Monthly Archives: June 2025

Just Asking.

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            Was Joe Biden being treated for cancer during his term in office?  One possible effect of chemotherapy for cancer is commonly called “chemo brain.”  The Mayo Clinic lists cognitive effects, physical complications, and risk factures for “chemo brain.” [1] 

“Symptoms of chemo brain linked to memory may include:

  • Trouble recalling what you’ve said to others.
  • Trouble recalling what you’ve seen, such as images or lists of words.
  • Trouble recalling what’s happened recently, called short-term memory issues.

Symptoms of chemo brain linked to thinking may include:

  • Trouble finding the right words.
  • Trouble learning new skills.
  • Trouble doing more than one thing at a time.
  • Mental fog.
  • Short attention span.
  • Taking longer than usual to do routine tasks.

“Physical complications of chemotherapy include: 

  • Low levels of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin needed to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues, called anemia.
  • Weakness and tiredness.”

“Factors that may increase the risk of chemo brain and memory changes in people with cancer include:

  • Older age.”

There appears to be a degree of overlap in the symptoms of “chemo brain” and the “cognitive decline” attributed to President Biden from early in his term.[2]  It has been remarked that Joe Biden had not received the PSA test since 2014.  This struck some observers as odd.  On the one hand, doctors don’t recommend the PSA for men over 70.  On the other hand, Biden was a candidate for the presidency and then the President of the United States.[3]  Spokesmen for Biden have denied that he had been diagnosed with cancer before May 2025.[4]  That would be powerfully persuasive had not other spokespeople previously declared that Biden was mentally and physically fit to be President when he obviously was not.[5] 

Whatever the cause of Joe Biden’s cognitive problems, Americans are entitled to ask: who was running the show, and for how long, and in which areas of government?    

[1] Chemo brain – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic 

[2] For a catalogue of Biden’s public mis-steps, see: Age and health concerns about Joe Biden – Wikipedia For a recording of the full interview of Biden by Special Counsel Robert Hur, see: Marc Caputo, “Exclusive: Listen to the full Biden-Hur special counsel interview” Axios (May 17, 2025).  For a bunch of “now it can be told” stuff, see: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025). 

[3] “C’mon man.”    

[4] See the very helpful article by Tyler Pager “Biden Did Not Get Prostate Diagnosis Before Last Week,” NYT, 20 May 2025. 

[5] Andrew Restuccia, Annie Linskey, Emily Glazer, Rebecca Ballhaus, Erich Schwartzel, “How Biden’s Inner Circle Worked to Keep Signs of Aging Under Wraps”, WSJ, 8 July 2024, elicited a lot of push-back from Democrats high and low.    

Puzzled.

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Are we doing too much to support our ally Israel? First, by launching and tenaciously continuing a war that Hamas cannot win, Hamas is at least as responsible as Israel for the massive death toll in Gaza. Still, have we erred by supplying Israel with so much ordnance? That’s without me knowing just how much ordnance we have supplied to Israel. Second, by attacking Iran’s key nuclear-weapons development facilities, we are entering a war whose long-term course is unknowable. (The same is true of any war, as Desmond Morton observed.) Israel is right to fear Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, given Iran’s professed desire to destroy Israel. Are we right to be concerned about the destruction of Israel to the point where we take military action?

Are we doing too little to support our friend, if not ally, Ukraine? Vladimir Putin has repeatedly professed his desire to destroy Ukraine as an independent state. So far, the United States and the Europeans have supplied a great deal of military hardware and training to support Ukraine’s self-defense effort, along with financial aid to keep the Ukrainian civil economy afloat. There is such a demographic imbalance between the opposing forces, that I wonder if armaments alone will enable Ukraine to survive. Should we be concerned about the destruction of Ukraine to the point where we take military action with our own forces?

Then there’s Taiwan.

What is the “right” amount of support to supply to an ally or friend at war? How do we tell what is the “right” level? Are Israel and Ukraine the same or are they apples and oranges?

Q and A.

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            Question: How does a democratic society operate in a modern world characterized by highly complex systems.  Examples of such systems include the Economy, Science, Medicine, Transportation, International Relations and National Defense. 

            Answer: It functions through delegation.  Initially, such delegation took the form of elected representatives and through federalism.  Bit by bit over the last century, the important problems raised by increasing complexity, the “Seventy-Five Years War,” and the desire for truly national policies have expanded the delegation to subject-area Experts.  Some of this “Expertise” is housed within the federal departments and agencies, some of it in semi-independent organizations, some in colleges and universities, and some of it in private bodies.  Experts act as Stewards of these complex systems for the common good. 

            Question: What do the Experts get in exchange for operating their Stewardship? 

            Answer: “Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women.”[1]  All in moderation or, at least, the appearance of moderation.  This is a version of the “Social Contract.” 

            Question: What happens if one party violates the “contract”?   

            Answer: The contract ceases to be enforceable on the other party.[2] 

            Question: Have the “Experts” violated the contract?  It seems to me that they have and repeatedly and egregiously.  There is a partial list of examples.[3] 

            Question: Has the mass of ordinary people violated the contract? 

            Answer: Maybe or Arguably, they have.  I’ve thought about the “Experts.”  They make an inviting target.  I haven’t thought as much about ordinary people.  I should.  Off the top of my head—or my grievance pile—there are the following observations:

            No one—regardless of social class or gender or sexual orientation, or ethnicity–wants to pay taxes, or serve in the military,[4] or serve on a jury. 

            Nobody seems to care about massive national debt that will lead to default. 

            We have an economy driven by the consumption of immense quantities of cheap garbage from Walmart, Amazon, and Apple. 

            The swelling numbers of people afflicted by obesity and Type II diabetes.  These are afflictions of choice, even if that choice is manipulated by Big Food. 

            The educational decline manifested in falling standardized test scores. 

            The fascination with celebrities, athletes, musicians, and other louts. 

            Today’s “common man” as a far cry from the “common man” of Aaron Copland’s day.[5]    

            Yes, I know: Curmudgeon yelling at the rain.  Doesn’t make me wrong. 

[1] Sigmund Freud, quoted by Ward Just in the story of the same title in Ward Just, Twenty-One Selected Stories (1990).   

[2] See: The Declaration of Independence. 

[3] What Should You Read? | waroftheworldblog 

[4] Well, since the creation of the “All Volunteer Force” at the end of the Vietnam War, about one percent of Americans have been willing to serve in the military.  These were not the dregs of society the common imagination.  Most often, they have been people from the South and West and often with some kind of family link to military service. 

[5] Fanfare for the Common Man – Aaron Copland