1/24/24

 Wednesday, January 24, 2024

In bed at 9, awake at 4:02, and up at 4:20.  33°, high of 37°, cloudy.  Dense Fog Advisory until 10 a.m. with patchy freezing fog in some locations.  Little wind blowing NE off the lake.  0.35 in. wintry mix in last 24 hours.  Sunrise at 7:15, sunset at 4:52, 9+37.

Treadmill; pain.  Woke up with the normal pains, including my right wrist which I realize isn't going to go away on its own, wondering about a wrist brace but waiting until my appointment with the VA PM&R clinic next week.  30:01 & 0.67 at 11 a.m. watching the beginning of a 2-hour documentary on OVID re ISIS members.  Plus 30:14 & 0.70 for a daily total of 60:15 & 1.37.

I'm grateful that I am not preparing a eulogy today, as I was one year ago for Tom.  The long days between Tom's sudden death, Caela's asking me to deliver his eulogy, and his funeral were hard ones, harder than I could have imagined.  Physically weak and in pain, beset with worries about the eulogy, experiencing dizziness and dry mouth from the amitriptyline prescribed for my CPP/IC, and sleepless nights.  My journal notes from 1/24/23:

Eulogy anxiety.  I've never been very good at public speaking.  Since Tom died 7 days ago, I've semi-dreaded being asked to do a eulogy.  One, it's of course painful to compose the eulogy, to try to wisely select among a thousand competing memories, to relive some of those memories, mostly good but some not so good.  How to compose a narrative that is honest and respectful, suitably somber, but at least somewhat human and humorous.  Not all that easy.  And when there is time, there are different drafts to try to improve an initial miserable one.  Second, there's the delivery aspect, actually speaking the narrative before the gathering for whom it is intended.  This is my biggest anxiety producer.  My voice has been weak for about 2 weeks, so weak that I've written my primary care doc wondering about esophageal cancer in light of my long term Barrett's Esophagus.  She had me stop taking the amitriptyline first to see if that helps and I think it has but my voice is still very much 'iffy.'  Then there's the problem os unpredictable IC/CPP pain and discomfort that usually or at least often has me not wanting to leave the house.  I've told Geri that I don't expect to attend the burial because I can't be out and about, away from facilities, that long.  Plus possible balance problems navigating the terrain.  I wish I were stronger, healthier, in better shape.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Spring and Fall . . . 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 wíll 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.

 Tom's was the last eulogy I've delivered.  He also occasioned the first many years ago when he asked me to deliver the eulogy for JSJ's inamorato, whom I had met only once.  The memorial gathering was at Villa Terrace and I knew hardly any of those in attendance, including the deceased's parents.  It was a daunting challenge and I was duly daunted, but I managed to do it well enough that JSJ and the parents were pleased with my remarks.  I also eulogized my friend Roland Wright at St. Francis of Assisi Church and my friend and mentor Ray J. Aiken in the old courtroom at the law school.  I didn't save either of those eulogies, but I wish I had.  I remember saying of Roland how modest and self-effacing he was, how he would brush aside any praise that was directed his way, but that at his funeral gathering, he had to listen to the words of praise from those who loved him, including me.  Of Ray J., I remember remarking on the fact that the music at his funeral service was Precious Lord, with the lyrics "I am tired, I am weak, I am worn" and how hard it was for me to think of him as other than the strong, vigorous, often combative man that he was before age and Alzheimer's exacted their toll from him.  And I suppose the words I spoke in Kitty's living room at her house in Glendale at our family gathering after our Dad's death were a eulogy. We had a grieving circle and passed a 'speaking stone' around the circle.  We were a small group and   I don't recall what I said in addition to what a toll the World War and Iwo Jima took on him.  Now Kitty is gone too and I did not get to eulogize her in death although I did my best to sing her praises in life when I posted this on Facebook on her last birthday:

 

 On this date in 1944, in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, a beautiful and courageous and saintly 21 year old mother, who was one of God’s gifts to this world,  gave birth to a daughter who was destined to become an image of her mother, beautiful, courageous, and saintly, another of God’s gifts to the world.  When Mother Mary brought the precious daughter home to her little basement apartment, her waiting brother, about to turn 3 years old, is reported to have said “Take her back.  She doesn’t play.”  That was just the first of many mistakes that almost 3 year old brother would make in his life, but he learned soon enough that that new sister of his, would become over the course of 2 long lifetimes, his best friend, his confidante, his soul-sister as well as his biological sister.  He would come to love and admire her as she grew into a woman like their mother: beautiful in so many ways, courageous in so many ways, and saintly in so many ways.  As they grew older and older, with lifetimes of living behind them, the brother would share his belief in the saintliness of his sister with their father, who would chuckle because he sometimes saw her when she was impatient, or ‘bossy’ or angry at one thing or another, and the now-old brother would suggest to the even older father that he just didn’t know what real saints looked like.  The saintly sister herself would join in dismissing the idea that she was St. Kitty of Emerald Avenue and the brother would have to remind her and their father that real saints aren’t God and they are not angels - they are all human beings who get impatient, ‘bossy’, and even angry at times.  What makes them saints was described by Jesus in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of St. Matthew:  I was hungry and you gave me food.  I was thirsty and you gave me water.  I was sick and you cared for me.  I needed a home and you took you into your home.  So of course the brother, who had made many mistakes in his own life over many years, was not mistaken in describing his sister, who he loved so much, as a Saint.  Nor is he mistaken in thanking God for giving him the blessing of his  beautiful, courageous, and saintly sister, so very much like their dear mother.🙏❤️

 

I am thinking of Kitty today, and of our Mom and our Dad, and of Roland Wright, Ray J. Aiken, and Tom St. John.  They are all gone now but each of them was a blessing in my life, each in very different ways.  I am grateful for and grateful to each of them.

I gave another eulogy of sorts but not at a funeral or memorial service but rather as an introductory speech on February 11, 1997,  to the first of a series of lectures at Marquette Law School.

 "UNCLE BOB": INTRODUCTORY REMARKS TO THE INAUGURAL ROBERT F. BODEN LECTURE

CHARLES D. CLAUSEN

I felt honored last week when Dean Howard Eisenberg asked me to reminisce for a few minutes this afternoon about the man for whom this lecture series is named, Robert F. Boden. I was honored to be an opener for Professor Daniel Mandelker's main event, and to play a supporting role in this inaugural Boden Lecture. Secondly, and more personally, I was honored to be asked to share some thoughts about a man who was so important to Marquette University Law School and to me personally. So when Howard asked, I immediately said "yes."

    Saying "yes" was the easy part. As this date and event approached, I had to deal with the problem of what to say about this remarkable man who led the law school for more than seventeen years. To me and to a decreasing handful of veteran faculty members at the Law School, Bob Boden was a flesh and bones friend, co-worker, teacher, and leader. To those who came to the law school after 1984, when he died at age 55, he is the discarnate former dean after whom the Boden Courtroom, the Boden Chair, and now the Boden Lectures are named.

    I have chosen not to speak about the accomplishments of Dean Boden mentioned in the printed invitation to this inaugural lecture: the growth in the size of the law school faculty and administration under his leadership, the expansion of the physical plant,, the growth in the law library's collection, his many writings on law, the legal profession and legal ethics.'  As impressive and significant as his accomplishments were in terms of bricks and mortar, the faculty size and strength, volumes in the library, 

 and in terms of his own scholarly and always elegant writings, I do not believe that those achievements explain why we are here this afternoon, thirteen years after his death, honoring his memory.  It was rather, I think, attributes of his heart and soul-his character- that cause us who knew him and worked with him at the law school to hold the memory of him so dear and to recall him this afternoon.

    Bob Boden was a born teacher. Regardless of the role he was in -  professor, dean, writer, law reformer, advocate, counselor, Bob was a teacher.  So, I devote these few minutes to speaking about what Bob Boden taught his students and his faculty not about Law, but about Life-what he taught us, not by lecture, article, or book, but by living example.

    Bob Boden taught us compassion and generosity and service to others, and he taught gently and by example. He taught us pride in our profession, and he taught gently and by example. He taught us, gently and by example, about humility and the value of a sense of humor. And he taught us, always gently and always by example, that these virtues can be united and can co-exist in a person with power and prestige and high status, even in a lawyer, even in a law professor, even in a university dean.

    Dean Boden had three nicknames. All of them were affectionate, two of them were humorous and one was the most revealing. He was called "Dean Bodeen," a simple rhyming play on his name and title. He was called "Dean the Dream," after the Marquette basketball star Dean Meminger. And he was called "Uncle Bob." Uncle Bob. What a wonderful nickname. It suggested family, affection, approachability, and a caring relationship. It was a perfect nickname for Bob Boden.

    When law students had serious troubles with grades, or finances, or with other personal problems, they usually ended up in the Dean's office, not always seeking but always receiving help. Sometimes the help was money, sometimes from his own pocket. Sometimes the help was becoming one of the legion of Dean Boden's last-semester- of-law-school research assistants who needed a couple of credits with a high grade in order to graduate with their classmates. Always the help included patient listening, caring, and compassionate counseling. He was the same way with faculty members, who were experiencing hard times: death of loved ones, serious illnesses, divorce, all the various kinds of heartaches that Life brings to people over many years. We will never know how many people over his seventeen years as Dean sat in his office needing help of some kind and getting it. He would not talk about it; he was a great respecter of confidences. We know about it from the people he helped. I hear such stories to this day, talking to alumni. Uncle Bob.

    Bob taught us pride in our chosen profession. He was an academic through and through, but he was a lawyer first and last. He described the law school as the teaching arm of the legal profession and he saw professional education as different in kind from other university education. He liked lawyers and lawyers liked him. He believed in lawyers as trustworthy counselors, social facilitators, protectors of human dignity, and justice seekers and peacemakers. To the extent that lawyers were like that, they were like him, a good lawyer and a good person. If they were not, he would tell you they betrayed a public trust.

    When a young faculty member named Janine Geske (now Justice Geske), came to him in 1979 and said she wanted to open a law clinic for elderly citizens in the downtown area, sponsored by the law school and the Roman Catholic Church's Gesu parish, he supported her strongly, despite some vocal opposition in different quarters. For years, that clinic provided help to our neighbors, many of whom had nowhere else to turn, while at the same time providing professional education to our students that could not be replicated in the classroom. He believed that what our faculty and students did in that clinic represented the legal profession at its best, not simply as a learned profession but as a helping profession.

    He had no use for lawyer jokes, or for lawyers whose behavior would give rise to lawyer jokes. He was a dignified, high-minded, and public-spirited attorney at law, as well as a professor of law and dean.

On the other hand, he taught us by his example about humility and being able to laugh at yourself. As proud as he was to be a lawyer, a professor, a dean, an Irishman, a Catholic, a part of the Marquette family, he was personally humble. He referred to himself as "Uncle Bob." He poked fun at himself. When I first came to the law school thirty years ago, the school had its own full-time maintenance and custodial worker, called in those politically less sensitive days a janitor. At the law school, we enjoyed the services of a janitor named Ed, who was referred to as Ed the Janitor. Ed looked surprisingly like Dean Boden: same height, same build, similar facial features, even a similar distinctive manner of walking. The Dean delighted in the rumor that he and Ed the Janitor were brothers, and that Ed got him the job as dean. He delighted even more in relating the rumor that every year they switched jobs. (Of course, there were some times when he would have loved to have switched jobs with Ed, at least for a while.) He taught us not to take ourselves, regardless of title or position, too seriously.

    In The Education of Henry Adams, Adams wrote: "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.'  Thirteen years post-mortem is hardly an eternity, but it is a nice start. And, after all,

this is only the InauguralBoden Lecture. Adams also wrote: "A friend in power is a friend lost." Bob Boden's life proved that, at least for those with capacious souls, power and real friendship can co-exist.

That is my thumbnail sketch and reminiscence about Robert F. Boden. To know him was to like him, and thousands did. To know him well was to love him. I do not know how many loved him and miss him to this day. There are a great many. I am blessed to be one of them.

1/23/24

 Tuesday, January 23, 2024

In bed at 8:35, awake at 3:25, and up at 3:55 to do a load of laundry and to clean up the dishes, etc., from last night's lamb dinner.  Sat down at 4:30.  31°, high of 34°. WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY: slushy snow up to 2 inches and ice accumulations under 1/10 inch, or less along Lake Michigan.  Little wind.  Sunrise at 7:15, sunset at 4:51, 9+35.  Solar noon at 12:03, altitude 28°.  Lilly got up to go out at 5:40.

Treadmill; pain.  Normal wakening pain in back and shoulder, pain in right wrist appears to be getting worse.  It's hard to hold onto anything with my right hand.  At 5 p.m. 30:01 & 0.64 watching a one-hour interview on John Mearsheimer on Israel/Gaza and Russia/Ukraine..

I'm grateful that Sarah will be in town this weekend.

Modern life; Western civilization.  I took a look at yesterday's journal entries before printing a copy and noticed the similarity between Chris Hedges and Alan Jacobs, i.e., each is appalled to some degree with modern life and Western civilization.  Jacobs claims to be confused and frightened by modern life, unlike Hedges who seems thoroughly convinced of its rottenness.   It's interesting that each of them is a professed Christian, Jacobs an Episcopalian and Hedges a Presbyterian.  Reading and listening to writers like them comforts me into thinking that I am not mentally ill in my pessimism and cynicism about our times and our species.  O tempera, o mores.  Or is it just that we live in the same silo?

I haven't read Hedges' book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, but it's interesting that it was published in 200, during the George W. Bush administration, and it recognized the growing political strength of the Evangelical Christians who would bring us Donald J. Trump in 2016 and perhaps (probably?) again this year.

The clearest difference between (some) Republicans and (some) Democrats.  In a recent Gallup poll, 81% of Republicans favored the death penalty for those convicted of murder, while 32% of Democrats did.  So much for the "pro-life" MAGA crowd.  The Trump administration put to death 13 people by lethal injection, the first executions by the federal government since George W. Bush was president.  OTOH, last week, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, who campaigned on ending the federal death penalty, said it would seek the death penalty against a white gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack on a supermarket in Buffalo.  Make another one of your shabby Catholic signs of the cross, Joe.   "In Catholic teaching, the state has the recourse to impose the death penalty upon criminals convicted of heinous crimes if this ultimate sanction is the only available means to protect society from a grave threat to human life. However, this right should not be exercised when other ways are available to punish criminals and to protect society that are more respectful of human life.—USCCB, A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death.

On Thursday evening, Alabama is going to take another stab (Forgive me, Father,  . . .) at executing Kenneth Smith for the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett.  Mrs. Sennett's husband, a Christian pastor, had hired Smith and two other men to kill his wife.  The jurors who convicted Mr. Smith voted 11 to 1 to spare his life and instead to sentence him to life in prison, but a judge overruled them and condemned him to death. In 2017, Alabama stopped allowing judges to overrule death penalty juries in such a way, and such rulings are no longer allowed anywhere in the United States.  Alabama will kill Smith by nitrogen hypoxia, a novel method of killing.  The crime was committed more than 35 years ago.  What a country we live in.  

AI at work, predictably.   The New Hampshire primary is revealing the future in at least one way: today, New Hampshire voters are reporting that they have received robocalls with a deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice telling them not to vote.   The worst is yet to come.

The weather is terrible today.  I went to the library and to Sendik's and experienced slush and ice everywhere.  The weather should be dipping below freezing on Wednesday and Thursday nights creating a lot of ice.  Dreadful. 

1/22/24

 Monday, January 22, 2024

In bed at 11, up at 6.  24°, high of 33°, windy.  SEVERE WEATHER ALERT:  slick roads with wintry mix and glazing.  The wind is SSW at 15 mph, 5-15/29.  Wind chill 12°, 9 to 26°°,  Sunrise 7:16, sunset 4:50,  9 +33.  Solar noon will be at 12:03, altitude 27°.     

Treadmill; pain.   Woke with normal back and left shoulder pain, and worse pain in my right wrist.  30.18 & 0.60  at 3:30 while watching an interview of an international law expert on Israel's and America's liability vel non under the Genocide Convention.  The interviewee was a signatory to a brief filed in a case before some American court against Biden, Blinken, et al., for failure to exert the country's influence on Israel to prevent genocide.  I'm surprised at the huge number of programs on YouTube dealing with Israel, Gaza, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.  Earlier in the afternoon I watched a 50-minute speech by Chris Hedges, former NYTimes reporter, on what he claims is Israel's genocide in Gaza.  Years ago I read one of Hedges' books ("War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning")  He left reporting (or more likely was given the boot), attended Harvard Divinity School, and was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church.  He condemns not only Israel and the United States but also Western civilization with its White supremacy, corporatist, capitalist, morals and ethics.

I'm grateful that it is this year and not the last when I was beside myself with Tom's unexpected death and the challenge of eulogizing his life.  My journal entry on this date last year:

In bed at 9:15, unable to sleep, up & on recliner till 11:30 or so, back to bed till 3:45, unable to sleep, back up & on recliner, thoughts of Tom coursing through my brain, worries about weakened voice, CPP, IC, ability to deliver eulogy, hold on through funeral, burial, consolation meal.  Worked on eulogy till 5:20, another attempt to sleep on recliner. unsuccessful, up again at 6:10.  Washed some dishes, made Geri's coffee, back to recliner at 6:50.  26 degrees, drizzle, flurries, high of 30, wind chill is 22,  Sunrise at 7:16, sunset at 4:50, 9+34.

It would be hard to exaggerate how troubled and weak I was that week, missing sleep all week, experiencing chronic pain and bladder problems, etc.  As it happened, I made it through the funeral and the eulogy but wisely skipped the burial to take care of my IC needs.  The cemetery wasn't prepared for the burial which ended up taking considerably longer than expected.  After resting at home, Andy picked me up and we returned to Congregation Sinai for the consolation meal where I saw and was able to speak with many old friends.   Looking back on the journal from a year ago reminds me of how long I have been struggling with the IC and CPP and the degree to which the diseases have diminished me.

Notes from Alan Jacobs' blog The Homebound Symphony:

From SCT [Standard Critique of Technology] (1/8/24):  "The basic argument of the SCT goes like this. We live in a technopoly, a society in which powerful technologies come to dominate the people they are supposed to serve, and reshape us in their image. These technologies, therefore, might be called prescriptive (to use Franklin’s term) or manipulatory (to use Illich’s)" . . .  That essay, for me, marked the end of a decade or so of articulating my own version of, or elaborations on, the SCT. For much of that decade I wrote about Technopoly’s demands on our attention, and insisted that we can attend otherwise. . .  

Basically, I’m just a simple caveman; your modern world confuses and frightens me. But one thing I do know: That I ain’t buying what Technopoly (or the Machine, or whatever you want to call it) is selling. 

I feel like Jacobs: the modern world confuses and frightens me.  Worse, I believe that, on balance, it is getting worse, more dominated by technologies controlling and manipulating our lives, more prescriptive, more manipulative, and more fascistic.  I think of my dear brother-in-law Jimmy, both of us in our 80s, sharing the macabre thought that we are glad that our remaining time on earth is short, feeling weltschmerz and fear of the future.   And feeling guilty about what the future may hold for our children, grandchildren, and those who come after.

Dinner at the Goldbergs with Micaela was lovely, as expected.  I was struck by Dan's offer to Caela to come to her house to see if he could help open her garage doors, and by his admonishing me that I should have called him on November 25 when I needed help getting to the VA ER.  

Sarah, dual citizenship; AfD.  Sarah is approaching the 14th anniversary of her move to Germany.  Eventually, she received the German equivalent of her "green card" and permanent residency authorization.  The other day she posted on FB that in the Spring  Germany is expected to adopt a law authorizing dual citizenship, presumably including U.S. citizens among those who will be eligible.  She intends to seek the dual citizenship status.  Yesterday there were huge demonstrations in Germany against the neo-Nazi party, Afd, after it was disclosed that party members have engaged in some planning for mass deportations if they acquire power, including asylum seekers, non-assimilated Germans (whatever that means), and non-Germans with residency rights, which presumably would include Sarah. However, I suspect it is aimed at Turks and other non-Whites brought to Germany to augment the country's workforce.

 

1/21/24

 Sunday, January 21, 2024

In bed at 9 and up at 6 after a rough night with BPS and chronic pains.  3° and a high of 20°, wind is WSW at 9 mph, gusts to 15 mph, wind chill is -11°, ranging today from -12 to +5°°.  Sunrise at 7:07, sunset at 4:49, 9+31.

Treadmill; pain.  Considerable BPS last night, especially at 3, 4, and 5ish.  Last night's chili???  Plus the now normal sore right wrist and left shoulder.  Yesterday I had very few PF spasms.  This morning I am feeling some warning tightness. . . 11 a.m., 30:16 & 0.70 watching another interview re: Israel & Gaza & Palestinians with a UK professor.

I'm grateful to have come upon a blog called "THE HOMEBOUND SYMPHONY" maintained by Alan Jacobs, a professor at Baylor University and before that at Wheaton College.  He is a very thoughtful writer and he already has me reading and thinking about W. H. Auden's poem Atlantis whence Jacobs gets his blog's subtitle: 'Stagger onward rejoicing,' and listening to Rachmaninoff's Vespers.  I'm a big fan of so-called sacred music, especially mass music and most especially requiem mass music.  Despite my disparaging of the Church as an institution, I feel gratitude for much of the art that has come forth from religions, including the Church's abundant contributions.  

    On 1/15/24, Jacobs posted a typically thoughtful piece called "Silence, Violence, and the Human Condition" including this:

Shall we say, then, that silence is complicit in violence? It’s obvious why that is a more defensible argument [than that silence is violence], but it is not as dispositive as people who use it believe. I recently wrote something about Israel and Gaza, but I didn’t do it because people told me that otherwise I would have been complicit in the violence done there – though indeed people did tell me that. I wrote it for my own reasons, not because I felt that I was complicit in anything.

There are more evil things going on in the world than any one person can respond to. You could spend all day every day on social media just declaring that you denounce X or Y or Z and never get to the end of what deserves to be denounced. If my silence about Gaza is complicit in the violence being done there, what about my silence regarding the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uighurs? Or the government of Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya? Or what Boko Haram has done in Nigeria? Or what multinational corporations do to destroy our environment? Or dogfighting rings? Or racism in the workplace? Or sexism in the workplace?

There are two possible responses to this problem. One is to say that I am inevitably complicit in every act of violence I do not denounce, even if it would be impossible for me to denounce all such acts. But that position leads to a despairing quietism: Why should I denounce anything if in so doing I remain guilty for leaving millions of violent acts undenounced?

The second way is better: pick your spots and pick them unapologetically. It’s perfectly fine for people to have their own causes, the causes that for whatever reason touch their hearts. We all have them, we are all moved more by some injustices than by others; not one of us is consistently concerned with all injustices, all acts of violence, nor do we have a clear system of weighting the various sufferings of the world on a scale and portioning out our attention and concern in accordance with a utilitarian calculus.

 

I am grateful for anything that helps relieve my frequent feelings of complicity in all the world's wrongs, from global racism to wasting water while doing dishes.  I do not regret having regret for having lived my life too complacently, for having failed to contest in whatever way might be useful the wrongs of the world, of 'going along to get along.'  But I'm prone to overdoing it and to making myself miserable about all that's wrong with the world and with myself.  Cui bono?

LTMW at a hardy little chickadee in the near zero weather working diligently at getting a seed out of the safflower/sunflower tube.  It is about 2/3rds empty so what remains consists of big clumpy seeds and nuts and an occasional twig, i.e., not the easily nabbed and nutritious white safflower seed or black-oil sunflower seed.  The chickadee's feathers are fluffed out to hold on to some of his or her bodily-generated heat and I marvel at what seems to me to be a miracle, how the tiny birds, or large birds for that matter, are able to survive in weather like ours.  Now a brightly-colored house finch shows up on the tube and a snowbird and a squirrel work the ground under the feeder.  I suffer with my approach-avoidance conflict: to remain on my recliner in my comfortable, warm house or to put some clothes on, walk on the treacherous snow & ice,  and fill the feeder. . . . . The birds win; I fill the feeder. . . . The red-bellied woodpecker shows up to loosen and fly off with a big chunk of suet.  His pecking is so powerful I'm glad he works on the suet cake and not on my head.

More Israel stuff.  I watched a couple long lectures by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on their LRB article and book on the Israel Lobby and its effect on American foreign policy.

Dinner tonight with the Goldbergs and with Micaela.

1/20/24

Saturday, January 20, 2024 

In bed at 9, awake at 4:15, tired but unable to sleep, and up at 4:40, with a badly aching right wrist.  8°, high of 17°, sunny & windy day, wind NW at 15 mph, 8-16/27. wind chill -12 to +3°°.  Sunrise at 7:18, sunset at 4:47, 9+29.   

Treadmill; pain.   The wrist pain has become a troubling problem, extending up into my forearm and a bit into my hand.  It's quite painful, and makes typing on my laptop difficult, anything requiring the use of my right hand difficult, although it aches even doing nothing.  I'm also having some RP, CPP keeping me off the treadmill all morning.  3:15 p.m., 31:19 & 0.70, watching a debate (of sorts) between Noam Chomsky & another about Israel & the Palestinians.

I'm grateful to be alive.  I'm glad that I am breathing and that I don't have to think about it, that my eyelids blink, my heart beats, and my GI system digests and extracts nutrients from the food I eat without my conscious participation.  I'm grateful that I can see and hear and taste and feel not as well as I once did, but well enough to enjoy most of what I see, hear, taste, and feel.  I'm grateful to be sitting on my recliner listening to Geri on her piano, playing softly, beautifully.  It's such a blessing, one song after another from one of her songbooks.  I'm grateful to be able to pet Lilly with both my hands, scratch her behind both ears, rub her back, and massage her shoulders, to feel her with my hands and give her pleasure.  I'm grateful that I can bake a loaf of bread, cook a pot of soup, or fix a couple of "bulls eyes" for breakfast.  

Park Avenue synagogoue, Menachem Rosensaft, ICJ & Gaza.  I watched a one-hour program from the schul featuring Prof. Rosensaft on Shabbat morning, January 13th, speaking on the proceedings initiated by South Africa against Israel for violation of the Genocide Convention.  An honest, fair presentation.  He believes South Africa's case to be bogus in terms of a legal case for genocide because of the absence of the essential element of intent.  He further believes the proceeding was initiated as a means of attacking Israel's treatment of the Palestinians since the 1948-49 Nakba and the 1967 war and subsequent occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.  I suspect he is correct in this judgment.  He offered no opinion on whether the IDF may have a liability for war crimes or a crime against humanity, both of which differ from the crime of genocide.

Trip to Metro Market:  Brrrr!  12°, wind chill 1 below zero.  Worth it to get a loaf of cracked wheat bread, apple fritters, and some muffins for Sunday morning.

1/19/24

 Friday, January 19, 2024

In bed around 10, awake around 3:30, unable to sleep, bait bucket thoughts like last night's, up at 4:30, let Lilly out at 4:45.  1/4 inch of new snow on the ground.  11°, high of 14°, windy day ahead,   The wind is NNW at 18 mph, 10-18./29.  Sunrise at 7:18, sunset at 4:46, 9+27.  We're gaining almost 2 minutes of daylight each day.  Solar noon is 12;02, altitude at 27°

Treadmill; pain.  The usual awakening pains.  I'm wondering whether what has become chronic right wrist pain may be carpal tunnel syndrome.  I'll ask PM&R on the 31st.   30.18 & 0.70 while watching a 1-hour interview of David Levy, former Israeli peace negotiator, on YouTube re: Gaza and Israel.  His view of the future: grim.  Plus 30:07 &  0.68 watching an interview with Gideon Levy, a journalist with Haaretz.  (My TouTube home screen gives me only Israeli 'lefties'; algorithms.)  Daily totals   60:25 & 1.38 miles.

I'm grateful for snow and ice, at least when they are not damaging people, property, trees, and shrubs.  As far as the eye can see, the earth is covered in a clean, white blanket.  Rooftops are uniformly white.  Early in the morning and late in the afternoon, the sun shines through the ice that coats the branches and twigs on trees and bushes, creating sparkles as I drive past them.  Some animals find shelter from the dangerous winter winds in the snow.  That being said, I will nonetheless be grateful when the beautiful snow and ice are gone, for they create great challenges for old-timers.

"The sights you see will drive you mad."   Deuteronomy 28:34   I read "Two Jewish Writers, a Bottle of Whiskey, and a Post–October 7 Reality" by Gal Beckerman in The Atlantic this morning.  It's an edited interview by Beckerman of Ruby (Reuven) Namdar and Joshua Cohen, two Jewish novelists, the former an Israeli living in NYC and the latter an American.  Namdar mentioned this line from Deuteronomy and it reminded me of contemporary life with the massacres of October 7th and those going on in Gaza afterward, as well as the war in Ukraine, scary news about accelerating global warming, the likelihood of Trump regaining power, etc.  Deuteronomy 26 is an extraordinary read and a reminder of biblical warfare and the transactional nature of God's relationship with Israel.  If you do what I tell you, you'll get these blessings.  If you don't, the Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies, you will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her, and because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during a siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you.  It reminds me of King George's song in Hamilton: 'You'll be back, time will tell.  You'll remember that I served you well. . . Cuz when push comes to shove,  I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love  Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da.  Or Tevye's chat with God in Fiddler:  " I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?"

I was an invader, a colonizer, an occupier.   This thought came to me this morning prompted by I know not what.  During my 234 days as a Marine in Vietnam, was I not, from the point of view of the ordinary rice farmer in the field, an invader, a colonizer (in terms of economics), an occupier?   We were invited into the country by a government we had installed, a government controlled by elite Catholics in a country overwhelmingly Buddhist, a repressive, undemocratic government the opposite of the kind of government we professed to be defending.  We were there to impose our will by force, by bullets and bombs, by napalm and white phosphorous, by Agent Orange and other poisons, by 'strategic hamlets' and 'free-fire zones.  How naïve I was, how ignorant and foolish.

Lilly has been sprightly today,  but she stumbles when turning around.  Proprioception?

Jimmy is in the ER again.  My heart aches for him, my dear friend with whom I share bladder grief.

  

1/18/24

Thursday, January 18, 2024

In bed at 10, awake at 3:15 and up at 3:55, unable to sleep thinking of Lilly.  10°, high of 16°, cloudy, wind WNW at 7 mph, 5-15/24, wind chill is -1°, -5 to +6 today.  Sunrise at 7:19, sunset at 4:45, 9+26.  Another 2 to 3 inches of snow is expected tonight and tomorrow morning.

Treadmill; pain.  Considerable discomfort today kept me off the treadmill this morning.   30:12 & 0.70 watching a long interview of Norman Finkelstein by Chrystal Gale re: Israel & Gaza; harsh criticism of Israel's relations with Palestinians.

I'm grateful for the VA's Whole Health Mindfulness Meditation call-in group on Thursday mornings.  The group consists largely of the same individuals each week, with Lou or Mary leading the conversation joined by Bill, a long-time practitioner, Chris, Mike, a couple others, and me.  I think I may be the only participant from the Milwaukee VA Whole Health program; the others are, I think, from the Green Bay program.  The weekly gathering keeps me 'mindful' of mindfulness and is for that reason among others beneficial since I would like to continue working on mindfulness and MBSR.  But I also enjoy simply the fellowship of the small group of old veterans.  It's a get-together, a socializing, an activity I rarely engage in anymore.   

LTMW otoh my neighborhood birds have returned in numbers to our feeders: chickadees, sparrows, finches, cardinals, nuthatches, even on the long niger feeder stuck in snow on the ground since its support wire snapped during an earlier storm.  

Declining bird populations.  The WaPo this morning reports that in Milwaukee the population of cedar waxwings is down 24%, starlings 19%, goldfinches 17%, robins 15%, and mourning doves 12%.  This is distressing news.  OTOH, populations of house wrens, house finches, and downy woodpeckers are up considerably.

My brush with the Milwaukee mafia.  Many years ago, I was kind to a female student of mine (K.B.) who was having some sort of physical or medical problem of some sort during a final exam.  I can't recall now what the problem was or how I accommodated her but it made quite an impression on her because she subsequently propositioned me.  I can't remember clearly the timing and circumstances of the situation except that she invited me to lunch at Snug's Restaurant in the Shorecrest Hotel on Prospect Avenue.  For some reason, which again I cannot recall, I couldn't or didn't simply decline the invitation, but I was uncomfortable about it and her intentions and spoke to Dean Boden about it beforehand, advising him of what I believed her intention to be.  I wish I could remember why I didn't decline, but in any event,, I didn't.  The student was known to the staff at the restaurant.  I think her family were neighbors of the owner, who was Frank Balistrieri, the Mafia boss in Milwaukee with ties to the mob in Chicago and in Las Vegas.  We were seated at what was Balistrieri's table when he was there.  During the lunch, while her intentions were hinted at, I made a point of talking about my wonderful wife and children and making it as clear as I could that I wasn't interested in any liaison and no liaison occurred as I reported back to the dean.  Months later, I received a telephone call from LOA, a classmate from my law school days and a good friend to this day.  He was then an assistant US attorney in Milwaukee and he had some involvement in the prosecution of Frank Balistrieri.  It turned out that Balistrieri's table was bugged by the FBI, my entire lunch conversation with the student had been recorded, and LOA had reviewed it in the course of his involvement with the prosecution.  He laughed about the student's clear if veiled intentions and my clear non-interest.  In yesterday's Journal-Sentinel there was a long story by Mary Spicuzza about the 1977 murder of her cousin, Augie Palmisano, who was murdered by a car bomb in the parking garage of his apartment at the Juneau Village Garden apartments on Van Buren Street.  Frank Balistrieri was widely believed to be the person who ordered the assassination, though he was never charged with it.  The news story described how the FBI had gained access to the Shorecrest Hotel and planted the listening device in the floor under the table where the student and I had lunch.  I wish I could remember today more of the circumstances of his sordid little adventure, and especially why I couldn't simply decline the invitation to lunch, but it all occurred half a century ago,  "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away . . ."

Sweet sour cabbage borscht.  This pot of soup is a real seat-of-the-pants slumgullion.  I threw a can of tomato bisque into it and some ketchup.  A quarter of the broth I cooked last night boiled away because I didn't pay attention to it boiling rather than simmering.  Will it be edible?  any good?  . . . 3 p.m., it's good!😋  An amazingly forgiving soup to concoct.     

Killers of the Flower Moon.  We watched this movie tonight.  Mixed feelings about it.