Art is 80

It looked, two months ago, as if the Democrats would dominate the 2026 mid-term elections, taking a sizeable lead in the House and having a chance to flip the Senate. Two months later, I think this is still the case, although there has been a wild card or two (depending on your definitions) thrown into the race which might change things a bit, one way or the other (or both). Two months from now (and that is still five months from the elections), things might look different again.

The two things I am thinking about are the war in Iran (the Trump-Iran War), and the (perhaps inevitable) centrality of Jews and Israel in the thinking of so many people.

The Trump-Iran War is not very popular, and we don’t know where it will stand in early November. Tonight is the latest deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or to see (in Trump’s rhetoric) the country blown back into the stone age, with all bridges and electric power plants destroyed. Whether Iran will cave or Trump will live up to his TACO habits, we don’t know on April 7 at 9 a.m. But we will find out. In any event this war, with looming price rises and shortages would seem to increase the Democrats’ chances, but again we really can’t yet tell. And wars obviously, good or bad wars, bring out patriotism and lead to accusations that those who oppose the wars are being anti-American, so you don’t yet know how the voters will react.

I have given up wondering why Jews and Israel (small people, small country) remain so often at the center of world thinking, and now just accept that. It is what it is.

We all know that the vast majority of Jews have voted with the Democrats at least since the New Deal days, and that is still the case, although Trump has managed to siphon off a surprising (to me, surprising) number of them, largely because of his outspoken support for Israel. No need now to analyze his reasons for this (plenty of time to do that), but it has had two effects. It has solidified or increased support of his administration by many Jews, largely orthodox Jews, but not only orthodox Jews, and to a great extent Jews with a lot of money and influence. And it has helped him hold onto support from the evangelical Christian community.

Both of these groups look at Israel from biblical perspectives, albeit very different biblical perspectives. For the Jews, the land of Israel is part of the Jews’ covenant with God, and rightfully belongs to them. For the evangelicals, the concentration of Jews in the biblical land of Israel is a necessary precursor to the end of days and the “second coming” of Jesus. Although their reasons, goals and expectations are radically different, these two groups are happy to ally with each other to support the current State of Israel, apparently no matter how it acts or what it does.

The Democrats were, too, always seen as supporters of Israel, from the day that Harry Truman rushed to have the United States recognize the new state in 1948. But today, in 2026, that support doesn’t seem as strong as it did in 1948 (or in, say, 1967). The younger generation of progressives have been raised in an era where social scientists have concentrated on the rights of indigenous ethnic groups to obtain self-realization and autonomy, and to view the eradication of European colonialism throughout the world as helping these groups reach those goals. Many of them have come to understand Israel as one of the last remnants of European or American (read: western) colonialism, in spite of the fact that the majority of Israelis did not come from Europe, but from other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

While people talk about the Jewish lobby (which has been indeed strong), perhaps the Arab or Muslim lobby (or lobbies) which have concentrated not only on politics, but also on academics and media influences, has been even stronger. The big question of course seems to be whether the land of Israel is Jewish land or Muslim land, and the second big question is how to define the boundaries of that land. There has never been a Palestinian state in what is now Israel; before World War I, it was part of the Turkish run Ottoman Empire, and between World War I and 1948, it was controlled by Great Britain as the mandate overseer under the auspices of, first, the League of Nations and then the United Nations. And it was the United Nations who recognized the State of Israel as a sovereign state after the British withdrew from administering under the UN mandate.

The relationship between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza and on the West Bank of the Jordan River has vacillated between terrible and really terrible. No peace plan or boundary lines has been able to be agreed upon. And both sides have committed egregious errors, although it was clearly the Palestinians and Israel’s other Arab neighbors who started the fight when they jointly attacked the new state in 1948.

The attack on Israel in October 2023 from Hamas (an Iranian financed group which controlled Gaza) was an outrage. No question about it. And Jews and Israelis and supporters of Israel expected the world to agree that it was an outrage. But the world did not take this position. Much of the world seemed to say that the Israelis had it coming to them. And this was a shock.

On the other hand, Israel’s reprisals on the population of Gaza was (and is) extraordinarily harsh, and Israel’s most nationalist groups, which now have control of Israel’s government, also encouraged Israelis living in the occupied West Bank to rise up against their Palestinian neighbors, causing more distress and problems. All this fueled the “progressive” opposition in the west.

Back to the elections. The Democratic Party has a strong progressive wing. The Trump Party wants to portray this as the core of the Democratic Party, which it really is not, but the Trump Party is often very effective in its propaganda. Many of the progressive Democrats are also members of (maybe not formal members) of the Democratic Socialists. Bernie Sanders is an obvious example, but there are others. And the Democratic Socialists, which has a lot of influence, especially among younger progressive Democrats, has taken a harsh anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian position, and has required a number of pledges from any candidates for office (local and state; not only federal) to take – including not taking money from Zionists, not attending certain events, supporting the BDS movement and so forth).

This may put many main line Democrats in a bad position, and many left leaning Democrats. If you support the Democratic Socialist position on Israel, you may get for yourself progressive votes that you otherwise would not have received. But you will lose your Jewish votes, for the most part. If you don’t take the pledge (which most will not), you will perhaps retain your Jewish votes, but not get the progressive votes you otherwise would. A lose/lose situation if I have ever seen one. And, it is in fact worse, because this debate bleeds from one electoral district to another. Even if a pro-Israel Democrat lives in a district, for example, where none of this matters as to the election because the candidates are not focused on this issue, that pro-Israel Democrat will certainly hear what is going on elsewhere in the country. Because of this, if the Democratic Party is believed to harbor a bunch of anti-Israel folks, or even moderately anti-Israel (“I love Israel, but don’t want to give them a blank check.”) candidates, the pro-Israel voter may choose not to support the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she might be.

So this situation is a wild card in the upcoming elections, and we don’t know if, or how much, it might determine outcomes. As an aside, of course, we have the question of antisemitism, which will be thrown at progressive Democrats, who might not at all be antisemitic. And those who accuse them will include the pro-Israel far right evangelicals who, pro-Israel they may be for the reasons stated above, are in fact, in their heart of heart, antisemitic. That is part of the problem of equating opposition to Israel policies or actions, on the one hand, and antisemitism on the other, something that many Israeli politicians want to equate on the theory that this will help, rather than hurt, Israel. I disagree.

And as a further conflation, take the Trump-Iran War, and the Israeli-Iran War. They are both going on at the same time. But are they the same war? And if American opposition to the Trump War will hurt the Republicans, will it also increase all of the differences within the Democratic Party that I have referred to in this post? And will it potentially increase or decrease antisemitism in this country?

A lot more to say on these subjects. But not today.

You probably don’t remember this, but the Nationals had a pretty successful spring training, but I pointed out something odd. Their hitting statistics were just awful, but their pitching statistics were excellent; this was unexpected and the opposite of what had happened over the preceding two or more years. They started the season strongly, winning three of their first four games, but now have lost five in a row, ending with a three game series loss to the world champion Dodgers.

But while this might have been expected, the way this happened has been odd, compared with the way the Nationals played during spring training. Today, with a 3-6 record, after nine games, the Nationals have the third highest batting average of any team in the National League (just behind the Dodgers and the Marlins), and have scored more runs than any other team. But, they have the poorest pitching statistics. They have averaged over 6 runs per game (the typical major league team scores just under 4.5 runs per game), but their pitching has allowed the opposing teams 6.5 runs per game.

Today begins a three game series with the Cardinals. We have tickets for the Wednesday 4 p.m. game.

Yesterday, we had brunch at friends’ house; there were a fair number of people there, largely people we knew slightly or not at all, and that was refreshing, because we do tend to see the same people over and over (and that is refreshing, too). Our host cooked six Indian dishes, suitable for Passover. He cooking is always good, and this was no exception.

We left the brunch early because we had tickets at the Shakespeare Theatre for Hamnet, a play based on the same book as the award winning film (which we have not seen), and which played for quite a while in London, and now is in the middle of a three city tour in the United States. The production is that of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was raining fairly hard, and I was concerned that we couldn’t find street parking near the theater and would have to resort to the expensive garage, but there it was: an just opened parking space, right on F Street, maybe 25 or 30 steps from the door. We parked. It was Sunday, so it was free. What could be better?

The theater is right across the street from the arena where the hockey Capitals and basketball Wizards play, and there is a sign where you park that prohibits parking when there are events taking place there. They normally then close off the street, which can be filled with fans coming and going, etc. It turns out there was a Capitals/Rangers game scheduled for last night. We did not know that, and there was nothing to tell you that. But as we were leaving our seats after the play, there was an announcement over the Shakespeare loud speaker that said (I paraphrase): “If you parked your car on the street in front of the theater, please be aware that the police are now clearing the street, and if your car is not there, that means it has been towed to another location. Just ask any policeman outside and they will direct you to where it has been towed.”

Well, that was a surprise.

We left the building, the rain had stopped, and our car was still where we parked it. But there were four police tow trucks working on cars, one at a time, and if we had been five or ten minutes later, I think that we would have been moved. So it was sort of an adventure that wasn’t.

Passover is now half over, ending at sundown on Thursday, and on Friday, we are packing (really packing, it seems) the car and driving to St. Louis. This is not unusual for the two of us, but this time…..it will be the four of us. Daughter Michelle is coming with us (driving there, staying a short while, and flying home), and 10, almost 11, year old Joan is now coming along. It’s her spring break, and she has never been to St. Louis, and is very excited. She wants to see some relatives she hasn’t seen since she was very young, she wants to see where I grew up, she wants to see the Arch, the City Museum, the Zoo and more. And to meet some of our friends.

Oh, and Hamnet? It’s an interesting play, based on a novel by Maggie O’Farrell. The general story line is that Shakespeare and his wife had three children, a boy and two girls, and the boy died at age 11 of “the pestilence”, while his father was play making in London. That much is almost true (no one knows how Hamnet died), but the rest of the story line is imaginative or make believe and the staging is highly choreographed (which for this story works well). Because we are dealing with an English cast, the accents for those of us who were born in the U.S.A. are sometimes hard to understand. But even though Shakespeare himself was, to put it mildly, quite a wordsmith, the dialogue in the play seems less important that the careful staging and choreography (not formal dancing, but movement in general). In the DC area, there is a mime/dance theater company called the Synetic Theater, and I think Hamnet is made to order for them.

We will see if they pick up on it.

Of course, I should add that yesterday was Easter Sunday, and that I saw nothing at all that was Easterish. That’s not quite true. I saw a lot of three and four year old girls dressed in fancy pink dresses. That I did see.

I apologize in advance for not taking any photos to share. I wanted to, but was preoccupied. I was driving.

Yesterday was a perfect and beautiful day in Washington. Our goal was to go to the National Gallery to see the Mary Cassatt exhibit, and I decided to take the scenic route, which means driving through Rock Creek Park and then along the Potomac, the monuments, and the Mall to get to the museum. It took longer than usual because of the enormous amount of traffic, especially near the Tidal Basin, although the cherry blossoms have all faded. But there certainly were a lot of people taking their Sunday drive on Saturday.

But in addition to the cars, I was astounded at the number of pedestrians and bicyclists. From the foot/bike paths in the park all the way to the museum, there were people. It was like being in London, Paris or Prague in mid-August. Thousands of people. Mainly young (a few gray heads, but barely enough for a minyan), and a lot of family groups. Many were clearly tourists; others, it was hard to tell. In 57 years of living in DC, I have never ever seen so many people.

I guess this has something to do with this being Easter weekend. But maybe I guess wrong and it will be this way until the first snow falls in December.

A digression: My Christian theology is fairly week. I know Friday was Good Friday, and today is Easter Sunday, but what was Saturday? It must have a name. How could no one have given it a name over a 2000 year period? They even gave a name to Palm Sunday, Maundy Tuesday (does anyone know what that even is?), and – way back – we had Ash Wednesday and Shrove Tuesday. If the day before Easter doesn’t have a name, it is, in my opinion, time to name it. How about Throng Saturday? There’d be nothing throng with that.

Not surprisingly, parking near the National Gallery was at a premium. The few handicapped spaces were taken, and there was an added complication from a festival on the Mall right near the East Wing of the Gallery. We couldn’t tell what it was, but I think it was the festival celebrating the Laotian New Year. Parking has also been limited by the city putting bike lanes in on the north/south streets, including 4th Street, where the gallery is. The bike lanes replace the parking lanes as those streets cross the Mall from Constitution Ave to Independence Ave. Several weeks ago, the Trump government announced that they wanted to remove those bike lanes and, I assume, bring back the parking. There was a big rally against this move led, as you would expect, by bikers.

For maybe the first time, I support the Trump administration here. These streets are very broad and I do not think were dangerous for bicycles using the lanes also used by automobiles. I think here (not everywhere) the needs for more parking should trump (no question here about capitalization) the desires of the cyclists.

At any rate, we did not see Mary Cassatt yesterday. She is going to be at the National Gallery until late August, I think, so no panic. We will see her at some time.

I decided that we should not look for a museum and then hunt for parking, but that we should hunt for parking and go to whatever museum is the closest. This is brilliant thinking, I know.

Actually, we did not have to go far. Driving south on Fourth Street, beyond the mall a few blocks, we did find someone leaving a parking space, and we were able to stop the car and get out. We were only a block from the Museum of the Bible, and that became our destination.

The Museum opened shortly before the pandemic and for the first year or two, you could get in free. I went several times, including once or twice for programs, and found it a first class museum. But in recent years, it began to require paid admission (a general no-no in DC) and I stayed away. When I say a “paid admission”, I am not talking about $5 or $10. General admission is $35 for an adult. Even for seniors, it is $30. That has to put it near the top in that category.

Edie had never been to the museum, so I thought we should go anyway. I gave us about 1 and 1/2 hours, although looking carefully at the Museum of the Bible takes much longer than that. When we got to the ticket counter and I took a deep breath, the ticket seller greeted us with: We are in the middle of our 40% off period, so your two tickets together will be (I think she said) $34, $17 each. That put it in the range of other museums.

As an aside, I should tell you that the staff at the museum (and it is a very large staff – starting with two greeters at the front door before you get to the three people managing the security check) are either hired because they smile a lot and only say nice things, or they are trained this way. Donald Trump would never be hired at the Museum of the Bible.

Yes, the museum is owned by the Green family, and they are Evangelical Christians who own Hobby Lobby, and it has come under some attack because of that. But, truth is, you would never know where they stand religiously, as long as you stay off the third floor (which we did). The third floor leads you through a number of visual interactive exhibits to tell you the chronology of the biblical story, ending with you-know-who. Or should I say You-Know-Who? Those capital letters get me every time.

It is a very large museum (6 floors, altogether), and we stopped on floors 4,5 and 2. Floor 4 gives the story of the Bible, including a fair amount on the Old Testament and Jewish history, complete with manuscripts and Torahs and more. We skipped most of the Christian part of the Floor 4 (floor 4?). We then went up to the archeological exhibit on floor 5 (Floor 5?), which contains a large number of things on long term loan from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Then we stopped on floor 2 to look through part of the large exhibit on the history of the Bible in America, which again includes many old bibles and artifacts and a lot of good explanatory material.

Even though we did not go to the Dead Sea Scrolls or the other special exhibits, or look at the Christian parts of the History of the Bible exhibit, or see the full American History exhibit, we saw quite a bit and we filled our parking meter time.

And then I began to think about how much I do enjoy this museum, and how much there is to learn there. So, I went back to the ticket desk as we were walking about and asked a different ticket seller if we could apply what we paid today to a dual, one-year membership, and she said that we could. And she said we could with such a broad smile and such gracious thanks that I knew that we had made her day and her week, and that she was so happy that we were doing this that she couldn’t wait to celebrate.

So, we are now members of the Museum of the Bible, just as are members of the Phillips Gallery, and of the Capital Jewish Museum. It is so nice to belong to so many communities and get invited to so many Galas (galas?) which we turn down.

Today, Easter Sunday for some, we are going to a brunch, to the Shakespeare Theatre to see Hamnet (on stage, not the film), and then to Michelle’s for dinner for Olie’s 18th birthday.

Will probably report on all of that tomorrow when I have the task of picking up our tax returns from our accountant. I already know what they will show, and they will show that we owe a ridiculous amount of taxes as a result of some of our mutual funds having sold off stocks late in 2025, giving us capital gains on income we will never see. Go figure. At least, we know that our money is going to be used for good causes: war in Iran, ICE in the U.S. and so on.

As you probably realize, Passover lasts 8 days. The first 2 days (where there are seders) and the last 2 days are considered major holidays (i.e., no work) and the interim days are days when you keep the food restrictions, but are allowed to treat them otherwise as normal periods of time. At least this is true for the diaspora. In Israel, however, Passover lasts only 7 days, and only 2 of those days (the first and the last) are major holidays. There is only one seder in Israel.

Last night, we had Shabbat dinner at Hannah’s, where we had had the second seder the night before. All the food were seder leftovers, which of course was fine, but it got me thinking about the d ifference between the celebration of Passover in Israel, and in the diaspora. And so….I wrote a haiku.

“Pesach last eight days

Seven days would be enough

Next year? Jeruslem.”

Well, the plumber came and fixed our two broken toilets and told us they were as good as new, as he gave us his ridiculously high bill. The plumbing company gets 4.9 on Yelp, and has (as far as I can see) a very good reputation. But I don’t trust this guy. I am not sure that he didn’t do more than was necessary and I know he charged us a lot (I bet that was more than necessary as well). But what really makes me wonder is that he told me that two of our other toilets really needed the same kind of work done, that our 9 year old water heater should be replaced and that if we don’t replace it soon we will find that prices will go way up, and that the flue from our HVAC system has corroded and needs repair. We didn’t ask him to look at any of those things; he just did. And he sent me over 50 photos. Whew! Hard sell to the gullible old folks.

It is Saturday morning, and we really have no plans today. Tomorrow, we have a brunch, a matinee at the Shakespeare Theatre and a dinner party (small) for the 18th birthday of our older step-grandson. That’s a busy Sunday, so we better rest up today. The forecast is for 89 degrees today, and tomorrow it is supposed to rain. That means that the third game of the Nationals/Dodgers series probably won’t be played. The second game is at 4 today, and we will probably be home to watch it. Yesterday, the Nats had 11 hits and scored 6 runs. That should be enough to win any game, right? Well, not if the other teams hits 5 home runs and scores 13 runs. I guess that is why they won the World Series last year. Our starting pitcher, Miles Mikolas allowed 11 earned runs, which seems to be a team records. Congratulations to him. There is already a sense that he may not be around too much longer. He is a 37 year old veteran who pitched several years with the Cardinals, but his time might be running out. I don’t know much about him, and he was only signed for a year, but he has pitched and lost two games, and his ERA, which you want to be below 4.00, is above 14.00. The Nationals have a lot of promising pitchers in the minors, and if Mikolas goes, there will be someone to replace him.

I will tell you a secret: I don’t care if Mikolas stays or goes at this point. Once I told you about the plumber, I had to come up with something else to write about and this seemed one possibility. I could have talked, instead, about Donald Trump, whose first year is equivalent to Mikolas’ first two games, and it would be nice to see him go. But guess what? Those waiting in the minors to replace him don’t look too promising either.

I am watching the TV news while I write, but not listening. The focus all seems to be on Pam Bondi, but she is so 2025, so who cares? The talk seems to be of a bunch of folks who will be no better, so that it really doesn’t make a difference who the next AG will be. At least no one has suggested Rudy Giuliani.

Some coincidences are just coincidences. One of those facts is that (1) Pam from Florida and (2) Beach in Sydney are both named Bondi, and that both signify considerable tragedies. I am actually surprised at the press that Pam Bondi, no longer Attorney General, is getting. Not that it is positive press, but it isn’t as negative as I would have expected. I found Pam Bondi to be just a horrible public person, lying without shame, avoiding answering any question asked her at Congressional oversight hearings, and insulting members of Congress as if she were Donald Trump incarnate. “Good riddance”, I say. (I think someone else said that, too, but I don’t remember who. Could have been anyone.)

There is a rumor that there are going to be Cabinet level firings, perhaps even Kash Patel, the Junket King, or Howard Lutnick, Mr. Laugh and Smile.

None of this would surprise me. It also would not surprise me to see old Sam Alito and old Clarence Thomas resign very soon. Yes, they are the most reliable votes for Donald Trump, and this might give him pause. But if there is a chance that the Senate will flip Democratic in January, there might be a reason to get some 40 or 50 year old Federalist Society nominees into the Court while he can. And of course, this deadline would also hold for replacement Cabinet members, and other presidential appointees who must go through Senate confirmation.

Trump has himself in quite a box these days, and when he gave his prime time nothing-burger speech on the war in Iran the night before last, he looked very tired and old. The war is a quagmire. He wants help from NATO countries for an offensive war, not a defensive war, and while the Arabian gulf countries are being hit by Iran, he has not asked them to step up and help. His war has led to the virtual closure of the Strait of Iran, which as of today has raised worldwide oil prices to over $110 a barrel. Many of our foreign military bases are in danger, and we still do not know what goals of this war are in his thinking. Our last successful war, World War II, ended with a total, unconditional surrender of our enemies, and with a years long occupation of both Germany and Japan. World War I ended with a total, unconditional surrender, with rigid restrictions on German militarization, and with a treaty with all neighboring countries, closely policed. Our more recent wars have not ended with “victories”, but were with opponents who were not, in any event, looking to control or infiltrate neighboring countries, or develop nuclear facilities. The case with Iran appears to be much different in this respect, and when you add the connection between Iran’s oil production and world oil production, you get a completely different situation.

It would seem that continuing this unpopular war, especially if a ground invasion of any sort is added, would be very difficult politically for Trump, and it would seem that any abandonment of the war would be equally difficult. So, it is a quagmire.

And, for Israel? And for the U.S./Israel relationship? If the U.S. decided to pull out of Iran, it leaves Israel in a place where it would not want to be. The war may be unpopular here, but it is very popular in Israel, where they are working hard (whether they are working appropriately is a question for a different post) to rid themselves not only of a dangerous Iran as an enemy, but to rid themselves of Iran’s proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, and their own enemies in the West Bank. Their actions in Gaza were controversial at best, and their current actions in Lebanon may wind up the same (it’s a knack that Israel seems to have perfected), and whether they will be successful, who knows? But, at any event, this is the policy now being pursued, and while it may lead to short term disasters, the hope is that for the long term, it will bring regional stability. But Israel probably needs American support, just as we may need Israeli support in this effort. A break between the U.S. and Israel would have repercussions that we would like to avoid, but the Israeli aggressiveness certainly bothers many here and, with control of Congress changing, we may find a breach in the alliance. This may be painful in the short term, but again may be helpful in the long run. Hard to say.

And, for reasons that no one can possibly understand, the funding of the Department of Homeland Security (minus TSA and portions of Border Control) continues to be held up. At first, it was because the Republicans in the House of Representatives wouldn’t agree to the bill passed unanimously by the Senate (Democrats and Republicans), with Speaker Johnson calling it idiotic, or nonsensical, or something like that. But then, Trump told Johnson to accept the proposal and get beyond this problem and, like the good soldier he is (maybe “good” is not the right word), Johnson spun around and said OK, only to find that one or more conservative (maybe “conservative” isn’t the right word, either) member of his pack has blocked the bill from coming to the House floor. What does this show? Among other things, it shows that Trump’s power over the entire GOP Congressional membership, like the old gray mare, ain’t what she used to be.

As if this isn’t enough, after two seders (one here, one at Hannah’s), we can’t even take the full day off, because we have been joined by a plumber here to fix the two toilets (of five) in the house that have been on the fritz. One of them, in our downstairs powder room, has actually been leaking, and we did not know it. The other, our guest second floor bathroom, had the toilet repaired about six months ago, and conked out again.

I am not very good on home repairs. I put things off, and then when something needs to be done, the last thing I want to do is get three estimates, dicker about the price, and so forth. Our long term plumber aged out, and since then we have tried a couple of others, but not successfully. One of them, I am sure, has a drug problem, as every time he was scheduled to come, he would call to postpone, giving reasons that were hard to believe. Our current plumbing company gets a 4.9 Yelp rating, and I am relying on the Yelp rating more than anything else as to their qualification.

What I do know (that’s wrong: what I do think I know) is that we are overpaying them for what they are doing. But that is what I do. But at least, when they are done, we won’t have to tell guests, when they ask where the bathroom is, to find a secluded place in the back yard.

The good news? Only 6 more days of Passover, and then things can back to normal. The bad news? It must be one more sign of aging, but I don’t even like whole wheat matzo any more.

It was complicated last night, trying to have a seder crunched between the Artimus II launch and the Trump speech on the Trump War in Iran. But we did, a little abbreviated for our youngest guest who showed off his ability to read, and our second youngest, who has the Four Questions (there is that mysterious capitalization choice again) down pat.

The launch was spectacular of course and while Joan was nervous for the safety of the astronauts, 5 year old Izzy was gung-ho. After all, his plans for the future have long been connected with astronauts. He doesn’t to be one, but when asked what he wants to do when he grows up, he consistently seems to respond, “I want to train the astronauts.”

While the readings were shortened a bit last night, including omitting references to the plagues, the food was delicious, thanks in part to Edie’s visiting cousin Debbie, who worked with her all day, and to Hannah, who came with various ritually connected foods. We are going to do it all again tonight, but thankfully at Hannah’s, not here.

I did want to hear what Trump was going to say in his major speech on the war. There was a lot of speculation, but it turned out he said nothing that he hadn’t said before. And he didn’t even say it well.

He looks terrible, he read the speech with a single ad-lib, and said good night after 20 minutes. Basically, he said it was a great, necessary and courageous war that only he could wage, that it would go on for a period of not less than two weeks and not more than forever. That we had accomplished our goals and would accomplish them soon. And we don’t care if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t ever open, but if it doesn’t, we will attack Iran’s oil facilities and their electric power plants and send them back to the stone age (Stone Age?), which, by the way, is where they belong anyway.

Of course, we are conducting this war with, or  perhaps just along side of, Israel, which hardly got a mention in last night’s speech. The absence of references to Israel was the only thing about the talk that interested me. Was that meaningful? If so, what does it mean?

I can only assume that the speech he gave last night was not the speech he intended to give when he decided to talk to the American people. He does see the poll numbers and he has already caved on the TSA DHS issue, so maybe he had something else in mind, but decided against it. Maybe we will find out. Or not.

Well, happy Passover to all. We have received greetings from as far away as Israel and Australia. It is now 8:30 a.m. Time for breakfast. I think I will have something on a matzo.

Yes, I have been to all sorts of seders. From the ones that start at 6 and end after midnight (I remember one filled with Jewishly educated folks who knew, and had to sing, at least three versions of every song) to the ones where the leader says, right after “this is the matzo”….”Let’s eat.” As they say in show-biz, “you have to know your audience”, and then “the show must go on.” Actually, I have no idea whether they say in show business, “you have to know your audience”. But it would be a good idea. Much better than “break a leg”.

I know there are some seder leaders who religiously (that is a double entendre if I ever heard one) follow the most traditional of Haggadot, and others who have written their own, or who have purchased multiple copies of freedom Haggadot, or women’s Haggadot, or social justice Haggadot, or what have you. We use the old Rabbi Goldberg Haggadah (we have thousands of copies, mostly stained and torn) and I, when I lead, improvise.

I am fairly serious about the seders I lead. Now, that may surprise you, because people who read what I write often think that I am not serious at all, since so much of what I write seems a little off-center. But, in fact, the more off-center, comical, satiric that it is, the more serious I am. This is a statement of fact, not satire.

So, with a 10 year old, a 5 year old, 4 people in their 40s, 1 barely in her 50s, two in their 70s and me (that’s 10, right), and with a variety of Jewish practices (even within single houses), I have to judge my audience. But I also have to keep to my own values as closely as I can, and there are a lot of things about the Haggadah that I find troublesome.

Generally, let me say it this way: I accept it as a description of the departure of the Jews from Egypt (which may or may not have really happened). But I don’t accept that the departure of the Jews from Egypt has anything to do with the political State of Israel, and because Egypt is still a real place, I don’t accept anything that would be offensive to me, if I were an Egyptian.

This means that I don’t like to have my seder become political, and while I can accept the Pharaoh as being a stubborn guy, I can not accept the plagues. Now for many (most?), reading the plagues and dollopping the wine is a highlight of the seder. For me, it’s an embarrassment and should be discarded. Of course, no one listens to me, so for that part of the seder, I just sit there and look at my phone.

Think about it. You are an Egyptian and the Jews of the world are celebrating their freedom on the basis of a decree from God that your first born were all slaughtered. That doesn’t strike you as bizarre? Or worse? And, remember, there are 9 other plagues, not as bad as that one, but pretty bad.

A brief history: Perhaps a group of people now called Jews left Egypt as related in the Bible and repeated in the Haggadah. We can assume that (history would support a theory that these Jews lived comfortably until there was regime change in Egypt and, because they were identified with the defeated regime, their comfortable lives ended) the Jews went into what is now called the Sinai peninsula, and eventually settled in what was historically known as Canaan and part of which now is the State of Israel. While the idea that a million of them wandered around for 40 years is hard to take as fact, let’s assume that they colonized (if that now-dirty word is the right word) Canaan, and created a civilization interrupted by Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans over the next 1000 years or so.

During that 1000 year period, many Jews left the Middle East. Some as a result of the Assyrian assault on the Northern Kingdom (when the lost tribes were lost), and some when the Babylonians took Jerusalem (leading to the Babylonian exile), some when the area became part of the cosmopolitan Greek empire and later the wide-spread Roman empire, when relocating for commercial or other purposes. Thus, Jews were everywhere (or at least everywhere in the expanded Mediterranean world) – the Middle East, Northern Africa, southern Europe, the Euphrates valley, and beyond.

But the heart of the Jewish world was still in and around today’s Israel. That is, until the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, killed many thousands and then, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, made Jerusalem Juden-frei. It is shortly after these events that the five rabbis mentioned in the Haggadah sat around Bnai Barak and wondered if “day” meant when the sun was up, or when the world was dark as well. (You are excused if you have no idea what I am talking about here.)3

You can argue (perhaps correctly) that had the Jews not left Egypt when they did, there would be no Judaism today. You can also argue (even more likely correctly) that had the Jews not moved throughout the “known” world before the Romans destroyed the Temple, that there would be no Judaism today. I know you can counter that by talking about those rabbis at Bnai Barak who created rabbinic Judaism, but rabbinic Judaism need the Jews in the diaspora to adopt it and maintain it.

Where am I going with this? I am trying to say that it is the diaspora that saved the Jews, and over concentration on Israel as needed to protect and save the Jews may be overstated. If all the Jews lived in Israel, what an easy target they would be. We need to learn the lessons of Roman times. The maintenance of the diaspora is crucial.

This is not to say that Israel is not a remarkable place, but Israel will not save the Jews in the long run.

So, to summarize what is perhaps a confusing (and not to be edited or proofed post), celebrating the freedom of the Jews is great, celebrating the suffering of Egypt under the plagues is terrible, celebrating the State of Israel as the most important result of all of this is shortsighted.

Next year in Jerusalem? Catchy, but not a requirement.

Chag sameach to all.

I have been attending Passover seders for 83 years now. Not always two each year, so not 186 seders. But maybe an average of 1.5 seders a year, which would bring me to about 125 seders. Of course, if you asked me to describe and rank the 125 seders, I attended, you would find that I don’t remember most of them at all.

But I do remember the seders that I attended for the first, say, ten years of my life. Each year, my grandparents, our family, and my Aunt Loraine and her family would be invited to a seder at Mima Gitel’s.

Gitel Chervitz Ridker was my mother’s father’s (also known as my grandfather) aunt, making her my great, great aunt. There were a lot of kids in the Chervitz family, but most of them were gone before I could ever be expected to remember them. Gitel lived a long life, along with her husband David Ridker, known as Fetter Duvid. Duvid and Ridker lived with their daughter, Myrtle, her husband, Oscar, and their son, Neil. Their house was only a few blocks away from ours.

Of course, there are things I do not remember. For example, I do not remember if Gitel and Duvid spoke English. Their natural language was Yiddish (they were from the same town in Ukraine that my great, great plus many greats grandfather the Baal Shem Tov lived in), and if they spoke English, it was an English that they mumbled and that I couldn’t as a child understand.

Gitel was born in 1874, and Duvid in 1870. If we are talking about seders held between, say, 1943 and 1953, Fetter Duvid was between 73 and 83, and Mima Gitel between 69 and 79. I am obviously older now than they were, but to me (and maybe to them, as well), they were ancient then. They also were different – coming from another part of the world unknown to me, but clearly not at all like University City, Missouri. I should add that they both lived into the 1960s, and into their 90s, but we saw them very little after my grandfather died at 66 in 1953. Our fault? Perhaps. Beyond “perhaps”. Our fault, probably.

Back to the seders. You know how they say that seders are usually for the kids? Telling them the story laid out in the Haggadah, and so forth. Well, not these seders. We were superfluous at best. Gitel and Duvid were East European traditional. Does this mean they were orthodox? I suppose so, and certainly would have said so growing up. But, come to think of it, I have no idea if they belonged to, or attended, a synagogue. And as for Myrtle and Oscar, and Myrtle’s sister Rose and her husband Ben? Again, I have absolutely no idea.

But the seders droned on, and we sat their politely (I think). I also think that the entire seder was in Hebrew, going through the standard Haggadah word for word. I could be wrong, but I certainly don’t remember going around the table, everyone reading a paragraph. And the four questions? I don’t think I ever had to ask them at their house. And I don’t remember who did. I could have been considered both too young, and too uneducated. The younger kids certainly did not participate. Maybe Rose and Ben’s son Edward, who was probably 10 or 15 years older than I was?

I think that Duvid and maybe Oscar conducted the seder. Certainly, no women were involved. There was also someone named Nachman, who every year came down from, maybe, Detroit, to attend the seder. I think he was a Chervitz relative, the son of one of the Chervitz siblings, but I am not sure. He would appear for the seder and never be heard from or of any other time.

I was expected to sit through the first part of the seder, before the meal was served. I am not sure who cooked the meal. Myrtle? Gitel? Or was it their maid, who helped serve, clear the table and, I assume, do the dishes. I don’t remember the name of their maid (of course), but she was there every year. (Every family I knew growing up in St. Louis then had an African-American maid, and they were integral to the family’s well being.)

The seder continued after the dinner. I remember spending that time in the living room (with the other kids?) hearing the droning go on. The afikomen? I am sure I was involved in that. No memory.

My grandfather was obviously very close to Gitel. Every Friday, she baked challah, and her would go and pick it up from her house. After my grandfather passed away, our connection with that house loosened. It is possible that my mother’s sister, my Aunt Loraine, kept in closer contact. I suspect she did.

But for my mother (my father clearly had no more of a connection to them than I did), the rhythm of her life and the rhythm of their lives had absolutely nothing in common, and she was not one to identify with past generations. So, although Duvid and Gitel lived to the 1960s, and Myrtle and Oscar (and Rose) lived to the 1990s, I don’t remember any further contact with them. Neil, on the other hand, who was five years younger than I, lived a troubled and much too short life.

After we stopped going to Gitel’s for Passover, we had a seder every year in our house, but it was hardly the same. It was very relaxed. We did have Haggadah’s , but we never got very far in the, and we never had a second act after the meal. When I went away to college, I think I had seders every year with my room mate Bob’s family in Belmont, Massachusetts. Always nice, more like my family’s, not at all like at Gitel’s.

And then, I was grown up. And pretty soon, I was in charge.

We didn’t go to the Tidal Basin, but we took 5 year old Izzy to see the magnificent display of cherry blossoms in close-by Kenwood MD, a fairly extensive area that sees gawkers in cars and on foot every spring. At first, he enjoyed them, but in the middle of the third block, he said very politely, “Let’s leave this neighborhood. I’ve seen enough”.

It is going to be a busy few days here as we get ready for Wednesday night’s Passover seder. Cleaning refrigerators, cleaning the pantry, moving things around, buying food, cooking food, moving plates, pots, pans and silverware. What is equally hard is trying to figure out which of these things should be done first, as each is, in a way, dependent on each other. It is always a bit chaotic (and tiring, to be sure), which is ironic, since the concept and title of a “seder” is that everything is in a set order. Or maybe, it isn’t irony. Maybe it is just that, after a few days of confusion and movement, we can finally sit down at a seder, where the order of everything is set for you in advance.

This year, the seder will be just us, children and their spouses, grand-children, and two cousins, one who lives here, and one who is coming to visit us from Asheville NC and who yesterday confirmed her volunteer role as Edie’s sous-chef for Wednesday. Hannah and Michelle will do their parts, and Joan and Izzy will figure out how to ask the four questions. Izzy said that he will do it in English, like this…..”Ma nishtanah…..”. He also told me that he was going to cheat and look to see where the afikoman was being hidden. We told him that that would be cheating. He didn’t seem to care, “I just want to know where it is going to be hidden. You can tell me, if you want.”

Whenever there is a big prize in one of the big lotteries, someone eventually wins it, against great odds. This is where I think we are with this war (excuse me, military operation) against Iran. It is possible that we (read: Trump) will win the war and that Iran will turn out to be as peaceful as Costa Rica and the world will be a happier place for generations to come. The odds of this happening, however, seem to be about the same as the odds that I will be a big lottery winner, which of course are very small, especially since I never buy any lottery tickets.

Trump says that we are close to a deal with Iran, and Iran says that the American proposal is completely untenable and a deal is nowhere in sight. Trump says that we are having good conversations with Iran, and Iran says that they have been engaged in no conversations with the United States. So what is in fact the truth? Ha! Truth is so 2015.

And in addition to refuting any claim that the Iranian government has been in negotiations with the U.S. (perhaps the U.S. has been talking to the parliamentary chair, but perhaps the executive branch in Iran does not think he represents the government), the Iranian leaders have said they might talk with Vance (viewing him as a potential soft touch, perhaps), but not with Kushner and Witkoff, whom they don’t seem to trust. At least that is what the media reports, but maybe it’s because they are Jews?

While everyone would like to see Iran become another Finland, this just isn’t going to happen. And because we do not have any idea of what a solution acceptable to Mr. Trump would be (because there isn’t one that is possible), we, like Brer Rabbit, find ourselves stuck in tar.

Trump is in a situation that he never expected. Not only are the Democrats, the never-Trump moderate Republicans, and the Independents against him, now part of his own MAGA movement, the part that believed him when he said he was the peace president and there would be no more foreign entanglements, is against him. He is finding himself at odds with his vice president on some items (the vice president, as usual, being required to stay in a “see no evil, hear no evil” situation), and with his Secretary of State, who is concentrating on the Americas, not the Middle East. With his sycophantic Secretary of War (that is what he is) Pete Hegseth and his Christian crusader tattoo (which he thinks makes him look manly, but most people think it makes him look like a fool) in action, he has alienated much of the military, and many of the parents and spouses of members of the military.

So, the stock market has fallen more than 10%, oil is over $100 a barrel and gas prices up over $1 a gallon, fertilizer is in short supply, prices generally are going up, job creation is plummeting and unemployment rising, and there is not one index that is trending positively. Trump has ordered DHS to start paying TSA agents after a six week hold-up (which Democrats and Senate Republicans tried their best to resolve), and will have to answer to the question: if you have the power to do this, why did you wait six weeks?

Yes, our borders may be tightly controlled, but – and again this is obvious – nothing else is, and the country is stumbling along, with many of its constitutional provisions, laws, and long time practices being simply ignored.

We know (we really do) how historians will treat Donald Trump. But what we don’t know is how historians are going to treat the Supreme Court. Because it is the Court which is the only “independent” institution supporting most of what Trump is doing. And it is the Court which has, through its various rulings over time – allowing unlimited money in political races, allowing states to gerrymander at will, giving the president virtual immunity for anything he does, striking down laws to guarantee meaningful voting rights for minorities, etc – allowed Trump to be Trump. And of course the historians will look not only at the decisions of the Court, but will look at the Court’s use of its “shadow docket”, which has allowed them to issue opinions on matters without going through the usual steps (including oral arguments and preliminary rulings). And they will look at the manner in which the Republicans have stacked the Court by refusing to bring the Merrick Garland nomination to the floor of the Senate and rushing through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

To end this….what do you get when you cross an Iranian with a cherry blossom? You get a long blog post.

It looks like the numbers for the No Kings denonstrations were at least 9 million. We went to the demonstration on the DC/MD line in Friendship Heights. Just over 500 people had RSVP’d, and I assume there were more than that number in attendance, mainly neighborhood residents with signs and flags. Most fun was watching the cars passing by, honking and waving, and especially the large trucks with their loud horns that normally you would not want to hear, but this time you cheered as loudly as they honked.

The crowd downtown was obviously larger, and there were demonstrations in many, maybe most, neighborhoods in the metro area.

We probably all saw the photos of the mammoth gatherings in big cities, like Philadelphia, New York, and Minneapolis, and also sizeable demonstrations in places like Boise and Salt Lake City. And 500 in Festus MO.

If Trump keeps acting like he does, the next time the demonstrations will be even bigger. Poor Trump. He has really painted himself into a corner.

Following No Kings, we got  to work at home, preparing for a sort of Havdalah pot luck dinner party for our regular group of twelve. I say sort of pot luck, because while everyone contributes, they do so under strict orders from the menu planning subcommittee. Last night, we had Israeli salad, hummus and stuff, crudities, spanokopita, salmon, squash kugel, imam baldi, cous cous salad, and things I have forgotten, plus cake, ice cream and fresh fruit.

We celebrated the 89th birthday of one of our group, a young 89. But – to show you how old we all are – two of our group didn’t come because they overslept. Did you ever oversleep for a 6:30 p.m. dinner party? The food and company were first rate.

Today, we have 5 year old grandson with us, as his sister and parents have some event at the Japanese embassy. Grandaughter Joan is part of a school group concentrating on Japan and this is one of the events connected with that.

But now Izzy is eating his mac and cheese, practicing the Four Questions. He is telling his grandmother about the good pharoah who existed before Moses was even born. His grandmother asked him where he learned that (previously unknown) story. His response: “It just popped into my mind.”

That reminds me of the story of the young boy who returned from Sunday school and told his father what he learned: “The Jews were slaves in Egypt and ran away. They got to the Red Sea and didn’t know what to do, but God sent rocket ships to carry them safely across, and sent death rays to attack the Egptians.”

His father looked aghast and said: “Did they really teach you that?”

His son responded “No, but if I told you what they really taught me, you wouldn’t believe me.”

In order to give my credit card to a waiter at a restaurant, I have to take my hand, put it in my back right pocket in my pants, pull out my wallet, open my wallet, pull out the correct card, and give it to the waiter. Normal stuff.

Last night, we had an Indian dinner at Malabar, down the street from us (more or less) at Connecticut and Albemarle (more or less). As the meal ended, our very spirited waiter gave us our bill (I was spirited too, to the tune of one glass of Tempranillo) and maybe, but only maybe, I gave him my credit card. I say maybe, but only maybe, because I don’t remember going through any of the steps listed above. But I then did go through the steps, and discovered several cards in my wallet, but none of them were the correct card, which had disappeared. Where could I have left it? I had used it once that morning, but I just tapped on something with it, never losing possession. I was baffled.

Then, our spirited waiter danced to our table and gave me back my credit card. Now, logic says that I had given it to him a few minutes earlier, but – as I said – I had no memory of that or of going through any of the many preliminary steps. It was like he had picked my pocket and taken only my card. Or that he had magically lifted the card from my pocketed wallet, and magically returned it to me at the table. I still don’t understand.

He was quite a character. I guess he was of Indian

descent, but he told us he was from Kenya. He was very friendly, but he was also, by instinct, a teacher. We were his pupils, and he was determined to educate us as best as possible. To teach us how to eat. We ordered a Goan stew with halibut, and a spinach dish. He added okra to the mix, and we ordered some bread, parata. He told us to eat the vegetables with the bread, and the stew with the rice. He told us to eat the vegetables and the bread first, because the parata is better eaten quickly, and the rice will taste the same whether we eat it right now, or wait several minutes. He also told us that the kitchen normally serves the halibut with a flavored rice, but he thinks that the flavor of the flavored rice does not really go with the flavor of the halibut, so he serves it with plain rice.

The comparison with yesterday’s lunch at Karma Modern, another high end Indian restaurant, is fascinating. I had lunch with three old co-workers. Actually, to be honest, they had lunch with an old co-worker. They are all of an age where they still work.

Our waitress was a young woman who was Asian, but not Indian. I ordered a dish called cauliflower and peas, which was served with paratha, whic, by the way, is a buttery, flaky Indian bread. Here is a picture (not mine):

As you can see, the vegetables are around the edge, and the bread folded up, but not cut, in the center of the bowl. I thought this a bit weird, and said to the waitress: how should I eat this?

She was not meant to be a teacher, except in the most progressive of schools. Her answer: Anyway you want to.

I said that I could eat the vegetables with a fork, and the bread with my fingers. I could take the entire paratha out of the bowl, or just take small pieces out. Or I could take pieces of bread and use them to lift the veggies out, not using my fork at all.

She was not of much help. I told her that I thought if I had just come from India, I would probably scoop it out. She agreed and said it took her a while not be disgusted by that. Strange comment from a waitress. But she again said that I could eat it any way I wanted.

Well, okay. But imagine if our Malabar waiter waited at Karma Modern. He would have told me how to eat my lunch in no uncertain terms.

After we got home, we watched the last two episodes of Ripley, the Netflix series based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. It was low key, fun, and in black and white. Tom Ripley is a con artist who did not have Fred Trump as a father. But he was given an unlimited allowance by a Trump-like guy to convince his son to come back to America. His son has been hanging out on the  Amalfi Coast.

Things don’t work out as anticipated (to say the least) and Tom Ripley gets into jam after jam, all totally of his own making. As I said watching the 8 part series, “He would never have survived if he didn’t have Patricia Highsmith as a friend.”

Speaking of Highsmith, if you don’t know much about her, read the Wikipedia bio. She belongs in the category “People I am glad I am not.” Near the top of that list.

Tomorrow is another No Kings Day. The weather here should be pretty good. But once again, I probably won’t be able to participate in protests against King Donald the Corrupt. We are hosting dinner for 12  tomorrow night. Just the thing to do right before Passover, right?

I watched a snippet of the King’s Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Digression: Why did I capitalize “Cabinet” or “King’s”? It seems to me that I don’t have any idea what to capitalize any more. I think it all started when we were told we should capitalize “Black” when it is used to describe individuals who have any sub-Saharan African ancestry, but not when we use it in other ways (except when we refer to someone like Leon Black, or the New Zealand All Blacks, who are not usually, Black). And then we were told that perhaps we should call people who are not Black, and whose ancestry does not seem to include natives of the Western Hemisphere (OK, there we go again–should I capitalize Western Hemisphere? Or should I capitalize OK?), or Asians, or Pacific Islanders, or perhaps people from the Middle East (there we go again) or North Africa……we are told we should refercto them as White, not as white. (Did you get lost in that sentence?) The Germans solved this problem centuries ago when they decided to capitalize all nouns. Should we do that? Or should I recognize this as my problem, and mine alone?

In any event, I saw a snippet of Trump’s cabinet meeting (this time not capitalized, it appears) when he switched from talking about Iran, and started to talk about Sharpie pens. He has gotten a fair amount of ridicule and criticism about this, but I have to say I am glad he did it. I, for one, would much rather King Donald the Corrupt talk about Sharpies than about Iran. And it reminded me of my blog – one day I talk about matters of worldly importance, and then I just list a bunch of Western Hemisphere (read, if you wish: western hemisphere) cities by population.

Today, I want to join the crowd and to talk a bit about Sharpies. I understand using a Sharpie when you need a bold signature. But I also know that Sharpies tend to be rather blotty and sloppy, and need to be used with care. But here at my desk, I do have a bunch of various Sharpies, which I do use now and then. But never for crossword puzzles on newsprint. On newsprint, Sharpie ink, like Palestinians and Israelis, just want to spread out from the river to the sea.

Not surprisingly, I have a lot of other ball point pens, as well. There are two reasons for this. First, it is important to me that I have pens that will write in any color I want, and any tone of that color that I want. And I need pens that will write at any width from very fine print to very bold print in any color I want.

And more than this, I must admit that I steal pens whenever I can. Especially from restaurants, when the wait staff uses pens which advertise the restaurant. Alright, I don’t consider this really stealing – why else would they have pens with their names on it, right. I think that they want me to take them home to remind myself to return one day. And shame on all of you who would just leave their advertising pen on their table with your tip. And, by the way, if you feel guilty, you can always add $1 to your tip to cover cost of the pen.

Let’s see. Just sitting here at my desk, I see I have pens from the following establishments: The Secret Garden Cafe in Occoquan VA, Clydes in Chevy Chase, True Food Kitchen in Bethesda, Alex’s Pizza in Rolla MO, Lebanese Taverna in Rockville MD, Black Market Bistro in Garrett Park MD, The Union Grill in Washington PA, Moko Sushi in Rockville MD, Bass’ Hancock House in Hancock NY, and several others.

I would also suggest that none of these pens cost the proprietors of these eating establishments anything near the $5 that Donald the Corrupt says that the taxpayer should be paying for Sharpies.

On another front, it looks like Congress and perhaps even Donald the Corrupt will pass and sign legislation opening all of DHS, with the exception of the already opened ICE and Border Patrol, something that the Democrats suggested long ago. And, of course, Donald the Corrupt and the Republicans will take credit for doing this, suggesting perhaps as crazy (not even a controversial adjective in this case) Florida Congressman (here, again: congressman?) Randy Fine said, that the Democrats want to keep TSA from doing its job in order that Islamic terrorists (other wise known as Democrat allies) can come into the country en masse. (If you don’t know Randy Fine, he’s the one who said he likes dogs much better than Muslims.) A riddle: when is Fine not fine?

Hopefully, TSA and American airports can get back to “normal” soon. As to Iran, who knows? Trump has now said that he won’t stage a ground attack until after Easter (the Iranians had to Google Easter to find out when that is, and why it’s a holiday), which will give him time to mass thousands of troops for some sort of invasion.

When all is over (whenever that is), who is going to govern this land of almost 100 million people? If you ask that question to Donald the Corrupt, he will most likely answer: “Who knows? It could be me. Or it could be me and the new Ayatolla. Working together, side by side. I will even let him use my Sharpie.”

Well, I learned something new today. I learned that Wellington, New Zealand, is the furthest south capital city in the world. I learned something else today. I learned that Canberra, Australia, is the second furthest south capital city. And I learned a third thing. I learned that the third furthest south capital city in the world is Montevideo, Uruguay.

When I learned this third thing, it raised a real question in my mind, so I went online and asked: isn’t Buenos Aires, Argentina, south of Montevideo? After all, virtually all of Argentina is south of all of Uruguay. But, no (was the answer). Montevideo is actually south of Buenos Aires. Go figure.

That raised more questions. What are the largest capital cities metropolitan areas in America? The largest metropolitan area itself is Sao Paolo, with over 23,000,000 people. But of course, it is not a capital, so doesn’t count in the answer to my question. But here goes –

1. Mexico City, Mexico 23,000,000
2. Buenos Aires, Argentina 16,000,000
3. Bogota, Colombia 12,000,000
4. Lima, Peru 12,000,000
5. Santiago, Chile 7,000,000
6. Washington, DC 6,500,000
7. Brasilia, Brazil 5,000,000
8. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 4,000,000
9. Asuncion, Paraguay 3,500,000
10. Guatemala City, Guatemala 3,200,000
11. Caracas, Venezuela 3,000,000
12. Port-au-Prince, Haiti 2,700,000
13. San Salvador, El Salvador 2,400,000
14. San Jose, Costa Rica 2,100,000
15. Havana, Cuba 2,100,000
16. Quito, Ecuador 2,000,000
17. La Paz, Bolivia 2,000,000
18. Montevideo, Uruguay, 1,800,000
19. Ottawa, Canada 1,500,000
20. Managua, Nicaragua 1,400,000
21. Tegucigalpa, Honduras 1,300,000
22. Panama City, Panama 1,000,000
23. Kingston, Jamaica 600,000
24. Nassau, Bahamas 300,000
25. Paramaribo, Suriname 260,000
26. Willemstad, Curacao 140,000
27. Georgetown, Guyana 125,000
28. Bridgetown, Barbados 110,000
29. Fort de France, Martinique 90,000
30. Port of Spain, Trinidad 85,000
31. Belize City, Belize 65,000
32. Cayenne, French Guiana 65,000

Maybe this type of list isn’t interesting to you, but it is to me. Most lists are. I could spend a lot of time just making lists. Often, I do. In fact, I just did.

But does anything here surprise you? A number of things did surprise me. For example, I would not have guessed that Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince are both larger than Havana, and that the Island of Hispaniola not only has the two largest cities in the Caribbean, but has a total population close to 25,000,000. Cuba only has about 11,000,000 on the whole island, although it is significantly larger.

It also surprises me that Brasilia, created out of the jungle only 65 years ago, now has a population of 5,000,000. I never would have guessed anything near that.

Other than that, I wouldn’t have put these cities in this order. I don’t think I would have guessed Guatemala City was the largest in Central America, would I?

By the way, I haven’t been to most of these places. You have probably been to more than I have. I have been to eight. You?

Today is a busy day, and I am getting a late start, so this will be short and colorful.

First, as we all know by now, the Florida state Senate district that covers Mar-a-Lago will now be represented by a Democrat. A district that Trump won by over ten points has flipped. I have heard that almost 30 state legislative seats this year have flipped red to blue, and none have flipped the other way.

I heard winner Emily Gregory speak last night and she said, during the campaign, her opponent talked about Trump and she talked about local issues.

I think the lesson is clear. While the GOP brings far right MAGA types into the elections, the Democrats should cater to the middle, not to progressives on the Americcan left.

The other thing we learned about the election was that, even while in Florida, the president voted by mail.

I have to run, but I need to remind you that four days ago, temperature be damned, winter turned into spring. And here is some Washington DC proof. Perhaps even more later.

The DC division of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has put together a long questionnaire for prospective candidates for local offices, covering many topics. The length of the questionnaire is off-putting, even if you don’t look at the substance. But, if you want a DSA endorsement, you have to fill it out and, of course, it has to say things consistent with the positions of the DSA. And you have to be prepared for your responses to be public, as they will go onto the DSA website.

The questionnaire goes through the types of subjects you would expect it to, such as affordable housing, inclusivity, reproductive choice, defunding the police, a Green New Deal, and so forth. But near the end, there is a topic that you might not be expecting: Palestine and Israel. Do you support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement? Do you pledge not to have any affiliation with any Zionist lobby groups, or any think tanks that “obfuscate the reality of the occupation”? Have you taken, or will you agree not to take, any “political junkets” to Israel? Will you agree not to attend any event “whose content or purpose contravenes DSA’s stated platform and positions on anti-Zionism, apartheid, occupation or BDS (not including cultural institutions or synagogues)? Do you pledge to oppose legislation that “harms Palestinians or supporters of the Palestine solidarity movement….”? The latter would include supporting sending any military or economic support to Israel, or that argues against or punishes pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses. Do you oppose all student exchange programs in Israel, or any support to Israeli educational institutions?

And the list goes on.

One of the candidates for DC mayor this year (the current three term mayor, Muriel Bowser, is not running for reelection) is Janeese Lewis George. George is a 37 year old, Howard University educated lawyer, who currently represents Ward 4 on the DC City Council. Ward 4 is a very mixed ward, racially, religiously and economically mixed. For those who know DC, if you drive north on 16th Street NW, heading from the White House to the DC/Silver Spring line, you will, for the most part, be driving through the heart of Ward 4. Mayor Bowser represented Ward 4 before she was elected mayor.

George identifies as a DSA member and a progressive. She signed the DSA agreement and pledged not to attend any events of the type listed in the agreement. At a meeting held late last week at an Orthodox synagogue in DC, attended by representatives of all (I think, all) DC Jewish congregations and certain other organizations, George apologized for her answers to the questionnaire and apparently did what candidates often do: she blamed it on one of her staffers who filled out the questionnaire, and said she did not see it and would have answered it differently.

But, she did not change her answers, did not apologize publicly or agree to do so, and apparently has not commented, or responded to questions, on the subject since. We have no idea where this will go.

But she is a serious candidate for mayor, obviously. And DSA members can be elected mayor of big cities (ever hear of a guy named Momdani?). Free DC (an organization that, to my knowledge, has taken no position on Israel or Palestine), which actively supports DC statehood, yesterday announced their support for George for mayor. My guess is that her position on Israel/Palestine played no part in their decision at all, but it shows that George has a lot of support in a city filled with progressives of all sorts.

There will be a Democratic primary in June, which will in effect decide the November mayoral race. There are at this time only two real candidates. George is one, and Kenyan McDuffie the other. McDuffie also served on the City Council (first representing Ward 5, and then as an at-large member) and resigned his at-large position to run for mayor. He is a Howard graduate and has a law degree from the University of Maryland, and is significantly more moderate in his positions than George is. At this point, he is the candidate I would support.

I have only seen one poll, and I am not sure how recently it was taken. It shows George with 44% and McDuffie with 41%. Each candidate has received endorsements from other DC office holders, labor unions, and organizations. It is not clear who will be the candidate; it is not too late for other significant candidates to enter the race, although it is getting later and later.

Listed as an organization supporting George is Jews for Justice, a progressive organization whose positions I often agree with. I don’t know whether or not their endorsement will be affected by this latest revelation. My guess is that it might be.

First question for a Monday morning. What is the national dish of Iran? If you Google the question, you get Gormeh Sabzi, which makes you hungry just looking at the pictures. (I know, you never heard of Gormeh Sabzi, and if you were asked to identify Gormah Sabzi, you would have said something like: the national hero of Albania?)

But as of this morning, Gormeh Sabzi has been replaced as Iran’s national dish. It has been replaced by TACO, named not after an Albanian hero, or even after a Persian rug, but after our very own Donald Trump. Trump Always Chickens Out. After promising to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure if the Strait of Hormuz was not opened by this evening EDT, Trump has given the Iranians 5 more days.

Not only that, but he has given them 5 more days on the basis of the very positive talks the United States has had with the Iranians yesterday. Okay, it is true that the day before yesterday, Trump said he couldn’t be expected to have any talks with the Iranians because everyone worth speaking with (sorry, talking to, or lecturing) had been killed, and there was no one left to talk to. But, apparently, among the 93 million inhabitants of the land three times the size of Ukraine, someone was been found with a telephone (or maybe even a Zoom account) and the ability to speak in English.

I mention a telephone or a Zoom account because obviously (well, maybe that is too strong a word), Steve Witcoff (whose parents once bought a Persian rug) or Jared Kushner (whose parents once considered buying a Persian rug) did not spend the weekend in Iran enjoying Gormeh Sabzi.

So the question is: with whom did which Americans speak? I wondered about that, and wondered if, as a part of his TACO move, Trump just made up the talks. I will be honest, and tell you that I didn’t really think this, but when I just looked up details about the conversations, I found the BBC reporting that apparently no such talks took place.

TACO. TACO. TACO. Of course, TACO is one of Trump’s better qualities. Otherwise, where would we be?

Before the lack of communications with Iranian officials took place, I did wonder what could have been discussed, and would could have made Trump so optimistic that he would decide to give Iran at last 5 more days of electricity. Before I tell you what I concluded, think about this yourself. What could Trump have heard that would have made him so optimistic?

The cynics among you might have said: well, this gives our three warships and 2500 Marines time to get to the Persian Gulf so that they could go into action when Iran has been so crippled that they can no longer use their Zoom accounts. And you may be correct.

The more practical among you might have said: well, Iran must have realized that they were going to lose Kharg Island anyway, so that they have agreed, in return for peace, to give up Kharg Island to the United States, which will take it first as a territory and later as the 56th state, behind Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Canada and Puerto Rico, but well ahead of the District of Columbia.

But here is what I was thinking: if the Iranians were able to convince Trump to give them 5 more days of electricity, they must have offered something very very important to him. What could be so important that it would convince Trump that Iran’s energy infrastructure should be spared (for almost a whole week!!)? I think that Iran has agreed to abolish mail-in voting. A sea change in the position of the Islamic Republic.

Switching subjects (I am happy to say), I am happy to say (yes, that bears repeating) that we attended Theater J yesterday and saw a production of Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, which I enjoyed completely. We had seen the play in the Mosaic Theatre production in 2019, and it was equally enjoyable then (perhaps more so, because I did not know what to expect). It’s a long one-act play about a private school in the San Francisco Bay area, which prides itself on inclusivity, individual choice, and social justice. And then it is hit by a epidemic of mumps, receives a health department directive that the school is to be closed and no students allowed back until they have received all of the recommended vaccines, and discovers that almost half of the children have not been vaccinated. What to do? And, yes, it is a comedy. A great, and more than timely, show.

We also started watching Ripley last night, an 8 episode, black and white adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was also adapted for film in 1999. I think it is a little slow, but so far worth watching and I think we will see the 6 remaining episodes. It takes place in the Amalfi Coast village of Altrani (yes, a real place), with occasional excursions to Naples. The time is the early 1950s.

I have been in Naples, I think, three times. First, in 1962. Second, in the early 1970s. Finally, on just a day trip from Rome, with Edie, Michelle and Hannah (and my sister Joan) around 1990.

I remember thinking, from my first two visits, how chaotic (and fascinating) Naples was. I remember a New Yorker article 50 or 60 years ago, which called Naples a city undergoing a nervous breakdown, and I agreed completely. I remember many details about my first two visits, and they include a late night taxi ride across the city (was I by myself or with someone?), and the taxi fare increasing (no meter, just conversation) as we went along. I remember wondering if we were even going where we were supposed to be going. I remember getting concerned (even beyond the money) about the driver. I remember him saying that if I (we?) didn’t want to pay the fare he was charging, he would let us off right where we were, and we would be lucky if we ever made it to our destination that time of night.

The problem is that I remember this both distinctly and vaguely. Edie thinks I am imagining it, or it was a dream. Maybe, but…..I know I (we?) got to where we were going ( to my (our) pensione, is that the word?) safe and sound.

I always wanted to go back to Naples for more than a night or two. One more thing that ain’t gonna happen.

While we were growing up, in school and after, how many times did we say it was the fault of the Germans? They could have stopped Hitler from gaining power, and from exerting power the way he did. All they needed was courage that they clearly did not have. It was the fault of the Germans.

Guess what? We seem all to be Germans today. And we all know it. And it looks like there is very little we can do in order not to be Germans. I say that looking at myself, 83 years old with no influence with the public. But it is also true looking at others, even looking like the most influential anti-Trumpers. They seem to have no more power to stop Trump than I do. We are all Germans.

Yesterday was not a good day for my social or political psyche. We spent the day on a short trip to Occoquan VA, had a nice lunch, popped into a couple of shops, went to their elaborate riverfront park, and toured some of the beautiful south Fairfax County residential areas in and around Clifton VA. The weather was beautiful, the company good, and it was relaxing.

During the day, I saw that Bob Mueller had passed away. I wasn’t really surprised because I knew that he had been sick, but it was too bad. He was a man with an extraordinary career dedicated to public service, who was given the very difficult job of leading an investigation on whether the Russians interfered with our election, whether the Trump campaign worked with the Russians in that regard, and whether Trump was involved in obstruction of justice.

He was hamstrung in his job in that Trump was then the president and there was longstanding Department of Justice policy against bringing a criminal indictment against a sitting president. In light of that restriction, Mueller apparently decided that investigating Trump for criminal conduct would not be a worthwhile or proper thing to do. He also (and I am not sure of the rationale here) never spoke with Trump and never sought his testimony or deposition. Mueller concluded therefore that although he could not say that Trump was guilty of any criminal activity, he might reach a different conclusion had he had the authority to conduct a full investigation.

Some time after the Mueller Report was released to the public, I remember that Bob Mueller was called to testify before Congress, and his testimony was a failure. He seemed old and distracted and his memory did not seem as sharp as you would hope. This was a year or so before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and it is possible that he was already feeling the effects of the disease that would end his life six or so years later.

So, while I was sorry to hear that he had passed away, as I said it did not come as a shock. But the response to his death by our abhorrent president was a shock, even though it has become so difficult for Trump to shock me any more. I quote from Trump’s Truth (sic) Social (sic) post:

“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people.”

I put a comment on Face Book that in effect said that there was maybe one person happy that Bob Mueller died, but there would be billions who would be happy if the same thing happened to the president. Obviously, this is so.

But there was more than this that upset me yesterday. After we got home from our venture, I turned on CNN and watched a report that they had from southern Beirut, that was concentrated on the effect of Israeli strikes on children in the area. It was heartbreaking. And, as the CNN reporter stated as the cameras showed residential buildings that had been hollowed out by the bombing: this neighborhood, a week ago, was bustling and vibrant. I understand that Israel is trying to take Hezbollah out of the picture, but at what cost? And I could same thing about the “mistake” the U.S. made when it killed about 150 young school girls. At what cost is this war worth it?

With respect to the war in Iran, it becomes clearer and clearer that Trump has no idea what he is really doing there. He says that Iran’s ability to respond to the American and Israeli attacks has been destroyed, although this obviously is not true, as they continue to send drones into Israel, the UAE, Diego Garcia and Kuwait. He says that the leadership has been wiped out, and any possible successor leaders have been wiped out (he discounts the son of Khamenei as a leader, hardly ranking him as a human being), and there is no one to talk to. He says that we are almost through with the war, but he is not ready to talk peace and he is bringing 2500 (or is it now 5000) Marines and three battleships into the area from San Diego. And from Israel, where the nuclear center town of Dimona was hit, Netanyahu has said, in effect: “Now, I am mad. Now, you will see how mad I am.”

Oil and gas prices have skyrocketed and the experts all say that there has been damage to various facilities that cannot be quickly repaired and that we are in for higher than necessary prices for the next year or two, at least. If the Strait of Hormuz stays blocked, this can go on longer. My assumption is that Trump wants to use the military forces on the way to the Persian Gulf to capture the Island of Kharg, where most Iranian refining and shipping takes place and bring Iranian oil, like Venezuelan oil, under American control. Rotsa ruck, as they used to say.

The way to avoid this takeover? Maybe (only maybe) if Iran obeys Trump’s latest demand – open Hormuz by Monday night (our time), or see your power plants destroyed. Well, as Nick Kristof said last night on MS NOW, if that happens, Iran will target power plants and desalination plants in its neighboring countries and where are we then?

Of course other things are going bad as well – the war in Ukraine, the situation in Cuba, and so forth. But I want to end this by giving a few remarks about our pitiful Congress.

Explain this to me. The Department of Homeland Security has not been funded, and the Department’s various agencies are running (or have run) out of money or authority to spend money. Well, not all of the agencies, because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) was given money through the Big Beautiful (sic) Bill, so that it can keep operating without getting the additional funds that it would get if the DHS bill is passed in its current form. But the other agencies – the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA and many others – cannot keep operating.

Everyone in Congress, Democrat and Republican, wants to fund all of DHS other than ICE (which the Democrats don’t want to fund, but which has enough money from the BBB anyway, making the debate meaningless). The Democrats have offered to fund everything but ICE, which will have no effect on ICE, until changes to its operations are negotiated. The Republicans won’t agree to this unless ICE is now included in the appropriations bill. In my mind, the Democrats have by far the better argument, but Republicans think the Democrats should just give up, and who knows what Independents think?

Why do I think the Democratic stand is better? Because we are treating those targeted by ICE (undocmented immigrants, properly documented immigrants, U.S. citizens) as bad as Germany treated Jews, Romani, and gays during the early years of Nazi rule.

But the fact that the argument over ICE is, on the ground, meaningless, and every thing else is agreed to, and Congress can’t do anything but blame the other side, is just sick. Pitiful.

I started by saying we were Germans. Are we? Is it possible that we might even be worse?

On Thursday night, we watched Nuremberg and last night we watched One Battle After Another. As you probably know, One Battle won six Oscars last week, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Casting, Best Adapted Screen Play, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actor (Sean Penn). In fact, if you look on Wikipedia, you will see that the film has been nominated for 458 awards, and has received 227. According to IMDb on the other hand, Nuremberg has been nominated for 17 awards and won only 4.

The films are in fact polar opposites. By that, I mean that the crew of Nuremberg started with a very interesting and equally important story line, and wound up with a film barely worth watching (i.e., worth watching, but barely), while Battle took a rather silly plot and made of it an extraordinary film.

As you might know, the Best Casting Oscar which was given out last week was the first such Oscar award. I hadn’t missed it before, of course, but now that it is a thing, I hope it continues. After all, think how important casting is.

A digression. You may think you know this, but why are Oscars called Oscars? Well, according to Google AI, sometime in the 1930s, the Academy’s Library said that the statuettes looked just like her Uncle Oscar. Perhaps, Uncle Oscar was not amused.

The casting for Battle really was impeccable. Usually, in any film, you can at least point to someone and say that they didn’t really do a great job. Not in Battle, where I think everyone was at the top of their game. Having said that, if I had to pick out one actor to give a Best award to, I don’t think it would be Sean Penn (this is not to deny that Penn did a very fine job). I would have given it to one of the other “big three” in the film: Benicio del Toro (he could not have been better) playing the protector of a large group of “illegal immigrants”; Leonardo DiCaprio (who had to show every emotion possible to an actor) playing the former revolutionary now barely getting by; and the actress with the wonderful name Chase Infiniti, playing DiCaprio’s 16 year old daughter (she is really 25, but could certainly pass for 16; in fact, she did). Sean Penn played the demented law enforcement official out to erase his past, so he could join a white nationalist group which required its few members to have no stains in their history.

Another digression. Watching Penn, all I could think of was George C. Scott, both when he played Patton in Patton, and when he played General Turgidson (“Buck”) in Dr. Strangelove. You know what I mean? Perfect posture, rigid body control, need to demonstrate unstoppable power. So controlled that much of the drama came with facial contortions. A sneer, a pursed lip, a blinking eye, a tic here or there. That was Scott; that was Penn. After we watched the film, I Googled “Sean Penn George C. Scott” wondering if anyone else saw that. I came across a review written by John Griswold in The Common Reader who thought that Penn was “channeling George C. Scott”. What a great reviewer he is.

One Battle After Another runs for close to three hours, but you don’t know it. It moves so quickly, and is put together so deftly, that the time just floats on by. This is by and large the result of extraordinarily good directing and film editing; both worthy of the Oscars they received. But another facet of the film should be mentioned – the music. You know that sometimes you don’t remember the music of a film at all, and sometimes you think of it as backing up the action in a positive sense. But in Battle, my reaction was different. The original music (it is combined with some golden oldies, which are all perfect for where they are used) was like another cast member. It was essential in setting the mood(s) of the film. I can’t begin to identify the genre. Is plink-plink a genre? It is so original and so well done.

What a shame Nuremberg couldn’t compete. Nuremberg is based on an historical record; apparently the trial sequences are from the trial transcripts, and much of what takes place outside of the trial is from memoirs of those who were present, but it doesn’t seem that way. It seems like relatively poorly thought-out dialogue in too many places.

And (hearkening back to Battle), I have to say, first, that I don’t remember any of the music in Nuremberg and, second, that I thought the casting was pretty awful.

Russell Crowe played one of the two leads in the film. He was Hitler’s number 2, Hermann Goering. (A mini-digression: he gained over 50 pounds for the role, and then had to lose them. Can’t be healthy for a 60 year old). He did look pretty much like Goering. Did he talk like him? Who knows? But I don’t criticize his being cast for this part.

But why did they cast Rami Malek to play the army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelly, the psychiatrist brought to Nuremberg to help the prosecution analyze the Nazis on trial? Malek, an American actor of Egyptian descent, looks a lot like Fareed Zakaria, and not at all like a Douglas Kelly. And they cast, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief American prosecutor at the trial, Michael Shannon. Maybe I should know Shannon, but I don’t. He played a very unpleasant and stiff Justice Jackson. He doesn’t look anything like Jackson did; he is probably 6 inches taller, at least, for one thing, and much thinner. He just wasn’t believable, to me, in the role.

And the relationship between Goering and Kelly? I don’t know what really happened, but their relationship became very buddy/buddy. And Kelly was sure that he had played Goering sufficiently to help Jackson and the prosecution, but then it turned out that maybe it was Goering who was the better psychiatrist, and that it was Kelly who was played, and that this led to the case against Goering at trial suffering, until a sputtering Jackson was saved by the British representative.

It reminded me of the recent hearing for HHS Secretary, when nominee Mullin was asked by a Democrat whether he would obey an illegal order from Trump, and Mullin said “he would not give me an illegal order”. The British lawyer asked Goering if Hitler could have asked him to do anything that would have turned him against Hitler. Goering, more honest than Mullin, said “no”.

I said the film was “barely” worth watching. By that, I mean that it does show you a part of the history of the Nuremberg trials (the use of psychiatry) that I am not (and probably you are not) familiar with. Learning about this was worth seeing the film. But there is no other reason to select it among the many, many choices we all have.

I am thinking about my smart phone. I recently heard that 80% of baby boomers (all younger than I am) use their smart phones at least seven times a day. I also read a few days ago that, in addition to worrying about teenagers overusing their smart phones, there is now worry that older adults are overusing their smart phones, as grandchildren complain that their grandparents don’t talk to them when sharing a meal because they are continually checking their phones. As they used to say, “I resemble that remark”.

A digression. I grew up thinking that “I resemble that remark” was a clever line created by my Aunt Lee. But, lo and behold, my smart phone just told me that both Curly (of the Three Stooges) and the Marx Brothers used it long before. End of digression.

I admit to living much of my life on my phone. And, yes, I do get stuck now and then watching “reels” that show up on Face Book, but mainly I use my phone to check news, sports, occasionally weather, and to answer whatever questions pop into my mind as the day goes on. Last night, I asked Edie: How did I ever learn anything before I had a smart phone? I don’t know the answer to that question.

Take yesterday (you will have to bear with me on this, as I try to reconstruct yesterday). After having lunch with old friend Stephen Marcus at Paragon Thai, where we were the only eat-in lunch customers, I drove down to Dupont Circle to see the books outside at Second Story, something I had not done all winter. I found a copy of Vincent Sardi, Jr.’s book about his New York restaurant, which he had signed and inscribed to a customer, and put down my $4.

It’s basically a recipe book, and interesting (if it indeed has recipes used in the restaurant) because the recipes are (1) extraordinarily simple, and (2) often use canned ingredients, like canned beets and artichoke hearts. Sort of weird. I am sure that does not happen today.

When I got home, I went to my smart phone and looked up the history of Sardi’s, and it was interesting. Started by Vincent Sardi, Sr. and his wife in a basement location in a building that was torn down, it moved to its present location in 1927 and, after it moved, its business declined and Vincent, Sr. decided that he needed a gimmick. He hired an immigrant from Russia to make caricatures of celebrities to put on the restaurant’s walls (something he had seen in a restaurant in Paris). The artist’s name was Alex Gard, who drew the portraits for years in return for free food.

Alex Gard (my next smart phone look up), really Alexei Mikhailovich Kremkov, left Russia after the 1917 revolution, wound up in the United States (and in the U.S. military), and drew over 700 caricatures until he collapsed on Seventh Avenue and died at age 49.

His first caricature was of a man name Ted Healy (another smart phone look up). Ted Healy, a name totally unfamiliar to me, was not only a vaudeville performer in New York City, but was the highest paid vaudeville performer in the 1920s, earning for a time (so says Wikipedia) the equivalent of $150,000 a week. Among the things he did as a stage performer (and he was in several films), he created the Three Stooges (another smart phone look up), a trio that went through several changes before it settled on Moe, Curly and Larry.

Healy moved to Los Angeles, and at a party at the Trocadero, where he was celebrating the birth of his first (and, as it turned out, only) child, he got into a drunken fist fight with Albert Broccoli (future director) and actor Wallace Beery, staggered out, was found on the street, taken to a hospital and died at age 39, four days after the birth of his son. You can read a lot about this, as it is unclear whether the death was a result of the beating he took in the nightclub or underlying problems, including those relating to his apparent long time alcoholism.

The person that picked him up and took him to the hospital was a wrestler who went by the name of Man Mountain Dean. I, of course, had to look him up, and discovered that Man Mountain Dean weighed over 300 pounds, had a successful professional wrestling career (Dean was his wife’s maiden name; his was Leavitt), was a Miami policeman (until he was caught visiting Al Capone at his Florida house), and a U.S. Army Master Sergeant who was stationed at Ft. Richie Maryland (I wrote about Ft. Richie sometime last year – well worth reading about and visiting) and taught hand to hand combat. He then retired to a farm outside of Atlanta where he apparently lived a quiet life.

So there you have it: Vincent Sardi, Sr. and Jr., Alex Gard, Ted Healy, The Three Stooges, Albert Broccoli and Wallace Beery, and Man Mountain Dean. Without my smart phone, where would I be? What would I know?

And there was one more look up. I read that Ted Healy was once a guest on the radio show, It Pays to be Ignorant. We had never heard of that show, but it ran for years and years (and for a short time on television) and was a spoof of shows like Quiz Kids. Guests were asked questions like “Where did the Boston Massacre take place” and then gave “funny” answers. We found on my smart phone episode after episode that you can listen to, and chose one at random.

Don’t let anyone tell you that entertainment has gone downhill. This was one bad show (IMHO) filled with corny one liners. The question of the night was “What drink do we get from tea leaves?”. One panelist said he never drank anything stronger than pop. But, he said, Pop will drink anything. That’s the caliber of the show.

Okay, enough about my smart phone addiction. We also watched the new(ish) film Nuremberg last night. What a disappointing and  bad film! (Maybe I will review it tomorrow, because…….the topic is pretty important) And then I watched the first half of the basketball game between the St. Louis University Billikens (you want to know what a billiken is? Use your smart phone) and the University of Georgia in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Billikens won 102-77. Hope they keep it up. And hope future games start earlier than 10 p.m.

My writing style is simple and conversational, and it does serve its purpose. But it is far from professional writing. Every once in a while I come upon a paragraph (or a book) that tells me how puerile my writing style really is. I found an example yesterday, when I picked up Farewell Espana: the World of the Sephardim Remembered by Howard Sachar, a book published in 1994 and which I read (or read through) at about that time.

Here is the first paragraph of Howard’s book (by the way, I call him Howard because I met him once at dinner at a friend’s condominium, and that’s what I called him then; he died in 2018):

“Cordoba meanders somnolently along the banks of the Guadalquivir River. A town of perhaps a quarter-million inhabitants, it is sustained by mercury and bauxite mined in a pine-clad sierra of neighboring mountains, by fruit and vegetables cultivated in an ochred checkerboard of enveloping farmland. We are in Spain’s subtropical meridian, the apex of a triangle formed by Seville, ninety miles to the southwest, and Granada, a hundred miles to the southeast. Although each city in its time once served as the capital of Andalusia, it is Cordoba that best preserves the medieval legacy. Its Mezquita, or Great Mosque, defines that heritage. A Moorish phantasmagoria of striated marble pillars and garnet-and-ivory arches, the mighty edifice was begun by Caliph Abd al-Rachman I in the mid-700s and doubled in size by the Calif Abd al-Mansur I two centuries later. Even now, the Mezquita’s crenellated walls and sculptured arcades overshadow, all but devour, the garish cruciform Renaissance cathedral recklessly carved out of its viscera by later Christian conquerors.”

There is no way I could write like that. I would have simply said: “Cordova is on the Guadalquivir River, about 100 miles from both Granada and Seville. It once had Jews and Muslims and Christians living together. There is an old mosque there with red and white striped arches that is so big that the Christians put a church inside. Very unique.”

And that is why I will never be a writer.

I am sitting here this morning at about 10 a.m. watching the Dow lose several hundred more points. It is now hovering around 46,000, which means it has lost about 10% since Trump started his war with Iran. My phone tells me that the average price of gasoline in the United States is now $3.96, which is a rise of close to 30% of what gas cost before the start of the war. Pam Bondi said that we should be talking about how Trump raised the Dow average to 50,000, and Donald Trump said that the price of gasoline in some parts of the country was now $1.95 and that everyone would get there soon.

I did watch a portion of the hearing of future HHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin yesterday and, once again, wish members of Congress were better at asking questions. Of course, I don’t know if there are internal rules that limit what questions can be asked at these hearings, but have never heard of any limits.

For example, there was a question asked to Mullin: if the president gave you an order to do something that was illegal, what would you do? Mullin’s “answer” was: the president would never ask me to do that. The questioner, a Democrat, then just let that go. I can not imagine why.

I would have asked Mullin a few simple questions. For example, I’d ask “Do you consider yourself MAGA?” No matter what his answer would be, I’d then ask him to define MAGA. I would also have asked him if he could name any areas where he and president Trump have different positions. And after that, I’d ask whether he felt that Trump has yet made any mistakes as president, and to identify them.

Mullin did say that, once he takes over HHS, there would be no entries into homes without a warrant, unless the ICE was pursuing someone who ran into a house while being pursued. That was good, but did anyone ask him if ICE and related agency personnel would stop wearing masks, would have operating body cameras, and would have identification on their uniforms and reading to show someone who requests seeing identification? If so, I didn’t hear that, and didn’t see anything reported on that.

With that in mind, I admit to being a bit confused as to why all of HHS, with the exception of ICE, has not been funded. Everyone agrees that it should be. And everyone agrees that ICE has, through the BBB, already been given enough money to carry on its activities whether or not ICE is funded for this year. So, even if the Republicans don’t want to change the practices of ICE agents (although we know from Mullin’s testimony that they will change its policy regarding the need for judicial warrants), you would think they would agree to fund the remainder of the department, and leave the ICE question to further discussions. The Republicans don’t give anything up regarding ICE by doing this, and they keep the other important activities of HHS going and HHS personnel paid for their work.

I recently read Stuart Stevens’ book The Conspiracy to End America. Stevens is a former GOP political campaign advisor, a founder of the Lincoln Project (anti-Trump Republicans), and a frequent panelist on TV. His short book is very well organized and important. He talks about disinformation, party discipline, big money in politics, political lawyers, and political demonstrations. It was published in 2023 (before the second Trump election) and I recommend it highly. It is not at all outdated.

Stuart Stevens (if in fact he wrote the book himself) writes quite well. Better than I do. But he is no Howard Sachar.

We watched Venezuela beat the United States, 3-2, in the World Baseball Classic. The only scoring for the U.S. was on a Bryce Harper home run.

I must admit to rooting for Venezuela, considering how the United States has treated it over the past year. And I was not alone. The stadium in Miami, where the Marlins usually play to empty seats, was totally packed, and the Venezuelan fans were by far in the majority. What does that show you?

There were no politics on display, although the undercurrent must have been there. The Nationals were not represented on either team, although Geraldo Parra (last year Nats first base coach) was the Venezuela first base coach, and ex-Nats Harper and Kyle Schwarber (now both Phillies) were on the U.S. team.

And yesterday’s Cardinals-Nats spring training game was also televised, and was true to form. With excellent pitching, the Nats won, 1-0, but they only had four hits. Their spring training record is now 14-7. This puts them in second place in the 15 team Grapefruit League, two games behind Atlanta.

I think the new full time telecast duo of Dan Kolko and Kevin Frandson will do just fine, and the third member of the team, Alexa Datt, who will be interviewing players from the dugout, is a welcome addition. She is a local native, but has spent the last few years in St. Louis with the Cardinals, Blues, and Billikens. I just wish we knew how we are going to watch the season on FIOS.

Enough of baseball, you say. Get on with the real stuff.

It looks like no one is going to accept the invitation to Trump’s party, and he will have to figure out how to extricate us from Iran himself. The ingrates at NATO won’t help him, China and Russia are both smart enough not to help him (although everything he is doing seems to help them), and Israel won’t help him because their business in Iran is not yet complete.

Joe Kent, a right wing, white supremicist kook who was totally unqualified to direct our counterterrorism efforts has resigned with a stinging letter that says that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. and maybe no threat at all, and that Trump was, in effect, duped by Netanyahu to start the war. He of course may be right. Or he may just be looking for a way to bash Israel. Or both.

Trump on the other hand says just what you would expect. First, that he really doesn’t know Joe Kent at all. And second, that he always thought he was bad, very bad, on terrorism. This, of course, provides the obvious reason to choose him for the job. Trump wanted a counterterrorism chief he could ignore, so he could rely on his own bones and guts. Fair enough.

So what is the Board of Peace doing? How are the Palestinians in Gaza faring? What are we doing to stop violence in the West Bank? Has Hamas given up their arms in Gaza? Has Hamas stopped its activities in the West Bank? What does the future hold for the one million displaced in Lebanon? Will Hezbollah be destroyed there? And in Iran, what will we or Israel do to keep Iran from rebuilding conventional weapons and working again on its nuclear program (whatever that really is)? And when Israel be ready to stop?

Other things to think about? Ukraine? Cuba? The entite global economy? The operation of the 2026 midterms?

Should we just go back to baseball?

The title is just for your reference. The post is about baseball.

It’s been a while since I have even mentioned baseball. So I will start this morning with some thoughts I have. Those of us in DC who follow the Nationals find it a little harder this year because the Washington Post (our former local newspaper) has stopped reporting on the Nats’ spring training. Not that they aren’t covering it as intensely as they used to. They aren’t covering the Nats at all. I don’t know what the case will be when the season starts on the 26th of the month (that is only 9 days away), but they don’t have one reporter in West Palm Beach and I don’t know that they have published one article on the team.

So let me give you a quick fill-in. There is a new manager and a new general manager, and new coaches, and no one knows anything about any of them. There are players from last year (some of whom no one remembers at all) and a bunch of new ones that no one knows at all. Any local newspaper worth its salt would keep local fans up to date. The Washington Post clearly is no longer a local paper, and we have no other. Of course, you can follow the Nats through many websites and I am sure some people use them, but these websites do not include the Post’s  website. If you go to sports today, you will find 10 articles on baseball and none of them are on the Nats. Weird?

It gets worse. Up until this year, the Nats games were on TV on a network owned by the Baltimore Orioles, called MASN. It has been said that all of the Nats games will be streamed on MLB-TV, which costs $100 for the season, but that they will also be on Cable TV on a station yet to be announced, 9 days before the season starts.

Of course, the Nats are not doing too well, and haven’t done well at all since their World Series season in 2019. With new folks in charge, and a very young team, it is expected that 2026 will still be a rebuild year (referred to by some as a rebuild of the failed rebuild). And I know you can’t go by what happens in spring training, but this spring training (to the extent I could follow it, and I didn’t try too hard) has been interesting.

First, of the 15 teams that hold their spring training in Florida (the Grapefruit League), the Nats are in 3rd place. Second, of the 15 teams that have their spring training in Florida, the Nats’ pitchers have the lowest Earned Run Average (that means that their pitchers have pitched better than any other of the teams). Third, of the 15 teams that have their spring training in Florida, the batting averages of the Nats’ hitters is in last place.

Now, all of that is weird enough, but it becomes more weird since, for the last few years, the Nats’ hitters have not done too badly, while their pitching has been, by and large, pitiful. Very hard to understand. Very hard.

And especially hard to understand since it is so hard to read anything beyond these mere statistics.

But wouldn’t you know it? Once I wrote these words, I saw that the Nats scored 12 runs yesterday in beating the Mets. The start of something big? The exception that proves the rule? None of the above?

I also see that Venezuela will be the United States opponent in the finals of the World Baseball Classic tonight. I must say that I don’t really care who wins. No, that’s not really true. I would like Venezuela to win. It’s like Trump says: I am so tired of winning.

I did notice something else of interest. Do you know that everyone on Venezuela’s team has an Hispanic name, and no one (that means no one) on the U.S. has an Hispanic name? That means all of the Hispanic MLB players involved in the WBC decided not to play for the U.S. Take that, Mr. Trump!And there is something else that I find interesting. The U.S. team not only has no Hispanics, it only has one Black player, Byron Buxton of the Twins. I know that African-American players are not over represented throughout the league, but, for example, the Nats have at least 8 Black players on their 40 man roster.

And speaking of statistics, Wordle will tell you that I have a winning streak of 18 days. Why they say this, I don’t know, because by my own statistics, I am about at 103 days. The Wordle app says that I missed a day a few weeks ago, but I think the app is wrong. But….in any event, I just discovered (because it is sort of hidden in the app) that you can go back and play puzzles that you missed (it’s called the Wordle Archive), and I have gone back and played four that they say I missed over the past 8 months. The app tells me that I missed about ten games in July (I guess it is possible) and I will go back and play them.

But even if you go back and play successfully the days that you skipped over, it does not affect your days-in-a-row statistics. But for the record, I would like everyone to know that the last time I actually did not get a Wordle correct was in October of 2024. Now, why I would like everyone to know that, I have no idea. A character fault on my part, I think.

Has the fear (or the real possibility) of living in a semi-totalitarian country finally got to me? Last night, while asleep…….

I tell Edie that I might have to disappear for a while. She should not worry.

There is a man who looks pretty much like John Kerry (remember him?), who has expressed an interest in running for president. This has immediately put his life in danger, as all of us members of the political underground know.

One day, as he walks down a city street, he is surrounded by four men, dressed in dark colors, wearing masks. They look like they work for ICE. They surround and capture the Kerry look-alike (let’s just call him JK for simplicity) and take him away. It is clear that the administration has exacted revenge on a man who has threatened the right wing political status quo.

But, no! The populace is wrong. ICE has not captured JK. He has been abducted by four members of the political underground (let’s just call it PU, although that might not be the best smelling anagram), who bundle him into an unmarked van, drive quickly up a back alley, change cars, and then escort him to the service entrance of a fancy hotel.

They take him up to a “safe suite”, where he is met by a make up artist, a hair stylist, a vocal coach, a theatrical director, and more, who remake his appearance, change his voice, and alter his posture.

This is where I come in. I am sitting in a shiny black SUV in front of the hotel. JK (the revamped JK) walks out of the hotel lobby, climbs into the van, and we are off. We obey all the rules of the road, cross the Potomac and head to an airport in Manassas, where a private jet is waiting. JK and I board the plane, and seven hours later, we land in Shannon, and are whisked away to a comfortable, but modest house in the nearby Irish countryside, where guarded by military officers, JK is to make his home until he is out of danger. He will run for president from afar.

That is what I dreamed last night.

We went to a friend’s 75th birthday party yesterday afternoon. We knew most of the people there. Some we see now and then, and some not as often. But I talked to a lot of folks. And do you know what the biggest topic was? It was “age”. And the room was divided between those who thought that to be 75 was to be very old, and those who only wished they could be 75 again. I recalled that, a week or two ago, I had lunch with an old friend who, next month, will be turning 70. He asked me for my advice. That was an easy one. I told him “Enjoy your youth”.

Then we came home, had left over Indian food from Saturday night’s dinner at Delhi Spice (very good, thank you). The food was salmon curry and saag paneer, or spinach and cheese. I thought that we needed something cold and sweet to go with it, and looked to see what I could put together. I fondly remember Waldorf salads from my youth – the apples and nuts and mayonnaise (and the bits of celery that I pushed aside). So I took an apple, some nuts, some raisins (substituted for the unwanted celery), and some mayonnaise, adding honey (just because), and this became the perfect side dish for Indian food.

A digression: Maybe you know this already (or, more likely, maybe you don’t care about this at all), but do you know (1) that a Waldorf salad was named at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, where it was first served, (2) that the Astoria in the name Waldorf-Astoria is from the Astor family, whose founder, the original John Jacob Astor was a fur trader in the northwest, (3) the Waldorf name comes from the German village of Waldorf (Forest Village auf Deutsch), where John Jacob Astor was born, and (4) originally there were two hotels, the Waldorf and the Astoria, built in the late 19th century next to each other by two cousins who apparently did not like each other at all. Go figure.

OK. After dinner, we actually turned on the Oscars and watched them from 7 until 10:38, when they ended 8 minutes late. I must say this: this was really a bad show. The host was hardly there, and the show better when he wasn’t. No one had an acceptance speech that was worth listening to. There was no drama. No surprises. The best things were the ads. Go figure.

That’s it. Not a profound post, I know. I need to get ready for a Haberman Institute Board Meeting Tonight. And, oh, yes, we may have a tornado.

Let it be known that we have never gone into the Oscars so unprepared. Not that I care (after all, what has the Academy ever done for me?), but we have only seen one of the films that is up for Best Picture, and that one we had not seen until yesterday when we went to see The Secret Agent. Now, I know that that Nats are more likely to win the World Series than The Secret Agent win the Best Picture Award, and (since I don’t do much pre-viewing research), I expected to see a gritty and exciting spy thriller. Au contraire (as they say in Quebec).

One review that I read said that the film is not a film noir, but a film neo-noir. I looked up neo-noir. It refers to a dark, cynical film that is in color and has increased violence. I am not sure that I would call The Secret Agent dark or cynical (whatever that means in a film), so maybe it’s really, not neo-noir, but more like, say, post-neo-noir.

Wikipedia says that it has been nominated for 165 awards (at 40 different places) and won 77 of them (at 18). It received 4 awards at Cannes, 7 from the International Cinephile Society, and 6 from the Indiewire Critics Poll. And get this: it won 5 awards at the Havana Film Festival! Now, I didn’t even know there was a Havana Film Festival. I didn’t even know that Cubans were allowed to see movies! Or rather, I assumed that Cubans saw only old American movies. You know, the ones with American cars dated before 1959.

But it turns out that this is a rather prestigious festival that takes place every December and has been held every year since the Ayatollah took over Iran and daughter Michelle was born. It is exclusively for Latin American films, but there has been one American film that has one – 90 Miles in 2001.

Well, if anyone knows about noir, whether neo, post-neo, or just plain unadulterated noir, I guess it should be the Cubans.

Now, that’s all I am going to say about “noir” films. The other reference I saw said that the film contained “magic realism”. Okay, try to wrap your head around that one.

So, I looked it up. Magic realism is defined by Google AI as “a literary and artistic genre that weaves fantastical, supernatural, or mythical elements into an otherwise realistic, mundane setting without explanation”. If this is a good definition of magic realism, the Secret Agent is an example of MAGIC REALISM!!!

Why do I say this? It’s because it contains a shark that was found far from the coast (the film takes place in Recife, Brazil, BTW), with a hairy human leg inside it. The leg is extracted at the local university’s shark research lab and sent to the police morgue, where it stays most of the film,  except that at some point, two policemen (none in uniform in this film, and none really acting like policemen) enter the morgue, take the leg out of its resting place, put another leg in its place, and take the original leg and wrap it up and dump it into a river (where it floats but does not sink, like a woman sank with a weight tied to her near the start of the film; we do not know who she was).

A digression: you, who have not been to Recife (which is where the Jews who first settled New Amsterdam sailed from in 1654), may assume that this northern Brazilian city is on the Amazon. Well, I looked that up, too. Remember this in case it becomes important later on: Recife is on the confluence of the Capibaribe and Beberibe Rivers, which flow not into the Amazon, but into the Atlantic Ocean. Which of these rivers was privileged to get the leg, I don’t know, but those of you who have been to Recife probably would recognize the (very nice, not at all noir) bridge from which the leg was tossed.

Back to the main feature. The leg, I should say, does play an additional role in that it appears in a large park, which seems to be the haunt of gay (sexual) and gay (party loving) people, and does some dastardly deeds, but these deeds seem to have nothing to do with the overall plot any more than the leg itself does.

So, you say, this film seems to have everything, right? I will tell you one thing it does not have. It does not have a “secret agent”. Scouts honor. No secret agent. Where did they get the title? Only the leg knows for sure, and it ain’t talkin’ (or walkin’).

I am not sure what the film is really about. SPOILER ALERT! A guy named Armando tells everyone his name is Marcelo. He is a handsome young guy whose wife apparently died of pneumonia, and who has a son age 7 or 8 living with his in-laws in Recife. He himself can’t live with his son, but they are out to get him. Who are the “they” who are out to get him? The they seems to be a wealthy businessman in Sao Paulo who hires a father and step-son kill team who go to Recife and find a guy who knows a guy who for 4,000 cruzeiros will locate and kill Marcelo. He locates him, but does not kill him (not that he doesn’t try), but instead kills three policemen in front of the government office where Marcelo has been trying to locate the death certificate of his mother (whom he never met and who had him when she was 14), and then kills the step-son (one of the two men who hired him) in a barber shop not far away.

That’s about where the film ends (2 hours and 40 minutes after it started), although a short sequence at the end shows you that Marcelo/Armando’s son, Fernando, has grown up and become a doctor working in a blood bank in Recife, and doesn’t even really remember his father who was apparently killed sometime between the end of the penultimate scene of the film, and the final scene where the same actor who played the father is now playing his son, the doctor.

And, by the way, the last scene, at the clinic, is not at all noir. Not at all.

Okay, so we don’t know who the secret agent was, we don’t know why Armando was being targeted, we don’t really know if the police were honest, we have no idea about the leg found in the shark or the one substituted for it, or what the leg did in the park that night, or who the woman was who was thrown over the bridge early in the film.

What have I left out? Maybe the important part of the plot played by the film Jaws (it came out originally in 1975), or the important role of Dona Sebastiana, who seems to be an old hippie who hides out people running from other people (a dentist with her young daughter, and a couple from Angola, to name a few) where Marcelo hides out. And I left out the Jewish tailor, scarred during the Holocaust, who only speaks German, and wants to be left alone.

I may have missed something, because I admit that I fell asleep for a few minutes during the film. The film is (except when the killer goes on a spree) very slow moving and I knew I could close my eyes for a while and not miss a thing, which turned out to be true.

77 awards. 165 nominations, including Best Picture tonight. How is that possible?

Maybe the Nats will win the World Series after all.