Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

The 2024 Election, Part XII. The March To Moscow

 

Napoleon leaving a burning Moscow, which also burned his provisions, and resulted in France's ultimate defeat.

January 16, 2024

In a surprise to no one, Trump won the Iowa Caucuses.  The Republican, and perhaps the nation's, march to disaster commences.  The GOP is set, absent some of the predictions set out below, to either elect a vengeful septuagenarian juvenile who will take them into defeat yet again, or who will become an unprecedented in character President who will hold that office with a minority of Americans having actually voted for him.

Either way, it's the death of the GOP.  Backing a repeat loser isn't a path to long term success. The overall question is when a replacement for the GOP emerges, and whether the Democrats reform themselves in the meantime.  If there's any silver lining to a Trump victory, and that's a big if, both of those things would be it.

A repeat from yesterday:

June 15, 2024 

Martin Luther King Day

Wyoming Equality Day

Iowa Caucus Day

On This Week, a Democratic member of Congress noted that Republican politicians who had opposed Trump were now rushing to endorse him, least they meet the ire of the MAGA crowed. 

Probably two of the recent Wyoming endorsements fit that category.

Tonight at 7:00 p.m. the Iowa Caucus's will open in frigid weather, apparently not taking note that this is at least technically a day off for a lot of people (it isn't for most people).  Gathering at 7:00 p.m. in order to choose a candidate for your party will be weighed, by many, against the agony of going out in the cold.

That's the only hope for those running against Trump.

It cannot help but be noted that the Iowa Caucus, while it probably made sense at one time, emphasizes the antiquated and downright stupid way the US picks its President.  States position themselves to be first to pick, which none of them have the right to be. At least caucuses are party elections, not funded (I think) by the state.  Most states have primaries which are party elections on the state's dime, which isn't just, and is arguably, in my view, unconstitutional.

To add to things, this year, Trump's ability to even hold office is presently in front of the United States Supreme Court.

Given all of this, I'm going to close this issue out with a few predictions, giving percentages.

I think Trump will take Iowa, and I'd give that a 100% chance.  Biden will of course take Iowa.

I'm giving Haley a 60% chance of taking New Hampshire.  New Hampshire doesn't like to look like Iowa's lapdog and it is a East Coast state with a history of acting independently.

Irrespective of that, if I'm wrong on the matters noted below, there's a 75% chance that Trump is the GOP nominee and a 100% chance Biden is the Democratic nominee.

Now, here's where some will think we're off the rails.

I think there's a 60% chance the United States Supreme Court will find Trump an insurrectionist unqualified to hold office.

When they do that, if they do, there will be a massive outbreak of right wing violence across the country.

If they do that, Haley will be the nominee.

I feel there's a 55% chance that Trump, who is an old man, who looks unhealthy, and who in my view is showing signs of dementia, will die before the election.  He's showing signs of decline every day.

If he dies, and I think he will, Haley will be the nominee.

I feel there's a 40% chance that Biden will pass away of natural causes before the election.

If he dies, and I don't think he will, I have no idea who the nominee will be.

In a Biden v. Trump rematch, Trump will win.  I don't want him to, but he will.

In a Biden v. Haley match, Haley will win.  The Democrats seem incapable of accepting that they're going with an unelectable candidate.

Assuming that Biden and Trump are the nominees, at some point after Super Tuesday, there's a 55% chance that somebody announces a major third party run.  I'm not sure who it will be, but Christie, Manchin and Cheney are all figures in that.  My guess is that it will be Manchin for President, with Christie as VP.

Everyone always states that no third parties ever win, even the GOP itself was a third party that in fact won, displacing the dying Whigs.  A third party here would displace the dying GOP.  I'd give a third party as 60% chance of winning.

Given the furor he stirs up, there are a lot of things I fear this election many feature that I'm not going to post, as I don't want them to look like something I'm endorsing by mentioning them.  Indeed, I'm afraid that they'll happen and desperately hope they do not.

This will close this edition.  The next one will come out on the morning after, so to speak, of the Iowa Caucus.

People should pray for the nation.

DeSantis came in second, defying hope for rising Haley.  Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out, and is likely to disappear from politics forever, unless Trump wins, in which case he'll resurface as some sort of early Trump cabinet choice.

The current tally:

Republican:  

Donald Trump:   20 delegates

Ron DeSantis:  8 delegates

Nikki Haley:  7 delegates

Vivek Ramaswamy:   3 delegates

Democrats:

Oddly, they aren't releasing their results until super Tuesday, March 5, but it's obvious who the winner is.

Cont:

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has dropped out of the GOP race.

January 19, 2024

Donald Trump, the son, grandson and twice the "husband" of immigrants if you discount that Christianity (he claims to be a Presbyterian) recognizes marriage once, for the period of a person's natural life, mocked Nicki Haley, the daughter of an immigrant, by calling her "Nimbra".

Not that it will matter.  Trump loyalist are so enamored with the one time Democrat that at this point there is literally nothing whatsoever he can do to dissuade their loyalty, including the fact that in a second Trump administration it will largely be others with an agenda who govern.  This base is now the majority of the GOP, the party having largely ceased to exist on an historical basis.

January 20, 2024

Former Presidential GOP candidate Tim Scott, whose campaign didn't go anywhere, has endorsed Donald Trump.

This may be cynical, but frankly I think Scott is angling for the VP ticket, and I'd guess he has a good chance of getting it.  He would, in fact, be a good choice for Trump.

cont:

Donald Trump pretty clearly confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi in a New Hampshire campaign rally, claiming that Haley was in charge of all the "troops", meaning that she could have called on National Guardsmen to protect the capitol.

Haley wasn't in office at the time.

Haley in turn called on his mental fitness.

More people should be. Trump doesn't act like somebody who okay mentally.  He's old, and in the footage of the rally, he does not look well.

January 21, 2024

Asa Huntinchinson endorsed Nikki Haley.

Trump, in a weird sort of way, endorsed Viktor Orbán:

There's a great man in Europe. Viktor Orbán… He’s a very strong man. It’s nice to have a strongman running your country

Orbán is the poster child for the far right's endorsement of Illiberal Democracy.

Trump also rejected the rule of law in the executive in the same rally, stating:

And you will have the rogue cop,  the bad apple, and perhaps you'll have that also with President But there's nothing you can do about that. You're going to have to give the President immunity. I hope The Supreme Court will has the courage to do that.

These statements from a man who will only be a "dictator for a day". 

Trump, on the same day he confused Haley for Pelosi, made reference to having run against President Obama, which he never did.

Cont:

And now it's down to two. DeSantis dropped out and then endorsed Trump.  His dropping out, however, probably does Haley a favor.

January 22, 2024

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has now endorsed Trump, having dropped out of the race some time ago.

It's clear where all this is headed.  Republican politicians are going to go to Trump on bended knee, irrespective of what that means.

January 23, 2024


The Democrats, being the party that doesn't lose elections, but throws them away, are doing that right now by putting Vice President Harris on a "Reproductive Freedom", i.e. Infanticide, Tour.

Everything about this strategy is wrong.

First of all, the Democrats do not need to campaign as the party of infanticide, everyone knows they have blood on their hands and wish to continue odd making them wet.  Those supporting infanticide have nowhere else to go, and are going to vote Democratic no matter what.

Secondly, the numerous center right voters who would normally vote Republican but who are rational about Donald Trump and what he stands for have been working their way around to vote for Biden/Harris, but being reminded of this, particularly if they are devout or at least adherent  Catholics/Orthodox/Muslims will drive them away as it'll make the election about abortion and they can't go there.  This section of the electorate is big enough to determine the election.

Finally, Kamala Harris is one of the most dis-likeable candidates imaginable.  Joe Biden won the election in spite of her lat time, not because of her.  Nobody needs to be reminded that if in the high likelihood Joe Biden dies or becomes disabled in his second term, she becomes the far left successor President.

So, it was at this point, the Democrats lost the 2024 election.  The question is, who will win it?

Doug Burgum, who ran a disappointing race against Trump for the GOP nomination, will not run for another term as the Governor of North Dakota.

While it's mere speculation, a lot of Republicans are lining up to kiss Trump's ring (or other things) in hopes of becoming his VP.  Of those doing that, Burgum is actually a good choice.

On other matters, Elise Stefanik, attempting to explain away Trump's obvious mental lapse the other day, managed to issue one of the most confusing attempts at the same ever.  Stefanik has prostituted her talents to Trump and obviously will plumb any depths in her effort to sell herself into a position in his anticipated administration.

Oh Rich, but for Wales.

One of the things that Trump has been promising is to drill, which his audience likes to hear.  Funny thing is:

January 23, 2024

U.S. oil production has been holding at or near record highs since October, topping the previous peak from 2020, even though the number of active domestic oil drilling rigs is down by nearly 30% from four years ago.

New technology is the reason why there is higher production with fewer rigs.

And also:

The U.S. set a new annual oil production record on December 15, based on data from the Energy Information Administration. Although the official monthly numbers from the EIA won’t be released for a couple of months, we can calculate that a new record has been set based on the following analysis.

Prices at the pump have been declining.

Huh.

The irony of this is that Biden can't advance this matter for two reasons.  One is that while he hasn't restricted domestic production, as some in the GOP like to imagine, he also hasn't promoted production either.   This is happening on its own and is technology driven.  It shows how the economy, absent radical moves in it, is impacted much less by a President's policies than by outside economic forces.

January 24, 2024

Trump took the New Hampshire primary, Biden, who wasn't actually running in it, took the Democratic one.

Trump used the opportunity to threaten Haley.

Just a little note to Nikki, she is not going to win, but if she did she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. I could tell you five reasons why already, not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, but she will be under investigation in minutes and so would Ron have been, but he decided to get out.

January 25, 2024

Biden received the endorsement of the United Auto Workers. 

Trump has declared that donors to the Haley campaign will be barred from Camp MAGA.  In the same tweet he called Haley a "bird brain"


Trump doesn't appear to be well, in my amateur diagnosis.  A nation that can vote for somebody saying these things isn't well, either.

January 26, 2024

I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling.

But the reality is that, that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president not to try and get the problem solved. as opposed to saying, ‘hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’

Mitt Romney 

January 27, 2022

John Barrasso's second wife, Bobbi, died of brain cancer this past week.  She was a very nice person and had been a judicial law clerk after graduating from law school.  I knew her somewhat from law school and her service as a clerk.

The Governor noted her passing:

Governor Gordon Statement on the Passing of Bobbi Barrasso

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon has issued the following statement on the passing of Bobbi Barrasso, wife of Wyoming Senator John Barrasso. Bobbi passed away in Casper after a two-year battle with Glioblastoma brain cancer.

Bobbi was a treasure, a Wyoming native who always put her family and the people of the state first. Jennie and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to John and their family. 

Bobbi was a longtime friend, a stalwart supporter of Wyoming and a resolute warrior against cancer. She always put service ahead of self. As a compassionate soul, she advocated tirelessly for Wyoming children, education, mental health and suicide prevention. She made a difference, and has left an indelible legacy. The Lord doesn’t make many as good as Bobbi. Wyoming was blessed to have known her. She will be missed.

The Governor will issue a flag notification once services have been announced.

A former coal executive who claims to be "Trumpier than Trump" has announced for Joe Machin's seat in West Virginia.

January 31, 2024

In Illinois, a hearing officer in an administrative process on Trump's eligibility to be on the ballot found Trump had engaged in an insurrection, but recommended the election board demur to the courts. The board in turn found that it lacked the power to remove Trump.

cont:

Elected Park County Precinct Committee members who were booted from their positions by the county Party for failure to attend meetings, including former Senator Alan Simpson, have been reinstated, although it may be temporary.  Other's booted include former Wyoming House speaker and party chairman Colin Simpson, Powell Mayor John Wetzel, Park County Commissioner Scott Steward and Northwest College Trustee Dusty Spomer.  At least Alan Simpson claims that they were booted for failing to meet the party's current ideological expectations.

A petition has been filed with the state party to keep them booted.

February 1, 2024

In the play stupid games category, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that ten Republican state senators who refused to attend the state Senate for six weeks in an attempt to stall Democratic-backed bills cannot run for reelection.

February 4, 2024

Joe Biden won the Democratic South Carolina primary.  Oddly, the Republican one is on a different day.

February 5, 2024

Listening to the weekend shows this weekend brings on a sense of despair.

Trump now leads Biden by 5 points in the polls.  Granted, November is nine. . . only nine, months away.

J.D. Vance came on television and outright advocated for Trump to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court if they're against him.  Increasingly, the hope that Trump will not be the next President has been placed on the U.S. Supreme Court enforcing the 14th Amendment. While Vance didn't say that Republican Secretaries of State should ignore such a ruling, it's impossible now not to regard that as highly likely, meaning that we're headed for a grave constitutional crisis in which it is potentially the case that the Supreme Court declares him ineligible, states place him on the ballot anyhow, and he wins the electoral vote, but cannot be seated.

In that instance, the next four years will be rough, and frankly, there will be violence regarding this.

A decent candidate, in these circumstances, would suspend his race. Trump is not decent.

Kristi Noem has been banned from the Pine Ridge Resevation.

Mexican Border Crisis






February 6, 2024

Intersting article on what local GOP figures are going to do re Trump, if their prior positions on Trump or Cheney are known.

Some Cheney 'Never Trumpers' Now Support Trump; Others Won't Budge

Quite a few are falling in line with Trump, not surprisingly. Some are not, however, notably Cale Case and Alan Simpson.

Last Prior Edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XI. The Winter of Discontent Edition.


Related Threads:




Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Witnessing a decline in mental status. Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

These aren't gaffs: 

Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part XII. The March To Moscow:   January 20, 2024 

Donald Trump pretty clearly confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi in a New Hampshire campaign rally, claiming that Haley was in charge of all the "troops", meaning that she could have called on National Guardsmen to protect the capitol.

Haley wasn't in office at the time.

Haley in turn called on his mental fitness.

More people should be. Trump doesn't act like somebody who okay mentally.  He's old, and in the footage of the rally, he does not look well.

January 21, 2024

Trump, on the same day he confused Haley for Pelosi, made reference to having run against President Obama, which he never did.

These are major mental lapses, and now they're coming in quick succession.

The Obama one, we'd note, has occured before.  Trump has, openly, mentioned having run against Barack Obama.  His first race was against Hillary Clinton, which is the only reason that he was elected, and with a minority of the vote.

Trump lies constantly, but these aren't lies. This is misfiring in his brain, and it's happening frequently.  And these aren't the only instances.

Republican voters who are going for Trump, the nearly 50% of the GOP that isn't really traditionally Republican but something else, are going to simply turn a blind eye towards this.  Democrats won't, but that doesn't really matter, except perhaps to the extent they emphasize it, which they in fact should.

Right now, assuming that Trump doesn't experience a complete mental collapse before November, which I'd give a 40% chance, and assuming that Trump's health holds out until November, which I'd give a 40% chance, he's going to be elected the next President because of the Democrats wholly inept performance in this election, including their absolute refusal to address many of  the legitimate concerns that they've allowed to fester into right wing conspiracies, such as 1) how many immigrants can we really take in; 2) why does everyone have to have a "good job" in a cubicle, 3) why are we ignoring real biology and pretending it's a lifestyle choice.  The election at this point is basically over.

That would in turn mean we're about to elect a man into office who is clearly sliding into dementia.  Republicans in his inner circle better figure out right now how far they'll let him lose his mind before they declare him unfit for office.

And we better hope his VP choice is made to be somebody rational and not a syncophant.

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Monday, January 21, 1924. Death claims bloody Lenin.

 



Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known to history as Vladimir Lenin, the illegitimate leader of a "soviet" state the Russian people had not wished to come into existence, died, having brought untold misery to millions.

The monster was 53 years of age.

His father had died at 54, so there's likely a genetic component to his "stroke", but in actuality, the exact cause of his death is not really known.

Parliament passed a no confidence motion in the government of Stanley Baldwin.

British railway workers went on strike the same day.

Mexican Federal troops crossed the US into Mexico, repeating the event which had lead Pancho Villa to attack Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916.




Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Super size it.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, January 1, 1924. Receiving the New Year.:  




When I put this up on January 1, I also posted this calendar image on Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub.  Somebody came by and remarked on how tiny the glass the young woman is holding was.

And indeed it was.

Coca-Cola for years came in a 6.5 oz bottle, not 12.  It's interesting to reflect on as it really says something about proportions.

Coke's iconic bottle was a 6.5 oz bottle until 1955.  

Its competitor Pepsi started using 12 oz bottles in 1934.  In fact, that as one of its marketing devices, as it came in a 12 oz bottle, having a jingle that went
Pepsi-Cola hits the spot
Twelve full ounces, that's a lot!
Twice as much for a nickel, too
Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.

It says something about the quality of Coke, or at least the original recipe of it, that people would in fact pay the same amount for half of what they'd get if they'd bought Pepsi instead.  It also says something about soda in general that it's so cheap to make, the added 6 oz of product really doesn't do anything to the economic bottom line.

In 1955, Coke switched to 10 oz bottles and 12 oz bottles and offered a  "Family" sized bottle of 26 oz.  The move was not without internal company controversy, however.  One company executive stated that  “bringing out another bottle was like being unfaithful to your wife.”

But that 55 10 or 12 oz bottle isn't gigantic.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, when you went to a fast food restaurant and got a soda, large was a 12 oz serving with ice.  Starting in the 80s, somehow, that doubled, with stores, particularly convenience stores, advertising what was essentially double that.  

24 oz of Coke is a lot.

And it went on from there.

McDonald's, when it was first getting up and running, served Coke in 7 oz cups. After Coke switched, it started serving it in 16 oz cups.  In 1980, 7-11 introduced the "Big Gulp" which weighed in at an absurd 32 oz.  In 86, 7-11 introduced the 44 oz Super Big Gulp, and everyone went down that road thereafter.

Indeed, now, getting a small or medium soda draught is really what a person should do, and on the rare occasions when I get fast food, I try to get that.  But most people don't.  Even little kids get the 55 gallon size soda drink.

And that's really not good for you.

Monday, January 1, 2024

2023. Annus horribilis and a Gift.

Jimi Hendrix playing Room Full of Mirrors

At least by some measures, New Years are supposed to be periods of introspection.  If so, the annual arrival of New Year’s this year certainly has been for me.

2023, by which I really mean the period from October 2022 to the present, has been the worst year of my life, and that’s saying something.

Probably only people who know me really well would know that I’ve had, at least by western world standards, a rough life to some degree.  My teenage years and early (20s) adulthood was overshadowed by the physical and accompanying mental decline of my mother, something that still hangs over me like a dark cloud in a lot of ways.  It certainly sprung me from being a child at age 12 to an adult at age 13 virtually overnight, and not in ways that were good really, but in ways you can’t ever get back.  My relationship with my mother really didn’t recover in some ways until she was near death, and it never recovered in some ways.  I’m still working on that, trying to understand that what happened to her wasn’t her fault, or anyone else’s.

Added to that, the death of my father at age 62 was an irreparable loss to me that I’ve also never recovered from and won’t be able to.  As I noted here the other day, being an only child meant that I didn’t have a sibling to help endure this loss with, and when he died the person then closest to me in the world died, leaving me with an obligation to my mother that was a very heavy burden under the circumstances.

In short, things haven’t been always a treat.

But then, are they for anyone?

It may in fact be the case that everyone’s life is rough, to at least varying extents.  Maybe its best if you don’t even recognize that fact.

Anyhow, in October, 2022, as I’ve noted here before, I had colon surgery, following a colonoscopy that revealed a polyp too big to be removed in that process.  I really waited well beyond the age at which you should have your first colonoscopy, which was inexcusable on my part.  Had I gone in earlier (a lesson for everyone who might read this), the surgery would never have been necessary.  Ultimately the polyp proved to be precancerous, and was “as close to cancer as it can be without being cancer”.

I was 59 years old when I went in for that and that’s the very first instance of surgery, other than I suppose oral surgery to have a broken molar and the nearby wisdom tooth, taken out.  What I didn’t really grasp, but should have even due to the oral surgery, is that I wasn’t going to bounce back right away.  I expected to.  I didn’t even really expect to be out of work for more than a couple of days, in spite of everything that everyone told me.

Well, I’ve never fully recovered from the surgery and I’m not going to, that’s clear by now.  I notice it mostly in the mornings.  I just can’t eat.  Things make me sick, no matter what they are, as a rule.  The onset of late in life lactose intolerance has made that even worse.  For decades what I ate for breakfast was cereal with milk.  I can’t really eat that anymore.

So be it, but what really surprised me was the onset of really deep fatigue.  I was simply worn out from the surgery and it lingered for months.  I was tired like I never had been before in my life.

To compound it, when the diagnostic films were done for the colon surgery, a MRI was done all the way up to my neck which revealed I had a sizable polyp on my thyroid. The same surgeon recommended that the thyroid come out and seemed to look at the question as to what to do as almost absurd.  I was so surprised, and so beat up from the first surgery, that I went to my regular doctor for a second opinion.  He referred me to an endocrinologist. That doctor had no qualms at all about what needed to be done.  It needed out, the risk of cancer was so high, I was informed, that it was almost certainly cancer.

Great.

I ended up having a partial thyroidectomy in Denver.  I was extremely hesitant about the whole thing.

Well, the polyp turned out to be benign, which overjoyed the medicos but made me feel like I'd done something I could have avoided. After surgery, I hoped to avoid medication (I've never had daily medications), but wasn't lucky there either.

Since the thyroid surgery, and particularly at first, on a lot of days I've just been in a fog and tired all the time. It’s a difficult thing to describe, as it’s a feeling that’s internal.  I don’t think anyone else noticed it at all, but plowing through my days, and that’s what it felt like, I just didn't feel right.  I complained a lot about it to my wife, but in retrospect now I realize that if you complain a lot about certain topics, it become routine and won’t be paid too much attention to, particularly if there are no external manifestations that are obvious.

There were in fact external manifestations, but they weren’t obvious to anyone but me.  Normally, I look forward to the weekends and feel disappointed if I have to work on Saturdays, which I often must do.  I was so tired and dragged down, however, that I actually started to look forward to having to be in my office on Saturday.  I’d drag myself out, a little, to go fishing and hunting, but my feet felt leaden and I just wasn’t having the fun I normally did, the exception being when my kids were here.

I just went in for a follow-up and upon examination just recently. At that time the doctor asked me how I was doing and I reported what I was feeling and experiencing.  He gave me a physical examination.  I didn’t have bloodwork yet, as doing this on December 26 meant that I didn’t have the chance to get it done.  Based on the physical examination, they determined they needed to up my meds. “Everything will be fine”, I was told.

The bloodwork came back and showed everything to be just what it should be.  They immediately cancelled the doubling of the meds.

Long story short, what’s going on is post-surgery depression, a thing I didn't know even existed.

This is, apparently, particularly associated with thyroid surgeries, although most people don’t experience it. To just sort of note what’s out there, here’s a medical journal report on it:

Thyroid surgery is usually recommended for thyroid cancer and can be to remove one lobe of the thyroid (partial thyroidectomy) or to remove the entire thyroid (total thyroidectomy). Thyroidectomy may also be recommended for certain non-cancerous disorders including hyperthyroidism and large goiters. The results of a total thyroidectomy is hypothyroidism which requires lifelong treatment with a thyroid hormone pill. Several recent reports have highlighted a decrease in the quality of life and an increase in depression in some patients with hypothyroidism due to thyroid surgery. Therefore, the authors have examined if there is an association between thyroid surgery and a new onset of depression.

Great.

Apparently post-surgery depression is a thing with older adults anyhow, and I’m 60.  But to make it even niftier, depression is even more associated with colon surgery.  Another medical journal notes

The prevalence of anxiety, depression and PTSD appears to be high in patients who have undergone colorectal surgery. Younger patients and women are particularly at risk.

I don’t know the cause of all of this, and there could be a bunch of them that occur to me, some of which actually wouldn’t explain it in my case.  But being honest with myself, one of the things has to do with a family history and my early life.

Anxiety of a type is a condition which occurs on my mother’s side of my family.  Not everyone has it by any means, but some do and at least in one case, my maternal grandfather, it was really noticeable.  He was by all accounts an extremely intelligent man, but as a young man he suffered enormously from anxiety which kept him from building a career at an age, in that era in particular, a person normally did, and which in turn kept him from marrying at an age when people normally did.  My grandmother was his fiancé forever, and its actually a bit surprising that she waited for him, but then she had her own background haunting her, that being that she was highly educated and intelligent, but her own mother was not particularly fond of her, and was open about it.

Ultimately my grandfather found a career in real estate in Montreal, and did well until the Great Depression. When the Great Depression hit, and funds trailed off, he turned to drink, something that plagued him for years.  Remarkably, probably in the late 40s or early 50s, a Catholic Priest apparently told him to stop drinking and he did then and there, cold turkey.  Even more remarkably, my Grandmother suffered a miscarriage with what would have been her eighth child and went to a Priest, maybe the same one, and asked if she could stop performing the Marital Debt.  He said she could. That means that my grandfather, for the last ten or more years of his life, didn’t drink anymore, which is where he had taken refuge from stress, and also lived in a sexless marriage, which must have added enormously to his stress.  Amazingly, he seems to have actually pulled his act together, and lived out the balance of his life as a happy guy before dying at age 58.  His siblings, however, never got to where they trusted him and that ended up being taken out, after his death, on his widow and surviving children.

That’s an extreme example, of course, but there are a couple of others.  Something afflicted my mother, but nobody has a clue as to what it was.  She recovered from a condition pronounced to be terminal, and therefore the early diagnosis was either wrong, or her recovery was miraculous (which is what I think it was).  Her recovery, while real, was never complete, however.  As another example, one of my cousins on this side of the family, named after my mother, and one year older than me, was so conscious of anxiety being a factor in her makeup, she purposely chose a scientific lab career in order to avoid it.  In her early 60s, the impacts of this have not hit her, but she’s dying of cancer presently.

I know now that anxiety has impacted me my entire adult live, although largely unacknowledged by me.  I don’t recall it being a factor at all until I was an adult, but the trauma of what I went through as a teen probably didn't help, long term.  The first time I really experienced it was when I worried about going to basic training, but I got over it quickly when I was there.  After that, it became clear to me that I experienced travel anxiety, which is a condition that is something that uniquely occurs in some people.  It’s hard to explain.  Ironically, I've traveled in my adult life a huge amount, and generally like where I'm going, once I'm there.

It’s when I became a litigator that I really became conscious of anxiety, however.

Litigation is an extremely stressful career as it is.  Anxiety runs rampant in the field.  According to the ABA, for lawyers in general, a study revealed:

64 percent of lawyers report having anxiety.

28 percent lawyers suffered from depression

19 percent of lawyers had severe anxiety

11.4 percent of lawyers had suicidal thoughts in the previous year

And that’s just regular lawyers.

There have been study after study on this topic, and they all come about the same, with some coming out much worse.  I’ve seen one article that has dissed these findings, but just one.  My guess is that probably double these figures (except for the self reporting anxiety, which would amount to a statistical impossibility) would be the case for litigators.

Indeed, I’ve long noted that most litigators actually won’t try a case.  I have tried a lot of cases, and one of the reasons why is that I’ve always been conscious of the duty not to allow a person’s anxiety to keep them from dutifully fulfilling their duty to their client.  I”ve sometimes worried, in fact, that I might possibly try more cases than others in order to counter the fact that anxiety might be infusing my views, but I don't think that's the case.  Anyhow, anxiety in litigation is so bad, as noted, that a majority of litigators actually won’t try a case.  I've always just been aware that it was there, can impact how you think, and set it aside.

In other contexts, I’ve long seen the impact of anxiety working itself out in destructive ways in the legal field.  I’ve known lawyers who were drug addicts or alcoholics, or who engaged in other destructive life choices.  I’ve known two who quit practicing due to anxiety, one self-declaring that and the other just not being able to overcome an addiction to alcohol otherwise.  One really well respected plaintiff’s lawyer actually disappeared from his household and family for a couple of weeks until he was found in a hotel in another state where he’d gone on a profound days long bender.  Three I’ve been aware of just disappeared, two resurfacing in a seminary and one in the People’s Republic of China.

This all being the case, while I’ve been a successful lawyer, law probably wasn’t a field that I should have gone into.  One lawyer friend of mine from Germany, whom I remarked to on this, dismissed this, saying “you are an intellectual, your choice was to become a lawyer or a priest”, which is an interesting way of looking at it, but had I been smarter, I’d probably have chosen the path of my scientific cousin in order to avoid the stress.

It doesn't matter now.  Like the Hyman Roth character in Godfather II, "This is the business we've chosen".  And by and large, it worked out well.  Being honest with myself, I've been able to do a lot of interesting things, and have constantly learned new fields and topics, all the time.  If you are an autodidatic polymath, it's hard to imagine a field that would actually offer so much as the law.  And if you do like visiting obscure places, at least prior to COVID, it really allowed you to.

In saying all of this, what I’m saying now is that looking back on the past horrible year, I can look back decades and see the points at which the stress rose up and made me act in ways I never would have, although never in a professional sense. Each time, really, was a cry for help, but cries for help don’t really come through that way if they’re not posed that way. And sometimes, there is no existential help, you just need to pick up your pack and carry on.

This past year, however, with the fog of post-surgery depression setting in, I was really unaware of it.

I should have been, as I didn’t mentally feel right.  I did keep mentioning that “I feel slow”, but that means you feel slow.  The real warning was when I absolutely exploded on two partners who have been keeping a long running irritating argument going for years, permanently ending it.  It needed to end, but blowing up on them was the wrong thing to do, and in retrospect I’m amazed that I wasn’t told to take a hike.

In Catholic theology there’s something called “the problem of evil”, which boils down to “why does God allow bad things to happen”. There are various answers to that question, but a universal partial response is that God doesn’t allow something to occur if he cannot bring good out of it.  In our temporary lives that can be awfully hard to accept, but I believe it to be true.  In this instance, I can now in fact see this at work.  In a way, this allows me to go back, but clear minded, to the beginning of my career as I now approach its end, but to be a kinder, more thoughtful person, and a more grateful one.  I do believe that people can and do change if they wish to, and while it’s not as if I’m now going to become an Iron Man competitor, or something, I am in a way following a bit of the same path taken by a friend who was very bitter about his legal career, and openly so, but in the last few years has become very grateful for it.  I have a lot to be thankful for.

I also have the chance now to beat anxiety that was lurking there, rather than to sort of give into PTSD, which is basically what I have had in a way.  That condition, known as combat fatigue originally, or shell shock, has been determined to be much wider than originally thought, and the frequent comparisons of litigation to combat are pretty accurate.  But knowing what’s what is frankly more than half the battle.

Part of that also I think is following a bit of what Alcoholics Anonymous and other addition programs have in their “twelve steps”.  I’m not saying I need to join AA or NA, or something but rather the page AA took from the advice of a Catholic Priest, which is similar to what Jews do on Yom Kippur, is to apologize to people you’ve hurt.  I’ve done that with four people already, which is probably the set I needed to.  But beyond that, part of it is being more tolerant to the people and conditions we routinely encounter, something that is difficult in a judgmental profession like the law.  

So, in the end, I’m grateful to have an outside professional let me know what was going on, and that its connection to surgery, twice will remediate, and indeed already are.  But beyond that, I’m grateful for the door it opened and which I’m walking through to be more aware.

Pax vorbiscum.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

A decline in U.S. Life Expectancy.

Which, we would note, the government, which addressed this oddly enough on Twitter, terms catastrophic.

Dr. Robert M. Califf @DrCaliff_FDA

We are facing extraordinary headwinds in our public health with a major decline in life expectancy. The major decline in the U.S. is not just a trend. I’d describe it as catastrophic.

JAMA Internal Medicine published earlier this month that our overall life expectancy has dropped to 76 years, and remarkably, that male life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped to 73 years.

Since then, CDC released a report showing a slight rebound from lower life expectancy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with this encouraging report, we still have a lot of work to do before we see pre-pandemic life expectancy again. https://cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr031.pdf

As we all know, life expectancy is far from uniformly distributed. Disparities as a function of race, ethnicity, wealth, education and geospatial location are profound and widening.

A college degree is associated with an 8.5 year longer life and differences of more than a decade in life expectancy are common when we go from urban areas and university towns to rural areas.

We expect to lose over 450K Americans due to tobacco related illness this year – we need to change that. We have a very important and ambitious agenda to tackle in our work on tobacco. We’ve made some important advances in that area recently, but there is still much to be done.

Each year, more than a million Americans die from diet-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancers.

While we’ve seen enormous progress in terms of controlling or developing treatments for many of these diseases, alarmingly, we’re in the midst of a significant backsliding relating to many of these and other chronic illnesses.

Our work in this area also supports the food industry in their efforts to reformulate in healthier ways and provide additional knowledge/choices for American consumers. Working with industry is an important part of the equation, since govt most assuredly can’t do this alone.

An important aspect of this life expectancy dynamic is the challenge of drug shortages, particularly low-cost generics. With over 90% of our prescriptions now generic, these low cost, effective medications are an essential part of an effective public health strategy.

But these medications are not effective if they are not available! Shortages are very frustrating, consume an enormous share of talented pharmacist and clinician time to find alternatives and explanations to patients.

Shortages also undermine the underlying goal of increased accessibility of these often life-saving products. Simply put, shortages put patients at risk.

I believe that we need to seriously examine our level of accountability and changes that we can make to help what needs to be an “all hands on deck” effort to continue and amplify the improvement in life expectancy discussed in CDCs latest report.

Earlier this month, I spoke to a group of professors of medicine about declining life expectancy, and in that speech, I talked about my short list of changes that they might lead to help reverse the negative trend.

🔗⬇️

Every other sector in the health care ecosystem could develop its own list of improvements, and together, we could accelerate last year’s progress.

The government, industry, and the public all have a role to play in improving life expectancy. Let’s get to it.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Blog Mirror: Collapsed


Well worth reading:

Collapsed

You can see my reply there as well, which I've set out again here:

"Last year it would have not been a problem but this year I'm not in great shape due to family issues"

Me too, except it's my own health, starting with a surgery in October 2022, and another in August. Haven't really recovered, although I should have.

Maybe you never really do.

Anyhow, was walking out of the high country at a pretty good clip as a rainstorm came rolling in. Lost my footing on a rock, fell, rolled over, and cut myself pretty bad. Just me and the dog. No cell reception, and I've given up carrying my gmrs radio as there's nobody to call if I'm hunting alone.

Rolled over, wasn't damaged and hiked out bleeding. It hasn't been a great year.

Glad you were okay.

I don't mean to be hijacking somebody else's blog, but since October 2022 I haven't been myself.  I wrote previously on my surgery followed by a second surgery.  Since the first surgery, my digestive track hasn't recovered, and it's clear that it's not going to.  I'm sick every morning.  Not some mornings, every morning, save, oddly enough, for a few days I spent at trial where I couldn't afford to be.*  Most days I'm better off not eating any breakfast anymore, as it's just going to make me sick.  I was already developing an intolerance to milk, but now it's through the roof.  I can't even eat cereal with a little milk.  The stuff I'm used to eating in the morning, which was always a pretty light meal, is a no-go completely now.

And the second surgery resulted in a medication that I'm pretty sure isn't adjusted right, right now.  Everyone has told me how thyroid medication is supposed to make you feel great and give you energy. Well, that isn't working for me.  Researching it, there are a tiny minority of people who actually never feel good following a thyroid surgery and for whom the medications don't work to address that.  Given that almost no medication ever works well for me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was me.  Hindsight is 20/20, but I really wish I'd foregone that surgery now and have borne the risk of cancer instead.  At age 60, and from a short-lived group, the risk probably was worth it.**

Worst of all, frankly, being sick all the time impacts your attitude in ways you can't really appreciate until it's obvious.  I've been there recently. Short-tempered and not having a good long term outlook.  At work the other day I blew up on two colleagues who have been running a really irritating religious debate for years, in the hallway, for what they conceive to be the entertainment of the unwilling listeners.  Our poor Mexican runner has to listen to this constantly, and I finally had enough and just exploded on them.  The point isn't that their juvenile behavior was okay, but that my reaction was so stout.***I shouldn't have done that, and that's just a minor example.

I usually look longingly forward to hunting season, but this year I've just not been too motivated after a certain point. Being tired has a lot to do with that.   And when you are like that, you are a pain to those around you, at least to some extent.  Some can see and appreciate that, others not so much.  It's hard to appreciate it yourself until something forces you to.  I looked forward to all summer to the season, and enjoyed deer hunting, but usually by now I've done a pile of duck hunting.  I've gone this year. . .twice. Every Saturday, the dog looks at me with confusion.  The funny thing is that all week long I still look forward to getting out, but when the weekend comes, I go down to work like old lawyers do, and when Sunday comes, well I haven't gone to Mass the night prior, so I get a late start doing whatever I'm going to do.

As noted above, not only am I tired, but I'm not in shape the way I usually am.  I've fallen so rarely out in the sticks that as a short person, I'm one of those people who were sort of goat like, climbing in terrain where hunters and fishermen wouldn't normally go and not worrying about it even though it was patently dangerous.  As a National Guardsmen, I recall once somebody remarking how me and another NCO were mysteriously able to negotiate difficult terrain at night, silently.  We were both avid hunters.  To take a fall, and a pretty bad one, on terrain that I'd been over a million times was a shock.

I was actually quite lucky at the time.  I was all alone, taking a path that I normally would not have, although as noted I've been on it many times before. There was a thunderstorm coming in.  I was carrying a loaded shotgun.  I fell, and, recalling the plf ***I learned so many years ago, rolled out of it, but not before I'd scrapped myself up pretty badly.  I wasn't sure at first if I'd broken anything.  I had my cell phone, as noted, but no reception, so I couldn't have called for help if I wanted to.  I usually carry a handheld GMRS radio, but I've quit recently as if I'm alone, who am I going to radio to?

Hors de combat, after it started to heal.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

I can recall my father getting like this when he was almost the exact same age I am now.  He died two years later.  He seemed pretty old at the time, so I wasn't hugely surprised.  I guess it's like the Hendrix song, "You may wake up in the morning, just to find that you are dead".

Of course, he was gravely ill for months prior to that.  In retrospect, however, it all started for him with a colonoscopy, the same way that this has started for me.  I recall him remarking as he was in the hospital on how all of his mother's ailments were now visiting him.  She died, if I recall correctly, at 65.

In my mind, I always imagined that at some point after I had reached retirement age, which I have not yet, I'd retire to a life of full time outdoorsman.  Not too many people do that.  There may be a reason for that. Some of us are luckier as we age than others.

Oh well, nature has a way of waking you up and reminding you that some things need to be done.  Getting sick? Quite doing what you are doing, refocus, and soldier on.  Get a grip, reform, reform, and keep on keeping on, but mindful of errors and omissions.

Footnotes

*I've long noticed for some reason a person's system will suppress symptoms of almost any illness when you absolutely have to keep on, keeping on. Usually things come back with a vengeance, or at least fatigue, when the crisis has passed.

**This is not intended to be advice for anyone else, I'd note.

***Re the argument, the entire facility had grown extremely tired of it and the shutting them up was welcomed, save by one of the arguers, who may be permanently mad at me.  Showing my presently poor mental outlook, I don't care.  I'm tired of hearing minority religions insulted when some of the employees belong to them, and I'm tired of having my own faith routinely insulted, which I've endured now for decades.  And while I'm a serious if imperfect orthodox Catholic, I'm also tired of one of these individuals, who isn't that good at arguing, turning to religious topics no matter what is being discussed, to include my assistant simply taking her shoes off in her office the other day, which would not normally lead to a Biblical discussion, but of course did.

I've also had it with somebody thinking that mocking the Spanish language is funny in front of somebody who's an immigrant.

***Parachute Landing Fall.  I learned this, oddly enough, while I was a CAP cadet.

Trump and state of mind. Whistling past the graveyard.

From the blog Above The Law:

Good Morning, Joe Tacopina!

Time for a little client feedback. Don’t bother checking Avvo or Yelp — he’ll come to you.

This disgusting Slob, a Democrat Political Operative, is the same guy who funded a woman who I knew absolutely nothing about, sued me for Rape, for which I was found NOT GUILTY. She didn’t remember the year, decade, or much else! In Interviews she said some amazingly “inconsistent” things. Disgraceful Trial—Very unfair. I was asked by my lawyer not to attend—“It was beneath me, and they have no case.” That was not good advice.

For those who don’t speak brain-addled former president …

The “slob” bit is a reference to Reid Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn who paid some of the fees associated with E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and sexual abuse lawsuits against Donald Trump. He did not “fund” Carroll, whose lawyers were working on contingency and who filed her lawsuit ten months before Hoffman’s intercession.

And there's more, you can find the link at the side.

I didn't post it for Trump's post trial criticism of his own lawyer, but for this item:

For those who don’t speak brain-addled former president …

Isn't it obvious that Trump is not all right?

You would think so, but for some reason people just don't seem to be picking up on it.

When Ronald Reagan was President, people were picking up on it.  I won't call it a whisper campaign, but amongst careful observers and medicos, there was talk.  I remember, as I've noted here before, my father just flat out stating that Reagan had Alzheimer's, and he did.

Something is going on with Trump.

Trump has for many years affected a very odd pattern of speech, but it's gotten juvenile,  This isn't the way a highly educated man speaks.  It's weird.  And the example above is far from the oddest example.

The other day I stopped by a pastry store on my way to work.  On my way out a man was walking in, with glassy eyes, and was all upset about where I had parked my Jeep.  "You're in the road".  

Now, he was walking in, and there were no parking spots marked.  There was no reason to believe I was "in the road".  But he was waiving his arms and talking to himself, before he saw the Jeep was mine, and talked to me.  "I'm sorry" I stated, and he rambled on about that being okay, still speaking to himself as he walked in.

Clearly, he had a mental problem.

Also, just yesterday I walked into Home Depot and a man was loudly complaining to himself in a rambling babbling fashion about the automatic doors being open.  "The automatic doors are open" he stated to me, in an agitated fashion.  I walked on in and said nothing as I thought he might have those ear buds that people now have where they can talk on their cell phones and perhaps was an employee talking to somebody, but pretty clear it was obvious he was not as he kept up in an agitated fashion and ultimately went up and babbled to the help desk, loudly.

It was clear he had a mental problem.

Why are we whistling past the graveyard with Trump?

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1923.

The Fresno Bee, California, November 29, 1923.

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1923, Calvin Coolidge having fixed the very late date for this year on November 5.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The American people, from their earliest days, have observed the wise custom of acknowledging each year the bounty with which divine Providence has favored them. In the beginnings, this acknowledgment was a voluntary return of thanks by the community for the fruitfulness of the harvest. Though our mode of life has greatly changed, this custom has always survived. It has made thanksgiving day not only one of the oldest but one of the most characteristic observances of our country. On that day, in home and church, in family and in public gatherings, the whole nation has for generations paid the tribute due from grateful hearts for blessings bestowed.

To center our thought in this way upon the favor which we have been shown has been altogether wise and desirable. It has given opportunity justly to balance the good and the evil which we have experienced. In that we have never failed to find reasons for being grateful to God for a generous preponderance of the good. Even in the least propitious times, a broad contemplation of our whole position has never failed to disclose overwhelming reasons for thankfulness. Thus viewing our situation, we have found warrant for a more hopeful and confident attitude toward the future.

In this current year, we now approach the time which has been accepted by custom as most fitting for the calm survey of our estate and the return of thanks. We shall the more keenly realize our good fortune, if we will, in deep sincerity, give to it due thought, and more especially, if we will compare it with that of any other community in the world.

The year has brought to our people two tragic experiences which have deeply affected them. One was the death of our beloved President Harding, which has been mourned wherever there is a realization of the worth of high ideals, noble purpose and unselfish service carried even to the end of supreme sacrifice. His loss recalled the nation to a less captious and more charitable attitude. It sobered the whole thought of the country. A little later came the unparalleled disaster to the friendly people of Japan. This called forth from the people of the United States a demonstration of deep and humane feeling. It was wrought into the substance of good works. It created new evidences of our international friendship, which is a guarantee of world peace. It replenished the charitable impulse of the country.

By experiences such as these, men and nations are tested and refined. We have been blessed with much of material prosperity. We shall be better able to appreciate it if we remember the privations others have suffered, and we shall be the more worthy of it if we use it for their relief. We will do well then to render thanks for the good that has come to us, and show by our actions that we have become stronger, wiser, and truer by the chastenings which have been imposed upon us. We will thus prepare ourselves for the part we must take in a world which forever needs the full measure of service. We have been a most favored people. We ought to be a most generous people. We have been a most blessed people. We ought to be a most thankful people.

Wherefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby fix and designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November, as Thanksgiving Day, and recommend its general observance throughout the land. It is urged that the people, gathering in their homes and their usual places of worship, give expression to their gratitude for the benefits and blessings that a gracious Providence has bestowed upon them, and seek the guidance of Almighty God, that they may deserve a continuance of His favor.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this 5th day of November, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States, the One Hundred and Forty-eighth.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

By the President:

CHARLES E. HUGHES, Secretary of State.


The Casper paper apparently gave its staff the day off, but the Saratoga one did not, and also informed its readers that childhood vaccinations for smallpox were now mandatory.

Wilhelm Marx was chosen as the new Chancellor of Germany.  He's serve twice in the 1920s.

He was charged with criminal activity in the early 30s by the Nazi regime for his leadership of the People's Association for Catholic Germany (Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland) but the charge against him was dropped in 1935.  He died in 1946.  The Catholic association he headed, which had dated back to the 1890s, was recreated as the Volksverein Mönchengladbach after World War Two.