5/22/2025

 Thursday, May 22, 2025

D+176/121

1950 Richard Strauss' "4 Last Songs" (4 letzte Lieder) premiered in London

2016  President Barack Obama arrived in Vietnam for a 3 day tour

2022 Report released on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, detailed 20 years of suppressing many allegations 

2024 Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced they will formally recognize a Palestinian state on 28 May, joining nine other European countries 

In bed at 10, half-awake at 4:25, and up at 4:50.  46°, wind chill = 36°, high of 53°, cloudy.  

Prednisone, day 372; 1 mg., day 14/21; Kevzara, day 10/14; CGM day 5/15; Trulicity 6/7.  Prednisone at  5 a.m.  Other meds at 6 a.m.  Triamcinolone at 7 a.m.   Eye drops at 5 a.m., 2 p.m.,  and 9 p.m.

Thank God for birds.  I need something to lift my spirits this morning.  Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal are busy on the flat feeder.  A male goldfinch is on the niger tube while a female goldfinch is plucking nesting material from the big cotton ball atop it.  House finches are feeding on the sunflower/safflower tube, and a ruby-throated hummingbird has been visiting Geri's hummingbird feeder.  Red-bellied, hairy, and downy woodpeckers have been busy at the suet cakes, and I'm almost sure I just spotted an Eastern bluebird there.  An elegant mourning dove is looking for scraps on the ground while a robin is feasting on the worms that have emerged from the saturated lawn. The voracious chickadees are visiting all the feeding sites.  A Baltimore Oriole has shown up, not for the orange halves I put out, but for the hummingbirds' sugar water and for the cotton nesting!  A blue jay has taken his fill of suet. None of the birds has read the papers this morning or watched Morning Joe.

I posted this on FB this morning and received reactions from Caren 

G., David L., and Cheri B.

Murder at the Jewish Museum, Israel, and anti-semitism.  Last night, two young staff members of the Israeli embassy were shot to death outside a social function at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.  The shooter, a man from Chicago, shouted "Free Palestine" as he killed them.   All the talk I am hearing this morning is about anti-semitism, not about anti-Zionism, or anti-Netanyahu/Smotrich/Ben-Gvir government of the State of Israel.  Is the murderer an anti-semite?  Most probably, but it may not be his anti-semitism that provoked the crime, but rather the actions of the genocidal government of the State of Israel.  There's a difference, though a great many won't believe or admit it.

The House has passed Trump's "big, beautiful bill."  Big tax cuts for the wealthy and even bigger for the super-wealthy.  Big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps.   The legislation is projected to cause around 10 million Americans to become uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  "There's nothing surer: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  In the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun."  All the Democrats voted against it; all the Republicans, save 2, voted for it.  The vote was 215-214.  If it were to become law, the bill would increase annual deficit spending and add trillions to the national debt.  Additionally, another 13,000,000 Americans would become uninsured according to the Congressional Budget Office.  Madness.  We are being taken to the cleaners by the oligarchs and plutocrats. USA, USA, USA!!!

Another ambush in the Oval Office.  Trump ambushed South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing his country of having a policy of White genocide, not Black-on-White crime, but government-sponsored genocide.  He even had a monitor present in the Oval Office so he could show a video of radical members of the SA legislature calling for the killing of White farmers, though the legislators are not members of Ramaphosa's government.  He also showed a video of white crosses lining a highway, placed there as a memorial to White farmer deaths, and falsely claimed they marked gravesites of White farmers.  This stunt, along with the expedited admission of White South African emigrants, is ample evidence of Trump's White Nationalism and his racism.

Geri has left for Kate's house in Urbana.  She had hoped to be on the road around 8, but didn't leave until 9:30.  I will be nervous until I hear from her.  I suggested that she consider staying at Kate's until next Tuesday to avoid the traffic on Memorial Day and the end of the three-day weekend.  I suspect I will be at 6s and 7s the whole time she is away, but I'll see.

Just when you think tings can't get any worse  . . . Of course, I don't really fool myself that things can't ever get worse with Trump and his minions in control of the federal government, but I hthought that this morning's bad news about the murder/assassination of the young Jewish couple in Washington plus the news of passage of Trump's "big, beautiful budget bill" was enough terrible news for one day. Dayenu.  This afternoon I learned that the Trump administration has revoked Harvard University's right to enroll foreign students.  This is a major blow, financially and programmatically, for Harvard and a terrible injustice.  “I am writing to inform you that, effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked,” according to a letter sent to the university by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary.  About 6,800 international students attended Harvard this year, or roughly 27 percent of the student body, according to university enrollment data.   “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”  This is a devastating blow to Harvard and its foreign students and a huge injustice, probably even more devastating than a revocation of its tax-exempt status.  I lack the words to express the outrage I'm feeling over this.  I think of those thousands of foreign students who have had their lives and educations so disrupted.

5/21/2025

 Wednesday, May 21, 2025

D+175/120

1956 WITI TV channel 6 in Milwaukee began broadcasting

1964 The US began intelligence flights above Laos

\\1972 Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome was damaged by a vandal

1979 Dan White was convicted of the voluntary manslaughter of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay councilor Harvey Milk. The conviction on a lesser charge outraged the gay community and led to the White Night riots.

In bed around 9:30, awake at 4, and up at 4:27.  46°, wind chill 35°, high of 48°.  Rainy conditions all day, like yesterday. 1 inch of rain in the last 24 hours, 0.65 in. expected in the next 24 hours.  NE wind, very uncomfortable.   

Prednisone, day 371; 1 mg., day 13/21; Kevzara, day 9/14; CGM, day 4/15; Trulicity, day 5/7.  Prednisone at 4:45 a.m.  Other meds at 8:35 a.m.  Triamcinolone at 8:10 a.m.   Eye drops at 5 a.m., 2  p.m., and 9 p.m.    

Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, O'Keeffe, Pickles, and Clausen!!!😂

Minnows in the bait bucket

1. We act as if Mexico is a great danger to us because of its heavily armed drug cartels.  Why don't we realize and admit that we are a great danger to Mexico because of our massive drug purchases and gun sales?  No purchases = no sales.  No sales = no sellers.  

2.  Last night's film was on MUBI, from Columbia, 2015, Land and Shade or La Tierra y La Sombra, the story of a family, a grandfather who left the family farm years ago but returns to help as his son is dying of lung disease from living and working on a sugar cane plantation.  Simple in the extreme, but a powerful critique of the family's and the land's movement from agrarian farming to corporate, capitalist sugarcane production.  The land destroys its workers. who are wage slaves with no worker welfare protection, and the plantation economics destroys the land.

3.  Yesterday afternoon, after painting Charlotte, I re-watched the third episode of Adolescence, the episode in which the psychologist interviewed Jamie.  Incredibly powerful acting by the 15-year-old Owen Cooper as a 13 or 14-year-old Jamie Miller.

4. As I got out of bed this morning, I thought of Geri's leaving tomorrow for her well-deserved visit with her lifelong friends, Kate Dugan Donovan and 'Tuzz' McAvoy Healy.  I realized that I am already feeling a bit forlorn or bereft, anticipating how empty our home and my life will seem without her presence.  I recalled how I felt when I was living at the Knickerbocker and she left for the job in Seattle.  I was happy for her and very much wanted her to take the job, but once she was gone and I was alone, I realized that the empty, sad feeling I experienced was what is meant by the word 'forlorn.'  She will be away for only 5 days on this trip, including two travel days, and I very much want her to go and to enjoy the reunion.  Long-term friendships are treasures and a credit to those who maintain them, but I expect I will be a leaden lump while she's gone, especially without Lilly to keep me company.  (How we both miss her.)  We've spent more than 40 years together, and I'm not worth much without her in my daily life.  I think of our friend Micaela and her long struggle with loneliness and lack of companionship since Tom died.  I think of the DNR discussion with Dr. Saladi and the possibility that Geri could have left Zablocki that day a widow, like Caela.  I think of Jimmy Aquavia without Nancy, Jimmy Cummings with his Nancy, my Dad without my Mom, and I realize how much we couples do indeed bond with each other,  a bit like chemical bonding, very different from mere mixing.  We're something different together from what we are individually, perhaps not like water is different from hydrogen and oxygen, but still . . . 

5.  I rarely really read the morning papers anymore.  I used to read them pretty thoroughly, at least reading all the headlines to see whether there was an article of interest buried behind the front page or lead stories.  New York Times, Washington Post, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, every morning.  Sometimes the Wall Street Journal, sometimes The Independent out of London.   Now I only look at the headlines of the main stories and then read only a few of them.  Donald Trump has succeeded in dominating the headlines and the column inches of the print media and the bulk of broadcast news.  I realize that most news is bad news (murders, fires, floods, etc.), but there is something not merely depressing but frightening about Trump news.  We can accept the fact that devastating 'acts of God' will occur, and that random acts of criminality occur, but in Trumpnews, we are witnessing the planned, purposeful destruction of the country's constitutional order which, imperfect as it is, is infinitely preferqble to Trumpian autocracy, autocracy, and plutocracy.  We are witnessing the creation of the world our children and grandchildren will live in, under not merely an always imperfect government but a cruel and indecent one.  I avoid reading the news about it for the same reason I avoid negotiating the basement stairs, because it's painful and threatening, and there is little I can do about it.

6.  Having said I rarely read newspaper articles anymore, I read an op-ed by Dr. Racael Bedard in this morning's NY Times, "Denial Is a Bad Strategy if You’re an Aging President."  It's about 82-year-old Joe Biden's situation with his metastatic prostate cancer, and also, by inference, about 78-year-old Donald Trump's situation.  It's also indirectly about me approaching age 84.  For us people of advanced age, and especially for those of us who are also frail, Dr. Bedard endorses hoping for the best and planning for the worst.  She warns against using the psychological defense mechanism of DENIAL, a refusal to honestly acknowledge and face up to the existence of a painful or threatening condition, like a child covering his eyes.  Dr. Bedard is, I think, way too gentle in opining "it’s hard not to think that he, and the people around him, were partly operating out of denial."  In the almost three years that I have been keeping these daily notes, I have often written harshly about Joe Biden, his ego, his narcissism, his lust for power, prestige, and status.  I have compared him to Trump, although Trump is infinitely more culpable.  Reading this op-ed by a geriatrician and palliative care physician drives home again how profoundly selfish, imprudent, and dangerous it was for Biden to run for reelection, and for his wife, son, and intimates to defend and encourage him.  He, more than anyone other than Trump himself, will be blamed, and justly so, for all the evils that follow upon Trump's second term of office.

7.  I've been thinking about the 1st commandment today, not a lot, but a little.  " 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”  It's the very first of the 10 commandments, given by the Almighty Himself to Moses and the nation of Israel, and thus prior to and foundational to the 613 commandments constituting Halakah, or the Jewish law.  With its reference to "other gods," it can be understood as suggesting there are many gods, and the God of the Israelites is just one of them, though the special and exclusive god of this people.  There were other supposed gods in biblical times, Baal, Asherah, Dagon, Marduk, Moloch, and others. like the Golden Calf.  Eventually, Judaism became wholly monotheistic, believing there is only one god and that the others were not only false but wholly imaginary.  We have come to believe that the first commandment commands that we not place any desired good above our duty to obey God's other commandments.  The other perceived good could be anything that takes priority over obeying God's law, forbidden sexual  pleasure, greed, covetousness (thy neighbor's wife, thy neighbor's goods), revenge,  etc.)  Matthew 22: 36-40:

 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Does Donald Trump obey the First Commandment?  Does he love God above everything?  Does he love his neighbor as himself?  What gods reign in the White House?  What gods reign in Congress?  Who or what is Elon Musk's god?  How is it possible that Trump, Musk, and their acolytes have the support of people who call themselves Christians?  From today's New York Times:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth led a Christian prayer service in the Pentagon’s auditorium on Wednesday morning, during working hours, in which President Trump was praised as a divinely appointed leader.

The event, billed as the “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service,” was standing room only and ran for about 30 minutes, with Brooks Potteiger, the pastor of Mr. Hegseth’s church in Tennessee, as the main speaker.

 It is unclear whether the Defense Department has hosted similar religious events outside of the Pentagon’s chapel, which was added after the 9/11 attack, but the service is part of an increasing infusion of overt Christian evangelization in official government events during Mr. Trump’s second term.

“This is precisely where I need to be, and I think exactly where we need to be as a nation, at this moment,” Mr. Hegseth, standing at a lectern bearing the seal of the Defense Department, said in his opening remarks: “in prayer, on bended knee recognizing the providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.” He added, “Knowing that there’s an author in heaven overseeing all of this, who’s underwritten all of it, for us, on the cross, gives me the strength to proceed.”

“King Jesus, we come humbly before you, seeking your face, seeking your grace, in humble obedience to your law and to your word,” Mr. Hegseth prayed after asking attendees to bow their heads. “We come as sinners saved only by that grace, seeking your providence in our lives and in our nation. Lord God, we ask for the wisdom to see what is right and in each and every day, in each and every circumstance, the courage to do what is right in obedience to your will. It is in the name of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray. And all God’s people say amen.”

In his sermon, the pastor [Potteiger] said, “We pray for our leaders who you have sovereignly appointed — for President Trump, thank you for the way that you have used him to bring stability and moral clarity to our land. And we pray that you would continue to protect him, bless him, give him great wisdom.”  He added: “We pray that you would surround him with faithful counselors who fear your name and love your priesthoods.”

As I often say, God help us, but we know he won't.  That's the bad news.  I suppose the good news is that we can't blame him.  We have done this to ourselves.

 

 

 

5/20/2025

 Tuesday, May 20, 2025

D+174/119

325  First ecumenical council of Christian bishops at Nicaea, Asia Minor

1969 US troop captured Hill 937/Hamburger Hill in Vietnam

1970 100,000 marched in NY supporting US policies in Vietnam

1980 710 families in Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York were evacuated due to the lingering effects of prior use as chemical waste disposal site

2017 President Donald Trump began his 1st foreign trip  to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

In bed at 10, and up at 4:15.  46°, wind chill 30°, high of 48°, wind gusts up to 38 mph.  Brr!

Prednisone, day 370; 1 mg., 12/21; Kevzara, day 8/14; CGM, day 3/15; Trulicity, day 4/7.  Prednisone at 4:35 a.m.  Other meds at 6:05 a.m.  I applied Triamcinolone to my leg at 6:45 a.m.  Eye drops at 6 a.m.,  3:45 p.m., and 9 p.m.   I suspect I will run out of one or both eye drops before I complete the post-op regimen.  I frequently miss my eye when squeezing the tiny, rather rigid bottles that contain the anti-biotic and the steroid. Pathetic.  I better send a message to Dr. Saladi to inquire whether I should get refills.  

O, happy day!  Yesterday, I retrieved my gouache paints and watercolor brushes from my basement 'studio' where I took them a year ago or more, thinking I would do all my painting down there instead of doing my gouache work on the desk in my bedroom.  Now I resist going into the basement becasue it's been so cold (dry, thank goodness, but cold) because it's so far from my bathroom (ICE, in case of emergency), and because the stairs are always a challenge.  In any case, I did my first gouache painting yesterday and today, a copy of the self-portrait by Charlotte Salomon that is the cover art on her magnum opus, Charlotte, Life? or Theater?  I used my lightbox to trace the outlines of the portrait on a piece of watercolor paper so my artwork is as sophisticated as a kid drawing between the lines in his coloring book, but I enjoyed drawing between the lines in coloring books when I was a little kid and clearly I still do and, O, it feels good to play around again with paints and brushes in my room.  The child is father to the man, and all that.

Big world, small wold.  Sarah is on a work assignment in Seoul, South Korea, on her way to Tokyo, 2 cities in China, Los Angenes, Las Vegas, and Austin, TX, before returning to Bavaria, having circumflown the globe.  Christian is working in Talinn, Estonia.  On Thursday, Geri leaves for 4 days in Champaign-Urbana, IL to visit with her college pals.  I have purchased another cushion for my recliner so I sit even higher  on it than before and have an easier time getting up from it, though I don't often do that. 

CBS News seems about to settle with Trump.   Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News, has resigned in a disagreement between her and the corporate management of Paramount Global and its controlling shareholder, Sharai Redstone, which owns CBS News.  It appears Paramount is about to settle Donald Trump's $20 billion bogus lawsuit against CBS News for editing its  60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris during the 2020 presidential campaigns.  The suit is widely believed to be frivolous and vexatious, designed to instill fear into television news programs that cover Trump and everything related to Trump.  ABC has already settled another frivolous lawsuit from Trump for $15 million.  The executive producer of 60 Minutes resigned last month, citing unacceptable corporate interference with editorial decisions about Trump.  Paramount Global is attempting to complete a corporate merger that must be approved by Trump's government in order to be effected. The proposed merger with Skydance Media would pay Redstone $1.5 billion for her controlling shares.  'nuff said.  One more nail in the coffin of constitutional democracy.  He  is very clearly working toward total social and political domination - the Republican Party, the Congress, the courts, the mass media, the legal profession, the major universities.  His weapon is the combination of money and political power.  Money and control of the MAGA base to primary Republicans who don't toe the line.  Money and governmental power to bring the law firms, mass media, Big Tech, and universities to their knees.  Also business corporations seeking exemptions from tariffs.  So much for institutional guardrails.  So much for checks and balances.  And he has only begun his 4 year term.  Can the courts save us?  Don't count on it.

Am I crazy as I think that Trump is like the blinded Samson, bringing down the temple around him in his deep-seated rage to get even with every person, company, and institution that has hurt him in his long life?  His niece, Mary Trump, has called him 'the most dangerous person in the world' and warned that he would 'burn down the house' if he thought he was losing relevance or not the center of attention.  I suspect however that he is most dangerous when he can employ all the powers of the presidency and the federal government to exact revenge on those he considers his enemies.  When asked in a radio interview during the 2016 presidential campaign for his favorite bible verse, he said "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," but that's not good enough for him.  "Anyone who hits me, we're going to hit them 10 times harder," he said to Sean Hannity during the 2024 campaign.  He has a lust for vengeance.  I suspect that he is even willing to hurt himself so long as he can hurt his perceived enemy worse.  He has already done more damage to the United States of american and its people than I could have imagined.  How much more will he do over the next 3 and 1/2 years?  God help us (but we know He won't.)

5/19/2025

 Monday, May 19, 2025

D+173/118

1961 Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev makes his Paris stage debut with the Kirov Ballet

1962 "John Birch Society" single by Chad Mitchell Trio hit the pop charts

1983 36th Cannes Film Festival: "Narayama Bushiko" (The Ballad of Narayama ) directed by Japanese director Shohei Imamura, won the Palme d'Or

1992  Dan Quayle attacked Murphy Brown for being a single mother, a poor example of family values

In bed at 1:30, awake around 4:30, and up at 4:45. 42°, wind chill 31°, high of 50°   

Prednisone, day 369; 1 mg., day 11/21; Kevzara, day 7/14; CGM, day 2/15; Trulicity, day 3.7.  Prednisone at 4:50 a.m.  Other meds at  6 a.m.  Eye drops at 5 a.m.,  p.m., and   p.m.   

Those Winter Sundays

• 
• 
• 
• 

Robert Hayden

1913 – 

1980

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made 
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he’d call, 
and slowly I would rise and dress, 
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, 
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know 

of love’s austere and lonely offices?     

I first encountered this poem in Garrison Keillor's anthology Good Poems.  I suppose eead person has his own definition of what makes a poem good or not.  Most of the poetry that I have read means nothing to me, or worse than nothing because it's an irritant, inpenetrable, unintelligible, dense as a brick.  But some poems kick me in the stomach.  Whitman's Come Up From the Fields, Father, Yeats's Vacillation, and this one by Robert Hayden  This poem came to mind this morning because I thought of Geri's being so concerned that she leave me properly provisioned when she leaves Thursdy for her four day visit with her friends Kate Donovan and Tuzz, who will be flying in from Dublin.  Her conscience won't be at ease unless she leaves me with the fixings for a proper evening meal for each day she is gone.  She sees no humor in my joke that I can get along just fine on Graham crackers and peanut butter.  I can be trusted to deal with my own breakfasts and lunches, but dinners are her bailiwick, and she needs to be sure that I am properly equipped, provisioned, and instructed before she leaves.

Mostly, however, this poem reminds me of my own father. this poem and another, When My Dead Father Called, by Robert Bly.  Both poems trigger emotions in me that are too deep and tangled to express 

When My Dead Father Called

Last night I dreamt my father called to us.
He was stuck somewhere. It took us 
A long time to dress, I don't know why.
The night was snowy; there were long black roads.

Finally we reached the little town, Bellingham.
There he stood, by a streetlamp in cold wind,
Snow blowing along the sidewalk. I noticed 
The uneven sort of shoes that men wore

In the early Forties. And overalls. He was smoking. 
Why did it take us so long to get going? Perhaps
He left us somewhere once, or did I simply \
Forget he was alone in winter in some town?

 

 Who  is the most hated man in America?   Can there be be any doubte that it is Donald J. Trump?  For a while, it may have been a toss-up between him and Elon Musk, but with his Tesla fortune crashing, Elon is fading from notoriety and Donald once again reigns supreme: the most hated man in America.  I thought of this as I read Jeffrey Toobin's op-ed in this morning's NY Times, "Trump Has His Law Firms Right Where He Wants Them."  Trump has brought to thier knees nine of he country's largest, wealthiest, and most powerful Big Law firms.  We can't expect anyone to shed a tear for these elite lawyers who, for the most part, represent the monied interests of the world, but Toobin points out the very pernicious effects Trump's power plays on the firms have on the rest of the country.  Trump has also threatened the existence of the nation's major research institutions, notably, the best and most productive reseach universities.    He has threatened the military establishment through the depradations of his acolyte Pete Hegseth, and done the same to the federal law enforcement establishment through Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.  He has damaged not only the high and mighty but also the low and needy by threatening Medicaid, food stamps, and all sorts of federally funded safety net programs including FEMA, and by destroying USAID, which saved millions from lige-threatening illnesses and starvation.  There are so many way by which Donald Trump  works against the common good, the general welfare, the well-being of the nation and the world, it is impossible to list them.  I compare him to other national leaders who have worked against the interests of their people and think of the WWII Axis leaders, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, and Stalin, and Chairman Mao.  Unlike them, Trump has not directly caused the deaths of millions of his own citizens, but very much like them, he has no concern for his own people, only for himself and his cronies.  I draw a blank when I try to think of the second most hated man in America, except perhaps for Musk.  I dispair when the consider that probably the most admired man in American is also Donald J. Trump.  Formatting glitch.😡

5/18/2025

 Sunday, May 18, 2025

D+172/117

1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state triggered the largest landslide in history, killing 57 people and causing over $1 billion in damage

1994 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip

In bed at 9, awake at 4:50, and up at 5:10.  49°, cloudy, high of 53°.  

Prednisone, day 368; 1 mg., day 10 /21; Kevzaara, day 6 /14; CGM, day 1/15; Trulicity, day 2 /7. Prednisone at 5:15 a.m.  Other meds at 5:30 a.m..   Eye drops at 5:20  a.m., 2:30 p.m., and  p.m.  

My morning meandering mind.  I woke up thinking about last night's dinner date with Micaela at the Peruvian restaurant in Shorewood and about how challenging it is to run a restaurant business.  That got me wondering whether Shorewood, and indeed each suburb, had its own health department inspecting restaurants, which got me thinking about metropolitan government, which got me thinking about urban vs. suburban living, and the fact that, except for my time in the Marines, I had lived in cities my entire life until it was time for Sarah to go to high school, when I moved to Shorewood so she could attend Shorewood High School and avoid the Milwaukee high schools.  Shorewood H.S. was racially integrated, not because of the housing demographics in Shorewood, which was overwhelmingly White, but because of the State's Chapter 220 Program that permitted and encouraged minority students from Milwaukee to attend suburban schools.  But Shorewood schools were predominantly White and Milwaukee high schools were increasingly predominantly Black and the measured academic achievements of students in the two systems were markedly different, favoring Shorewood.

Sarah and her brother Andy had both attended Garfield Avenue Elementary School in Milwaukee's "inner city."  It was a majority Black school, with an integrated faculty.  Sarah's first teacher was a Black woman who had grown up in the South and had experience picking cotton.  Anne and I were both pleased with Sarah and Andy's education at Garfield, and at their next MPS school, Hartford Avenue, where Sarah started both her study and eventual mastery of German and her interest in theater, two interests that combined to support the career she has been in for more than 30 years.  But it was at Shorewood High School that she was able to pursue and develop those interests to a much higher level and to carry them onto the University of Wisconsin, where she earned the BFA and MFA degrees that led to her lifelong career in lighting. design and technology, headquartering her efforts for the last 15 years in Bavaria.

In any event, while looking back on Sarah and Andy's educational histories and the impact of Milwaukee's federal court ordered desegregation plan requiring busing school children all over the city and the creation of somewhat gimmicky specialty schools designed to attract mainly White students, I started wondering whether it was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1954 that really started the extreme social and political polarization that we are now living with.  From last night's Peruvian dinner in Shorewood to America's polarization, Trumpism, and the end of democracy?  It's quite a leap, or a meander, but I wonder if it isn't the case that Trump and Trumpism started with Brown v. Board of Education.  This may be just another way of asking whether, despite the variety of issues on which 'red Americans' and 'blue Americans' divide, isn't the most basic polarizer in American culture and politics Race?  Hasn't it always been so?

In 2020, Stuart Stevens published  "It Was All A Lie: How The Republican Party Became Donald Trump."  Stevens was no amateur political analyst or academic theoritician; he had managed 5 Republican presidential races, won the nomination in 4 of them, and won the presidency in two of them.  He's a pro, an insider, 70 years old, and a native of Mississippi.  He wrote:

[Donald Trump] is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party has become over the last 50 or so years, a natural product of the seeds of race,  self-deception, and anger that became the essence of the Republican Party.  Trump isn't an aberration of the Republican Party; he is the Republican Party in a purified form.

The epigraph of his first chapter is a quote from the Republican dirty-trickster, Lee Atwater:

 Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger". By 1968, you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. 

It wasn't mere happenstance that Atwater mentioned 1954.  That was the year of Brown v. Board of Education, which first affected de jure public school segregation in the South, but eventually extended to all public schools, including, of course, Milwaukee's.

Nor was it happenstance that Stewart combined race and anger as components of the essence of the Republican Party.  No other issue more affected Americans "where they live" than forced racial integration, more benignly pitched as desegregation, and none more intimately than school desegregation and forced busing of children.  The combination of Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was a death blow to Democratic dominance in the South and eventually beyond the South to the Plains States and to all similarly inclined voters. No other issue stirred anger and resentment like government-enforced racial integration in schools, neighborhoods, and places of public accommodation.  It was viewed as a loss of a right to freedom of association and as an assault on majority rule and traditional democracy.  More than any other issue, it gave rise to charges of "communism," "Marxism," "socialism," and "reverse discrimination" thrown at programs intended to benefit any minority group, including women, and any economically needy group, i.e.., poor people, like food stamps and Medicaid.  I try to think of any issue or set of issues prior to Brown v. Board, that triggered similar deep-seated anger, resentment, and feelings of oppression and grievance, or that led to massive shifts in political allegiences, and I can think of none, not any of FDR's New Deal programs or even Harry Truman's desegregation of the military.  Nothing had an impact like Brown v. Board and what followed it.  So I suspect I'm right that it was Brown v. Board of Education that really started the extreme social and political polarization that we are now living with.  It was Brown and its progeny that led to Trump and Trumpism, and as Stuart Stevens wrote:

In my first race [in 1978], I had stumbled onto a truth as basic and as immutable as the fact that water freezes below 32° Farhenheit: race was the key in which much of American politics and certainly all of Southern politics was played.

So it was then, so it is now, and so it goes. 

It's a beautiful, sunny Sunday - chilly, slightly breezy, but beautiful all the same.  It's also very quiet.  Geri has been out shopping much of the afternoon, partly to get food for the week and partly to get ready for her trip to Champaign-Urbana (I can't remember which) to visit with her Mount St. Clare college buddies, Tuzz and ??? for about 4 days, a little vacation long overdue.  It's so quiet that I've been wishing for something to write about, but striking out.  Then, while lazily looking out the window, I spotted a dull orange bird on the hummingbird feeder.  I wondered whether it was an oriole, but its coloring seemed to dull.  Then an unmistakable oriole landed on the feeder, and I guessed the duller one was its offspring, still brightening up.  Then another one or two swooped by.  I got out of my chair, went into the kitchen, sliced a nice, plump naval orange in half, and went out to mount the two halves on two shepherd's crooks.  I'll keep my fingers crossed for some more oriole action.  Even if that fails, I know the house finches love the oranges.

Nest Eggs

Robert Louis Stevenson

Birds all the sunny day
Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
Tent of the laurel.

Here in the fork
The brown nest is seated;
Four little blue eggs
The mother keeps heated.

While we stand watching her
Staring like gabies,
Safe in each egg are the
Bird's little babies.

Soon the frail eggs they shall
Chip, and upspringing
Make all the April woods
Merry with singing.

Younger than we are,
O children, and frailer,
Soon in blue air they'll be,
Singer and sailor.

We, so much older,
Taller and stronger,
We shall look down on the
Birdies no longer.

They shall go flying
With musical speeches
High over head in the
Tops of the beeches.

In spite of our wisdom
And sensible talking,
We on our feet must go
Plodding and walking.

                                            

X

 

5/17/2025

 Saturday, May 17, 2025

D+171/116

1954 The US Supreme Court's unanimous rule in Brown v Topeka Board of Education reversed the 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy v Ferguson decision ruling 

1977 Menachem Begin's Likud Party won election in Israel

1980 Major race riot in Miami, Florida - 16 were killed, and 300 injured

2000 We arrived in Gualdo, Italy

In bed at 10 and up at 5:45.  50°, some rain todsy, high of 60°, wind chill of 38°.    

Prednisonw, day 367; 1 mg., 9/21; Kevzara, day 5/14; CGM, day 14/15; Trulicity, day 2/7.  Prednisone at 6 a.m.  Other meds at   ? a.m.  Eye drops at 6 a.m.,  2 p.m., and 9 p.m.

The Sanctuary and Pilgrimage Site of LaVerna,   We visited on May 16, 2000, and stayed overnight at an austere guesthouse a mile or so down the mountain.  For the faithful, it is a place of prayer and veneration.  For others, it is still a place for some deep thinking about Faith, especially Christianity, and miracles.

The day so far has been sort of comatose-y, a bit braindead, lethargic?  out to lunch?  Not feeling bad, not feeling good, not feeling much of anything, except when I read JJA's description of their time in Como, and looked at her terrific photos.  They all reminded me, of course, of our two stays in Como, at the beginning and tail end of our 2 week vacation there in May 2000.  Twenty-five years ago today, we arrived at our rented farmhouse outside Gualdo in Marché.  The day and night before, we had been at the Franciscan Sanctuary at La Verna, or Alverno, Francis's mountain hideaway.  It was there that he is said to have received the stigmata.  It was also there where he is said to have "wrestled with the Devil" side of the mountain, which I perhaps too facilely interpret as his struggling with suicidal impulses.  It seems safe to believe that he was not only a physical wreck but also a mental/spiritual wreck.  His followers were rebelling not only against his rule of extreme austerity but also against his leadership.  They were all crazy by contemporary standards, and even by the standards of the day, although the religious beliefs of the day provided some validation to spiritual withdrawal and 'monkishness.'  The same is true today, though today we are quicker to think 'cult' and 'mental illness.'  In any case, I was and am a fan of Francis.  I don't find it all that hard to sympatize with desire to say "fuck it" to the society in which he lived and check out.  For me, it's the impossible daydream of moving to the North Woods with no newspapers, radio or television, hoping to go entire days when the words "Donald Trump" are never spoken, never heard, and ultimately never even thought of.  It seems like a form of Heaven, though I would still be left with my own demons.  No matter where you go, there you are, and all that. But back to Gualdo.  We spent a week in that farmhouse, using it as a base for further explorations on the Adriatic side of the Apennines, including my favorite hill town, San Ginesio.  I will start re-reading my copious notes of that trip.

But, speaking of Heaven, I'm sitting on my recliner, looking out the window at a tiny green-hued hummingbird filling up at Geri's new feeder, watching a male goldfinch stuffing as much nesting material as he can fit into his beak from our cotton ball to fly back to his nest, and watching a mourning dove calmly feeding in the flat feeder.  Yesterday, as I stood in my bathroom, I looked out the window to see a male wild turkey walk across our patio.

Dinner with Micaela tonight at C'Viche in Shorewood.  We got there at 6 & were done by 7:30.  Lovely..

5/16/2025

 Friday, May 16, 2025

D+170/115

1990 Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov, the creators of the M16 rifle and the AK-47 rifle respectively, meet in Washington, D.C.

2004 Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kyiv, Ukraine where during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians

2017 I started using  CPAP

Lights out at 10:30, up at 5:45.  58°,  high of 76°, sunny after yesterday's severe storm left 3,500 without power in Milwaukee County, 6,500 in Racine County, tornado damage in Dodge County,  

Prednisone, day 366; 1 mg., day 8/21; Kevzara, day 4/14; CGM, day 13/15; Trulicity, day 7/7.  Prednisone at 6:45° a.m.  Other meds at 10:55 a.m.  Eye drops at 6 a.m., 10:40 a.m., and 8 p.m. Trulicity at 10:30 a.m. 

A thought.  If I were a poet, I'd be moved to write a poem this morning about the remaining flower petals falling off the flowering trees around our house after last night's big winds.  They look like big, fluffy snowflakes falling to the ground.

Another thought.  Why am I not a poet?  A short story writer?  A novelist?  A sculptor?  A potter?  Why did I come to painting so randomly and erratically?  Why am I not a dancer or an actor?  For all of us, how much is nature and how much is nurture?  How much is education?  How much is opportunity?  How much is chance?   How much of each of us is shaped by our early environment?  How much by wealth or poverty?  Is Robert Sapolsky corrcct, that "free will" is an illusion and that our lives are all determined for us, not by us?  Is Mary Trump correct that Donald Trump was created by his father Fred Trump, and all the other pernicious forces working on him in his childhood, youth, and later life?  If Sapolsky and Mary Trump are right, should we loathe Donald or feel sorry for him?  Or is the very question based on the erroneous assumption that it is up to us to decide whether we will love him or hate him?  What would Jesus say?  John Calvin?  The Grand Inquisitor? Buddha? Sigmund Freud?

                   Invictus

BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

Don't bet on it. 

Another good visit to the VA.  I saw my ophthalmologist, the lovely Dr. Nikita Saladi, this afternoon and my eye looks (double meaning😊) AOK.  On my way out, I had a long chat in the waiting room with a career Navy hospital corpsman in a wheelchair.  He was missing all his fingers and thumbs from frostbite.  He had lived in the Old Soldiers' Home before moving to (I suspect) public housing in Oak Creek, originally from Tomah, WI, where his father was the chief psychiatrist at the VA Medical Center there till he died at his desk. His mother was also an MD.  It was good schmoozing with him and if I had been sitting instead of standing, I would have continued until he was called in for his examination.  Even before I became engaged in the conversation with the corpsman, I thought again, as I seem always to do, of all the individuals sitting in the waiting room, each unique, each with a life history behind him and an unknown future in front of him, each of them, each of us, inherently interesting simply because he or she is a human being with unique influences shaping him or her.  What were the family and tribal influences that contributed to his personality?  What was his schooling, and what did he think of it? How did he come to be in the military?  Why the Army, or the Navy, or the Marines, etc.?  How did that experience shape him, especially his time in Vietnam?  On and on, one question after another, exploring a lifetime that led him today to this waiting room in the VA Medical Center in Milwaukee.  When I schmooze with another vet here, it's usually swapping brief stories of our time in the service, where and when we served, what we did, etc.  The chats are always brief, sometimes in an elevator, otherwise in a waiting room.  I often wish I could get to know the guy better, to know whether he is outliving his friends, to know whether he (like me) could use a friend his own age, with similar military experiences, etc.  Maybe one of these days, . .

 .Earl and his buddy Clyde, schmoozing, like old guys like to do.