater in older adults or if you have . . . increased risk for heart disease (for example, . . .  conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes)

Diclofenac may also cause stomach or intestinal bleeding, which can be fatal. These conditions can occur without warning while you are using this medicine, especially in older adults.

In other words, this stuff may kill you - do you want to roll the dice?  It reminds me of a poetic parody I wrote several years ago.

My photo cut off the words "for you."

Euforia

Side effects may vary but may include 

Bloody stool and diarrhea

STDs like Gonorrhea

Peptic ulcers, herniation,

Athlete's foot.  Overpronation

Chronic fatigue & Constipation

Feelings of exhaustion & prostration

Suicidal ideation

Angina & Coronary thrombosis

Heasrt disease, Arterioscleerosis

Flatulence & halitosis

Chronic cough & tuberculosis

Skin eruptions, occasional zits

Neuroses, psychoses, occasional fits

Anxiety & Depression

Nasty headaches & Aggression

Hypertension, not to mention

Fussiness & anal retention.

Some have reported shortness of breath

And then of course there's

Sudden death!

ASK YOUR DOCTOR IF EUFORIA MAY BE RIGHT FOR YOU!

2/4/24

Sunday, February 4, 2024

In bed at 9:30, up at 4:30.  Let Lilly out at 5.  32°, high of 39°, mostly sunny after 3 p.m., wind NE at 7 mph, 3-10/ 16.  Sunrise at 7:04, sunset at 5:07, 10+3.

Treadmill; pain.   Considerable wrist pain during the night.  I received the DICLOFENAC around 5 p.m. but didn't apply it until I could read the package insert which is scary enough to make me wonder whether I should apply it  The insert has such small print, all running together, that it is very difficult to read.    

I'm grateful for sunshine today.  We haven't had a whole lot of it recently so seeing it again literally and figuratively brightens my days.  I'm reminded of my dear sister who regularly went into a funk on days without sunshine.  She would have had a terrible time living through winters in the Upper Midwest.     

Wrist pain and Apple Watch?  The thought came to me yesterday or the day before that maybe my persistent pain centered on my right wrist and extending into my thumb, hand, and forearm is related to the Apple Watch.  I turned to Mr. Google to see if I could find anything under "wrist pain and Apple Watch" and, sure enough, there are quite a few entries from people having what appears to be the same kind of problem I've been having and finding relief when they took their Apple Watch off the affected wrist.  So I took mine off this morning and so far so good.  As of 4:40 p.m., no significant pain.

Judge Napolitano on YouTube.  I watched a couple episodes of this show hosted by Napolitano who was for 24 years a regular legal analyst on FoxNews.  The first episode featured as the guest, John Mearshimer of Israel Lobby fame (or infamy.)  He spoke of Ukraine (a losing cause) and Israel/Gaza,(ditto), as did the guest on the second episode, Jeffrey Sachs.  They each seem to blame Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the U.S. for encouraging Ukraine's movement towards NATO and the EU.  They both disparaged Tony Blinken and Victoria Nuland.  Sachs expressly blamed the Israel directly and the U.S. indirectly for the mess that is the Middle East today.  His theory is that the U.S. coddled rightist elements in Israel that fought a two-state solution and colonized the West Bank (and Gaza for a time) with Jewish settlers.

Lizzie's birthday is tomorrow.  I texted Andy to ask about dropping off her birthday card and present but didn't hear back from him so I dropped the card and present off in their mailbox.  Both of their cars were in their driveway suggesting that Andy was home so I don't know why I haven't heard from him.   I still haven't heard from Peter on my job offer sent on Friday.  ???

2/3/24

 Saturday, February 3, 2024

In bed at 8:45, up at 5:50.   33°, high of 38°, partly cloudy day ahead, wind SE at 6 mph, 3-8/12.  Sunrise at 7:05, sunset at 5:06, 10+0.   

Treadmill; pain.   Bad wrist pain during the night made for a hard time sleeping, time on the LZB, and Tylenol at 1 a.m., but no relief. I notice the wrist pain is much better mid-afternoon, suggesting arthritis rather than some other problem.  At 2:30 p.m., 31:29 & 0.70, while watching Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's "Meditation and Going Beyond Mindfulness - A Secular Perspective" on YouTube/ 

I'm grateful but a bit ashamed of my collection of recliners: A Barcalounger in the TV room,  a LZB in the bedroom, unknown brands in the sunroom, and in my 'man cave.'  I live in a comfort palace, quite a change from 7303.    

How are we supposed to feel about thousands of children being killed, maimed, or traumatized for life by American weapons?  Outraged?  Copasetic?  Pleased?  Indifferent?  Supportive?  Sad?  Disgusted?  Ashamed to be American?  Ashamed to be human? Too bad, how sad, but . . .?  All in God's plan?  I wonder how many children we killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how many in the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities.  How many children were burned to death in Dresden?  In Hanoi and Haiphong and in Cambodia?   A 1995 demographic study in Population and Development Review calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 1965–75. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children.   Vietnam's government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of the after-effects of our Agent Orange defoliation campaign and that 500,000 children were born with birth defects. and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese people.  The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable but there can be no doubt that the accurate numbers are staggering.

Vietnam

World War II

A rough sketch in oils done years ago from a news photo during the Balkan wars.

Epitaph on a Tyrant, by W. H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Journal entry a year ago today: "Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank.  I watched this documentary of the photographer-film maker Robert Frank this afternoon on OVID.  At the film's end, he ruminates on growing old "I'm growing old.  Swollen toes.  Nails falling out. Gum disease.  Itching.  Pain.  Irregular heartbeat.  No more pissing.  Constipation.  It's a grim picture.  It's a natural disaster, growing old.  It's an adjustment and you have to be careful.  You have to be careful not to be bitter about it, not to become a nasty old man, but sometimes it's better to be a nasty old man than to be too polite and too, you know, . . "  A grim picture indeed, and it only gets grimmer.

Mindfulness and Meditation, Meditation and Buddhism, Buddhism and Zen, Zen and Thomas Merton.  I am a rank amateur at Mindfulness, though I have become much more aware of it since dialing into the VA Mindfulness group on Thursday mornings.  I'm even more of a novice at Meditation, though I am starting.  In any case, I've started looking into Buddhism since I got involved in this area and it seems to me that it's hard to practiced at Mindfulness and Meditation without getting into the wisdom of Buddhism.  Thinking of this reminded me of Thomas Merton and his deep dive into Buddhism particularly Zen Buddhism so I've been looking into his writings on the subject.  It reminds me of a lunch I had with the daughter of Harry John who funded the world's largest Catholic foundation, and her telling me that she (and many others) believed that Thomas Merton,  did not die accidentally by electrocution as is commonly believed, but rather that he was murdered because he was threatening orthodox Catholicism with his embrace of Buddhism (and of Hinduism.)  Merton's body was discovered by Rembert Weakland, then the head of the Benedictine order of monks and later archbishop of Milwaukee.  I got to chat with Weakland at a luncheon of some sort years ago and always liked him, even after he left the archbishop's position in a scandal involving the spending of some of Harry John's money gifted to the archdiocese to silence Rembert's former gay lover.  It was shabby business and Rembert did a public penance at the cathedral (or was it at the Cousins Center?) which I attended.  (The Cousins Center is named after the former archbishop of Milwaukee, William Cousins, who, in his early life as a parish priest, officiated at the marriage of my parents at St. Bernard Church in the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago in 1940.)

2/2/24

 Friday, February 2, 2024

Groundhog Day, Joe Daley's mother's birthday

In bed at 9 but had a hard time falling asleep, awake at 4, unable to sleep, had troubling thoughts, up at 4:23.  33°, high of 37°,  cloudy day ahead, wind NE at 11 mph, 6-15/23.  Sunrise at 7:06, sunset at 5:04, 9+58.

Treadmill; pain.  Woke up with very painful (5?) left shoulder and right wrist, hand, and thumb.  Yesterday, with Dr. Cheng in the PM&R Clinic, neither my chronically painful left shoulder nor my chronically painful right wrist & environs were painful, or only very little.  The wrist is the much greater problem, making me almost one-armed at times. . . . I had the shoulder and wrist x-rayed at the VA today and Dr. Cheng reviewed them almost immediately thereafter.  He called to say it looks like a rotator cuff problem in the shoulder which should be helped by the topical med he ordered for me and by the physical therapy also ordered.  The wrist looks like nasty arthritis but there was some confusion because he confused me with another patient who had a trapeziectomy, so I'm not entirely sure what's what with the wrist (and hand, thumb, and forearm.)  I'll check the written report when it is published on myhealthevet.com.  At 5:30 p.m., 20:16 & O.65, watching a documentary on OVID about rural Nevada, The Great Basin.

I'm grateful to Dr. Chang in the Physical Medicine & Rehab Clinic for his help with my earlier back pains, and the current shoulder and wrist/hand/arm problems.  He's young and affable and a pleasure to have as a doctor.  Within minutes of arriving home from having the shoulder and wrist x-rays taken at the VA, he was on the phone to me informing me of their significance.  A good guy.  

Text to PCC:  Hi, Peter,  I hope you’re doing well.   I’m looking to hire a bright, agile, assistant to help me stretch some canvas over 55-inch X 32-inch stretchers.  Years ago I used to stretch all my canvases myself rather than buying pre-stretched ones, but I got lazy as I got older and I opted for the pre-stretched ones.  In any case, I have a whole roll of raw canvas in our basement and I would like to stretch some of it over those 55 X 32 stretchers but it’s a two-person job.  Before I get to the main project, I need to move some stuff around in the basement to provide a working surface that is large enough to support the assembled canvas.  It’s probably been more than 20 years since I last stretched my own canvas, so there may be some trial and error in this project.  After the canvas is assembled, I could also use some help applying a gesso primer coat to it.  I can offer $25/hour for the help.   Do you have any interest in the job?  If so, we could do the work at a time (or times) that fit into your family, school, and social schedule, and of course, I could pick you up and take you back home if transportation is needed.  I think the initial work could be done within 2 hours, but I know you’re busy with school projects and other matters.  Let me know what you think.  Thanks. /s/ Grandpa.

My favorite line from Groundhog Day.   Rita to Phil (who is stuffing his mouth with breakfast pastries):  I like to see a man of advancing years throw caution to the wind.  It's inspiring in a way.

Troubling thoughts this morning about old age and the future, inability to do things around the house because of physical limitations (getting down on the floor and getting up again, climbing onto and working from a ladder, tasks requiring arm and/or leg strength, etc.)  I have a real dread of having to move from this house and into an apartment or condo, losing my basement 'sanctuary' with its painting space, office area, treadmill, etc.  Or worse yet, 'congregate living.'  If I'm lucky, it will be to Schmidt & Bartelt.

2/1/24

 Thursday, February 1, 2024

In bed at 10, awake at 2:30 unable to sleep, moved to LZB, up at 3:00 and let Lilly out.  37°, high of 43°, sunny morning changing to partly cloudy/cloudy day ahead with wind WSW at 10, 6-16/24.  Sunrise at 7:07 at 113°, sunset at 5:03 at 247°, 9+55.  Solar noon at 12:05, alt. 30°   

I'm grateful on mornings like this, when I am dealing with the aftereffects of insomnia, that I am retired with no fixed commitments today.  On the other hand, I am also grateful that Steve is driving up from Chicago today to visit and I treasure his visits.  He's an immensely good-hearted, brilliant guy and I'm always pleased by his visits.  (And not just because he always helps us out with something that needs doing around the house that we can't do but he can, bless him.)     

Alan Jacobs:  "[W]hen Israel is involved in any conversation, the simplistic heuristics kick in with a vengeance, leading to a classic availability cascade. The logic works like this: 

X is wrong and bad; 

Israel is X; 

Therefore, Israel is wrong and bad. 

Making the relevant adjustments for inflection, all you have to do is replace X with “colonialism” or “settler colonialism” or “apartheid” or “racism” or “ethno-nationalism” and hey presto: done and dusted. 

But there are some problems here. If Israel is an example of settler colonialism then it’s not like any other example of settler colonialism in the history of the world. I mean: What nation is Israel a colony of? And in what other place do the “settlers” have a 3000-year history of waxing and waning residence?¹

If Israel is “an apartheid state,” then how is it that there are Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, and in the judiciary, and indeed in every other sphere of Israeli society?²

How does racism come in if (a) Jews and Palestinian Arabs are closely genetically related and (b) the majority of Israeli Jews are not European Ashkenazi but rather Sephardim from places like Yemen and Ethiopia? What “race” is being preferred to another?³

And If Israel is an example of ethno-nationalism then it’s not like any other example of ethno-nationalism in the history of the world. Whatever Israel is doing, and however wrong it might be, it’s not remotely like the Nazi quest for an Aryan empire from which lesser races are excluded, or the systematic persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar or the Uighurs in China.⁴  Again, around a quarter of Israeli citizens are non-Jews, though if that percentage were to rise above 50% then it would soon thereafter go to 100%, since all the Jews would be expelled from Israel, as they have been expelled from so many other places over the centuries. Israel was created as a desperate, last-ditch attempt at survival by a people who had been for two thousand years subjected to either (a) the legitimate fear of imminent persecution or (b) actual persecution, pogroms and exclusions and assaults amounting at times to attempted genocide — the latter within the living memory of many. Around 150,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel today. Some of them were just murdered by Hamas. That’s not a history any other ethno-nationalism shares. ⁵

I’m not trying to suggest any solutions, or to advocate for any existing proposal. I’m not even arguing that Israel should exist, though in fact I think it should. I’m doing what I usually do, which is to ask people to back up a few steps. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that our familiar heuristics, with their familiar dichotomies, are utterly inadequate to this situation. The facts on the ground are too distinctive and too complex. The rhetorical and political earthquakes that we’re currently experiencing won’t ease until we abandon our reliance on bad simplifications. Fat chance of that, for two reasons, both of which I have already pointed to. One: Almost everyone is so committed to the comforting simplifications of their heuristics that they prefer ignorance to knowledge that complicates. And two: millions of people are possessed — and I use that word advisedly — by a profound and wholly irrational hatred of Jews.⁶   

- - - - - - - 

Some thoughts of mine:

¹ Isn't this rather simplistic?  Do all colonies have a "home country"?  What of a colony of ants, or an artists' colony?  Isn't it rather the coming together in one place of persons in some sort of community sharing a common interest or purpose that makes a 'colony'?  In terms of Israel, wasn't it Zionism, i.e., the settlement in historic Israel by Jews from anywhere but mainly Europe that was the common purpose?  And the Jews who 'settled' in Palestine came from elsewhere, mainly Europe,  which is to say they did not have a 3,000-year history of living in Palestine.

²  Isn't this just a little disingenuous?  The term "apartheid" is not usually applied to the conditions within the state of Israel, but rather to the conditions in the Occupied Territories where Jewish settlers are recognized as Israeli citizens sustained and supported by the Israeli government and Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, are segregated and oppressed by Jewish settlers who are protected by the Israeli Defense Forces.

³  Granted: 'racism' isn't a terribly apt term.  The whole concept of "race" is at best dubious, but surely the notion of virulent or invidious tribalism applies to what we see in Israel's disparate treatment of the Palestinians and the settlers in the Occupied Territories.

⁴ Forms of 'ethno-nationalism' vary from ethnic group to ethnic group, from nation or state to nation or state.  The core ideas seem to be the advancing of the interests of the preferred nation over the interests of others not sharing the preferred nation's identity, e.g., America First or Deutschland uber Alles.  Isn't Israel's raison d'être ethno-nationalist, i.e., a' homeland' precisely 'for the Jews', ethnically not religiously circumscribed?

⁵  No one can deny the long history of cruel and unjust persecution of Jews, especially by Christians (read the revelatory Constantine's Sword by James Carroll).  But is Alan Jacobs' point that the history of persecution, capped by the Holocaust, explains and justifies Israel as an 'ethno-nationalistic' state, or is he denying that Israel is such a state?  Last Sunday thousands of Israeli supporters of the Settlement Movement gathered in Jerusalem for a "Settlement Brings Security" conference urging the resettlement of Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and, by implication, the emigration of the Palestinians.  Nearly 1/3 of Netanyahu's governing cabinet attended the rally along with various members of the Knesset.  

⁶  I have to agree that both sides to the century-long dispute between Zionists and the Palestinians 'are committed to the comforting heuristics of their simplifications."  I also agree, sadly, the millions of people are "possessed" (I wouldn't attribute it to Satanic control) by hatred of Jews.  I also regret, however, that there are millions of people, i.e., certain Evangelicals, who are committed to supporting Israel regardless of its government's and certain of its people's depredations. 

Jacobs writes that he isn't trying to suggest any solutions.  Is this because there is none?

NFL Owners' Avarice.  From an opinion piece in this morning's WaPo by sports columnist Sally Jenkins:

"It’s difficult to say just how much embarrassment and exposure it will take to force those rotters in NFL ownership to accept responsibility for the hazards of the game they reap billions from and stop treating players like disposable napkins at their profit banquet. . . . But maybe what’s really at the heart of the matter is that the league has a black lung problem, and it knows it. That problem, if the NFL ever fully admitted it, could mean nearly unlimited financial exposure. That is perhaps why the owners have such a history of trying to limit injury compensation all along the line. Studies have shown that NFL players are four times as likely to suffer neurodegenerative disease than their peers. But most of these symptoms won’t manifest for 10 or 15 years, long after their five-year NFL health insurance has expired, at which point it’s difficult to get coverage. When players’ claims are denied and family members aren’t able to provide, where does the cost of their care fall? On you, the taxpayers. Medicare and Medicaid become the backstops. . . . .  The price of owning a coal mine is a lifetime of compensation for those who are permanently disabled by your coal dust. It should be the same with the NFL. If you want to own an NFL team — one that accepts all kinds of municipal aid and services free — you should cover the cost of ruin to players’ bodies and brains. After all, they aren’t just your workers. They’re the league’s chief commodities and treasures to their communities.?

Thursday Mindfulness Meditation chat.  I was going to skip this week's chat but changed my mind.  Lou, Bill, Mike, Chris, and me.  At some point, I hit the "mute" button on my iPhone and wasn't able to offer any thoughts during the discussion.  It took me about 15 minutes to figure out the problem and get back in.  My inability to deal with modern technology, like muting myself on the iPhone or losing my cursor on my laptop this morning, is discouraging.  Cognitive decline, executive function.