3/14/2025

 Friday, March 14, 2025

D+127/54

2019 US Senate passes resolution overturning President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration

In bed at 9:50, awake at 4:20, up at 4:30.

Prednisone, day 327; 4 mg., day 10/21; Kevzara, day 10/14.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5 a.m. and 6  p.m.  Other meds at 6 p.m.  Trulicity injection around 10 a.m. 

Damned if we do; damned if we don't.   Hitler was appointed Chancellor of  the Weimar Republic of Germany on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, 92 years ago.    On Thursday, March 23, 53 days later, the Reichstag, Germany's legislature, passed the Enabling Act that gave him dictatorial power.  Hitler and the Nazis gained this power not with tanks and artillery, but with legislation, which is to say, the Germans did it to themselves.  Yesterday was the 53rd day of Trump's second term.  I watched an interview of Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, who had earlier announced that he would vote in favor of the Republicans'  Continuing Resolution that would govern the country's spending until the end of the country's fiscal year, September 30.  It gives the administration wide discretion over how federal dollars are distributed, in effect handing off the legislative branch’s spending authority to Donald Trump (and Elon Musk.)    It also surrenders Congress's ability to undo Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China.  “This is us, in a sense, giving the keys to the president to be able to continue to do the great work that they’re doing,” Far-right Representative Michael Cloud, Republican of Texas, said earlier this week.   Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said, "This is the Super Bowl.  This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for our entire careers, and finally, the stars have aligned so we can do that better.”  Schumer explained his 'yes' vote to Chris Hayes by asserting that if the CR isn't passed and the government goes into 'shut down' mode, Trump will have even more power than he gains under the CR.  He also argued that with a government shutdown, the courts also shutdown, which would remove the only venue where the Democrats have had any success in stopping Trump and Musk.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of Schumer's decision: "“There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal, and this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board — the entire party."

Trump's and Musk's unoverseen power increases both under the CR and under a shutdown.  Damned if we do, damned if we don't.  I have to wonder what got Schumer to change his vote overnight.  Was he bought?  Does the switch pass the smell test?  Is it conceivable that he made a deal with the Republicans (unlikely) or with his donorr riends on Wall Street (more likely)? The more I think of it, however, I think Schumer is probably correct that the shutdown would almost certainly be worse than passing the CR.  Trump could keep the shutdown going for all long as he and Musk wanted as they decimate federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies.  I'm impressed that Angus King voted with Schumer, and even voted for passage of the CR inself, as did Jeanne Shaheen.

Race to the Outhouse by Willy Makit.  Old age is a time of indignities.  There are the multiple medical indignities of being poked and prodded, invaded by needles, catheters, scopes, and probes of various kinds, and the indignities of sphincter failure.  When I was a kid, book title jokes were common for awhile.  "Taming Wild Cats" by Claude Balz.  "Why You Need Insurance" by Justin Case.  "Aches and Pains" by Arthur Itis.  On the other hand, it's also a time of unexpected kindnesses: strangers holding doors open for you, the old timer at the Chinese restaurant who offered me his chair while we waited for our takeaway dinners, the old lady at Sendkik's who offered to carry my groceries to my car, and so on.  

Sump pump discharge pipe.  I tried to fix the broken pipe outside but failed.  I called Cliff Bergin plumbing who will be here at 8 a.m. Monday morning.

Anniversary thought.  There was a time when some Republicans in Congress had both backbone and balls.  Those days are long gone.  From CNN/s web site on this date in 2019:

Washington CNN.  The Senate delivered a high-profile rebuke to President Donald Trump over his signature agenda issue Thursday when 12 Republicans joined Democrats to overturn the President’s national emergency border declaration.  The vote was 59-41, an overwhelming vote against the President’s executive action.

Lawmakers don’t have enough votes, however, to override a certain veto from the President, but passage of the resolution in the Senate after it passed the House last month is nevertheless an embarrassing blow to Trump delivered by his own party over the President’s top campaign pledge of a wall at the US-Mexico border.

The 12 Senate Republicans who voted in support of the resolution were: Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mitt Romney of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah. 

The vote forced many to choose between loyalty to a President unafraid to attack members of his party who defy him and an emergency declaration that conservative critics describe as executive overreach and warn could set a precedent used by Democratic presidents to declare emergencies over liberal priorities such as action on climate change.

“Declaring a national emergency to access different funds sets a dangerous new precedent,” GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio warned in remarks on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “It opens the door for future presidents to implement just about any policy they want.” 

3/13/2025

 Thursday, March 13, 2025

D+126/53

1954 Viet Minh General Giáp opened the assault on French forces at Dien Bien Phu

2005 Terry Ratzmann shot and killed seven members of the Living Church of God, including the minister, at Sheraton Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before killing himself

2012 Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that it would no longer publish printed versions of its encyclopaedia

In bed at 10:15, awake and up at 4:45.   

Prednisone, day 326; 4 mg., day 9/21; Kevzara, day 9/14.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5 a.m. and  5  p.m.  Other meds at 11:30 a.m.    

My waking dream was of attending a pentacostal church in the inner city and sitting next to Troy Major.  I asked for and Troy gave me his phone number, address, and his wife's name, which I couldn't recall.  All the members of the congregation passed by and blessed me because my mother had died and I had to go to her funeral, but my car was parked some distance away.  Troy offered me a ride, but we stopped at his house and at a Catholic Church where a concelebrated mass was about to occur. I was greeted like a returning prodigal son.  The priests were from several different orders, all dressed in their liturgical vestments.  I met many members of my former community at St. Francis. At some point, Kitty and Jim found me and were angry with me for not being at my mother's funeral.  I was anxious and frustrated about not being able to get to my mother's funeral. What would Freud say?  What would Jung say?  What do I say?

On Morning Joe this morning.  Opening chatter about Trump's tariffs and their effect on the national and world economy.  David French: "Trump is supplementing his malice with his incompetence.  His team is supplementing their malice with their incompetence.  I agree with Bret (Sephens) that incompetence may be the thing that undermines this administration, even more than malice."  Bret Stephens, in his op-ed: "This won't end well, especially in a no-guardrails administration staffed by a how-high team of enablers and toadies . . .  Trump's critics are always quick to see the sinister sides of his actions and ure of his policymaking.  Democracy may die in darkness.  It may die in despotism.  Under Trump, it's just as likely to die in dumbness."  

Schrecklichkeit.  Donald Trump and his myrmidons are terrorists.  Their regime is waging a war of terror against Trump's opponents and adversaries, or, as he thinks of it, his "enemies."  This is directly related to his Fred Trump-Roy Cohn-inspired need and desire for revenge or retribution.  During his first administration, when asked by an interviewer for his favorite biblical passage, he first evaded the question by saying that he 'liked them all,' but then said, "Maybe, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."  In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”  He has demonstrated his adherence to this philosophy more times than one can count. witness his petty attacks on anyone who has stood in his way or supported an opponent, like the women who have accused him of sexual assaults, or Rosie O'Donnell, or Megyn Kelly, or Elizabeth Warren, or Nancy Pelosi.  

In a 2012 speech, he advised:

One of the things you should do in terms of success: If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ’em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even. Get even. And the reason, the reason you do, is so important…The reason you do, you have to do it, because if they do that to you, you have to leave a telltale sign that they just can’t take advantage of you. It’s not so much for the person, which does make you feel good, to be honest with you, I’ve done it many times. But other people watch and you know they say, “Well, let’s leave Trump alone,” or “Let’s leave this one,” or “Doris, let’s leave her alone. They fight too hard.”  I say it, and it’s so important. You have to, you have to hit back. You have to hit back.

In a 2007 speech, he described his first rule of business:

It’s called “Get Even.” Get even. This isn’t your typical business speech. Get even. What this is a real business speech. You know in all fairness to Wharton, I love ’em, but they teach you some stuff that’s a lot of bullshit. When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder. And the reason is, the reason is, the reason is, not only, not only, because of the person that you’re after, but other people watch what’s happening. Other people see you or see you or see and they see how you react.

He is applying these principles of revenge in spades in his second administration.  The schrecklichkeit dimension is the most important, that is, the effect of revenge-taking on others who may consider opposing Trump.  The secondary, or perhaps primary, goal is intimidation.  He is a master intimidator.  So is his partner in crime, Elon Musk.  For Republican legislators, for example, if you don't 'play ball,' they will primary you in the next election and publicly badmouth you whenever possible.  Businessmen who oppose Trump risk investigation by any of the federal regulatory agencies that have jurisdiction over them, and the withdrawal of government contracts, and blacklisting for future contracts.  The withdrawal of White House press credentials from the Associated Press illustrates what happens to media companies who don't 'play ball' (in the AP's case, by refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America).  ABC's and George Stephanopolous's $15,000,000 settlement of Trump's spurious defamation suit is another example.  Elon Musk is wealthy enough to buy any media outlet that he finds problematical to him or to Trump, witness his purchase of Twitter, now "X".  Look at the endorsement cravenness of the LA Times and the Washington Post on the eve of the 2024 presidential election.  Witness Mark Zuckerberg's abandonment of fact-checking for misinformation and disinformation after the election.  

In any event, what got me thinking about schrecklichkeit this morning is Trump's frontal assault on the legal profession with his executive order stripping security clearances from lawyers in the Washington firm of Perkins Coie and denying them access to government buildings.  Perkins Coie was Mark Elias's firm, and it represented Trump's 2016 opponent, Hilary Clinton.  It's a revenge move by Trump, clearly, and is an existential threat to the firm's continued existence, considering its clientele.  What most interested me was the firm's difficulty in finding another law firm to represent it in court.  They ended up being represented by perhaps the best firm in Washington, Williams and Connelly, but not until it was clear that other firms were afraid to represent them for fear of becoming another Perkins Coie, i.e., a target of Trump's vengeance.  Schrecklichkeit.  Much of the nation is intimidated by Trump and his government of henchmen. 

Trump made little effort to disguise his retributive motive for attacking Perkins Coie.  From the text of Executive Order 14230, March 6th:

Section 1. Purpose.  The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP (“Perkins Coie”) has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false “dossier” designed to steal an election. This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification. In one such case, a court was forced to sanction Perkins Coie attorneys for an unethical lack of candor before the court.

The in terrorum purpose and effect of the Order is clear in Section 3:

Section 3. Contracting. (a) To prevent the transfer of taxpayer dollars to Federal contractors whose earnings subsidize, among other things, racial discrimination, falsified documents designed to weaponize the Government against candidates for office, and anti-democratic election changes that invite fraud and distrust, Government contracting agencies shall, to the extent permissible by law, require Government contractors to disclose any business they do with Perkins Coie and whether that business is related to the subject of the Government contract.

(b) The heads of all agencies shall review all contracts with Perkins Coie or with entities that disclose doing business with Perkins Coie under subsection (a) of this section. To the extent permitted by law, the heads of agencies shall:

(i) take appropriate steps to terminate any contract, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, including the Federal Acquisition Regulation, for which Perkins Coie has been hired to perform any service;

(ii) otherwise align their agency funding decisions with the interests of the citizens of the United States; with the goals and priorities of my Administration as expressed in executive actions, especially Executive Order 14147 of January 20, 2025 (Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government); and as heads of agencies deem appropriate. Within 30 days of the date of this order, all agencies shall submit to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget an assessment of contracts with Perkins Coie or with entities that do business with Perkins Coie effective as of the date of this order and any actions taken with respect to those contracts in accordance with this order.

The mere threat of official federal investigations by the FBI, the Justice Department, the SEC, the FTC, or any other agency with investigative and enforcement authority is enough to cause private and corporate citizens to retain legal counsel, at a cost of many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars.  Ditto a defamation or other vindictive, retaliatory lawsuit.  Is the Trump-Musk Devil's duo desirous and willing to exercise schrecklichkeit on the whole country, indeed the whole world?  I think so.  Look at the tariff game he is playing with Canada.  Just today, he threatened to impose a tariff of 200% on imported wine, beer, and liquor: Canadian Club, Crown Royal, cognac, Corona and Dos Equis Mexican beers, Molson and Moosehead Canadian beers, French, Italian, and German wines, etc.  He has instructed the Defense Department to draw up plans directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal. During his address to Congress last week, he said, "to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” Since then, administration officials have not said what "reclaiming" means.  We read that the U.S. Southern Command is developing plans that vary from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to "the less likely" option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used would depend on how much Panamanian security forces agree to "partner with" the U.S., i.e., Trump. 

It's clear to me now that the worst of my bad dreams of America under the thumb of Trump were not bad enough.

Epitaph on a Tyrant

W. H. Auden   1907 –1973

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. 

A couple of anniversary thoughts.  First, I was 12 years old when the epic battle of Dien Bein Phu started.  It ended almost 2 months later with an ignominious defeat of the French forces and the beginning of the end of France's overseas empire.  Algeria would follow.  It all seemed so foreign, remote, and exotic to me.  A mere 11 years later, I would step off a C-130 onto Vietnamese soil at Chu Lai, 23 years old and without any clear understanding of what was going on in Vietnam and why my sorry boots were on its ground.  Ten years later, Marine H-34 helicopters were ferrying desperate, frantic, fleeing Vietnamese from rooftops in Saigon to American ships offshore.  Our Dien Bien Phu took not two onths but about 10 years, in the course of which millions of lives were lost, badly impaired, or otherwise badly affected.  Shame on us/U.S.

Second, Encyclopaedia Britannica's decision 13 years ago to stop publishing its print edition makes me wonder about the future of printed books, indeed of print media generally.  The profound impact of social media on our lives in just the last 25 years (Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter) makes me wonder whether modern homo sapiens is undeergoing a rapid evolutionary adjustment because of which even Wikipedia will become passe.  What will human communication be like in the next 25 years?  What will learning be like?  The world and Western Culture, or what remains of either, will be unrecognizable.  Sarah and Andy will be about at the age I am now, perhaps wondering the kinds of things that I wonder now.  Will the world have experienced and survived one or more nuclear wars by then?  What will be the effects of climate change?  Will it be a 1984 world?  A Brave New World?  A world run by 1s and 0s, algorithms, and AI?  Is there more reason to be hopeful of the coming world or despairing?

Nostalgically, the Britannica anniversary makes me remember the hours I spent lying on the floor at 7303 S. Emerald Avenue in Chicago, reading our family encyclopedia, the multi-volume Grolier's The Book of Knowledge.  My Dad, with his PTSD, always demanded of my sister and me "a little peace and quiet."  I sought quiet refuge in the thousands of essays in The Book of Knowledge, which also introduced me to the wide world outside our tiny, roachy, 3 rooms in the basement at 7303 S. Emerald Avenue.

3/12/2025

 Wednesday, March 12, 2025

D+125/52

1947  President Harry Truman introduced the Truman Doctrine to fight communism

2018 British Prime Minister Theresa May said Russia was "highly likely" to have poisoned a Russian spy and his daughter on March 4 with nerve agent

2022: Saudi Arabia executed 81 convicted criminals, the country's largest known mass execution in modern times 

In bed at 10, awake and up at 5:15.   

Prednisone, day 325; 4 mg., day 8/21; Kevzara, day 8/14.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5:30 a.m. and 7:40 p.m.  Other meds at 7:30 p.m.  .

"With you, all roads lead to Putin." 

Is Trump evil, nuts, AND stupid?  I started thinking yesterday that maybe Trump is truly delusional about tariffs and about Canada becoming America's 51st state.  Maybe he really is living in his own delusional world.  I wonder the same about Tracy Flick, I mean Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary.  I understand his psychological, Roy Cohn-driven inability to admit he is ever wrong.  I have some sense of how his wicked personality is driven by his upbringing by his nasty father.  I can even understand, though I don't agree with his ham-handed approach, his extortion of Volodymir Zelenshyy for mineral rights in Ukraine as 'payback' for past American support in the war with Russia and his desire to regain control of the Panama Canal and to acquire Greenland.  But how to understand his bellicosity against Canada?  What is so unacceptable about our economic relationship with Canada, a relationship governed by the USMCA trade treaty that his prior administration negotiated and that he signed as president during his first term?  How is it conceivable that he is truly waging an economic and psychological war with our closest and heretofore. friendliest neighbor, literally threatening on his social media site to destroy their automobile industry with which we've been profitably doing business for years?  How can all this be happening in real life?  Is this guy off his rocker?  Is he so deranged and deluded, so megalomaniacal, that we may have a 25th Amendment situation down the road?  Is that how we'll get President Vance?  We have long known that this guy is immoral and amoral, wicked, narcissistic, deceitful, perfidious, sociopathic, et cetera.  Is he also nuts or, in the words of the 25th Amendment, "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office"?    

From today's The Hill:  

CNBC reporter Steve Liesman blasted President Trump over his trade policies and broader economic strategy in the wake of a struggling stock market this week.

“I’m going to say this at the risk of my job, but what President Trump is doing is insane,” Liesman, CNBC’s senior economics reporter, said during a segment on the cable channel Tuesday. “And now he’s saying he’s putting 50 percent tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the 51st state. That is insane. There’s just no other way of describing it.”

Telling headlines: Trump’s Economic Messaging Is Spooking Some of His Advisers; Europe Retaliates Against Trump’s Tariffs as Trade Fight Widens; Stocks Pare Losses but Investors Remain Wary of Trade Tensions; U.S. Inflation Expected to Have Stayed Stubbornly High in February; Investors Thought They Had Trump Figured Out. They Were Wrong; Greenlanders Elect Party That Pushed Hard Against Trump Takeover; E.U. retaliates against Trump’s tariffs as trade war escalates; and, Republicans to Trump: Maybe rethink the tariff thing, please.  

I'm at 6s and 7s all day today, can't get going, half-dead brain.

3/11/2025

 Tuesday, March 11, 2025

D+124/51

D+124/511963  Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara ordered the adoption by the US military of the M16 assault rifle, originally designed as the AR-15 by Eugene Stoner

2020 COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization after 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4:35, and up at 4:55, thinking of and regretting the conversation with the PM&R nurse yesterday. 45° outside, but the temperature will fall steadily during the day.  The high was 55°, probably at midnight, quite a change from yesterday's unusually warm weather.  Tomorrow's high is predicted to be about 43°, 25° colder than yesterday. 

Prednisone, day 324; 4 mg., day 7/21; Kevzara, day 7/14.  2 mg. of prednisone at 5:10  a.m. and 8:45  p.m.  Other meds at 6:59 a.m.

Mickey the Mope.  I'm thinking it was a mistake calling PM&R yesterday, not getting my appointment moved up from next July to May, but the conversation with the nurse about Dr. Cheng squeeeing me into his schedule sometime earlier than two months from now..  I haven't been doing any of the things we discussed during my last visit: lidocaine pathes, Tylenol, joining a gym.  I suppose it's mostly because of indolence, but also because I can't put the patches on my back and Geri's been out of commission or partly so for weeks now, I dn't have much confidence in Tylenol as a pain reliever, and I am so sceptical about my ability or perhaps willingness to deal with signing up for and actually going to a gym and working with a trainer.  How would I choose a trainer?  Where would I find one equipped by training or experience to deal with an old physical wreck like me?  The ones I see in ads look like young, strong, healthy, weight-lifting, cross-country-running, health and fitness "nuts", the exact opposite of me.  I'm not even sure I can accurately describe my condition, especially with my hips.  I'm old and falling apart.  I had an "old spurt" this last year or more, dealing with the chronic pelvic pain until the fulguration and the shoulder, wrist, and hand pain till the prednisone.  The 'quick cure' would be simply to die and be done with it, and God knows I've thought about that, but Geri's struggles with the knee replacement remind me that I still have some usefulness in helping her.  I don't want to die and leave her alone.  I better start doing some PT exercises and chair yoga again.  Here's my journal entry from one year ago today:

 I was bothered by shoulder pain during the night and a bit of wrist pain.  I took 2 Tylenol 8-Hour tabs at 3 a.m.  It's discouraging that the cortisone injection provided hardly any pain relief and the PT stretches don't seem to help either.  I think the Tylenol does help.  I looked back in this journal to see when my problem with nightly pain and sleeplessness started and it looks like it was around the second week of January, 2 months ago.  Before that, a decent night's sleep for me was 7 hours.  Now such a night is rare.  The combination of bladder pain, back pain, shoulder pain, and wrist pain combined with frequent pit stops (growing to 5 or 6 a night) contribute to a lack of restful sleep most nights and a need to nap during most days.   It's been almost a week now since the surgery on my bladder which, so far at least, has stopped the bladder & pelvic floor muscle painful spasms, the main problem now being the shoulder pain.  On the other hand, my shoulder has been painful all day.

From two years ago today:

Prayer Requests at a Mennonite Church by Todd Davis

Pray for the Smucker family. Their son Nathaniel's coat and shirt were caught in the gears while grinding grain. Nothing would give, so nowhe is gone. We made his clothes too well. Perhaps this is our sin.

Pray for the Birky family. Their son Jacob fell to his death in thegranary. He was covered in corn before they could stop the pouring—chest crushed by the weight, seed spilling from his mouth. We hope something will grow from this, besides our grief.

Pray for the Hartzler family. Their youngest has left the church and nolonger believes that Christ died for her sins. She buys clothes at the mall. Tongue pierced, nose as well. Her shirt shows her belly where aring of gold sprouts. We pray she will remember that her Lord's side was pierced, that His crown held no gold, only the dried blood of His brow.

Pray for the Miller family. Last week their daughter, who lives in Kalona, lost her baby at birth. Child only half-formed: head turned the wrong way; heart laid on the outside of her chest; one leg little more than an afterthought. Lord, help them know that life may come again, that we are all made whole in heaven.

Pray for the Stutzman family. Their son fights in the war. We call him back to the Prince of Peace, to our Savior who knelt to gather the slave's ear, brushed the dirt away, lifted it to the side of his flushed face. May we leave no scars. May we ask no blessing for the killing done in His name.

I wish we had a new Muppets Show. I had this thought while watching Morning Joe this morning.  Regular guest Steve Rattner, who looks like but probably isn't a sourpuss, reminds me of the old muppet curmudgeons Statler and Waldorf.  I can imagine a muppet mimicking Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzyinski, Willie Geist, and their regular guests.

Geri's physical therapy did not go well this morning; it was too painful.  The therapist described it as "nerve pain" and texted something to Dr. Graf about it.  We haven't heard back from Graf yet. . .   The doctor called, said get an x-ray, which we did.

3/10/2025

 Monday, March 10, 2025

D+123

1971 Senate approved the amendment lowering voting age to 18

2012 At least 130 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza

2014 German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Vladimir Putin that making Crimea part of Russia was illegal and in violation of Ukraine's constitution

2020 Russian lower house of Parliament passed legislation to allow Vladimir Putin to hold the office of President for life

2023 California's Silicon Valley Bank, the main bank for tech start-ups, collapses after a sudden bank run and credit crisis - largest US bank failure since 2008 

In bed around 9:20, awake and up at 4:35 from a dream in which I was living in a residene that was a combination of our home in Bayside, the condo in the Knickerbocker, and my childhood basement apartment on Emerlald Avenue, sheltering during a tornado, schmoozing with neighbors, including a lady from Scotland and a young couple like our our downstairis neighbors in Doylestown, PA, who helped me when I almost fell down a well.  False Spring weather today: high of 63°, bright, sunny skies.

Prednisone, day 323; 4 mg., day 6/21; Kevzara, day 6/14.  2 mg. of prednisone at 4:50 a.m. and at  5 p.m.  Other meds at 3 p.m.   

Minnows in the bait bucket.  (1)  More reminders of decrepitude.  When I returned from dropping off a Walmart return for Geri at the FedEx store in Glendale, I thought I would use a tall shepherd's crook in the garage to dislodge a big hornet's nest hanging all winter from one of our trees on County Line Road.  Then I remembered that I would undoubtedly lose my balance and fall down if I stood with my head facing skyward for any length of time.  So much for that plan.  When I came in, Geri said to me, "I'm a wreck."  I replied, "From the PT?" to which she said, "Yes."  We're coming up on two months since the knee replacement surgery.  

(2) Unlisted among today's anniversaries is 1980, the 45th anniversary of Willard Scott becoming the weatherman on the Today Show, which sends my mind scurrying back to June 1966 when I returned from Asia to Cleveland to pick up Anne for our move to Pennsylvania.  We spent an evening with her friend from WJW-TV, an announcer named Mickey Firestone.  What I remember of the evening was his answering his phone while we were together and doing so in his baritone announcer voice, very different from his natural, conversational voice, reminding me of Gary Owens, the announcer on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In show.  Willard, Mickey, and Gary remind me of why I dislike news shows, especially local news shows and, more especially still, morning local news shows with all the phony ha-ha bantering and joviality.  It's all wrapped up in the idea of "personality," as in so-and-so, a "TV personality."  Affability is perhaps the most important part of the 'TV personality,'  a phony friendliness, bonhomie, and cheerfulness.  Willard Scott added an element of buffoonery to the weatherman personality, reminding me of George Carlin's Al Sleet, the hippy-dippy weatherman. 'Dark tonight, turning partly light towards morning.'   There is something 1984-ish about these folks.  The same is true of so many television commercials, showing actors deliriously happy, laughing, smiling, perhaps even dancing,, thoroughly enjoying life because of the expensive prescription medication they take to treat some disease I may never have heard of, even though, as the subscript informs us, it may kill you.  The news is almost all bad (murders, weather disasters, political polarity, war news, etc.). Still, it's delivered through a medium that bombards us with images of other humans whose lives are so very happy because they buy consumer product A, B, and/or C from supplier X, Y, or Z.  There's something ridiculous, even sick, about this.  (Or is it me, Mr. Burke?)

(3) I tuned on the OAN channel while getting dressed this morning.  Right-wing lunancy, including hawking  "Republican Red" wine with names like "Drain the Swamp" and "4547," hawking home generators, brand name "Patriot," and my favorite, DJT, Jr., hawking patriotic pharmaceuticals, including invermectin (horse dewormer) and hydroxychloroquine.  I'm surprised Junior didn't also offer bleach.

(4)  Do wars ever end?  I've often said that they don't end; they just continue in different forms.  The American Civil War, or the War Between the States, is the greatest example.  The Franco-Prussian War led to World War I, which led to World War II, which led to the Cold War.  Consider the war between Russia and Ukraine.  Russia's Catherine the Great conquered Crimea in 1783, and they are still fighting over it.  The Catholics and the Protestants in Ulster?  The Jews and the Arabs in Palestine?  2012, Hamas shelled Israel with 120 rockets.  We wonder why the IDF is so ferocious against the Palestinians in Gaza today when there is so much history of death and destruction on both sides.

Anger be now your song, immortal one,

Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,

that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss'

and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,

leaving so many dead men - carrion

for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.

Begin it when the two men first contending

broke with one another -- the Lord Marshall 

Agamemnon, Atreus' son, and Prince Akhilleus. 

                                        Among the gods, who brought this quarrel on?

                                        The son of Zeus by Leto.  Agememnon

                                        angered him, so he made a burning wind

                              of plague rise in the army: rank and file

                                        sickended and died for the ill their chief had done

                                        in despising a man of prayer. 

Homer is thought to have written the Iliad in the early 7th century B.C.  He attributed the cause of the Trojan War to personal enmities and to "the gods."  How many of us still attribute wars to God (having moved away from belief in many pagan gods to the belief in one God)?  How many priests and preachers, and those who listen to them, call wars 'punishment from God'?  How many of us have prayed to God to intervene to make our side win a contest?  How many think that God was on the side of the Allies and against the Axis in WWII?  the Ukrainins of the Russians?  the Chosen People in their land of milk and honey that was given to them by God or the Palestinians fighting for Allah and willing, even hoping to become His martyrs?

(5)  The stock market is going to Hell in a handbasket.   Geri got a voice mail call from Jake Bain this afternoon asking her to call to discuss her account and what's happening in the markets.  We'll call him tomorrow.  Trump has been unusually silent about the day-after-day tumbles in the markets.  If tomorrow brings more big losses, I suspect he'll be on TV spouting some lies in an attempt to boost them.  We'll call Jake tomorrow.  He also wants to talk about Medicare premiums.

(6)  I'm hearing lots of complaints on air about the effect of Trump's/Musk's personnel cuts on veterans.  I'm concerned about the predicted cuts in the VA.  I hear more people speaking what I think is true, i.e., that all these Republicans in the White House and the political appointees at the Department of Veteran Affairs are out to so impair the provision of medical services at VA facilities so that even the enrolled vets will favor privatization.  Ultimate privatization is the goal, and it is to be obtained at the cost of effective medical care for vets enrolled in the system, i.e., watashi-wa.  From yesterday's NYTimes, "Chaos at the V.A.: Inside the DOGE Cuts Disrupting the Veterans Agency: Clinical trials have been delayed, contracts canceled and support staff fired. With deeper cuts coming, some are warning of potential harms to veterans' by Roni Caryn Rabin and Nicholas Nehamas, excerpts:

While Trump administration officials have promised to preserve core patient services, initial cuts at the V.A. have nonetheless spawned chaotic ripple effects. They have disrupted studies involving patients awaiting experimental treatments, forced some facilities to fire support staff and created uncertainty amid the mass cancellation, and partial reinstatement, of hundreds of contracts targeted by Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The changes have shaken the veterans department, which stands out in the labyrinth of agencies and offices under siege by Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk.

It is in many ways a natural target for reform — a bureaucratic behemoth with roughly 480,000 employees, some 90,000 contracts and a documented history of scandals and waste. But it also treats 9.1 million veterans, provides critical medical research and, according to some studies, offers care that is comparable to or better than many private health systems. Even Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint assembled by Trump allies, said the V.A. had transformed into “one of the most respected U.S. agencies.”

The V.A. is also one of the most politically sensitive departments in the government, serving a constituency courted heavily by Republicans, including Mr. Trump, who has made overhauling the agency a talking point since his 2016 campaign. 

 

 Two years ago today, 8 or 9 inches of heavy, wet snow. today 68°, sunny, balmy.

3/9/2025

Sunday, March 9, 2025

D+122

1945 334 US B-29 Superfortresses attacked Tokyo with 120,000 fire bombs

1962 US advisors in South Vietnam joined in a  firefight

1964 Supreme Court issued NY Times vs Sullivan decision: public officials must prove malice to recover damages in libel actions

1974 The last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in the Philippines, surrendered 29 years after World War II ended

1980: Flemish and Walloon battled in Belgium; 40 injured

1989 US Senate rejected President George H. W. Bush's nomination of John Tower as Defense Secretary

In bed by 9:15, awake and up at 4:53 CDT so 'really 3:53 CST) feeling terrible, headache, pain an didscomfort arcomoound pelvic girdle, right shoulder,  emerging from a vivid dream of DSB and I in the Marines in SVN with hundeeds or thousands of SVN k'indigenous' and SNAFU conditions.  Friday I told Caela I never dream about SVN; she told me her freind Dick does frequently.  Dick's story (SVN, purple hearts, son, daughter, even Caela) is a sad one  34° outside, high of 56°.

Prednisone, day 322, 4 mg., day 5/21, Kevzara, day 5/14. 2 mg. prednisone at 4:15 a.m. and 5:3  p.m.  Other meds around 8 a.m.is    

Can Ukraine—and America—Survive Donald Trump?: The historian Stephen Kotkin analyzes what a President who governs in the style of professional wrestling gets wrong—and right—about an unstable world.  The New by David Remnick in The New Yorker, March 9, 2025.  An interview with Stephen Kotkin, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.  Excerpts:

(Kotkin)  I’m not validating anything here, but Trump has revealed some truths about American power and America’s place in the world, and the European place in the world here, that are valuable truths. And he did it in his Trumpian fashion.

(Remnick) What are those truths?

So the truths are as follows: Zelensky is looking for security guarantees, which means that not just Ukrainians will die—that people from other countries, European countries especially, will die. The Europeans have not sent a single soldier to the front during the war, and they’re fighting over whether they’re going to send any soldiers, even if there’s a peace deal, an armistice. Poland, which is Ukraine’s biggest backer, has refused to agree to promise to send peacekeepers after the fighting stops, let alone during the fighting. So Europe, God bless, is playing charades. Trump, for all his Trumpy qualities, and we all know what they are—there’s no need to reiterate them, and I’m sure your magazine is full tilt in going after them—has nonetheless shown that it’s put up or shut up on the European side. And even though Putin couldn’t get the Europeans to get their act together, maybe Trump will.

. . . 

And so the question for us is, going forward, how much of this American power is going to be used effectively, competently, as the world is changing, and how much can America rely on others? Because, let’s be honest, European power has declined, Japanese power has declined. It’s not American power that’s declining. It’s our alliances, our allies, who are declining. Our adversaries are not necessarily declining. We can argue about Russia, how deep its decline might be, but in the case of China, we clearly have a peer adversary.

And so what’s the plan? There’s unlimited demand for American power. Hey, let’s bring Ukraine into nato! Hey, let’s do a security treaty with the Saudis! Everybody wants more and more American power, but American power can’t fulfill all its current commitments, let alone make new ones. You remember when our strategic doctrine was to [have the ability to] fight two major wars in two major theatres simultaneously. Then Obama comes to office, and he reduces that to 1.5 major wars in major theatres. Have you ever seen half a major war? I haven’t.

Then Trump comes along, and he reduces it to one major war and one major theatre. So we have alliance commitments—obligations to allies—in at least three major theatres. Our strategic doctrine is we can do one at any one time. Trump is revealing, and in some cases accelerating, a process, where America’s commitments exceed our capabilities, not because we’re in decline but because the alliances that we’re in—those countries, Germany, Japan, and a few others—are not punching at their weight. You can say that Trump is wrong in his analysis of the world. You can say that Trump’s methods are abominable. But you can’t say that American power is sufficient to meet its current commitments on the trajectory that we’re on—and we didn’t even get to the fiscal situation. 

 since the fall of 2022, when the Russians were evicted from Kharkiv, it was really just riot police that were chased out of Kharkiv province. It was not some combined arms operation that the Ukrainians beat—but nonetheless it was successful and impressive. Since then, Russia has controlled nineteen per cent, roughly, of Ukrainian territory, more or less. That’s more than two years. They’ve lost seven hundred thousand people [dead and wounded], gaining nothing in those two-plus years.

Now, you ask yourself: How sustainable is that over the really long term? And the answer is, Putin keeps throwing lives into the meat grinder—now it’s North Korean lives—because the Ukrainians have fewer lives to throw up against him. Ukraine doesn’t need Abrams tanks. They got them and they didn’t help. It doesn’t need F-16 planes because they can’t fight in the battlefield against Russian anti-aircraft. Ukraine needs five hundred thousand eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds, and nobody’s sending them. But again, Russia needs the same thing. They need either to get Ukraine to capitulate, which it’s refused to do, remarkably, or they need to get others to force Ukraine to capitulate, which I don’t think anybody can do. So Russia’s in this holding action. Putin is willing to go as long as it takes, but Russian society—maybe not.

(Remnick): Then how does this end?

Who thinks it’s going to end? It started under Catherine the Great, when, in 1783, she conquered Crimea. We’re in the middle of a longer-term trajectory here. People think this is going to end: Ukraine can take some territory back, and Russia’s going to capitulate. They’re going to win on the battlefield. The primary problem of this from the beginning has been the idea that Ukraine was going to win this on the battlefield, rather than somehow apply the kind of political pressure to force an armistice that was favorable to Ukraine, meaning they could retain the sovereignty that they defended when they defended their capital, Kyiv, and they could invest in reconstruction and attempt the kind of South Korean trajectory from the armistice in the Korean War. That’s been the play from the beginning. It’s still the play now. 

(Remnick) In other words, the outcome that’s possible, and that ends the meat grinder, is like a divided Korea: a divided Ukraine.

That’s the good outcome. The bad outcome is Ukraine loses its sovereignty; it recognizes Russian annexations of the territory that Russia controls and even beyond the territory Russia currently controls; it’s forced to put limits on the size of its military so it’s defenseless; it cannot join an international security alliance or form any security alliance whatsoever. Those limits on Ukrainian sovereignty amount to capitulation. That’s not peace; that’s peace-on-the-knees, right? That’s what Putin is now “willing to negotiate.” He was not willing to negotiate a peace in which Russia kept control over Ukrainian territories but nobody recognized them as Russian. Ukraine put no limits on its military so it could defend itself if fighting resumed, and Ukraine could join any organization that was willing to take them and that they were qualified for, whether currently existing or future existing. That’s the favorable armistice that we’ve been hoping enough political pressure on Putin would deliver. We are nowhere near that right now. We should have been working toward that for years now, and we haven’t been.

 

3/8/2025

 Saturday, March 8, 2025

D+121

1917 US Senate introduced the Cloture Rule, requiring a two-thirds majority to end debate, at the urging of Woodrow Wilson

1934 Edwin Hubble photo showed as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars

2018 US President Donald Trump authorized tariffs on steel and aluminium, excluding Canada and Mexico

In bed by 9:45,  awake and up at 6 a.m. !!!.  27°, high of 46° predicted.

Prednisone, day 321; 4 mg., day 4/21; Kevzara, day 4/14. 2 mg. of prednisone at 6:05 a.m. and 4 p.m.  Other meds at noon 

Geri is sleeping at 6:15 a.m. as I write this.  She is into the 8th week since the knee replacement surgery, she still has not regained full flexion and extension of the knee, nor is she yet without recurring pain.  She is using the  cooling machine again.'  She doesn't complain but notes that in these last 8 weeks and in the almost 11 months since this odyssey started, she has lost some energy or vigor.  She is 6 weeks away from her 81st birthday.   She got up this morning at 7:20 and said she felt "better." . . . She has been diligent about her exerises the last two days.

949 is the number of entries I have made in this journal since 2022.  That number might be slightly inflated since I believe I copied and pasted a few, perhaps several, comments I made to various articles in the Washington Post during the George W. Bush regime.  I also included a copy of my eulogy for TSJ, which made me wish I had retained copies of my eulogies for RJA and Roland Wright.  In any event, when I started making daily entries on this platform at the very end of July 2022, I wondered whether I would keep it up for a full 30 days. I underestimated my 'hypergraphia,' which Wikipedia tells us is "a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write or draw. Forms of hypergraphia can vary in writing style and content. It is a symptom associated with temporal lobe changes in epilepsy and in Geschwind syndrome."😱  I've written something in the journal every day for more than 2 and ½ years, a poor substitute for my years of early morning text message exchanges with Kitty.  On several occasions, I've written about why I continue to write each day, self-analyses subject to all the weaknesses or flaws of any self-analysis.  I thought of another good or probable reason just a couple of days ago but failed to write it down and, alas, it's now forgotten, perhaps forever.   I have started to wonder whether all this writing is just a product of boredom, loneliness, and occupational uselessness, which is to say, having nothing else to do.  I can't read books or magazines anymore, except on my laptop,  because of my failing eyesight, presbyopia, dry eyes, and eye strain.  Would Anne Frank have kept her diary if she hadn't been locked away from the outside world?  I assume Charles Darwin kept his diary on HMS Beagle for scientific reasons, as part of his data collection and record keeping.  What accounts for Samuel Pepys keeping his extensive diary for so many years even though he was very busy pursuing his livelihood every day?  That is a real mystery.  Bob Graham, former governor of Florida and U.S. senator, was famour for his little pocket notebooks in which he recorded not only his activities for each day, but what he ate, what he wore, his weight, his location (down to the room), with whom he met, what they discussed, etc.  Mere eccentricity?  Is it a temporal lobe disorder? Obsessive-compulsive disorder?  Is it a practical necessity in the hyper busy and hyper connected life of a US senator?  A protection against poor memory? One from column A and one from column B?

A reminder.  Years ago, I had an insight that has served me well ever since.  I used to get upset, momentarily at least, when I encountered a driver driving "like a lunatic," wildly speeding, dangerously changing lanes, tailgating, whatever.  But then I thought, "Hey, maybe that guy (it's almost always a guy) is on his way home because his child hurt himself or herself badly and needs to be taken to the hospital."  Or, maybe his wife has fallen down the basement stairs and needs his help.  Don't be so quick to judge the guy as a jerk or an asshole when you have no idea why he is driving like that.  I had one of those experiences this morning as I drove up to the Metro Market to get ice for Geri's ice/water machine that helps her with the swelling and pain in her knee.  A driver on Port Washington Road sped by me, wildly swerved from the far left land to the far right lane, had to stop for a red light at Mequon Road, and then made a jackrabbit start just as the light turned green.  I thought, "I bet he's on his way to CSMO hospital because of some emergency."  No judgment.  A couple minutes later though I saw him pulled into the Shell gas station to gas up or get a carwash, leading me to think 'I guess he's just a jerk, an asshole.'  But then I thought, 'Maybe there was an emergency at the gas station.'  We never know what's going on in the crazy driver's head that leads him to drive like a lunatic.  Be slow to form a judgment, especially one that causes a knee-jerk negative emotional response.

Another reminder.  I drove up to Hong Anh's this evening to pick up our order of sweet-sour shrimp.  There were 5 men waiting for their orders, 3 of them seated.  One old man  noticed the way I walked in, and offered me his chair.

We were canvassed twice today, by a Schimmel supporter at about 3 and a Crawford supporter at 4.