2025

● Wednesday, 1-1-2025 (New Year’s Day):   I have two reasons for suspending my exercise-walking this morning: the air is very polluted, from all the firecrackers last night and early this morning; and my left thigh is injured, probably from excessive walking. I’ll see how the thigh feels tomorrow.

● Truncated Camarillo drive; refreshing. Traffic was unusually light, which always makes the drive more pleasant, for me.

● Thursday, 1-2-2025:   I had no thigh symptoms this morning, so I took my exercise walk. Afterward, I had slight symptoms in the thigh, so I forewent my second walk.

● Friday, 1-3-2025 (10:30 p.m.):   I just awoke from another dream in which two arts were fused: music and painting. I was studying the history of American painting, and the paintings were also musical compositions. I was surveying the history of the art, including compositions of Brahms, which led to the works of Beethoven. The dream (as I remember it) was dominated by the graphic images, colorful and beautiful, mostly of landscapes. I was trying to learn to paint. In one scene I was looking at a sketch of a family having a meal, sitting at a round table, and the advice was given to always show such tables with a radial pattern for the tabletop.

● Saturday, 1-4-2025:   We may say we’re against political violence on principle. Yet, would we not favor the assassination of Hitler? Which means we’re not against political violence on principle. We’re for or against it depending on the circumstances. Strictly speaking, I’m not for or against anything on principle. All decisions are ad hoc, depending on circumstances. As to certain kinds of acts, though, exceptions may be so rare or far-fetched, that I’m for or against them virtually on principle.

Moreover, practicality constrains our making laws against certain kinds of acts, like homicide. Potential exceptions are too numerous and too subtle to fully account for in the written law. We make the law as precise as we can do practically. Further discrimination is left to the common law; to our selective enforcement of the law; and to judges’ and juries’ determination of the harshness or leniency of punishment for violations of it, to account for possible justification, or mitigating or exacerbating factors. It’s as if the government is saying: “Don’t do this act. We reserve the right to punish you for it. We may forbear punishment, or punish lightly—but don’t count on it.”]

● Wednesday, 1-8-2025:   I had a deposition scheduled for this morning. I had to cancel it because the fierce winds overnight blew over a tree near my garage, which blocked my way. The city has now removed the tree. Because of the winds, there are several major, devastating fires nearby. I feel fortunate that my apartment (so far) is not in danger. I’ve been fortunate over the years in this way.

● At first blush, I may seem inconsistent to say both that that which is valuable (not intrinsically, but quasi-intrinsically) is just an aspect of consciousness (happiness) but that what I most value is my writing. I’m not inconsistent: the first is my judgment about an objective truth. The second is my subjective, nonrational feeling. One is my philosophy; the other is my feeling.

[Later note (1-17-2025): That’s inaccurate: both are my philosophy—my philosophy of well-being, which I’ve defined as consisting in both an objective element (happiness) and a subjective element (our desires). Our desires are nonrational and arbitrary. Sometimes, as here, philosophy and psychology coincide. And you’d expect that they would: philosophy seeks the truth, and largely treats of man and his life; and the truth about man importantly involves his psychology.]

[Later note (1-24-2025): Another reason why I’m not inconsistent is that the two desiderata don’t strictly conflict because happiness is not intrinsically valuable.]

● Saturday, 1-11-2025:   I had an appointment with a physician’s assistant in the orthopedic department at Kaiser this morning, for my left upper arm, which has been painful on certain movements for the last few months. He examined me and opined that it was just a strain, which should resolve on its own. He suggested that I perhaps do light stretching exercises. Since the stretching exercises (doing them too strenuously) I think caused the injury, I’ll wait until this injury resolves before resuming those exercises.

● The horrendous fires in Los Angeles have been burning (and in fact expanding) since last Tuesday. The one in Pacific Palisades is creeping closer to my neighborhood. I’m starting to get very nervous, concerned about that. I’m by no means out of the woods in that regard. If I were religious, I’d pray. (But since I’m not, I won’t.)

● People are calling these fires “apocalyptic,” because of their huge scale: the great number of persons who’ve lost their homes. But however many—or however few—persons lose their homes, it’s catastrophic for them.

● Monday, 1-13-2025:   Today in a deposition the deponent (the person being questioned) commented that western civilization is based on Greek philosophy. He didn’t explain that, and I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it; but it occurred to me that that didn’t seem right. Later, this occurred to me: western civilization is not based on philosophy at all—it’s based on greed. . . . Well, less crudely, and more precisely, it’s based on desire: people’s quest to satisfy their various desires . . . and few persons, I suspect, have a desire involving or “based on” Greek philosophy!

● Friday, 1-17-2025:   To justify his controversial political actions, Trump construes his decisively winning the presidential election as a mandate. But Trump won because his opponent (Joe Biden) was so unpopular. Probably almost any candidate who ran against Biden would have won. Dissatisfaction with your opponent does not necessarily translate to support for your crackpot ideas.

● Well, I’ve just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. This one took exactly a month. The editing was—as usual—very fruitful, and I added six pages of new Diary material, much of which I think is quite good. So I’m in a happy quandary: I’d like to submit the Journal to book publishers for publication; yet doing so seems perpetually premature when I’m continually enhancing it. If this trend continues, when will I submit it? For now, I suppose, there’s no urgent need to do so (my health and my finances are good). I can bide my time, and let the work continue to grow.

My feeling of good fortune on completing this latest read-through is augmented by my appreciation of having been spared a calamity by the still-burning Los Angeles fires. The greatest danger in that regard (for me) has passed.

● Sunday, 1-19-2025:   Truncated Camarillo drive. Enjoyable.

● Trump’s second presidential inauguration is tomorrow. Some have wondered how the American people could have elected a President who’s so great a threat to the country’s democracy. I’ve said this: “Dealing with an acute medical problem takes precedence over dealing with a chronic or long-term one.” Many working persons’ already-dire financial situations were deteriorating, and close to collapse. That danger (one that affects them personally) was acute; danger to the country’s democracy (and which might not soon affect them personally) was longer-term, or chronic. For those voters, the former took precedence over the latter.

● Monday, 1-20-2025:   When modern American politicians (at least the Republicans) laud the virtue of “sacrifice,” they don’t mean sacrifice by the rich to alleviate the suffering of the poor, or even sacrifice by everyone. They mean sacrifice by the poor, so that the rich can get richer.

● The Philosophy Club meets again next Sunday (1-26-2025). Before every meeting, Brian Gould, the Club organizer, emails a set of 5 topics for participants to vote on, to pick one for the meeting. Among the present 5 is this one:

“IS IT BETTER NEVER TO HAVE BEEN BORN? Is most any human life too tragic or painful on balance to be worth living? If you’re persuaded this is the case, should we therefore refrain from bringing children into the world? We can evaluate the reasons “Anti-Natalist” philosophers believe that it would be better if we’d not been brought into existence.”

Without reading any of the reference material (which will be provided only if the topic is chosen), here’s my initial answer: I think most people, including me, would have been better off not having been born, because most of us are predominantly unhappy. But unhappy people, most of them, choose to continue living because they possess values in addition to happiness (perhaps this is a manifestation or sublimation of the survival instinct). The value that keeps me going is my wish to maximize my body of creative work. And I would prefer that humanity continue, so that my work will live on, which requires a continuing audience. . . . But I favor changing the world so as to make human life more pleasant, or less unpleasant.

● I’m going to view the mathematics lectures again, starting now.

● Tuesday, 1-21-2025:   That right wrist and forearm pain, which I thought had gone for good, has returned.

● Wednesday, 1-22-2025:   For the last hour of the bed cycle this morning, sleep was impossible, with the smell of cigarette smoke in my apartment. Miserable!

● Thursday, 1-23-2025:   This morning, Larry Mantle, a National Public Radio host, said, on air, that Donald Trump is a populist. The dictionary defines populist as “a supporter of the rights and power of the people”; and populism as “a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.” Trump is the opposite of a populist—he’s a plutocrat. He’s a member of the wealthy elite, and his actions and policies as President (like his tax cuts for the wealthy) favor the elite at the expense of the people, though he pretends to be a populist. And Mantle’s statement was not just the typical namby-pamby euphemism. It was a lie . . . unless he meant merely that Trump is a populist because he seeks to be popular (his comment was dishonest or stupid—but Mantle is intelligent).

. . . On second thought, the comment could still have been merely stupid. Intelligent people sometimes say stupid things. But I think the alternative is more likely. . . . Do honest people sometimes lie? Perhaps he’s generally honest, but in this instance he gave in to fear, knowing that Trump is vindictive, and that, with Trump as President, public radio stations are vulnerable, to loss of government funding . . ..

● Sunday, 1-26-2025:   Philosophy Club. Topic: “Utilitarianism and Consequentialism.” I think that philosophers who argue for utilitarianism make at least two fundamental errors: One, they assume that morality is objective; and, two, (perhaps a consequence of the first mistake,) they assume that morality can be reduced to formulas.

In the Wikipedia article on Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill’s proof of the principle of utility is criticized as embodying several logical fallacies, including the naturalistic fallacy; the equivocation fallacy; and the fallacy of composition. A more fundamental criticism of Mill’s argument is to note that, because morality is not objective, moral precepts, like utilitarianism, cannot be proven. The best we can do regarding a moral precept is to say what our thoughts are about it, why it appeals to us (or not). Some will agree; other will disagree, and they, too, can say why. None are right or wrong. It’s like explaining why you prefer Beethoven to Bach.

Karl Popper’s suggestion that the principle “maximize pleasure” should be replaced by “minimize pain” is easily refuted: if the sole relevant principle were to minimize pain, there could be no better world than a nonexistent world, because it holds the least possible amount of pain (zero). But surely a world with no pain but considerable pleasure is better. Though we may give priority to decreasing pain over increasing pleasure, yet pleasure and pain are commensurable. I would willingly experience a certain amount of pain in order to (later) experience a great enough amount of pleasure. And the traditional utilitarian principle “maximize pleasure” already accounts for pain: it means the greatest net pleasure (pleasure over pain).

Another argument against (or criticism of) utilitarianism is that “it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because consequences are inherently unknowable.” Well, yes and no. It’s true that our actions’ consequences are not completely knowable. But they’re not completely unknowable. Surely, we do more good by trying to do good than by trying to do harm, or even just by not trying to do good. Else, it would be just as good that I ignore the traffic rules when I drive as obey them, just as good that a rich businessman cut his workers’ pay as raise it. In a rough way, we get what we intend.Another argument against (or criticism of) utilitarianism is that “it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because consequences are inherently unknowable.” Well, yes and no. It’s true that our actions’ consequences are not completely knowable. But they’re not completely unknowable. Surely, we do more good by trying to do good than by trying to do harm, or even just by not trying to do good. Else, it would be just as good that I ignore the traffic rules when I drive as obey them, just as good that a rich businessman cut his workers’ pay as raise it. In a rough way, we get what we intend.

In the article section “Aggregating utility,” there’s this: “Philosopher John Taurek also argued that the idea of adding happiness or pleasures across persons is quite unintelligible and that the numbers of persons involved in a situation [is] morally irrelevant. . . . We cannot explain what it means to say that things would be five times worse if five people die than if one person dies. . . . There is not five times more loss of happiness or pleasure when five die: who would be feeling this happiness or pleasure?” That’s true in a certain theoretical way (perhaps what he’s getting at—though he doesn’t realize it—is the idea that there’s no intrinsic value). But, practically, taking into account numbers of persons makes sense. If there’s no difference between helping five and helping one, then there’s no difference between helping five and helping none. And the policy of helping as many as possible works to the advantage of any given person, because he’s more likely to belong to a larger group than to a smaller one.

About average utility, the Wikipedia article says: “On the other hand, measuring the utility of a population based on the average utility of that population avoids Parfit’s repugnant conclusion but causes other problems. For example, bringing a moderately happy person into a very happy world would be seen as an immoral act; aside from this the theory implies that it would be a moral good to eliminate all people whose happiness is below average, as this would raise the average happiness.” In response, bringing a moderately happy person into a very happy world would not be counter-utilitarian, let alone immoral, because it would reduce no one’s happiness. Likewise, average utility would not indicate eliminating people whose happiness is below average, because that would raise no one’s happiness (and would anguish the family and friends of those eliminated). Plus, if we start “eliminating” people, everyone will become anxious (unhappy). Utility does not require us to abandon common sense.

Finally, yet another criticism of utilitarianism is that it’s too demanding. Shelley Kagan says: “Given the parameters of the actual world, . . . maximally promoting the good would require a life of hardship, self-denial, and austerity . . ..” But we don’t reduce a moral standard to conform to your conduct. If you’re honest half the time, and the rest of the time you lie, cheat, and steal; we don’t change the rule “One should be honest” to “One should be honest at least half the time” so that you’ll be able say that you abide by it. Utilitarianism describes an ideal. Perhaps it will never be fully attained. But it’s useful to have in our minds as a guide for what to strive for, both in our conduct and in the state of the world.

[Later note (3-11-2025): In my foregoing comments on utilitarianism, I start out criticizing it, but I end up defending it. The resolution is this: I think utilitarianism is a good, useful guide. But it must be appropriately qualified. The criticisms of it that I argue against are not apt criticisms.]

● Monday, 1-27-2025:   I see in the news that Trump’s long-promised deportation blitz has begun. I suppose any day now, grocery prices will start to come down.

● Tuesday, 1-28-2025:   I went to Fresno again today, for a deposition. Some of the landscape between Los Angeles and Bakersfield was covered with snow. Again my car (and I) performed beautifully.

● Saturday, 2-1-2025:   I’m starting another read-through of the Journal. I took my standard two-week break from it, though, also as usual, during that break I did some new writing in my Diary.

● Tuesday, 2-4-2025:   I’m the fifofiest of them all!

● Wednesday, 2-5-2025:   This neck pain is a pain in the neck!

● Friday, 2-7-2025:   This is from my report on today’s workers’ compensation deposition:

Defense attorney asked Mr. Cruz whether he filed this workers’ compensation claim because he was fired, and he answered “Yes.” Defense attorney might argue that that means that Mr. Cruz filed the claim to retaliate against the employer for their firing him. But the counterargument would be that that’s not what it means. Rather, it means only that he would not have filed the claim if he had not been fired—if he still worked there—because he needed the job, and would be afraid that his filing a claim would cause him to lose the job. Since that condition which he felt precluded his filing the claim was removed (he no longer works there), he felt free to file it. Besides, he has genuine injuries, for which he has a right to compensation, regardless of his motive for bringing the case.

● Monday, 2-10-2025:   Donald “Wrecking-Ball” Trump.

● Tuesday, 2-11-2025:   I parked my car in the alleyway this afternoon to give plumbers access to my garage. I left this note on my car:

Tuesday 4:00 p.m.

I’ll move this car shortly.

If you need it moved sooner, please call me (Richard): (818) 343-0123.

● Donald Trump hates the United States government as we know it, and is trying to destroy it. He’s cutting everything, government agencies, public funding, the federal workforce . . .. That’s as likely to benefit the public as a surgeon (or someone masquerading as a surgeon) opening a patient on the operating table and indiscriminately cutting the viscera is likely to benefit the patient. Many common people think Trump is a real surgeon, who knows medicine, that he’s wielding a scalpel, to try to help them. But he’s a butcher wielding a butcher knife. And he has no intention of helping the common people. I hope they wake up before it’s too late.

[Later note (2-14-2025): That analogy is flawed, in two ways. First, to picture the country as “a patient,” a single person, suggests that everyone’s interests are aligned, that the “surgeon’s” actions affect everyone in the same way. Rather, the country is made up of numerous people, and different persons are differently affected. Second, the Trump administration is not an incompetent butcher blindly slashing. They know well what they’re doing: their cutting hurts the vast majority (poor and working people), but it helps the wealthy, which is their aim.]

● Thursday, 2-13-2025:   When I’m reading my Journal for editing . . . it seems strange, but I’m actually glad when I come upon an entry that I think needs correcting, either by rewriting it or by adding a Later note to it. I think that’s because I enjoy the revising; and because I know that I’m thereby making an improvement; and because—at least momentarily—it makes me feel that my obsessive, constant rereading of the work is justified.

● Friday, 2-14-2025:   Among Trump’s lies are these: He speaks of acting (specifically, cutting taxes) to help “the taxpayers.” Since even working people pay taxes, “the taxpayers” connotes “the people”; and we think he’s talking about helping the people. The way he cuts taxes is to cut government programs that taxes fund. When he does that, he describes it as cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But that’s a pretext. Even the most laudably efficient government program will contain some waste, fraud, or abuse. That doesn’t mean that the program, overall, is wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive. Programs he wants to cut, like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, ones that help poor and working people, are, by and large, very efficient. Trump is not cutting a program’s waste, fraud, or abuse; he’s cutting the program. For working people, the value of the government programs they thereby lose exceeds the amount of their tax reduction; for the wealthy, their tax reduction exceeds the value, to them, of any lost government programs. Hence these tax cuts help the wealthy and hurt working people. Trump speaks of helping “the taxpayers,” which suggests helping the people. What he means is helping the wealthy—and hurting the people. . . . And what has happened is that the American people have been had.

● If the American people ever figured out what’s happening in this country—a big if—they’d be very angry.

● Sunday, 2-16-2025:   When Trump says he’s using “common sense,” it doesn’t mean he’s seeing a problem in a fresh, clear way. Rather, it merely serves as justification for his doing what he wants to do, with no deliberation or argument, and no discussion of whom the action helps, and whom it hurts (and it usually helps the privileged few and hurts the many—which means it does more harm than good).

● For two weeks’ time, my left lower leg (in the usual place, just below the knee) has been painful enough to prevent me from taking my exercise-walks. I could walk despite the pain, but that would make it worse, and it would delay and prolong the healing.

● Sunday, 2-23-2025:   My left leg is healing. It’s finally good enough to resume the exercise-walks. But I’m doing it cautiously. Yesterday I went just a third of the way, once. Today I walked the same distance, twice.

● Philosophy Club meeting, in-person; I’m not going—I attend just the ones that meet by Zoom (computer). But I read the readings on the topic: “Bowdlerizing literary works.” And, as usual, I have an opinion about it (if not an argument): I’m against it. I wouldn’t want my work bowdlerized.

It’s useful to contrast bowdlerization with (normal) editing: Editing furthers the author’s intention in and vision of the work; bowdlerization (to make it more acceptable to some audiences) subverts it. Editing, when done well, improves the work; bowdlerization degrades it.

● Tuesday, 2-25-2025:   I overdid the walking yesterday, because today the left lower leg symptoms have returned, albeit mildly. I’ll suspend the exercise walking again this morning. . . . In the afternoon (I had no deposition today), the leg felt OK, so I took an exercise-walk. First I went two-thirds of the usual distance of one walk. About an hour later, I went one-third of the way. The leg still feels all right.

● Thursday, 2-27-2025:   Cutting taxes is the rich robbing the poor.

● Friday, 2-28-2025:   He who cannot admit (at least to himself) that he makes mistakes, cannot learn from his mistakes. Trump seems to be an example, of someone who can’t admit that he makes mistakes . . . and of a mistake.

● The recent flare-up of the left leg injury seems for now to have completely resolved. This morning I took my full exercise-walk, though just once; no ill effect.

● Saturday, 3-8-2025:   That pain in my left leg has returned, with a vengeance! I’ll have to suspend my exercise-walking for at least a few days.

● Sunday, 3-9-2025:   I set all my clocks ahead for daylight saving time.

● Today my left leg feels better than it did yesterday. It’s not yet good enough to do my exercise-walking; but the improvement is encouraging.

● Tuesday, 3-11-2025:   I just finished another read-through of my Journal. This one took a month and a week. As usual, it was very productive. I’ll begin another one in a fortnight’s time.

● Friday, 3-14-2025:   Last week I started wearing my walking shoes instead of my regular street shoes, for most trips, in hopes that my left-leg injury would heal faster. I don’t know whether it’s made a difference. My leg still has not healed enough to do my exercise-walking.

● Saturday, 3-15-2025:   Haircut (Brenda). ($30.)

● I have a severe backache. I’m having trouble getting out of bed, and walking. I brought it on by isometrically contracting muscles in my lower back yesterday.

● Sunday, 3-16-2025:   In his book The Reader Over Your Shoulder, Robert Graves criticizes a passage by Bertrand Russell. Then Graves comments: “Professor Russell’s mind is reputedly exact and brilliant when it deals with problems of mathematics; when it deals with politics and education it tends to relax.” I would put it a bit differently: Being a great mathematician does not necessarily mean also being a great writer.

● Monday, 3-17-2025:   Here’s more “daily journal” writing. I’m in that hellish two-week period between Journal read-throughs—about halfway through. Mercifully, for the next four days I have busy-work (a deposition every day; a deposition takes up almost the entire day). Then I’ll have just four days until my next Journal read-through. And on one of those days (Sunday), I’ll take a desert ride. But today, I have no deposition; I’m at home. And, right now, I have no particularly worthwhile thought to express, or particularly strong feeling about anything—I’m making a note just as an excuse to write, for lack of anything else to do. I lack the energy to read another piece in Robert Graves’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder or to resume watching the mathematics lectures. I’m resorting to once more rereading John R. Trimble’s Writing with Style, which, for me, is easy reading. Shortly, I may do more mindless television-watching. It’s 9:00 a.m. At 10:30 a.m., if I feel more energetic after drinking my first cup of tea, I may resume reading the Graves book or tackling the mathematics lectures. The severe backache is very slowly improving. I worry that, when it finally stabilizes, it will be worse than before. It seems as though every time I have a little accident that aggravates it, it’s (permanently) a little worse. (I see by the clock that it took me about 35 minutes to write this paragraph . . . the first draft of it.)

● After drinking my first cup of tea, I felt up to tackling the mathematics lectures again, and I did so. I feel very frustrated. In one of the early lectures, I was unable to follow a proof, that, in a way, seems as if it should be very simple. It’s as if I have some sort of mental block, as if, perhaps, my exclusive concentration on verbal reasoning has caused my mathematical aptitude to atrophy. . . . Or perhaps the proof was not as simple as it seemed.

● Friday, 3-21-2025:   In the Wintertime, when I’m at the kitchen sink brushing my teeth or washing my urinary catheters, I turn on a portable heater, positioned near to where I stand. I was forgetting to turn it off when I finished. So, to remind me, I place an object (a pair of scissors with an orange handle) on the kitchen table just before I turn on the heater. When I turn it off, I put the scissors back in their original place.

● David Brooks made a perceptive observation on Trump: He’s not “transactional,” as he’s often described—he’s extortionistic. He doesn’t make a deal with you (unless making you an offer you can’t refuse is making a deal). Rather, he tells you what he wants you to do, and he bludgeons you into doing it. . . . But, I would add, in many other instances he’s corrupt: Flatter him or give him an expensive present, and he’ll do what you want him to do.

● I just solved another significant neighbor-problem. Every morning I take a nap shortly after breakfast. When I have a morning deposition, I take the nap in my car. But when I have no morning deposition, I take it in my apartment, with my head on my desk. The nap at home has been problematic because of harassment by the next-door neighbors on both sides. They make noise and listen intently for any (even very slight) responsive sounds from me. If I were asleep, it wouldn’t be a problem. But most of the time, I’m awake enough to hear their noises. It’s very stressful to try to remain perfectly silent to avoid the trap, and the stress tends to keep me awake. A few days ago, it occurred to me to use earplugs, as I do—for the same purpose—when I’m in bed at night. This morning I tried it (wearing earplugs), and it worked!

● This break between Journal read-throughs will be longer than I expected, and longer than usual. Next week, I’ll be too busy to start another Journal read-through until the weekend: I have a deposition every day next week; on three days, I have two.

● Sunday, 3-23-2025:   A work of art is necessarily finite. Aristotle’s dictum that a piece of writing has a beginning, middle, and end, also implies this. What has a beginning and an end is finite.

● John R. Trimble, in his book Writing with Style, says that the novice writer writes for himself, unconcerned about the reader. Whereas, the professional writer writes for the reader. I think the process is more complex. There’s a third stage, where the writer knows what makes a piece of writing good, and he internalizes that standard and values attaining it. His knowledge about the quality of his writing may exceed that of his readers; he strives for excellence, even if his readers are not sophisticated enough to fully appreciate it (indeed, he may now have no readers). Thus he’s again writing for himself.

● Truncated Camarillo drive. Refreshing.

● Does the Old Testament (“Thou shalt not kill”) prohibit the death penalty? No. In fact, it positively endorses it. The Old Testament also says: “If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills . . . a person shall be put to death.” Taken together, these pronouncements mean that, just as you should not put out another person’s eye, neither should you kill another person. But—if you do so—your proper punishment is having one of your own eyes put out, or, in the case of murder, being killed yourself.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t oppose the death penalty? No. It means just that we shouldn’t use the Bible as authority for that opposition.

● Tuesday, 3-25-2025:   In the last few days, a big story in the news has been the accidental inclusion of a journalist on an electronic group chat among high-ranking national security officials discussing plans for an immanent United States military attack. It’s a scandal. Perhaps the explanation for the accident is simple: The official responsible for preventing such mistakes had been fired. . . . You don’t wholesale cut the federal workforce without some loss of function. If those workers were useless, they wouldn’t have been hired. That effect is compounded when you hire for loyalty instead of competence. This outcome, though perhaps unintended, is inevitable—and foreseeable.

● Saturday, 3-29-2025:   I’m beginning another Journal read-through.

● Sunday, 3-30-2025:   I’ve had a serious backache for two weeks now. At the beginning, it was severe. Even worse than the physical pain was the worry that it signified a permanent worsening, which may require surgery. I thought it might be a sign of a herniated lumbar disc because the pain radiates into my buttocks and down my left let. During the last two weeks, I suspended all exercise, both the stretching and the walking; experience has taught me that it’s counterproductive to do stretching exercises when the condition is acute. But the lack of exercise probably compounded the problem. In fact, the reduced stretching regimen over the last few months, occasioned by the new injury to my left arm, probably predisposed me to a back flare-up. I resumed some stretching exercises this morning, though fewer than usual. It seems to have helped. I’ll slowly increase my exercising until I regain the original set, even at the risk of worsening the condition of left arm (the back must now take precedence over the arm, because it’s become the more significant problem).

● Thursday, 4-3-2025:   Well, good old Trump has crashed the stock market, with his tariffs. What I said about George W. Bush is even more true of Trump: he’s a peculiar combination of evil and incompetence. Whether Trump’s incompetence is, on balance, good, making him less able to effect his evil intentions, it’s at least sometimes bad. For example, his disastrous tariffs were a matter, not of evil, but of incompetence. Trump did not intend the stock market crash that his tariffs caused. In fact, he’d rather that the market advance, because he takes it as a reflection on his presidency. Had he known that his tariffs would crash the market, he probably wouldn’t have imposed them. But now that it’s happened, he won’t change course, because that would be to admit that he made a mistake, which he can’t do. I think I’ve discovered what Donald Trump’s middle initial (J) stands for: Jackass—Donald Jackass Trump. I hesitated to say that, lest someone use my remark against me (my middle initial, too, is J). But then I thought: No, there’s a difference: Trump is a jackass. I’m not.

● Tariffs are sometimes helpful, but only if done by an expert wielding a scalpel. If done by an incompetent wielding a chainsaw, they’re inevitably destructive.

● In 2024, a gunman tried to assassinate Trump while he (Trump) was giving a campaign speech. Trump narrowly escaped calamity (the bullet grazed his outer ear). He later claimed that God saved him, so that he could become President again. Now, let me see if I understand this. The attempted assassin acted independently of God . . . God did not act until the last split-second of the event, when He intervened to push the bullet, or Trump, such that the bullet would miss Trump’s vital organs? (And, in that case, why didn’t He deflect the bullet, or Trump’s body, just half an inch farther, so that the bullet would have missed Trump entirely?) Or, God controlled the entire event: He caused the gunman to shoot Trump in the ear . . . God, for some reason, wanted that to happen? I suppose it just goes to show: God works in mysterious ways.

● Saturday, 4-5-2025:   A few weeks ago Israel unilaterally broke the months-long cease-fire with the Palestinians in Gaza. Claiming that she’s attacking Hamas, Israel continually bombs Palestinian hospitals and schools, killing Palestinians, many, perhaps most, of them women and children. Israel continually orders Palestinians to move from certain places, saying she’s going to bomb those areas. Which bombing has already pretty much turned Gaza to rubble. It seems to me that Israel is using the existence of Hamas as an excuse to destroy Gaza, and that Israel’s real purpose is to make life for the remaining Palestinians there miserable enough that they’ll leave, so that Israel can take the land for herself. Trump has recently declared that he, too, desires that outcome, but that he wants the land for the United States (. . . or for himself).

● I’ve solved another neighbor problem. I sit at my desk, in the big room of my apartment, facing a large window, with a view to the main common area of the apartment complex. In front of the window, inside my apartment, are blinds, which I have turned so that I can see out from most places in that room, but not from where I sit at my desk. This is because, if I can see out, people outside can see me (if lighting permits), and (for my privacy) I don’t want people outside to be able to see me sitting at my desk. But I like to be able (sitting at the desk) to see outside just enough to be able to see which of the no. 3 neighbors are leaving their apartment, when they do so. For which purpose I use a mirror. Those neighbors eventually noticed the mirror, and worked out my purpose for it. To see the image in the mirror, while sitting at my desk, I must turn my head (toward the mirror). In the cold months, I wear my big down jacket and a heavy muffler. So turning my head to look toward the mirror makes a slight sound, which they can hear. They likewise eventually (just last week) figured out that I’m turning my head to see them in the mirror when they open their front door. That made them angry, and they loudly slammed their front door when they heard me thus turning my head. So I could no longer turn my head to look at the mirror when they opened their front door. I solved the problem simply by buying another mirror, which I placed almost directly in front of me and angled it so that, in it, I can see the other mirror and espy who’s walking outside my apartment—without turning my head!

● This has been an unusually good day for me. Nothing extraordinary happened. But my mood and energy have been excellent.

● Sunday, 4-6-2025:   Today I did my full stretching and walking regimen, for the first time in almost two months.

● Monday, 4-7-2025:   When I’m scheduled for two depositions in a day (morning and afternoon), if one of them gets canceled, and I’ve already traveled to the first one, it’s much better if it’s the afternoon deposition that’s canceled. Then I can just return home after the morning deposition, as I’d do if I’d had just the morning deposition in the first place. Whereas, if the morning deposition is canceled, I’ll have to wait around at the first office for several hours, until it’s time to travel to the afternoon deposition. And if I have just one deposition on a certain day, I’d rather it be in the morning than in the afternoon, because with an afternoon deposition, I get home so late that I don’t get enough sleep time.

● Saturday, 4-12-2025:   In recent decades, there’s been a “fashion” trend of people wearing baseball caps backward, with the visor in the rear. Some perhaps think that’s nonsensical, because it defeats the cap’s purpose of keeping the sun out of the wearer’s eyes. But, no, it actually makes good sense: it’s very useful, in keeping the sun off the back of the wearer’s neck.

● When, because of bodily pain or discomfort, I have to skip my exercise-walking at the usual time (early in the morning), sometimes the symptom resolves within a few hours, and I can do the walking later in the day.

● Sunday, 4-13-2025:   Yesterday, for the first time ever, I wore a baseball cap on my exercise-walk. I’d had it in my car for several years. I bought it for my occasional wave-watching trips to the beach, to keep the sun out of my eyes. Why it didn’t occur to me for so long that it would be helpful in that same way when I walk, I don’t know. But it was most helpful. Often when I walk during daylight, I not only wear dark sunglasses, but also shield my eyes by putting up my hand to block the sun. The cap does that so well that I didn’t even need to wear the sunglasses. It was a revelation, a milestone (at least in my walking, if not more generally in my life).

● Tuesday, 4-15-2025:   In his first term as President, Trump was a clown; in his second term, he’s a tyrant.

● Thursday, 4-17-2025:   In bullying colleges and universities into acting as he wants them to act, Trump claims he’s fighting antisemitism. That’s another Trump lie. What he’s calling antisemitic is pro-Palestinian activism. Those demonstrators—many of whom are Jewish—are against the Israeli government’s barbaric, genocidal actions. They’re not necessarily against Israel as a country, let alone against Jews. And Trump’s actions don’t fight antisemitism or protect Jews. Indeed, the most effective action Trump could take to fight antisemitism, would be to pressure Israel to stop its depraved attacks on the Palestinians!

● I wonder if it’s too simple to say of Trump: Bad people make bad Presidents. . . . It may be too simple, in that, one way we judge whether a person is good or bad is how he acts as President. If Trump changed course as President and acted to help the country and the world, we (I) would say, “Perhaps he’s a good person, after all.”

● Saturday, 4-19-2025:   Having been prevented by injury so often during the last few months from doing my exercise-walks, being able to do them now seems almost miraculous.

● I’ve wondered about the risks of publishing this Journal. Heretofore, I thought the risk might be that someone who takes offense at it would not offer me a good job, who otherwise would do so. But lately another risk occurs to me: that Donald Trump or his henchman Elon Musk might take offense and imprison me, or otherwise punish me.

● Wednesday, 4-23-2025:   I had a very good day today. My mood and energy were unusually good. I worked energetically throughout the day; I didn’t even feel the need to take a nap (and I didn’t take one). For most of the day, I didn’t hear any next-door neighbors, on either side, or above. I’m not sure how, if at all, that’s related: I don’t know whether it helped, but it surely didn’t hurt.

● Sunday, 4-27-2025:   Philosophy Club meeting (by Zoom). Topic: “Is it wrong to sexually objectify people?” Philosopher Raja Halwani, in his piece “Why Sexual Desire is Objectifying—and Hence Morally Wrong,” argues (largely following Kant) that “sexual desire and objectification are inseparable”; that it’s morally wrong to objectify others or oneself, and that therefore sexual desire is morally wrong. His conclusion is problematic (to say the least!), for two reasons: One, because sexual desire is part of human nature, we cannot get rid of it, and, two, because, even if we could get rid of our sexual desire, no one would choose to do so, merely to avoid sexual objectification. Nonetheless, what’s wrong, and what we should try to restrain, in this regard, are certain destructive manifestations of our sex drive, like men “wolf whistling” at women, which practice women find demeaning. Moreover, while I agree with the proposition that people’s well-being, or humanity, should be respected, I think that there are far more-important contexts or ways in which dehumanization should be fought against than sexually; for example: greed and poverty. The inequality of wealth does far more harm than sexual objectification. To the extent that objectification is morally wrong, a key element in its evil (which of course Kant wouldn’t take account of) is its effect.

● Within a century, Germany and the Jews have switched places. In World War Two, the Germans were the perpetrators of genocide and the Jews were their victims. Now, Germany is an enlightened nation and Jews (or Israel, “the Jewish state”) are perpetrators of genocide. . . . I suppose that by “Never again!” Jews meant only that never again would we be the victims of genocide; it’s all right if we’re the perpetrators. . . . But there’s no comparison between the Holocaust and Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. On second thought, there is a comparison: the Holocaust was much bigger. And yet, for a victim, there is no difference: A Palestinian killed by Israel is just as dead as a Jew killed by Germany.

● Saturday, 5-3-2025:   What’s on the other side of a flag?

● Wednesday, 5-7-2025:   As President, in his second term, Trump has considerably increased his own wealth, and considerably decreased almost everyone else’s.

● Thursday, 5-8-2025:   I may write a book called The Boodle and the Poodle. I don’t know what it will be about, but at least I have a good title for it.

● Friday, 5-9-2025:   The aromatic bush has again bloomed into fragrance.

● The freedom of free enterprise is the freedom of the rich to get richer—and to make everyone else poorer.

● Sunday, 5-11-2025:   We’re in a several-days’ heat wave. Last night was the first night this year when I’ve had to keep my front door open, at night (with the screen door closed), to cool the apartment.

● I just finished the latest read-through of my Journal—all but the usual final step: adding to it my new Diary entries. This one took about 42 days. I’ll skip that last step this time. To begin the next two-week break from working on the Journal now is good because I have a deposition every day next week. Without that kind of busy-work to occupy my time, the breaks are painful. (A deposition every day of the week is unusual; if I delay starting the break, I may get an emptier schedule.) I’ll add the new Diary entries at the start of the next read-through.

● Tuesday, 5-13-2025:   Capitalism is the rich stealing from everyone else, especially the poor.

● Wednesday, 5-14-2025:   Capitalism is where a few get rich and the rest suffer.

● Thursday, 5-15-2025:   “Never say never.” . . . Didn’t we just say it?

● Saturday, 5-17-2025:   Like this first week of my two-week break from reviewing my Journal, the second week (next week), too, will be painless: again I have a deposition every day!

● Truncated Camarillo drive: refreshing. I drove a rented little Buick SUV. My car is—again—in the repair shop, for the same problem, the air conditioning, which they were supposed to have fixed two weeks ago, but didn’t.

● I’m watching a documentary film on the United States’ war in Vietnam. The U.S. government’s motivation therein was apparently somehow to fight communism. But for the North Vietnamese, the economic system was at best incidental; they fought mainly to resist foreign (U.S.) invasion of their country. . . . On the other hand, we should take with a rather large grain of salt the (U.S.) government’s declaration of its purpose.

● God and Satan cooperate to maintain the afterlife system: Satan maintains Hell, which God needs, as a place to send certain people for punishment . . . just as we need prison wardens, to maintain prisons, which we need as a place to send certain convicted criminals for punishment.

● Today I saw this bumper-sticker message: “Jesus is Lord.” I’m confused. Isn’t “Lord” synonymous with “God”? If so, are there two gods: God and Jesus Christ? I thought Jesus Christ was, not God, but the son of God, not the same entity?

● Monday, 5-19-2025:   I have another disabling backache. It started today. I don’t know what caused it: perhaps reclining in the uncomfortable rented car.

● Wednesday, 5-21-2025:   Happy Birthday, Richard!

● Friday, 5-23-2025:   Well, next week again, I have a deposition every day! (except Monday, which is a holiday—Memorial Day). Tomorrow I pick up my car from the repair shop; I hope this time it’s finally fixed.

● Saturday, 5-24-2025:   I recently ordered new checks for my personal checking account. When I hadn’t gotten them after a few weeks, I inquired, and was informed that they were delivered several weeks before. Which means they were stolen. For security, I had to close that account and open a new one to replace it. This time, I’m having the new checks delivered to the bank, where I’ll pick them up. As well, I’ll have to go to the local social security office to give them the new account information, so they can send my monthly payments to the new account. It’s inconvenient, but not as much so as I feared. And given the theft of the checks, I was lucky in having lost no money from the account.

● The severe backache that started about a week ago, has considerably subsided. But now I have a slight feeling of malaise, including a cough and a hint of a sore throat. In fact, for the first time in half a year, I just took codeine cough syrup for the cough.

● Sunday, 5-25-2025:   Well, I am sick. But it’s not COVID or the flu; it’s just a cold. I have a cough and a sore throat. About four hours ago I took codeine cough syrup for the cough. Now I’m going to take codeine (a #3 codeine tablet—30 mg of codeine) for the sore throat. This is just two days after my recent appointment in the podiatry department at Kaiser hospital. The last time I got sick, in December 2024, it likewise began just after being at Kaiser. That’s probably where I got it both times. Which vindicates my concern about being there. From now on, when I go there I’ll wear two facemasks.

● I get a manicure every other week; now it’s on Sunday, at 9:30 a.m. About 5 years ago, I switched manicurists, to The Best Nails, in Northridge. They’ve always charged me the same price: $15.00 (and I give the manicurist, Kathy, a $4.00 tip). Today I paid $20.00 (plus the $4.00 tip). They didn’t ask for a higher amount; I volunteered it. They come early every time, and I’m usually their only customer before 10:00. And Kathy (usually) gives me a very good manicure. The $15.00 was well below the going rate. I figured they probably avoided raising my price, lest they lose a regular customer (me). The $20.00 is little enough (I can easily afford it), and I wanted to be fair to them.

● It’s now just after noon (on Sunday). I no longer feel sick at all: the cough and the sore throat (or the throat soreness) have disappeared. Perhaps, because I wore a facemask, the amount of whatever bug caused the symptoms was so small that my body fought it off quickly. . . . And yet, I also wore a facemask during my December 2024 visit to Kaiser, and that cold was severe and lengthy. Perhaps the earlier cold was not caused by the Kaiser visit.

● It’s now 9:30 p.m. I still have a slight cough and diminished appetite (for food), and now chills; earlier today I had a headache. The headache was a side-effect (a “rebound” effect) of the codeine. The other symptoms are part of the cold.

● Monday, 5-26-2025:   I suspended my stretching and walking exercises for a week, because of the backache, not because of the cold. Today I resumed them, but I did reduced regimens.

● I just awoke from a dream. I was in late college or graduate school, and soon to graduate and start a professional career. I was in a quandary over what to study and to choose as my career. I had been studying law, but turned it down as a career because I found it tedious. Instead, I chose the kind of work involved in the last class I happened to take: studying bird biology. In the last scene in the dream, I was meeting with the professor—alone (it was so late in the school year that she was meeting with me specially, not as part of a regularly scheduled class)—and I was explaining to her my decision about this. At one point in my explanation, I was showing her a scene of a hypothetical legal case, a traffic collision. I said something like, “I find it so boring that I couldn’t even remember the color of the sky, and we both, unsuccessfully, tried to remember the color of the sky. Then the scene zoomed in on the cars involved in the massive gridlock/collision. There were many newish luxury cars; one was a new, white Rolls Royce. I think it was somehow a reference to the potential lucrativeness of a legal career, wealth that I somehow missed. But my point was that law was out of the question because I hated the work. This dream came just a few hours after I added a note in this Journal to an entry of 1-26-2001, wherein I express an insight about the difference between humans and lower animals (and which note I thought was especially good). I interpret the study of bird biology as symbolizing my desire to write: when I write, I fly. . . .