• Category Archives Politics
  • It’s Insurrection Day!

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. A Mountain night. Cold. 12 degrees. Good sleeping. My bed. My medical guardian. My aleph necklace. Black Bean soup. Great workout. 180 minutes this week. Prolia delivered. Energy level better. Probably rising testosterone. Prostate cancer. Lower oximeter readings. Low blood pressure. Life at altitude. CBE. Parsha Shemot. The first in Exodus. People of the story.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Torah

    One brief shining: Mice are a problem for me though perhaps not in the way you think, they’re a moral hazard because others want me to kill them as does sensible medical advice and I don’t want to do that because hey mice gotta live too and yet I have four Rat zappers which do the job quite well, electrocuting the cute little buggers.

     

    Yeah. I still eat meat, though less and less, yet I do not like killing anything myself. No, that’s not strong enough. I hate killing anything. And I know that that aversion makes me an oughta be vegetarian, maybe even a vegan, but I’ve never been able to go there. Yes, I contradict myself. I know it.

    I finally looked up whether Mice are actually bad and yes in fact they can carry salmonella, hanta virus, and chew through electrical wires. I know one chewed through the plastic water hose that connects to my dishwasher. I guess that means-he cringes at the thought-deploying the Rat zappers yet again.

    The Rat zappers have to be emptied of course. No ducking responsibility. I throw the little corpses over the fence. Ravens come and take them away. At least the Rat zapper does not introduce poison into the ecosystem. And the Ravens like the food. A cycle of nature, yes, but one I’m artificially aiding. At the expense of Mouses lives.

    So. In the end self care trumps Mouse lives. A first world issue for sure.

     

    And other sad news. 2024 is an election year. Maybe, THE election year. Maureen Dowd in a column today invoked Oscar Wilde about fox-hunting: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible” to describe the two likely candidates for President. Too close to true. I’m either an optimist or simply deluded but I cannot, will not believe that Trump will win. I know he can, that’s pretty damned obvious; but I believe that the true beating hearts of America will not allow it. Evidence? Not so much.

     

    Well, it’s Insurrection Day again. A day that, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, lives on in infamy. Right? Well, no, not according to Republicans who swallow lie after lie after lie. There was an interesting article in the NYT the other day. 1,240 people have been arrested over January 6th. 350 cases are pending. 170 have been convicted at trial while on 2 have been found not guilty. 710 plead guilty and of those 210 plead to felonies. More than 450 0f those have gone to prison for various lengths of time ranging from a few days to 20 years. And, the article says, those 1,240 may be only half of the eventual arrests and indictments in an ongoing investigation. NYT, January 4, 2024.

    How anyone can conclude that with only 2 out of 1,240 found not guilty, and with that number likely to double in the coming months, that nothing bad happened when “patriots marched at the capital” I don’t know. All those courts, judges and lawyers at work affirming time after time the larger crime that happened one perpetrator by one perpetrator. 170 juries.

     

     

     

     

     

     


  • It’s a New Day, It’s a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: The Shema. Hebrew. Decoding. Learning a language. Ooph. Sinking into the New Year. Great Sol blazes across another Colorado blue Sky. Black-eyed Peas. Black Beans. Black-eyed Pea soup. Cooking. In my remodeled kitchen. Tom’s poems and his depth. Mario’s optimism and self-confidence. Paul’s will and intellect. Bill’s steadiness and insight. The Ancient Brothers. Five years or so of honesty, authenticity, compassion, and love. Diane in Taiwan. Great photos. Tara and her skill as a teacher. My friends.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Soup in Winter

    One brief shining: Yes oh yes each morning a resurrection, each day a new life, new chances for love and justice and compassion, for leadership in your own heart, for doing what you can, surrendering when you must, for standing out as the unique and irreplaceable one that you are as part of the one that envelops all in its sacred embrace.

     

    Leaning into the Jewish idea that each morning is a resurrection from the one-sixtieth of death that is a night’s sleep. Each day is a new life we could even say a new year since it’s the only time you have this new year, this day. What is your kavanah, your intention, for this new life you’ve been given? Yes, given. You woke up, didn’t you? Grief teaches us about the wonder and awe of this simple pleasure, waking up. And about the opportunity it is. This is not just any day, it’s a new day!

    Perhaps we should set aside New Year’s resolutions. As if we didn’t know that already, right? Instead let’s make new day intentions. Maybe find a bit more joy than yesterday. Imagine if you could find just a bit more joy each day. What could you feel like at the end of a month?

    Perhaps a bit more calmness. Not a lot. You don’t have to wind down, be chill in every moment. No. Take a breath now and then today. Try that 4-7-8 breathing or some other calming technique. At least once. See if it helps.

    In my case. Give focused attention to Hebrew while at Tara’s. Prep that black-eyed Pea soup for the MVP group tomorrow night. Consider driving into Denver to Listenup and buy a new cd player. Smile at that Lodgepole soaking up the heat and energy from Great Sol. Be easy as I do all these things. Not pressing as I might. Not pushing. Flowing with them. Letting the Water of my day find its own path to the gentleness of evening.

     

    And, in other news. In an 8-7 decision Israel’s Supreme Court had its Marbury v. Madison moment and came down on the side of judicial authority. We’ve not heard the last of this one. Also, a Korean presidential candidate got stabbed in Busan. Japan had another quake, a 7.6 with many aftershocks. Tsunami warnings in Japan and Korea. And 45’s star continues to rise among the ranks of the Grand Old Party. May it go nova and turn into a political black hole for all of them.

     

     


  • Oh, what fun it will be

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: the Dark. 2023. 2024. Years. Months. Days. Calendars. Mayan. Gregorian. Julian. Lunar. Jewish. Chinese. Rice cakes in Korea. Our need to carve up the invisible, time, into smaller and smaller bits. Nanoseconds. Then, for contrast: Eons. Epochs. Ages. Time obsession. Time zones. A 24 hour day. Standard time. Daylight Savings Time. Dawn. Dusk. Midday. The Noonday Devil. What if we just let it all be?

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Watches and Clocks

    One brief shining: New Year’s eve that special time with the ball in New York City with that never empty shot glass at that dingy bar on some lonely street or with friends in silly hats and noise makers, boo 2023, 2024 making promises it cannot keep, protection from the ravages experienced at the hands of 2023 an Et tu Brutus of a year for sure with me here at home, listening to classical music, eating steak Diane, reading poetry.

     

    2023. Let’s look back. Or, maybe not. Cheer up. Things could be worse. So I cheered up and sure enough 2024 came along with the most under anticipated, unwanted, yet most consequential election in our nation’s short history. Can you imagine the backrooms of the dark money folks getting ready to spend big on neuroscience approved ads? Or, the gleeful hackers in the crumbling 19th century mansion near some Russian backwater army post wringing their hands, ready to hit those keys and change American hearts and minds with lies and false facts. Perhaps you prefer to create a vision of young Chinese men and women fitted out with the latest and fastest in screaming cybermachines, driven by software and algorithms unthinkable only months ago. All of them aimed at your heart. Your mind. Our democracy.

    Yes, our elections are not just for us to steal anymore. Sure, we’ve still got the operatives like Karl Rove or Lee Atwater or most damaging, the guy or woman you’ve never heard of who does things you’ll never hear about, quietly and with small knives. All that crashes toward us, but the storm surge, made outsized by those far away, now contains literally our worst enemies, too.

    Oh, what fun it will be.

     

    Anyhow let’s look backwards for a moment. Highlights of 2023. Colorado made psilocybin and other hallucinogens legal. Wolves got reintroduced here. Our Supreme Court and a district court both said out loud and officially that 45 fomented insurrection. And our Supreme Court banned him from the ballot because of it. Our snowpack was far above average. I went under three times and came out Israel. Mary made it back to Malaysia. Mark has found joy in teaching. Diane went to the Redwoods, Gold Rush country, and Taiwan. I went to Korea. My son and his wife moved to Songtan from Hawai’i. Murdoch, too. I saw that magnificent bull Elk in the rain. At night. Our economy avoided recession. A23a broke loose from its moorings and took off on an adventure. Earth herself ran a fever. A lot of people fell in love, got married, had babies. Did good deeds. Mitzvahs. Lived their ordinary lives in ordinary ways.

    Final thought about 2023. All sacred.


  • A Bold Return to Giving a Damn

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Tara. Her new puppy. Cold. Snow. Sleep. Gabriella. A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm. Amazon. New Phone. Wallet. 2024 on the way. Poetry. Road Less Taken. Lines Written at Tintern Abbey. Kubla Kahn. Notes on a Supreme Fiction. Circles. Leaves of Grass. Ozymandias. The Raven. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. The Wasteland. Song of Myself. The Second Coming. And so much else.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry

    One brief shining: The end of another year approaches, our penchant for deciding calendar dates as the always orbiting Earth’s journey around Great Sol continues, brings us to Pope Gregory XIII who chose in October of 1582 in his well known Papal bull: Inter gravissimas to change the rules for leap years to prevent the Julian calendar’s drift away from the solar holidays, oh you didn’t know, well neither did I but Wikipedia did.

     

     

    Gabriella. My adopted Axolotl. She’s swimming in the chinampas canals along with other wild Axolotls who will repopulate the ancient waterways of Xochimilco. I get excited about this project because it’s both the reintroduction of a wild species into its former habitat (see the five Timber Wolves released a week ago in western Colorado) and a project that supports indigenous farming methods healthy for the chinampas themselves. This kind of work will enable our grandchildren to have their best chance to adapt to a warming World.

    A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food relates the story of Will Harris and his disillusionment with Big Ag 30 years ago. The successful transition of his family’s farm to regenerative farming makes compelling reading if you care about the source of your food. This farm is in southwestern Georgia, but it’s an example, not singular.

    The USA Regenerative Agriculture Allliance, Inc trains farmers in regenerative practices. Yes, it’s about good food, food raised without pesticides, fertilizers and other “inputs” that defy the natural cycle and deplete the soil. But, it’s also about how to live in a warming World. Someday regenerative agriculture will use the perennial grains and other crops under development at the Land Institute.

    Want to volunteer in the work of Ecosystem restoration? Look at the Ecosystems Restoration Communities website. They do restoration projects all over the world. The expertise and practical knowledge developed as these organization go about their own individual missions will become the Seedstock for a World that can no longer afford any depletion of natural capital.

    What’s natural capital? An accounting method. That’s right. Accounting. The Natural Capital Project at Stanford University develops accounting methods that define the value of Ecosystems, Oceans, the Water cycle, Forests. Why is this important? Regenerative agriculture is a good example. Corporate farming, by far the dominant model in the U.S. and in most of the World, treats Soil, Crops, and Animals as so many widgets to be manipulated for increased profits. Their accounting methods do not have to take into account the value of the Soil, the Rain, the need for dna diversity in both food Crops and Animals. They don’t have to reckon with the future costs of ruined Soil, the dangers of monocultures in such critical crops as Corn, Wheat, Rice. Maybe they’re not as profitable as they think.

    OK. I’ll stop. For now. But I will return to these adaptive approaches that will help Ruth and Gabe survive in a much changed world.

     


  • All the grandchildren will need them

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: The Geminids. The Sky. Outer Space. The James Webb. Orion. Aquarius. Polaris. The Crab Nebula. Fusion power, may its potential become reality. The Darkness before a Winter Dawn. Fog. Driving through a Cloud. Prostate cancer as a chronic disease. Phonak. Split keyboards. Wireless mice and keyboards. My desktop, old faithful. With me since 2016. Cernunnos.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My sibs

    One brief shining: On the seventh day of Hanukah I will take out eight beeswax candles, small tapers, and starting from the right place them one at a time until all but two candle holders have a candle, the eighth candle, the shamash, lies in front of the menorah ready for its servant role as bringer of fire and light to the other seven candles, when the others burn the shamash will go in its central holder, ready if needed.

     

    Still learning. Supposed to light the candles from left to right, always start with the new light. This festival honors a small group of Maccabean soldiers who liberated the temple in the second century b.c.e. The Temple menorah had only six lights plus a shamash, the helper and, in addition, the Mesopotamian Sun God. An interesting conflation.

    The Temple menorah burned oil and was to be kept lit always. The Seleucid’s occupying the Temple had let the Temple menorah go out. The only oil that could be used in the menorah was oil that had been blessed. There was only enough for one day. Yet it burned for eight days so the story goes. Enough time for the priests to return and bless more oil.

    Jews celebrate this holiday to honor the Maccabees and their small force that returned the Temple to the Jewish community. Thus, it’s a holiday signifying the power of even a small group of dedicated people. Yes, the miracle of the oil. But for most, not the main point. A minor holiday in most ways except for its confluence with the Christmas season and its emphasis on lights.

     

    Another interesting confluence. My beeswax candles for the menorah and the climate conference in Dubai. 200 nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Cynical me: Finally. Probably not in time. Glad me: Finally. The right direction.

    We must emphasize adaptation, too. Adaptation to the results of climate change will have to proceed apace with the efforts to rein in carbon emissions. My own energy and money will focus there. I used to have a front line seat and intention to stop coal, get legislation passed, keep the oil in the ground. No more. There are plenty of young activists doing that. May they succeed.

    Me? I want the axolotl population to increase. Perennial food grains to go into the soil all over the world. Institutions like the Land Institute to get more and better attention, funding. I want those farmers willing to wrestle the land back to its non-fertilized, non-Roundupped state to start buying land back from corporate farms and feed lots. I want the DNA of all food crops to diversify again, away from the monocultures sold and owned by seed companies and pharmaceutical giants. I will support all of these efforts in my own way, both financially and politically.

    Why? Because a world changed by a climate heated beyond our experience will need all of them. My grandchildren will need all of them. All the grandchildren will need them.

     


  • Making my way in

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Hanukah. Candles. Dreidels. Gifts. Menorah. The Maccabees. Masada. The lamp that remained lit. Lights. Devali. Christmas. Hanukah. Kwanza. The Yule Log. All that brave standing against the dark. Standing with the dark. Only two weeks to the Winter Solstice, the best day of the year. For me. Yes, the light becomes greater after. But on Solstice night darkness reaches its apotheosis for the year. Fertile, restful, creativity fostering darkness. And to the Shadow. I sit on Shadow Mountain, yet I have a Shadow Mountain within, too. In the darkness.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My inner Shadow Mountain

    One brief shining: Marilyn and I went up the walkway to the synagogue last night as children came out clutching bags filled with gifts from the Bizarre Bazaar, a free shopping area for Hebrew School kids needing Hanukah gifts for parents and siblings, items donated from the congregation over the last month, and Ellen, looking weary, glad that it was over, ready for home, gave me a hug.

     

    Been tossing an idea around since I’ve started doing the sabbath. Why not a week where I can go anywhere I want? Down to Taos and Santa Fe. Over to Bryce Canyon or Moab. Down to the four corners area. Over to any of several wild spots in Colorado. Mountain towns. No dog to fuss about. I can just turn the key and go. But I don’t. Inertia. Maybe a week out of the month where I can make short trips would get me out of my house and on the road. Might work.

     

    Making my way in. Probably me mostly, but not only me. I’m a bit further into CBE. Wearing my kippah, yes. Mezuzahs, yes. Menorahs, yes. Last Friday’s service and the odd dissonance with the Christmas concert in the same space on Sunday, yes. But also Rich commenting on my dvar torah. Israel as a koan, a lived paradox. Joan giving me more jokes. Softer. Jamie a bit more open, friendly. It is not only me. I’m being folded in, granted access in a more open way.

    There’s also that feeling of inner calm. As if I no longer have anything to prove. Which I don’t. In part. Coming home to this remarkable group of individuals, this sacred communion of friends and acquaintances. In part. Saying yes to 76. Yes to being a widower. Yes to enough. And meaning enough as good enough. Plenty. Playing that back over the arc of my life. Good enough. Well done, good and faithful servant.

    There is, too, Kate and her gifts to me. This house. The 401K rollover. Her blessed memory. Ruth and Gabe. Her love. They fold into this calmness as well.

     

    Costa Rica. The new Canada? I know folks looking at land down there. In case, you know. Trump. Not me. Even if the worst happens somebody needs to be the loyal opposition. Especially if we have no loyalty at the top. Besides. Moving? Meh!

    What a time. A rising Ocean. A shrinking democracy. Wars in the Ukraine and Israel. Damn, dude. No wonder marijuana and hallucinogens have begun to get legalized in more and more states.

     

     

     

     

     


  • Thanksgiving

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Thanksgiving gratefuls: Ruth and her Thanksgiving meal. Gabe, as, well, Gabe. Mia, my granddaughter from another mother. Jen. The shema. The mezuzahs. Darkness. An early morning/nighttime conversation across the Pacific with my son and Seoah. My son in Hawai’i next week. Murdoch. Gratitude. Thanksgiving. Alan. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Rich. Jamie. Ron. Holimonth. Thanksgiving itself. Native American Heritage day. Native/First Nation Americans. The West. Shadow Mountain. Snow on the way.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Thanksgiving

    One brief shining: The kitchen island had sprouted small oasis’s of food the Mushroom Wild Rice stuffing, the Persimmon and Pomegranate salad, cut Vegetables, Turkey breast, Corn bread stuffing, a spiral cut ham, so we grabbed our plates from the table and moved like folks in a cake walk making sure our plates got the good stuff.

     

    Columbus Day. Native American genocide. America’s embrace of slavery. The too casual churning of history to invest a wonderful holiday with faux roots. Yes. All true and all bad. Sins for which we will and must atone. Not yesterday, but right now. The United States did not invent coloring its history and holidays with imperial swagger and false memories. But we have done it, too. Here is a New Yorker article that details this effect for Thanksgiving.

    Yet. I choose this morning to return to Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving for the entire nation. Its last paragraph is below.* Here is a link to the whole which is worth reading. This man knew how to write, but had his Secretary of Defense, William Seward, pen this one.

    Sarah Hale

    This came before the linkage with Plymouth Rock and the Wampanoag visitation to the Pilgrims, apparently as part of a mutual defense pact. See the New Yorker article.

    It came after a long campaign by Sara Josepha Hale, a woman of many talents, including being among the first female American novelists and the forty year editor of the most widely circulated magazine prior to the Civil War, Godey’s Lady’s Book.

    In her spirit. This holiday, a secular one celebrated throughout the country and in other places where the American diaspora resides, unites us in gratitude. It does this in spite of the mess made of our history and later added to its celebration. Gratitude, taken in acknowledgement of our need for “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience”, has the effect of dissolving bad feelings, opening hearts, and reminding us of what is good in our life. No matter the life.

    I see it as a holiday that has two great impulses. The first, echoed by the what are we thankful for question heard at many Thanksgiving tables, turns our attention to gratitude. My first spiritual director, a Jesuit nun, had me keep a gratitude journal, saying that all of spirituality can be found in gratitude. I believe that to this day. The second impulse, to bring friends and family around a common table, is a necessary counter to the atomized meal times of our current lives and reinforces the truth of family, together whether MAGA or not. As it did for me yesterday when I celebrated with Ruth, Gabe, Mia, and Jen.

    One last note. If you have ever been puzzled by my gratefuls, let me explain. In the Jewish tradition a unitary metaphysic was once denominated through the notion of monotheism. God is God of all and all is of God. Though many Jews, like me, have passed into a secular reality, the notion of a unitary metaphysic remains. And it has troublesome implications.

    That is. We must be grateful for the yetzer hara, the selfish inclination, as well as the yetzer hatov or the good inclination, for example. We must be grateful for Hamas as well as Israel, Palestinians as well as Israelis. For the spectrum of human hues in our nation and for the life they all lead. For the criminal as well as the law abiding citizen. This does not go down well or obviously from a usual perspective, yet a unitary metaphysic demands it. And I happen to think it makes sense. Jarring as it may be. More on this at a later point.

     

     

    *”…And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, (my emphasis) commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”


  • Dissonance and the Classics

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Echocardiograms. Dilation and dysfunction. PSA not there. Testosterone still low. Medicine. A nuisance until it’s not. Early trauma. Myth of Normal. Tom. Diane. Mark and Mary. Computers. This old desktop. The laptop. The phone. Starlink. Brother laserjet. This digital life. Zoom. The internet. Chatbotgpt. AI. Altitude and Tea. Weak Tea. Mary for p.t. today. Mussar. Pamela. BJ. Sarah. Anne. Jewish life cycle with Rabbi Jamie today.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pamela

    One brief shining: Put filtered water in my red Tea kettle, pushed the button for P-power on the induction stove, waited until the whistle, poured boiling water over a tea bag given to me by Diane and Dan in Korea, took it upstairs in my World’s Best Grandpa cup, and drank a weak and almost unidentifiable beverage because altitude boiling sucks.

     

    Went to Jackie’s for a cut and a beard trim. It was dark! 5:30 pm. First time I’ve ever had a haircut after dark in 76 years. That Jackie. A sweetheart. She always gives me a hug and says she loves me. Ronda, too. Extended community that makes life rich, buoyant. The Mountains. A special place. Kate introduced me to Jackie.

     

    Online discussion of Israel-Hamas war last night at CBE. By turns tedious, sad, boring, infuriating. No new light. The grind of a nation acting out, a nation we feel identified with and in some inchoate way responsible for. The awful news of casualties in the thousands. Pictures of Palestinians picking through yet another building reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes. Still smoldering anger at the murderous invasion which killed Israeli’s in their beds. Now watching Israel do the same. Over and over. The history. The Nakba, the catastrophe. First with the Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia at the turn of 19th century. Then in 1948 with the foundation of Israel. Palestinians feeling or actually displaced by Jews moving onto land they occupied. Jews feeling safe for once. A place a Jew can go and feel secure. At last. At long last. The might of Israel ensuring that safety and security. Then its discordant use for slaying thousands in the name of defeating Hamas. All bad news.

    At the same time contemplating my choosing Judaism, my ritual on the 28th. Becoming an intimate part of this whole reality. What I want. I already feel the anguished split between love of Israel and justice for the Palestinians. Both, yes. Both. Without compromise. With liberty and justice for all. Now.

     

    Enjoying a re-immersion in the classics. Started Fagles’ Iliad yesterday. Achilles. Agamemnon. Ajax. Patroclus. Odysseus. Troy. Priam. Hector. Helen. Menelaus. Hollow-ships and the wine-dark Sea. Ordered a hardback copy of Moby Dick. After the Iliad. May reread the Divine Comedy after that. I love these stories, their ability to challenge expectations, hold up and put down characters, run fast and hard, then calm down.

    My reading chairs have different roles. Upstairs by the fireplace I read what I consider serious books. The classics, yes, but works on Judaism, philosophy, non-fiction. Downstairs by the wonderful map of the Island of Hawai’i that Kate got me I read non-literary fiction like Jack Reacher, Joe Pickett, and my current jag, a series about a land of fairies and high fae.

     

     


  • All Green

    Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: All green on my protein panel. Cardiology Now! Next week. Also, labs for Eigner. The great wheel of medicine keeps turning. Never an unmedicated moment. 28 this morning. Good sleeping. Moving on. Tinned Fish. Kimchi. Brown Rice. Working on that diet. Dazzle with Ruth next week. Winter weather advisory. Democratic wins.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: All that green

    One brief shining: A slight rise in my anxiety titer (Kate’s phrase) as I clicked through the sign in gateways for Quest Diagnostics, opened the results page knowing that finally my protein panel findings were there, scrolling down to get them, fist pump, all green, all findings in the normal range, all of them, even the gammaglobulin which was low last time, and my anxiety quieted, relief.

     

    Still not sure what took the Quest folks until yesterday to complete those tests. My doc’s nurse called them and they said oh that test can take 7-10 days. Then the results were available later in the afternoon. Only five days after they got my blood. ? Anyhow all’s well that ends. And this did. At least for now. Still doesn’t explain my anemia so I imagine we’ll have to track that down. Echocardiogram on Tuesday will look at my aorta, apparently enlarged, and the thickened walls of my heart muscle. Who knows what that will show? That same week I draw labs for my last visit to Dr. Eigner, my oncologist, who retires this January. This will be my first PSA since stopping chemo in August.

    I’m grateful to have a team that looks after me, sees to these matters. Yes, I’ll grouse about the tests and the appointments but that’s just noise. I’m an old man but not a dead man. They help me stay that way. What’s not to like? I mean, really.

     

    Politics. Good news on the Democratic front. Looks like abortion has women and their allies fired up. Three elections in a row now look good for the Democratic party. And look good for 2024. With the exception of Joe Biden. Whom I think is getting a raw deal from the electorate. His economic policies and his foreign policy have been masterful. I admire his finesse and nuance. Sure, he’s a center right guy and not at all representative of my deepest political values, but as a President he has far outperformed expectations. Far.

    Yet as a politician he’s responsible for seeing that his political wins, and they have been many, translate into electability. He’s failed there. Not sure why. Trump to some extent, yes. His age. Probably.

    I hate to say it, but I’d like to see him replaced. We need a candidate who can stiff arm Trump, gather up the working class wins of the Biden administration and turn them into a renewal of a working class constituency. Not to mention fence mending with the Black community.

     

    I would still have been in Israel today. Flying back on the 11th of November. Odd to contemplate it now.

     

     


  • Health and War

    Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Gonzalez. No new info on tests. Cardiology Now. Gammaglobulins. Too much medical stuff. A day of reading. Emily Wilson and the Odyssey. Righting myself. A good workout. P.T. exercises. Renaissance music. Early music. Jazz. Chamber music. Reading about Jewish life cycle events and conversion. Joan. Rice cooker. New red kettle. Cool nights. Good sleeping.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Darkness

    One brief shining: Sat in the Stickley chair, opened Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey to where I left off on Sunday, dove into the world of Odysseus and his time with the Phaecians, including the beautiful princess Nausicaa whom the brilliant Japanese animation artist Hayao Miyazaki used to name his heroine in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

     

    Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey is so good. I’m excited all over again about Homer, Telemachus, Penelope, Odysseus, the Greek pantheon, Olympus. What a treat.

     

    No news on the medical front. I sent an e-mail to Dr. Gonzalez this morning wondering about it. I’m not liking the accumulating medical news. The enlarged aorta found by the Korean family practice doc. A need for an echocardiogram. A thickened heart muscle. And then the whole immunoglobulin thing. Not to mention my damned back. Gettin’ old. Older. So much stuff to keep track of, to follow up on, to treat. I need a medical secretary.

    Wondered after this last round of medicine if the statistics about caregivers have begun to catch up to me. I thought I handled my role well, that is with the least stress possible, but perhaps I was wrong. Kate’s final illness was stressful, no doubt, for her and for me. And it did occur co-terminously with my own treatments for cancer. I suppose all of that could have made my body more vulnerable, less able to fight off insults.

    Whatever the causes, I’m now wrestling with more of this and that. I feel good. I feel healthy. Go figure. My mood is good. Not melancholy. Not fearful. Going on with the day to day. The way I want to live. Live until you die. That’s my mantra.

     

    Pro-Palestinian, pro-Israeli, anti-Hamas. I feel Israel’s response is disproportionate, violating the rules of war, and of human decency. It is not, however, genocide. Israel is killing civilians in a military operation against Hamas. Not. The. Same. Thing. That slogan inflames an already flammable debate.

    Another slogan: From the river to the sea, we want equality does suggest if not genocide, then a full elimination of Jews from the Middle East. It is anti-semitic and dangerous. The idea beggars history. Leaves out why the world thought Jews needed a homeland and a homeland in an area where their history lies. Why the U.N. and the U.S. supported Zionists. Leaves out the fact that the Palestinians have time and again said no to a two-state solution. It is this frustration with a long and bloody history that drives Israeli’s anger and pushes them past the point of reason.

    I’m not excusing the Israeli government’s behavior. Not at all. But this Hamas instigated war has not occurred in a historical vacuum.