Art is 80

I have been following the news the past two weeks very closely, much more closely than usual, as I try to figure out exactly what is happening in this country. But most people are not following the news as closely as I am, and most Trump voters, if they follow the news at all (many do not), either get their news from social media sites that I could not even identify, or from TV networks such as Fox and Newsmax. So, I think what I will do today, as I have no commitments before mid-afternoon, is turn on Newsmax for an hour or more and hear how they are reporting the news.

In the meantime, I have already done my quick morning routine, looking through a number of news sources, including a quick run through of the print New York Times and print Washington Post, and an online run through of such sites as Haaretz, the Forward, eJP Daily Phil, Jewish Insider, and Times of Israel for Jewish/Israel content, the free WSJ headline site, USA Today, CNN, Axios, Daily Beast, Politico, and the Huffington Post, as well as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for St. Louis local news. Over the course of the day, I will dip into some of these again, and listen or read some of what is on The Contrarian, the Economist, and the Washington Business Journal, and the TV will be on MSNBC and CNN off and on as the day goes on.

This makes it look like I have time to do nothing else, but really this is pretty much just the time I would be wasting or which would be free time if I weren’t so attached to today’s news. At some point, this will all cool down, I hope.

Of course, I am interested in what the increased China tariffs will do, and what will eventually happen with Canada and Mexico. And what will happen to USAID, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the FBI, the DOJ and all those other agencies that DJ and the Big E want to shut down, as well as the Treasury Department’s checkbook, which may be the most important thing of all the important things being affected. I did read this morning a list of all of the groups filing litigation opposing all of this, and it was overwhelming. We will see what the courts do and, even more crucial, perhaps, whether the administration will pay any attention to what the courts do. As it has always been said, the Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. So much depends on the American social contract, if that is a good term, and Trump and friends (or better Trump and lackeys) don’t think they need to abide by any contract, much less a social contract.

It is really interesting to see how fragile our government is, and how much really does depend on good faith and common agreement. We don’t have that now, and it will take some time to get it back, I am afraid.

I mentioned yesterday that I thought that the next step would be for Trump to come after the press. That is happening and it will really accelerate. Expect to see, at some point, attempts to take away broadcast licenses. Of course, MSNBC (and maybe all of NBC), and PBS would be the first to be attacked.

What we have already seen are: (1) different people allowed into the White House Press Room, (2) NBC, the New York Times, etc. being replaced by organizations such as Breitbart as being allowed to have offices inside the Pentagon, (3) an investigation into PBS (and NPR) sponsorships, which I think is putting the camel’s nose under the tent, (4) attempts to get “mainstream” news organizations to turn over to the government raw, unpublished investigatory data, and (5) Trump litigation against various news organizations as the opening salvo in getting the courts to loosen up public figure libel law. The First Amendment may guarantee a free press, but I guess the definition of “free” is flexible.

Finally for today, did you see that El Salvador has apparently told Little Marco Rubio that they will take and hold in prison any criminals the United States wants to send them? Not only citizens of El Salvador, but citizens of the United States and all other countries? Rubio calls it an extraordinary act of friendship. But think about this. We arrest someone for criminal activity and we don’t have the capacity to house them in prison, or we just decided we want to get them out of the country, and we send them to another country? How will our judiciary system deal with their trials, etc? It’s bizarre.

But beyond that, Google “El Salvador Carcel”. Carcel is the main El Salvador prison, located in the remote mountains of the country. Opened less than two years ago to house the many criminals stalking the streets and filling the gangs of El Salvador, CNN broadcast a special report on it in November (available on line – short and shocking), showing how poorly its prisoners were treated. But more than that, do you know the capacity of Carcel? Ready for this? 40,000!!!!! They obviously have excess capacity in their prison system and I assume we have some financial arrangement to cover their costs. But the fact that we are sending our own prisoners to El Salvador is pretty embarrassing, I’d say. And when you add to this facility, preparations being made to house 30,000 in a prison camp at Guantanamo, we are really setting something up here that will probably lead to serious unforeseen (or foreseen) consequences.

Okay, on to Newsmax. Well……before that, I better watch what is going to happen to Tulsi and Junior as their nominations and consent processes are continuing. I hear that Susan Collins is going to vote to approve Gabbard. Susan Collins – how many times has she said “I am going to do what is right…..nevermind.” Jeez.

The reason I can do that is because I need a break, and we did enough this weekend that I can pretend I was thinking about other things.

But first, look at this.

For years, I have driven by and wondered about it. It’s okay. Tuna on whole wheat and a cup of coffee for $12.02.

Onward…..

We went to the theaters twice this weekend. Both very good experiences.

Saturday, we saw “Out of Character”, at Theater J. It was the final performance of the one man show by Ari’el Stachel, an Israeli-American actor who won a Tony for his role in The Band’s Visit.

Stachel is immensely talented, with an emphasis on immensely. The show, an 80 minute autobiography,  is interesting. Satchel’s battles with OCD, his feeling that he needed to hide his Jewish Yemenite father who “looked Arab”, his difficulty coming to terms with his own identity as he lived, on stage and off, with created identities.

But, because I always need to find something to criticize: the play is a trifle (actually more than a trifle) narcissistic. Perhaps this is part of Stachel’s therapy. That, I don’t know. But how many of us would want to write and put on stage with ourselves as the actors playing not only ourselves, but versions of everyone who had any influence on our lives?

The second play, which we saw Sunday, was the opposite of narcissistic.

Called Who Cares? The Caregiver Project, and produced as part of the Voices Festival Production, Ari Roth’s current company,  its run has also ended.

Who Cares is a very unique show featuring six actors playing many more roles. It is centered around a support group of six, who meet, sometimes with an advisor, because each of them, all theater professionals, find their life plans altered because they have become necessary caregivers to their parents,  their spouse or their sibling. Their stories, based in real life interviews with real life people, are told with honesty, compassion, frustration and humor. Each of the cast members played their many parts, exceptionally. It is performed in the round with the goal of making each of the 60 audience members feel like more than just a spectator.

A criticism? Of course. Following an absolutely perfect first act, the second act went on for too long. A ten minute chop would make both acts perfect.

I was also going to write about some things we have streamed or seen on TV, but they can wait.

By the way, the Grammys this year had some wonderful performances. Critique? Trevor Noah was a particularly uninteresting host, and the outfit worn by virtually all of the ladies would look better in the trash bin. If Ye’s wife wore her outfit as a sartorial protest, I would understand it. Did she?

I would like to write about something else today (or tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow), but how can I given today’s circumstances? I remember (without ever seeing) the films (I think, films) titled “Girls Gone Wild”. We are now living in the era of a “President Gone Wild”, and while girls going wild might be interesting to look at, looking at a president going wild is horrific and painful.

Did you watch Fareed Zakaria this morning? I am sure that his Sunday show is available to stream and I really suggest you do it. His first guest was Chrystia Freeland. You may not today know who she is, but she was the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada, who resigned her positions in December after having a dispute with Prime Minister Trudeau, and who will undoubtedly be a candidate to succeed him as Prime Minister. Basically, she said that (a) Trump’s tariffs were loony, (b) Canada would fight back, although a trade war is the last thing they want, (c) the tariffs will hurt both countries (and she explained in detail what the US would miss not importing from Canada and what US business would miss by not being able to do business as usual in Canada), (d) that the amount of anger in Canada today is hard to imagine, and (e) that the Americans should not underestimate the determination of Canada to win this battle. Zakaria also spoke with a Chinese born economist who now is on the faculty of the London School of Economics, Keyu Jin, who talked about China’s strength and resiliency and determination and preparation. She said that tariff fights between the United States only serve to increase Chinese markets and trade arrangements elsewhere, especially as other countries grow wary not only of becoming too dependent on American trade, but also becoming too dependent on the American dollar.

Both of these interviews are well worth listening to. Both women, by the way, are Harvard graduates. Freedland got her undergraduate degree at Harvard, where she studied Russian history and literature (her mother is Ukrainian and she is fluent in Ukrainian). Jin has both a B.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard in economics (she moved to the US from Beijing when she was 14).

Of course, until I saw Zakaria this morning, I wasn’t going to write about his show. Perhaps it’s just as well, because I am still thinking about the Trump/Hitler analogy. Of course, many, many people are saying that that is a no-no, which is probably a reason to look at it seriously, and not take it off the table.
I understand, in saying this, that no analogy – least of all this one – is perfect. After all, among other things, beginning conditions are very different, and Hitler (clearly not Trump) used antisemitism as his lever to obtain power.

Without antisemitism, Hitler would never have obtained the chancellorship of Germany. His party attacked Jews (mainly verbally; sometimes physically) even before he came to power and, once in power, took immediate steps to remove Jews from certain occupations, including all positions in government and universities, and within a few years, taking away their citizenship. Trump is doing none of that, but….would Trump have come to power if he had not railed against immigrants and refugees, legal and illegal? And once in power, he is taking enormous steps to attack those who have entered this country, even using the military to help with this task. And, keep in mind that he is not only attacking “illegals”, but also attacking those who have been admitted to the country awaiting asylum hearings, and those who are here under protected status (refugees from Haiti, Venezuela and certain other places). In striking against all of these newcomers to America, he is telling the rest of us that they are criminals, mentally ill, destroying our society and so forth – this not so different from what the Nazi party was telling Germans about the Jews.

In Germany, Jews were the enemy around which Hitler rallied his followers. In America, it is the immigrants.

Now, you say, yes, but he is not exterminating them. No, of course he isn’t. But in 1933, when Hitler came to power, he wasn’t exterminating the Jews, either. That “final solution” was not officially adopted until 1942. Until then, putting aside what happened outside of Germany during the war years, Hitler simply put Jews in concentration camps. Oh, and what did Trump say just a few days ago? He said that Guantanamo Bay was being prepared to hold 30,000 illegal immigrants. That, folks, is a concentration camp.

Of course, Germany had other problems that led to Hitler’s success. Most prominent of those was Germany’s defeat in World War I (a great disappointment and embarrassment to be sure), the enormous German debt created as a result of the Versailles treaty (we don’t have that, but we do have enormous debt), and the imposition on Germany of the Weimar Republic (which helped to serve to urban elite, including a very large Jewish urban elite, but did nothing for the rural and ethnic Germans of less than middle class, and which threatened at the same time the wealth of German nobility). You can see where some of these factors have parallels (not exact parallels, but to be sure parallels) here.

Trump wants to make America great again, right? Isn’t this exactly what, although he used different wording, Hitler was trying to do?

Hitler also had is own army, so to speak, which operated outside of the German military, although he obviously controlled the official military as well. Trump does not have that, right? Or does he, now that he has given the Oathkeepers, and the Proud Boys out of jail cards? You can see how the various right wing militia in this country could unite behind him, can’t you? It might not happen, of course, but guess what? It could.

Trump is now purging the government of all those he believes are his enemies. This is exactly what Hitler did (although Hitler identified Jews as a class as his enemies). Trump is now allying the government with the wealthiest oligarchs. This is what Hitler did as well, Jews aside.

And all of this is being done without attention to the laws. The governmental purges (DOJ, FBI, inspectors general, etc.), the buy-out proposals, and more. All of these things violate the law, but who cares? If you control the executive branch (he does) and the legislative branch (he does), only the courts are left to make things right. And if you control the courts (which he might at least in part, and that part might be the important part), then no one can stop you. Hitler had all branches of government – he controlled the executive and the legislative branches, and the German judges, although independent, all had lifetime tenures and were by and large supporters of “making Germany great again”, not of supporting the Weimar constitution. And, yes, Germany had a constitution; Hitler just ignored it.

Finally, don’t think that life in pre-war Germany (1933-1939) was hell on earth if you were not Jewish. In fact, the opposite. Germans were fairly united, looked forward to an unstoppable future, and were quite prosperous. Even look at the American and British journalists who were there, read their descriptions of a country that (treatment of Jews aside) seemed much more prosperous than depression ridden America.

I have long thought that if Hitler had not been antisemitic, Germany today might rule the world. Of course, he might have needed antisemitism to come to power, just as Trump needed anti-immigrant feelings. But if he had been able to avoid targeting the Jews, the Jews probably would have allied themselves with him and Germany would have been unstoppable. Would Trump be in a better position if he had not picked on the immigrants?

I see all sorts of analogies. You may see none. But, as Rachel Maddow says: Keep your eyes on this space. My guess is next will be actions crippling the media.

The hearings for the Trump nominees have been very disappointing and it is only partially because of the nature of the nominees themselves. The other reasons include the format of the hearings themselves, as well as the nature of the questioning done by the Senators who are members of the various vetting committees.

In most instances, I believe, the members of the various committees have the opportunity to have a personal meeting with the nominee, in addition to being able to review whatever material is made available. The only case this year where this did not happen is when the new Secretary of Defense refused to meet with the Democrats. This blanket refusal didn’t affect his clearance at all.

But the Democrats have done a terrible job questioning the nominees. Why is this? Perhaps it relates to the competence of the individuals, but I don’t think this is the case. In part, it’s because the hearings, being televised, are opportunities for the Senators to put something on video record that might be useful back home. In part, it’s because in the nature of members of Congress generally to berate those who testify before them, a form of public bullying that I have never understood or accepted. It’s also because many times a Senator wants to get a question on the record, but doesn’t have the patience to wait out an answer, or is afraid the nominee will answer the question in a way different from the way the Senator would like the nominee to answer it. So the Senator starts to ask the follow up question without giving the nominee a chance to respond to the first. But it is also because each Senator is generally limited to five minutes to question the nominee.

Five minutes is insufficient to do anything productive. First, each Senator obviously wants to make a brief opening statement, which eats into their time. Second, the nominee knows that he/she can stall almost anything for five minutes and not really answer a questions, which provokes the questioning Senator, whose time is fast running out, to interrupt and get nowhere.

I would suggest it would be better to limit the number of questioners to, say, six (three from each party, to be decided by that party’s committee members) and give them each 30 or 45 minutes to question the nominee. This would make for a much more meaningful hearing.

To make matters worse, the Senators do not ask the obvious questions, such as: (1) Do you think Trump is perfect? If not, name two things that he has done or said that you do not approve of. (2) If DOGE is successful in cutting the budget of your agency by, say, 20%, where will those cuts be made, and how will that affect your agency’s accomplishment of its mission? (3) How do you define DEI? How will you insure that there is no DEI activity in your agency? What will the effect of those efforts be? Will you recognize, for example, Black History Month?

And so forth.

Trump has been in office for 11 days and the world has been turned inside out (much harder to comprehend than upside down). But it is now that the fun is starting. Today (Feb 1) 25% tariffs are being charged to material coming in from Mexico and Canada. Not that I have any real idea as to how quickly that can actually be implemented, but how will industries (and particularly the auto industry) accommodate to this practice, which will throw all of their operations and planning off?

We have also heard that various FBI officials have been asked (ha!) to resign, and clearly those who worked on the Trump investigations are at risk. How will the FBI deal with this. Forget about the Trump investigation cases – what about the other pending cases that these investigators are working on? The same question can be asked with regard to the various U.S. Attorney offices. Won’t our entire criminal justice system be affected?

Finally, I am glad that someone quickly fact checked DJ’s ridiculous press conference yesterday, when he blamed the National Airport crash on Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg and their ridiculous DEI hiring program at the FAA. We now know that that hiring program was not instituted by Biden or even by Barack Obama. It was implemented by the administration of one Donald J. Trump the First.

It will be interesting (that’s a euphemism) to see how all this plays out. If it plays out at all.

It’s hard to know where to start. And it’s not my goal to write things that you see elsewhere without putting a new twist onto things, and now there are so many people concentrating on the news that it’s hard to come up with thoughts that others haven’t thought before.

Before the inauguration, I had really tired of watching TV news, and we didn’t really watch it as much as we did before the election. We weren’t alone, as the ratings for our two go-to channels, CNN and MSNBC had fallen quite a bit. Now that were are in the middle of the Trumpickle, things have changed and we (and others, apparently) are watching once again.

We seem to begin our news watching at about 7. We generally watched Wolf Blitzer on CNN because Ari Melber on MSNBC got carried away with rap musicians, something that seems to us (but not to him) totally inappropriate for a news show. Now, however, it appears that CNN is going to reprogram Blitzer for a morning show. Not sure what will happen at 7. Now, it is Jim Sciutto, but I don’t know that this is a long term assignment.

In any rate, at 8, I am now favoring Chris Hayes (MSNBC) over Anderson Cooper. At 9, we used to watch Kaitlin Collins on CNN, but now that Rachel Maddow is back for 100 days on MSNBC, that’s where we go. It’s too bad, in a sense, that Collins, who is quite good at what she does, has to face such strong competition. At 10, we wind down our watching. Lawrence O’Donnell has just become a little too predictable and sometimes a little to partisan just for partisan sake.

We don’t watch Fox or Newsmax, of course, because we don’t want to watch fake news, and certainly don’t need their slant. For those who say that CNN and MSNBC are too left-wing, I say: “Huh? You don’t know what left-wing is.” Both of those channels are middle of the road in virtually all modern nations but ours.

Just two more thoughts this morning.

First, having watched long and short excerpts of the Kennedy, Patel and Gabbard hearings, I must say that DJ’s concept of “merit” and mine are quite different. Kennedy has been a surprisingly bad presenter, while Patel and Gabbard have done a good job presenting themselves as unrelated to the Patel and Gabbard who existed before they were nominated for their high level positions. I had also watched part of the Vought hearing, and it reaffirmed what I had thought before – that along with Elon Musk, Russell Vought is the most dangerous man in America today, and his appointment to OMB would be (probably will be) disastrous. I saw that he was voted out of committee by an 11-0 vote yesterday. Unanimous, you say? No, not for a 21 member committee. The Democrats simply refused to vote at all for a candidate so bad. (Reminds me of Samuel Goldwyn’s comment that no one should care what the critics say, they aren’t even worth ignoring.)

Of course, DJ’s presser about the plane crash (is that really a word? if so, too bad) was a disaster, even though it was good to hear that the reason for the crash was an example of Pete Buttigieg’s incompetence and the fact that the FAA is filled with people of intellectual limitations and dwarfs, to name a few.

Secondly, a few words about antisemitism. I listened to (actually watched) a presentation by an esteemed professor emeritus at the Jewish Institute of Religion, who gave a very good talk on the present condition of American Jewry and future expectations. The only thing that bothered me in his presentation was the claim that antisemitism, while far from a mainline American problem, was equally a problem on the left and on the right. I beg to differ.

Nor do I think that Samuel Goldwyn’s many quotes should be forgotten. The question is: did he and Yogi Berra have the same writer? (Don’t give a knee jerk reaction to this one.)

Right wing antisemitism (the “they will not replace us” type) is good, old fashioned antisemitism that seems to be impossible to stamp out. Or at least no one has figured out how to stamp it out. Left wing antisemitism is, in my opinion, a very different animal, one connected solely with Israel and Israel’s doings with regard to its neighbors. I don’t view that as antisemitism per se, and the attempts to define antisemitism to include anti-Israel political positions is, I think, a mistake. This is another subject worthy of a book or two, but I think that equating these two positions creates a problem bigger than the sum of its two components.

The title of this post? An old play on words on the New York Times motto coined during the Vietnam War, when Madame Nhu and her family members fled Saigon. Totally irrelevant to anything I said today, but I just don’t think it should be forgotten.

After spending the day immersed in the Trumpickle, I wanted to move to a different universe, so I started reading Paris in the Fifties by Stanley Karnow, the stories of his years there as a TIME magazine journalist.

I didn’t get very far, because everything was so interesting.

Karnow went to Europe in 1949, after his Harvard graduation. He thought he was going for the summer, but wound up staying much longer. I read the first 40 pages, stopping continually to learn more about what he was describing.

For instance, Rotterdam, where his ship landed. It looked like this:

When I first visited Rotterdam in 1962, it was the most modern city I had ever seen. There was no hint, or at least I had no idea, of the war damage.

After Karnow settled in a student hotel in Paris, he and his college roommate went on a road trip. One place they went was the Loire Valley, where they visited a few of the hundreds of chateaus. One was Chambourg:

I have never been to the Loire Valley. I thought I knew what I was missing. Now I realize I had no clue.

They also went to Prague, where it was still not clear that Czechoslovakia would wind up fully behind the Iron Curtain. There, they met and had dinner with one of Karnow’s Harvard professors, F.O. Matthiesen.

I knew nothing about Matthiesen, so I Googled him. A brilliant student and Rhodes scholar, he became a very well-respected American literature professor and author. But he was gay when being gay was illegal and hidden. His partner of 20+ years had recently died and he was grieving. Plus, Matthiessen was a socialist and a leftist, and he was afraid that he would be called to testify as part of the McCarthy campaign where, among other things, his homosexuality would become public. About a year after his meeting with Karnow, Matthiessen jumped out of a 12 story window. He was 48.

Even in these first few pages, Karnow has hung  around again and again with Norman Mailer, Brendan Behan, and I.F. Stone.

Meanwhile, in Trumpland, here is part of what I learned yesterday.

(1) Robert Kennedy really embarrassed himself at the first day of his hearings.

(2) DJ wants to send Elon himself to the International Space Station.

(3) DJ’s government has taken back the freeze memo that a federal judge enjoined Tuesday. But they seem to have decided that the injunction required the memo to be rescinded, but not the contents of the memo, which they maintain still stands.

(4) We are setting up a concentration camp at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, for 30,000 deportees.

(5) The US was about to spend $50 million to send condoms to Hamas.

(6) The US was not about to spend $50 million to send condoms to Hamas.

You think (5) and (6) are in conflict with each other?  That apparently is irrelevant.

Tomorrow, day 2 of the Kennedy hearings, plus the Gabbard hearing and the Patel hearing. Guys, I am only one person.

Do you remember the very clever Doll Song from Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann?

Olympia, the wind-up doll, doesn’t really sing TikTok, but it sounds like she does, and that’s good enough for me. And just like the Chinese TikTok, she winds down and looks like she is done. But then someone winds her back up and she sings on. That someone is Donald Trump.

Now, why I wrote this, I am not really sure. But I think it’s only because that’s what I thought of last night when I thought of TikTok, and it’s such a cute piece that I wanted to share it.

But let’s recap a bit. TikTok is owned by a company which is owned and/or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Our national intelligence officials have been very worried that the Chinese could mine all sorts of data from the almost 200 million American TikTok users and create all sorts of mischief, including some serious mischief, whenever they wanted to. Congress became very concerned and passed a law banning TikTok in the US on January 19, unless the President extended it for up to 90 days because the company was under contract to sale to an American entity, and the sale was moving along.

January 19 came, President Biden did not extend TikTok because he could not, and it went dark. On the very next day, DJ was inaugurated, and, as his first illegal act (technical or otherwise), he simply issued an order extending TikTok’s life, and it again became available. Since then, DJ has said that, notwithstanding the conclusions of the national intelligence world, he doesn’t think any more that TikTok creates a national security problem. Why he reaches this conclusion, I don’t know, but he seems so clear about it that he suggests that maybe there should be a 50-50 joint venture, half Chinese and half American, running TikTok.

What will happen to TikTok is unclear.

And now, there is DeepSeek, a new Chinese AI app, suddenly available to the American populace. It’s apparently an app that can do all sorts of things. And it is free.

Now the introduction of DeepSeek was a big, big, big surprise to everyone, it seems. And the stock market went into eclipse, especially those shares of companies in the AI business, the data center business, and the chip business. This is not because it was available, or flexible, and free. Rather it is because DeepSeek apparently demonstrates that this new Chinese company has come up with a way to create AI platforms using many fewer chips and much less energy, throwing into chaos America’s short term future plan to retain and expand whatever AI dominance it thought it had.

At least this is what I read Monday as the stock market was falling, and I thought I understood the problem. But maybe not. Last night, I watched Kevin O’Leary talking to Erin Burnett on CNN, and I learned something more. I learned that the introduction of DeepSeek at the time when TikTok may be about to disappear was probably not a coincidence, but instead was carefully planned to give China a way to steal Americans’ information, if they could not continue to receive it through TikTok.

Of course, yesterday there was much more of importance than this. I can think of two you might be concerned about: (1) a freeze on all government payments and grants (recipients be damned, literally), and (2) a buy-out plan for all (sorry, I am ALL) government employees. It just means, if these don’t get stopped by Congress or the courts, we will just have no federal government in the United States. Is that okay?

Well, it looks like it is a possibility, doesn’t it? Oh, yes, unless the courts stop it. But, guess what? Why do you think that the DJ government will pay any attention to what the courts say? (I have been saying this for several days. I head Tim Walz say it tonight.) And if they decide to ignore the courts, just like they have already ignored laws passed by Congress, who is there to stop them?

Yes? Thank you. “The horror, the horror!” (Kurz in Heart of Darkness)

You know how they say that Hillel the Elder explained the Talmud in one line by quoting the “golden rule”, and saying the rest is just “interpretation”?

Well, I say, you want to know all about the Trumpickle? It’s “the horror, the horror!” The rest is just interpretation.

Rachel Maddow said on her show tonight that there is so much in the news that you can’t cover it all. And then she gave a quick one liner about a million or so things that Trump is doing or threatening to do that you might call a derivative of “the horror, the horror”. And then she just talked about a few of them.

She did start with something that I had been thinking about. You know how horrible Venezuela was in releasing all of those criminals and mentally ill folks into our country? Is there even a tad of truth there? I don’t know. But I do know that one Donald Trump has at least equaled Venezuela by pardoning or commuting the sentences of over a thousand criminals a week ago. Already, one of them has been re-arrested on illegal gun charges, and another killed yesterday in Indiana for resisting arrest. Just wait until you see what other crimes we will see from that group.

It has long been held, during the first DJ term and during his three campaigns, that everything that Trump accuses others of doing is, in fact, something that Trump himself is doing? Still going on, it appears. And it appears that it is Trump more than Venezuela who is letting out dangerous criminals on American streets.

We have already seen the confirmation of Headset, so that is behind us, I guess. Although I did hear today that it was the fence sitting Senator Tillis who convinced Headset’s ex-sister-in-law to spill the beans under assurance that this would convince some Republicans not to vote for him. If so, I wonder if Tillis told her that he, Tillis, would not be one of them who would be so convinced.

But the even dicier (and yes that is possible – isn’t one truism that there is nothing so bad that it can’t get worse?) are the prospects of Tulsi Gabbard (the woman who hobnobs with America’s enemies), Kash Patel (the man who authorized a rescue mission which had not been authorized, who has an enemies list that he has made public, and who believes that the riots on January 6 were purposely staged by the FBI), Robert F. Kennedy (you know his problems), and more.

The one who is going to be the hardest to fight against is Russell Vought, scheduled to lead OMB. As far as I know, he has not engaged in scandalous behavior. All he has done is written or directed much of Project 2025, and made it clear that he does not think that the law needs to be followed when it comes to whether or not the president can “impound” funds (i.e., decide not to use the funds that Congress has appropriated and directed him to use).

Law is a funny thing, you know. DJ just fired a dozen or so Inspectors General, something that he is not able to do without notifying Congress 30 days in advance, and fired career prosecuters and others in violation of civil service laws. I think it was Lindsey Graham who was asked what he thought about these illegal acts? His answer was that they were only “technically” illegal.

Ah, Kellyanne Conway, where are you now? Kellyanne was the inventor of “alternative facts”. I guess we now have “alternative law”. And the sad thing is that we cannot even rely on the courts to uphold the actual laws, rather than rely on Trump’s variations.

So, at least for two years, we have both legislative bodies held by the Republicans, which means not only that they will traditionally tend to vote in certain ways, but that they will presumably for now act as the USSR’s Supreme Soviet acted, unanimously. And we have the courts, where (I think) the Democrats recently named more district court judges, but the Republicans more appellate judges. They are potentially out of control as well, particularly because the Supreme Court has already ruled that the president can act illegally if he is doing within the scope of his job description, and never face any personal consequences other than not being reelected. For lame duck DJ, this means no consequences at all. He can do whatever he wants.

So, we have competent officials being illegally and improperly and unfortunately fired, and people being put into office who have no competence, no experience, and no sense.

Will things ever go back to normal order? We will see what happens on March 14, the day that the current government funding runs out, that a budget must be approved, and that the debt ceiling will undoubtedly have to be extended so that the government can, among other things, extend the Trump tax cuts. Do I think they can do this? Probably. You know why? President DJ will simply issue Executive Orders doing all the above, and his Trumpees will march ahead in lock step. They will be told that “you can’t do that”, that “it’s against the law”. Their answer will be “only technically, so sue us.” Then we will really see what happens.

And just wait until Elon Musk is president. He can’t be because he wasn’t born here? A technical violation of the Constitution. No more. We will then be faced with an even more unique situation. Elon Muskvwill simultaneously be the president and the ex-president.

I need coffee.

To get our minds off the current Trumpicle (hereafter Trumpickel), I went back to two of the bookcase shelves in my home office to look at what I have placed in front of the books.

Here is some of it:

Roman Catholics: Want beef on a Friday? Fly American Airlines. (I guess this is what was meant)

It’s a fake USSR passport holder, and I have no idea why I have it.

A small marble box. Maybe from the days when the Coloseum was brand new?

Southwest Airlines playing cards. Unopened. I never play cards.

A very nice card from former French President Jacques Chirac. Why do I have it? Where did I get it? You know as much as I do.

A few years ago, granddaughter Joan (now 9) portraying our online book business, ARichard Books and More.

The Capitol dome, Waterford version, which I received from the National Leased Housing Association,  after my year as president. A long time ago.

Speaking of a long time ago, here are Edie, Michelle and Hannah. Yes, the picture looks blurry here, but so is my memory.

A clown. A gift from my Aunt Loraine. She gave a lot of gifts. Most looked like this one.

An old Jewish Nation Fund tzedakah box. It makes noise when you shake it. ( A propos of nothing, do you know that Neil Sedaka’s name is a variation of tzedakah?)

We will end here. Five pens. Three belonged to my father, including one marked St. Louis University. The bottom Washington pen has a photo of the Capitol on its other side. The 5th pen is Zim Shipping Lines, and has a floating SS Herzl, a Zim ship.

As an aside, I was watching Anne Applebaum on Morning Joe while putting this together. She was sitting in front of one of her impressive bookcases. You know what she puts in front of her books? Nada.

Last night, we watched the 1939 film Stagecoach on PBS. Stagecoach, as you may know, was a John Ford western that gave John Wayne (one of the worst actors of the 20th century, by the way) his first important, big role, and was nominated for seven Oscars. This post is not going to be a review of the film (let me just say, today those seven nominations would not have been given out), but something different, something more contemporary.

First, though, we have to review the simple plot. It is the west (filmed on the Utah/Arizona border), and it is the story of a commercial stage coach traveling from one town to another, carrying seven passengers, and having two drivers. The seven passengers are a mix: a prostitute, the wife of a U.S. soldier looking to rejoin her husband, a wealthy banker absconding with $50,000 of someone else’s money, a 24/7 drunken doctor, a liquor traveling salesman, a gambler, and a prison escapee looking for revenge against a man who killed his mother and brother (that’s John Wayne, of course).

There is a lot of tension between this mixture of passengers, and along the way, they argue back and forth, and the group faces a number of challenges. But the biggest challenge comes when the stagecoach is attacked by what must be about 100 Apaches. Three of the seven passengers and one of the two drivers are injured by the Apaches, and innumerable attackers are knocked off their horses and probably killed by the group on the stagecoach. But what saves the stagecoach is the U.S. Cavalry, which – with flags, banners and bugles – comes to the rescue.

Here is what I thought, viewing this film in 2025. The stagecoach is the USA itself, filled with a mix of people with different ideas, different abilities and different limitations. All it wants to do is keep moving forward.

The Apaches? That’s MAGA. MAGA wants to cripple the USA, just like the Apaches want to cripple the coach. MAGA wants to eliminate those who currently govern the USA, just like the Apaches want to demobilize the two who are driving the stagecoach. MAGA has its own goals to take over the USA, just as the Apaches undoubtedly had their own goals to take over the stagecoach and its passengers.

But the Apaches failed for two reasons, just as I expect MAGA will fail. The Apaches largely failed because they really had no plan. They were chasing and chasing the stagecoach, but they really didn’t have a plan to stop the coach other than continuing to sling arrows at the stagecoach, and they certainly did not look like they had a set plan for the stagecoach or its passengers.

And then there was the cavalry. The cavalry, beautifully uniformed, universally with perfect riding posture, beautiful horses. The cavalry was the United States of America, the true, true Americans, coming to save their country, here the stagecoach, under attack by yes, another group of Americans. And the cavalry apparently scared the Apaches to death, for the remaining Apaches ran, as they say, for the hills. America was saved.

I know. This is a terrible analogy. And the film’s portrayal of the Apaches as no better than today’s films might portray Hamas attackers is inexcusably politically incorrect. But, as I watched the film, the sense of good guy Americans battling bad guy Americans with those Americans in the stagecoach, who wanted nothing more than to live their lives, was a midrash, you might say, on our current situation.

See you tomorrow. (By the way, “yippie-ki-yay” comes from that old standby “I’m an Old Cow Hand”, which has nothing to do with movie, and even less to do with me.

Let me start with something that I know is not politically correct. It’s the name “Hegseth”. I find it both hard to pronounce and hard to type. So, from now on, on this blog, he will be Pete Headset. I know that Donald Trump (hereafter DJ), who never has heard a name he couldn’t change, would approve.

So last night, Pete Headset was confirmed by the United States Senate as Secretary of Defense. Over and done. There was a vote, every senator was present, the result was a 50-50 tie, and Vice President J.D. Vance (hereafter JD) broke the tie by voting for the confirmation of Headset.

But it got me thinking. And this is where you will have to bear with me. Sorry ’bout that.

The Constitution provides that in two types of situations (presidential appointments and treaties), the “advice and consent” of the Senate is required. In no other instances, is this term used in the Constitution, and nowhere does the Constitution describe what either “advice” or “consent” means. There seems to be a common thought that “consent” means “majority vote”. But I am not sure that is necessarily the case.

The Senate operates by a set of “rules”, which – as I looked last night quickly – only mentions “consent” in Rule XXXI, which deals with nominations. But here again, “consent” is not defined, nor is “confirmation”. Again, the assumption is that the majority rules.

Now, I don’t know the history of the Constitutional provision or of the Senate rule, and finding that out would be interesting, but I have a lot of questions that I think are worth pursuing.

One of the things I did last night is look at the etymology of the word “consent”, and saw that it comes from the same Latin root as “consensus”. Clearly, last night’s vote did not evidence the consensus of the Senate that Headset should be confirmed.

Secondly, I looked up the term “group consent” – I didn’t know what else to look up. I found many, many references to the writings of ethicists and bio-ethicists, and didn’t find anyone who said that to establish “group consent”, you should take a vote and that the barest majority wins.

Thirdly, I wondered if the way to find out if the Senate has consented to a nominee is to take a vote at all. In other words, when the Senate votes on, say, a bill, it is clear that you take a vote and the majority wins. That is clear from the Constitution and the Senate rules, as well as common practice. But does “consent” come through a simple yes/no vote? After all, there is nothing in the Constitution that equates “consent” with “majority” or “majority vote”.

And let’s go a step beyond that. The Vice President, who is not a member of the Senate (not a Senator), but who presides over the Senate under the title “President” of the Senate, gets a tie breaking “vote”. But if “consent” is not a “vote” in the way approval of a bill into law is (and nothing in the Constitution says that it is), should the Vice President even get a vote here? After all, it is a given that he will vote “aye”, and he had not been involved in any of the committee work or full Senate body work that preceded the vote.

And if you take away J.D.’s vote, there was a tie, and the nomination would have failed. There would have been no consensus, and no “consent”.

“Enough”, you say. Get on with your life.

Alright, but…..a few more things. Three Republicans did vote against Headset. One, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska can be counted on to vote as she thinks she should. Another, Susan Collins of Maine, can be counted on to let you know how she thinks she should vote, but often then votes opposite what she thinks she should do. The third, Mitch McConnell…….well, I hope he does not think that this vote will make up for all of the horrific things he did as majority leader. Because it won’t. And, what kind of leader is he, if he could not convince one other Republican to vote their conscience in this matter, to be a Murkowski just once.

And then there was Tom Tillis, who was apparently on the fence until some time yesterday evening. Poor Tillis could not vote his conscience, I bet, in part because of D.J.’s quick visit to western North Carolina yesterday morning. Seeing how D.J. is ready to throw California to the lions unless they kow-tow to his whims of the day, poor Tillis must have been thinking: I gotta keep D.J. on my side right now; the future of North Carolina depends upon it. And he was probably right.

Reports of journalists and Democratic senators are consistent in saying that many Republicans believe that Headset is an atrocious choice for this job. But they are afraid to vote the way they think they should. Maybe they shouldn’t count in the consent count, either.

There is another provision in the Senate Rule XXXI that provides that at any time in considering a nomination, the Senate can determine that the discussions and the votes can be taken in Executive Session, without public eyes upon them. Maybe this would be better – to keep the trstimony sessions public, but the vote itself secret. After a secret vote on a nomination, the Senate rules do provide that a Senator can make his (the rules are silent as to “her”) vote public.

Finally, yes, it is true. I offer neither a definitive better way, not a road to a better way. I didn’t speculate on the possible role of the judiciary.

Maybe I should just go back to sleep.

Of course, I have seen a lot of films over my life. Some were great, some good, some alright, some meh, and some I walked out of, or turned off. A great movie is generally the same as a good movie, only better. But – now and then – you see a film that is not only, but different. Unique.

The film that fits that category that I had most recently seen was Emilia Perez, which may win the Best Picture Oscar this year. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of the vicious chefe of a vicious Mexican cartel, who has – for his entire life – felt he was a woman and finally decided to get a sex change operation. So he disappears, abandoning his wife and children, only to later return as a woman who is not recognized as the man he used to be, even to his intimate family. In her new identity, Emilia also takes on not only a new personality, but a new inner person, becoming as charitable as she previously had been vicious. And all goes well, until it doesn’t. And then it really doesn’t. And, by the way……..it’s a musical. This was one original film.

Last night, quite unexpectedly, we saw another film that fit’s the “wow” category. We went to our neighborhood theater, the Avalon, last night for its monthly Israeli film night. The showing was a documentary, with the double entendre name of The Return from the Other Planet (you will see why it’s a double entendre in a minute). The focus was on a man born Yechiel Feiner, who “gave up” his name and his history during two years in Auschwitz, and who was one of the first, if not THE first, person who wrote about the Holocaust under the name Ka. Tzetnik. And the books he wrote, especially “The House of Dolls”, were best sellers, and absolutely raw and horrific.

But Ka. Tzetnik was the name of a survivor and writer; in his day to day life, he had a third name, Yechiel De-Nur. And, as millions read the books of Ka. Tzetnik, none of those people identified him with his mild mannered Clark Kent identity as De-Nur.

According to a number of personality experts, De-Nur and Ka. Tzetnik were two personalities in one individual, a form of split personality. Ka. Tzetnik was not a simple pseudonym.

At the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, De-Nur was called as a witness. After first being unwilling to testify (in part because it would, for the first time, show that De-Nur and Ka. Tzetnik were the same person), he agreed and, during his testimony (part of which you see in the film) about how he (the Ka. Tzetnik “he”) felt that Auschwitz was “a different planet” where normal human rules do not apply and where he began slowly to describe what he saw there, he was interrupted by the chief judge asking him to speed things up and telling him (De-Nur in this case) that he had some specific questions. At this, De-Nur/Ka. Tzetnik, collapsed. He had a stroke, and was apparently paralyzed for about three months.

He recovered, felt extraordinarily embarrassed, and found his life more and more troubling. His wife convinced him to go to The Netherlands for experimental LSD treatment (read that as a sort of hypnotic treatment under LSD), which was tough, but apparently successful, and he came out of the therapy a different person.

No longer did he believe that Auschwitz was a different planet with different rules. He changed his mind completely, deciding that the Germans did not create Auschwitz, humanity did. That any person, any group of persons, could have created an Auschwitz. That the torturers and the victims could have been reversed. And he wrote a new book, Code, to explain what he had learned and how he had changed, and was interviewed on Israeli TV for the very first time. He lived to be 91.

So, that’s the story. That does not explain why the film, a combination of vintage films, interviews with his wife and with a few people who knew him, as well as experts in personality studies, was so successful. This has to be credited to Assaf Lapid, who was making his debut as a director and had been working on this film for, he said last night at the Avalon, 12 years. And to the composer of the music which accompanied the film and set the perfect atmosphere for the story line. Because Ka. Tzetnik is not now a familiar name,   his story is not a familiar story. So, you really don’t know where the film is going. Auschwitz, Eichmann, other planet, double personality, LSD, reversal. You are drawn in during the very first scene, and you are kept in, intrigued and wondering how this story is so unknown.

The film has won a number of awards already. Apparently, it is having trouble being included in film festivals, particularly in Europe, because producers are afraid to show Israeli films right now. But my guess is you will be able to see it. So keep your eyes open.

As to Ka. Tzetnik’s books, I have read none of them. We do, in our collection, have a copy of “Phoenix Over the Galilee”, published in 1969, and signed by the author. Quite rare, I believe. He didn’t sign very many.

Today is a non-Trump day on the blog. Here goes…

Late last year, the members of my Thursday morning breakfast group were asked to recommend one book to the group that they thought everyone should read. Most, but not all, responded, and I am sharing the list with you. We had two sessions where each recommender had a few minutes to explain his choice. Sorry, no way to share that. The numbers following each book, by the way, are the Goodreads ratings, which I put together just because that’s the kind of thing that I do.

1. Oath and Honor: a Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney 4.59
2. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce a Responsive Government by Chris Achen and Larry Bartels 3.99
3. The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese 3.99
4. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 3.75
5. How Ike Led by Susan Eisenhower 4.34
6. Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman 3.93
7. Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World by David L. Roll 4.46
8. The Books of Jacob: A Fantastic Journey Across Seven Borders, etc. by Olga Tokarczuk 4.02
9. One Summer, America, 1927 by Bill Bryson 4.09
10. Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross 3.91
11. Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study by George E. Vaillant 4.15
12. The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World by Jay Winik 4.07
13. Tablets Shattered: The End of the American Jewish Century by Joshua Leifer 4.15
14. Here All Along: Finding Spirituality and a Deeper Connection to Life in Judaism by Sarah Hurwitz 4.43
15. Judgment at Tokyo by Gary J. Bass 4.28
16. American Priestess by Jane Fletcher Geniesse 3.60
17. Vision by David S. Tatel 4.44
18. Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet by Robert Pinsky 3.96
19. Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson 4.53
20. The Rigor of Angels by Willian Egginton 4.26
21. Israel – a Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby 4.33
22. To Be a Jew Today by Noah Feldman 4.22
23. Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore 4.08
24. A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan 4.38
25. The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa 4.03
26. The Yeshiva by Chaim Grade 4.14
27. The Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett 4.19
28. An Ordinary Man by Richard Norton Smith 4.44
29. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson 4.30
30. Destiny of the Republic: a Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candace Millard   4.21

It took the Fraternal Order of Police over 24 hours to condemn the commutation or pardoning of rioters who attacked the police, but they have now done it.

Many Republicans have refused to support their release, either through outright disagreement or through simply giving “not my department” answers, and many of them had previously said that those who were violent should serve out their sentences, and they now live on as hypocrites.

Even Vice President Vance (hereafter sometimes known as Vice President Obvious) said it was “obvious” that you don’t release violent criminals.

But the foul deed has been done, and we will see where it leads.

But there was another pardon issued by the president yesterday. Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road underground,  dark web drug marketplace, serving a life sentence in prison. Little publicity about this one. But Google it. Look him up.

It’s the Golden Age of America.

There was no surprise at another departure yesterday. Vivek Ramaswamy, just about four days after I realized how easy it really was to spell his name, is returning to Ohio to think about a losing race for governor. This is not surprising for at least two reasons. In his short campaign for the presidential nomination, we all realized he was about the last person you would want to be your companion on an isolated desert island. And, because Elon M. clearly couldn’t abide sharing the spotlight with him. So Elon has DOGE to himself.

By the way, I do not understand DOGE. Has it now been created by Executive Order? Can an EO create a government agency just like that? Does it have a budget? Are people (these mysterious agents apparently cropping up across the country) being paid by us? Does it take a bureaucracy to destroy a bureaucracy? So many questions, but I don’t hear them being asked.

Elon is, as we know, the richest person on Earth, and maybe one of the oddest. To me, his main goal seems to be to become the first trillionaire, and Trump is his vehicle to get there.

But what does Trump get out of his association with all of these billionaires? Is it glory? Is he the kid from the other side of the tracks who has something to prove to himself? Does he expect their money to rub off on him?

Probably, there is some of all of this in his thinking. But I think there is something else. I am thinking that Trump believes that only billionaires are able to do anything. His life has been to put his name on big buildings that change skylines. This is something that takes someone with both money and vision. That is how he views himself and that is how he views the billionaires he is surrounding himself with. They are the “masters of the universe”, and they are the only ones who can wear that title. Thus, if he wants to get anything done, to lead America into its Golden Age, he thinks he can only do it with the help of billionaires.

And, of course, just like Vladimir Putin learned, there is a side benefit of working with billionaires – they can make you a few, or more than a few, billions on the way.

And the billionaires win, too, because they will get enormous support and faorite son treatment from the government.

So this explains how Trump chooses his friends. And it explains how the extension of the Trump tax cuts and other benefits make sense. And it explains how the government bureaucracy, clearly composed of people who are not billionaires, can not be relied upon, and must be replaced to the greatest extent possible.

But billionaires, of course, can not just be allowed to run amok. That would bring billionaire anarchy. You need a Great Leader to guide them and force their energies in a unified direction. And, like Kim Jung Un, Donald Trump is that leader.

And the rest of us – those of us who are not billionaires – we are just worker bees. He just needs to keep us to provide the manpower needed to bring the vision of the billionaires into reality. Those of us who build, those of us who provide intellectual assistance, and those of us who stand guard, ready to fight and protect.

The end. You will note that I did not use the words “oligarch”, or “fascist” in this article. You should also note that I could have.

Or as Woody G might say: “This land is his land, this land is their land, from the Gulf of America, to the State of Greenland. From north of Mackinaw to the canal of Panama, this land is made for Don and E.”

Our new president believes firmly in the Constitution. That must be why he has issued an Executive Order banning birthright citizenship, a right explicitly granted in the Constitution.

Our new president believes in following the law. That must be why he has issued an Executive Order giving Tik-Tok 75 days of life, ignoring a law that explicitly required the app to shut down on January 19.

Our new president believes in national security. That must be why, on his own, he determined that American intelligence is wrong in saying that Tik-Tok is a security risk and suggests a 50-50 joint venture between China and the United States.

Our new president believes strongly in legal immigration. That must be why he has suspended the State Department refugee resettlement program, and why he has canceled pre-entry appointments for asylum seekers waiting in Mexico.

Our new president believes in the rule of law. That must be why he has pardoned 1600 criminals already convicted of January 6 crimes.

Our new president believes in an independent justice department. That must be why he has instructed the Department to halt all remsining actions against those indicted for January 6 crimes.

Our new president believes in avoiding foreign entanglements. That must be why he plans to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.

Our new president believes in no politicalization in the Department of Justice. That must be why he has nominated Kash Patel and his enemies list to head the FBI.

Our new president wants to bring about an era of peace in the Middle East. That must be why he ended all sanctions against radical Israeli West Bank settlers.

Our president wants, most of all, to be a unifier. That must be why he constantly hurls 6th grade insults at everyone who disagrees with him.

Our president wants our country to be a land of meritocracy. That must be why he is canceling so many programs which help level the playing field.

I could go on and on. But, really, what is the point? We have entered America’s Golden Age. Enjoy it while you can.

This may be the weirdest of all. Tik-Tok (hereafter TT. It’s easier to type).

TT is owned by a Chinese company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter CP for no good reason).

Apparently, the TT and, therefore, the CP can learn a lot about you when you use TT. I don’t understand this, and I am not sure what they can learn. My age, height, IQ, SSN, bank accounts, shoe size, medical records, the fact that I don’t have a mistress in Topeka? I am not sure, but American intelligence knows and has briefed everyone in government with a need to know, and with remarkable bipartisanship, Congress votes to ban TT and the soon to be ex-president signs the bill. The soon-to-be president agrees.

It’s a matter of national security, they say. And the Supreme Court, 9-0, agrees, saying that in this case, the national security risks are likely so high that any effect on free speech is, as they say, trumped.

Then, both the soon-to-be and soon-not-to-be presidents change their minds. Again, bipartisanship in action.

Now, the law, passed and signed, said that TT could not operate in the US unless it was sold to an American owner. The drop dead date was last Sunday, but the law apparently says that the president could extend it for 90 days under certain circumstances. From what I understand, there had to be an American buyer in place and the parties actively working to close the sale.

This is not the case. The Chinese owner has not agreed to sell, for one thing. Kevin O’Leary (if that is his name)(hereafter KO) and his partner in crime (probably) McSomething say they will buy TT for $20B. But their purchase, as I heard it, will not include the algorithm, which allows TT to decide how it wants me to be brainwashed, so they would perhaps only get Tik, but need to develop their own Tok.

The site went dark in the US (hereafter, the United States) at midnight Sunday morning (I know that isn’t a time, but you know what I mean). But then the president-to-be said he would sign an Executive Order (hereafter EO) giving it 90 days, and the site lit up again. The president-to-be also said he would perhaps solve the problem by having a United States entity buy half the company and the CP retaining the other half.

Some things are obvious. For one, the 90 day EO violates the law, as there is no buyer in place, and should be null and void. Secondly, that the 50-50 compromise would not end the national security risk that started this particular ball (hereafter PB) rolling down the hill. Third, that the constant talk about the security risk has vanished altogether. Fourth, that the American servers who host TT and were afraid to continue hosting past the legislative drop dead date, are now OK with hosting because Trump said he would not prosecute them. And of course, Chairman Xi’s second in command will be at the inauguration today, along with all the tech billionaires (including OK and McSomething) who have a sufficient number of homemade bitcoins to buy TT.

So, the EO violates the law. The 50-50 proposal ignores what had been viewed as a major security risk. Dealing with Xi’s Number 2 ignores Chinese government protestations that they really had nothing to do with TT, which operated independently. And telling the Justice Department not to prosecute the server hosts ignores Attorney General-to-be-Bondi’s claim that the White House won’t tell her what to do even before she takes office.

I am sure there is more to this story, by the way.

And I am also interested in the promised ICE raid in Chicago, which as been postponed because of media leaks. An ICE raid takes a lot of planning, doesn’t it? How could the planning be done before the president-to-be became president? Was it all a fake announcement from the start? Or is there a real Deep State operating in the mysterious world of MAGA?

About 4 hours to the indoor inauguration. I do not want to watch. But if I change my mind, I think I will conduct my own protest and take my computer outdoors and watch it sitting down in the snow.

I didn’t want to think about tomorrow today, and I needed diversion. I grabbed a pile of ephemera from a shelf in one of my office closets, just to have something to concentrate on, and thought I might share some of what I pulled out. Sort of like a shoe box, without the box, or the shoes.

Am I right to call it “ephemera”? Not sure. Dictionary.com defines “ephemera” as “a class of collectible items, not originally intended to last for more than a short time….” You decide.

The 1977 constitution was the 4th Soviet Constitution. We are still on our first. It provides that it can be amended by a 2/3 vote of the Supreme Soviet.  In 1977, the Supreme Soviet had about 1500 members, all of whom always voted as instructed. What if our constitution could be changed so easily?

This, by way, was the official English language version, priced at 15 kopecks.  Today that would be about 1 1/2 cents.

According to Derek Kartun in this English publication of the People’s Press Printing Society,  Eisenhower was a venial, incompetent war mongerer,  like all US presidents. Kartun, says Wikipedia, was a Communist journalist, a titan of industry, and a prolific mystery writer. To me,he just seems woke, or perhaps pre-woke.

You think there has been any new written about the Washington Monument since this was written in 1900? The answer is “yes”.

But there are some interesting tidbits you can use to impress visitors. Like the height of the monument is “597 feet 3 inches above the mean level of the Atlantic at Sandy Hook, N.Y”. Or “the Monument stands close to the intersection of the Jeffersonian Meridian Line of 1802, passing through the center of the Executive Mansion,  north and south, with a line running east and west through the center of the Capitol.”

Two more important facts, and then I will quit.

First, “There is enough room in the interior of the Monument to house an army of 12,000 men. The landings will accommodate 7,675, the stairs, 3845, the upper and lower platforms 450, and the elevators, 30.”

And, an African marble Roman stone given by the Pope was thrown into the Potomac by the Know-Nothings in 1854, and – as of 1900 – has not been found.

The American Education Monthly could be yours for an annual subscription of $1 “payable in advance”. In the August 1854 issue, I commend to your attention an article simply entitled “Corporal Punishment”, from which I take the following: “The sterotyped jest that ‘you can not drive knowledge into a pupil’s head by means of an application at the other end’ is as unsound in fact as it is absurd in expression.”

William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States, died in April 1841, 32 days after his inauguration. May 14 was declared a National Fast Day. Pastor John M. Duncan of Baltimore’s Associate Reformed Congregation gave this sermon. I tried to read through it, but fell asleep at about the 30th mention of Jehovah on page 2.

I pulled out more ephemera, to be sure, but how much can one aborb in one day. I think I’ll watch some football. Maybe.

The “Boom!” refers to the more than one hundred Executive Orders that Donald Trump plans to issue after his inauguration on Monday. We have heard of his plans, but we really haven’t absorbed what that might mean. I read an article this morning by AP reporter Calvin Woodward, where he tried to look at what these Executive Orders might try to do and it’s only when you see his list and his explanations that you realize how serious the situation might (or, better, probably will) be.

1. Orders proclaiming a “National Emergency” and follow up orders leading to the arrest and deportation of undocumented aliens, and the use of domestic police forces, the National Guard and perhaps even the American military to round up people and put them into detention camps prior to deportation. In this regard, from another site this morning, I heard that a massive raid is being planned in Chicago; previously, we have heard of massive raids being planned for the Washington DC area. (As to the use of the military, Trump has very recently said that there is no reason why the American military cannot be used to fight on an “invasion”.
2. Orders “closing the border”. While Woodward is not sure what Trump means by this and says that he is certain that Trump does not mean this literally with regard to people who are entitled to move across the border, he believes that Trump will implement a policy saying that, under no circumstances, will someone be able to cross the border who is not authorized to do so, whether they are crossing at border crossings (and then proclaiming themselves eligible for amnesty) or swimming across the Rio Grande. (Violence may be the result of this, of course, and family separation is not far behind.)
3. Birthright citizenship. While the Constitution provides for birthright citizenship (the automatic citizenship of anyone born in the United States), Trump has said that he is going to stop it. He probably can not do this legally through an Executive Order, but he can try (he really doesn’t seem to care what the Constitution says about birthright citizenship), and let the courts settle it out over time. This may be a general strategy he uses: issue an Executive Order, implement it, and wait (possibly for years) for the courts to settle it out.
4. Electric vehicles. Trump has vowed to eliminate the incentives that the Biden administration has put into place to encourage the purchase of electric, rather than gas powered, vehicles, whether that involves ending tax incentives, or ending mandates or goals to begin to phase out fossil fuel vehicles, or tighter emission standards, etc. (This of course, sets up an interesting dynamic with President Musk, whose Tesla operation, which makes automobiles not only in the United States, but in China, Germany, Holland, Canada, and – soon – Mexico. We shall see how this plays out.)
5. Tariffs. This is, perhaps, the biggest mystery, as Trump has continually used tariffs as a stick, but the extent that he is going to implement anything immediate is not particularly clear. Perhaps, he feels that he must do something to meet his Day 1 promises.
6. Pardoning Jan 6 rioters. He might issue these pardons on Day 1, and they might free everyone convicted of a crime in connection with the riots now over four years ago, or he may exclude those who were convicted of particular crimes of violence. But these pardons will probably come on Monday.
7. Transgender rights and critical race theory. The question here is how broadly he will go. Will he limit his executive orders to the ability of transgender females to participate in women’s sports and declare that schools that allow such participation can kiss all federal funding assistance goodbye? Or will he go further and state that any school (from kindergartens to universities) will find their funding at risk, if they teach anything that smacks of critical race theory, or any other DEI or woke teaching. (Of course, none of those things are, or can be, tightly defined).
8. Energy. “Drill, baby, drill” means that some of the Biden era restrictions on drilling or mining will be reversed, and some of this can clearly happen on Monday, although it’s immediate effect is unclear at this point.
9. Firing federal officials. In his never ending battle against the Deep State, Trump may issue an assortment of orders, some of which might fire high level officials, or might direct incoming cabinet members to create programs to root out any officials who do not evidence support of the programs of the new President.

These are the issues brought up by Calvin Woodward in this very interesting article. He may be right. He may be wrong. He clearly might have left out some other topics that Trump could address through Executive Orders. But this list, like others which could be developed, should give us more than pause. It should scare us.

As a wrap up to today, post, I would like to recommend a program that I listened to this week. Go to the Cato Institute website (cato.org), and then to “events” and then to “Executive Orders that the Trump Administration Should Revoke or Amend” and listen to the 90 minutes discussion. The title to this program makes it look like a pro-MAGA waste of time, but the program itself did not really fit its title. The program, which involved several Cato employees, covers two subjects (at least): (1) what is an Executive Order, what is the history of Executive Orders, what is their legal authority, etc., and (2) a discussion of some of Biden’s executive orders, and what Trump could/should do about them. The reason that (1) is interesting is obvious, I think. The reason that (2) was interesting is both that there are some differences among the Cato panelists as to what they believe to be the best policies and that there are certainly differences between many of the Cato policy suggestions and what Trump’s MAGA folks would probably support. I just thought it was an interesting and honest conversation – and honesty is so hard to find today.

Okay, that’s it for doom. Come back tomorrow for a little gloom.

Watching the Washington Capitals this year has been a lot of fun. The reasons are simple. The Caps now have a better record than the other 31 teams in the NHL (actually tied with Winnipeg). And Alex Ovechkin is on his way to becoming the highest goal scorer in NHL history, now only about 20 goals behind Wayne Gretzky.

Digression: I saw that, with his overtime winning goal last night, Ovechkin now has become the leader in another category. He has scored goals against more different goalies than anyone else in NHL history. This led me to think about statistics. Whoever thought to keep this particular statistic? Does it mean that, from the day the NHL came into existence in 1917, this record has been kept? Every goal scorer, and every goalie scored against? That is pretty extraordinary. Of course, computers have been statistics easier to record. And imagine what AI will do.

Back to the subject. Professional hockey has another facet that, to my knowledge, no other professional (much less college) sport has – the allowance of fighting between players. Now, it is true that fighting in professional hockey rarely leads to serious injury (it is more likely that someone will be hurt when slammed into a wall, when a puck happens to meet a player’s face, or there is some other type of accident in the game itself). But still, it seems to me that it is absurd, just as it is absurd that not only the player who starts the fight gets time in the penalty box, but the attacked player does as well. It makes a hockey fight more like what you see in a WWE smack down than a real source of uncontrollable emotion.

But that’s not my point. My point is that so many hockey fans pray for a fight. They would rather see a fight than a clean game. This of course says something about humanity in general.

And it is not only hockey. It is one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected president. While he is not involved in fake physical fights, he is continually involved in fake verbal fights, with his constant insults to and attacks on foes and friends. This is how he revs up his base, just like a fight seems to rev up the fans of a hockey team.

From time to time, I do watch Congressional hearings on C-Span. And if you do the same, you have seen how members of Congress have become so efficient in badmouthing their opposition, and attacking witnesses who are connected to the other party. There is no subtlety, for the most part, in Congressional questioning. Yet, this type of questioning does not lead to more information. All it does is give members the opportunity to show themselves to be bullies. And many people seem to like bullies, as long as they are bullying others and not themselves.

I have felt this to be a problem for a long time. I would much rather see debates on policy, and not ad hominem attacks. But I am afraid that many people must feel otherwise.

With the next four years being the years of Trump Two, we will have a president whose bullying will set the tone of the country, and unfortunately Congress will simply mirror his ways. Probably nothing that can be done about that, unfortunately.

I have been listening to many of the hearings on the Trump nominations to cabinet and sub-cabinet positions. While I have found some of what I have heard to be respectful, much has not been. This is by and large not because the Democrats on the various committees have been attacking the witnesses, but because many of the Republicans have spent their time not asking the nominees about their particular ideas or plans, but to attack the Biden administration, even though the Biden administration has nothing to do with these hearings.

Government is not trusted by the general public, whether it be the administration, the Congress or the courts. Why is this? Of course, part of it is due to performance. But much of it is due to the type of bullying I have described above, and to what people hear or see through various types of media, whether it be talk radio, right wing news services (I do believe this is a right wing, not a center or left of center problem), or perhaps even C-Span, which makes it so easy for politicians to get on their high horse and to have their intemperate words spread widely.

I don’t think much can be done about this over the next four years. But I also don’t see many voices campaigning against this unfortunate situation. I wish that would change.

For some time now, we have been hearing that the death toll in Gaza has been about 45,000. A terrible number, particularly since so many of them were children. But today (or maybe it was yesterday), we see that Lancet, in Britain, has put out a study, apparently well researched and well reviewed, that the number of closer to 65,000. That is almost 3% of the Gaza population. If 3% of Americans were killed in a war, we would lose over 10,000,000 fellow citizens.

So, with this in mind, anything that stops further deaths in Gaza is more than welcome. And if 33 hostages are released, that’s to the good, of course. But: (1) there will still be more than 60 hostages held in Gaza, (2) Hamas is still, at least for now, in charge in Gaza, planning to stay and planning to attack Israel again in the future, (3) there is still no clear plan on how to rebuild Gaza or how to govern Gaza in the future. And, as we know, this deal, which is being done in phases, could self-destruct at any time. The current phase only lasts 60 days and even it must be approved by the Israeli cabinet. So we will have to see.

And as we watch how everything plays out, we also have to keep this in mind. Hamas’ leadership continues to maintain that their platform is “from the river to the sea”, and does not want to have a peaceful ever after agreement with Israel, and my guess is that, although there are many Gazans who are still numb from shock and exhausted, there are many others who agree fully with Hamas’ leadership on this point. And the far right in Israel, an absolutely central and necessary part of the Netanyahu coalition, also seems to have a “from the river to the sea” policy, and beyond that, places no trust in Gaza to know its place and stay there.

So we have a long way to go. I am far from comfortable.

There is also a lot of rebuilding that will have to be done, in both Gaza and Los Angeles. Think about how hard it will be to rebuild the part of Los Angeles that is now in ruins. Infrastructure must be repaired or reconstructed, all of the ruined material must be carted away, houses, commercial buildings and public buildings have to be rebuilt, and so forth. And while this is going on (and it will take years, as we know), the people directly affected (I am not sure how many that is – but I would guess it to be at least 50,000) must have a place to live, a place to go to school, a way to collect whatever insurance they might be entitled to, and the possibility of returning to their old neighborhood at some time, or if not returning, at least not suffering from below market forced sales. This is all very complicated and – oh yes, it’s very expensive. And the actions that will be undertaken with respect to each house, each building, each school, each everything, will require coordination and agreements with many interested stakeholders. Think how hard that will be.

Now, think about Gaza, where the number of people affected is not 50,000, but closer to 2,000,000. Gaza, where the debris that must be carted away are not only destroyed buildings, but military equipment, some of which may still be in danger of exploding, and where there just happens to be no obvious place to put any of it. Gaza, where the idea of property insurance probably does not exist, and most of the residents are not even middle class and have no jobs, and no assets. Gaza, where Israel will continue to make sure that no material that can be converted to military use will be allowed into the territory. Gaza, where all food must be imported as well as all building materials. Gaza, where the population can’t go somewhere else to wait out the rebuilding period, but has to stay in place because there is nowhere else they are allowed to go. Gaza, where there are no fellow citizens who can help because all citizens are equally affected. Gaza, where the government is more interested in destroying Israel than in helping the land under their control rebuild.

And yes, I know, there are more places that need to be rebuilt than Los Angeles and Gaza. There is Lebanon, Syria, northern Israel, and even Yemen. There is Ukraine and a small part of Russia. There are parts of Ethiopia and Sudan, and I am not sure Turkey, China and Japan have fully recovered from earthquake damage. And there are the mountains of western North Carolina.

But today, it is Gaza that’s on my mind…….

ADDENDUM:

I wrote all of that last night. Now, it is about 9 hours later, and already, the ground is shifting. The report this morning is that Israel is delaying the cabinet vote because Hamas is reneging on parts of the deal. Hamas says it is not reneging and is fully committed. We don’t yet know what this is about, whether it’s just typical bickering and face planting (is that a term, or did I just make it up?), or something material.

In the meantime, in Israel, there are some protests saying the deal is a surrender, not a victory, and one of the Israeli coalition parties has said it is against the deal unless it is limited to 60 days to do the swap, and that fighting can start again then.

I saw on the CNN online report that a number of governments have issued statements praising the deal, and expressing their support for the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state, with some proclamations throwing in what, to me, is a new word to describe a Palestinian state: contiguous.

So here we are. Hamas says the fight will continue in due time. Some Israelis say the same thing, and say the due time is: now. Each side wants to control land from the river to the sea. Part of the international community wants publicly a contigous Palestinian state. Biden leaves office in 5 days. Trump says “all hell will break loose”, and just last night, after the ceasefire was announced, but before its Sunday start date, an Israeli strike killed another 45 people.

Happy Thursday.

I have been watching the Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on the nomination of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. So far, and I am starting to write this just after noon on Tuesday, I am surprised about two things:

First, I am surprised at the purposely partisan testimony being given by Hegseth. Rather than trying to say things that have a chance to help win over some of the Democrats, he has chosen to say things that deepen the political divide.

Secondly, I am surprised at the weakness of so many of the questions of the Democrats. Senator Warren is now questioning Hegseth. She is the fourth Democratic female Senator to question Mr. Hegseth, and she is the fourth Democratic Senator to question him virtually only about his views on women in combat. I find this excessive when there are so many other topics to get on the record.

[Having said that, I did hear Warren ask him about the “revolving door”, the movement from a government job to the industry regulated during the time of government service. Would you, asked Warren, agree to keep from taking a job in the defense industry for ten years after your tour as Secretary of the Defense ends? He said that he would ask President Trump what the policy was and would abide by it. She responded by telling him (something I know nothing about) that generals are not allowed to move from the military to the defense industry. His answer to his? “I am not a general.” The audience (not me) laughed.]

At the start of the hearing, Ranking Member Jack Reed made it clear that the Democrats had coordinated their questioning (as the Republicans had coordinated theirs). Does this mean that the Democrats decided that at least four of their members should ask repetitive questions on the nominee’s views on women in combat?

And I didn’t think the Democrats got very far on their critiques of Hegseth’s leadership of two veteran related non-profits that he ran. They didn’t focus on their accomplishments,  but on their spending more than they brought in. Hegseth said that his leadership was financially responsible, that they were mission oriented, and that their mission succeeded. I can understand that. A non-profit’s mission can be more important than its financial ability to keep itself going. You can spend all of your assets to reach your goal, and then collapse the organization feeling satisfied. There may have been problems with the organizations, but the questions did not reach them.

And if the Democrats coordinated their questions (which I assume they did), does that mean that coordinated topics or that they coordinated specific questions? If they only coordinated topics, did Tim Kaine draw the short straw, being told that his topic was to deal with Hegseth’s reported sex and alcohol problems? If so, Kaine certainly did not develop any successful  questions. Hegseth had a child, when married to a different woman, seven years ago, and Kaine berated him for being unfaithful and violating his marriage vows. That child, who does bear the last name of Hegseth, really didn’t need to be brought into this discussion. I thought quite unthinking. (On the other hand, watching a bit of MSNBC after the hearing was adjourned,  I saw that their pundits thought Kaine’s questioning was some of the best of the morning. Go figure.)

On the other hand, I was surprised (I guess I didn’t pay attention to this in the news) that, in the run up to this hearing, Hegseth met with all of the Republicans on this committee, but refused to meet with any of the Democrats. On this basis alone, I do not think that any Democrat should be voting for him.

I also understand that the FBI investigative report was not given to the committee members. Another reason to withhold your vote.

Other things about the hearing?

(1) The Republicans asked a lot of questions about ship building for the Navy, and Hegseth said that it was a priority both for him and for President to be again Trump, but no one followed up with questions about cost. In fact, the defense budget was never discussed. No

(2) The Republicans talked a lot about DEI and “woke” policies, with Missouri Senator Schmitt saying that at the Air Force Academy, no one was allowed to call their parents “Mom and Dad”. What was that about? Does anyone know? And while neither DEI nor “woke” were really defined, DEI seemed to be a more politically correct way to described any forms of affirmative action, and woke seemed to have to do largely with paying for gender identification surgery for persons in uniform. [After Hegseth said that there were only two genders, the Senator from Montana said: “I agree with that, and I know, because I’m a Sheehy”. Tee hee, She he. Get it?]

(3) The folks on MSNBC thought that little was learned at the hearing (I agree with that) and that Hegseth did a very good job. I don’t think he did a very good job. He avoided answering questions, and he gave five minute answers to questions that should have been answered in one short sentence.

(4) I would have asked about Elon Musk and Space X. But the hearing was adjourned before I had a chance.

(5) And Jesus, there sure was a lot of Jesus.

Finally, from the start of the hearings, it was as partisan as can be. Particularly on the part of Hegseth, who threw Trump and America First into every answer he could, and on the part of the Republicans, who unsurprisingly badmouthed the Biden administration at every opportunity, even though in theory the Biden administration had nothing to do with this hearing. That, of course, is expected, but is a bad sign.

Hegseth will be confirmed. Trump will be his own Secretary of Defense.

(1) Burkina Faso

I don’t know much about the African country, Burkina Faso. I don’t even know how it got its name, Burkina Faso. I remember in my younger stamp collecting days, it was called Upper Volta. I didn’t know much about then, either.

I do know that it is quite poor, and that it lacks a coast line. And I know its capital is Ouagadougou. I do not know how Ouagadougou got its name, and until today, I wasn’t sure how to spell it.

Yesterday’s Washington Post had a major article about Russian influence in Burkina Faso. It accompanied the article with a photo of the city.

Looks pretty bad, huh?

So I went online to see just how depressing Ouagadougou really is. This is what I found:

Even though these pictures of Ouagadougou don’t make it look like Barcelona or Milan, they make it look much more comfortable than the photo in the Post. I understand that the Post photo included a Russian flag, but still…..why does the Post want Burkina Faso to look so bad, that they pick a photo that makes it look worse than it must really be?

(2) KFC

KFC has 25,000 locations world-wide. But it is not the biggest seller of fast food in the U.S. That would be Chick-fil-A. KFC and Popeyes are sort of tied for second place.

I haven’t tasted Chick-fil-A, so I can’t comment. But I find Popeyes too greasy, so avoid it. For the most part, my vote goes to KFC, and when I need fast food fried chicken, that is where I go.

Like yesterday, when I had chicken and cole slaw at KFC in Manassas.

But there is more to KFC than the taste. There is the educational art work.

We saw two films this weekend, both at the Avalon. The first was Pedro Almovodar’s first English language film, The Room Next Door, and the second, the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Both films are getting by and large strong reviews from critics, and the Dylan film in particular is getting good audience reviews. I did read most of the critic reviews for both films on Rotten Tomatoes, and discovered that critics who like a film seem to like it for the same reasons, while dissenting critics each have a distinct set of reasons not to be so positive.

Let’s start with my conclusions. I didn’t think either film was a great film. And if I had to see only one of them again, I’d chose A Complete Unknown.

Now, a confession. I have never liked Bob Dylan. From the day I first heard him (not that I remember that day), I found his grating voice just grated on me, and his lyrics (which eventually somehow won him a Nobel Prize) never touched me in the least. As to the four other stars with major roles in the film, I love them all – Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Johnny Cash.

So, never being a Bob Dylan fan, I never paid much attention to his artistic arc. Some of his songs, I am naturally familiar with, although I certainly haven’t memorized any lyrics, and there are many of his songs, including some sung in the film, that I don’t know if I have ever heard before. I knew, from reading some pieces about the film in a cursory manner, that the culmination of the film would be Dylan playing an electronic instrument at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival (I knew nothing about that, other than through the film), and I knew that Dylan and Baez had some sort of a relationship, although I am not sure I knew at the time.

The film shows Bob Dylan coming to New York in 1961 with a guitar and no money, of his learning that his idol Woody Guthrie was dying in a hospital in suburban New Jersey and his taking a taxi (which he did not have enough money to pay) there, going to Guthrie’s room and running into Pete Seeger, playing a song for Guthrie, and then going with Seeger to Pete Seeger’s house to spend a night or two. None of this is historic. This evening, I read an article from Rolling Stone, which generally liked the movie, but pointed out that it was not an historical film, discussing 27 places where the film and the truth went separate ways, including these.

The film shows Dylan, a “complete unknown”, coming to town and within hours becoming known by Guthrie and Seeger and within a few days being known by Baez, and on and on. It didn’t quite happen this way, but it makes a good story, and while I usually want films to be historically accurate, I must say that, with regard to Bob Dylan……what’s the difference?

As to the acting, critics are swooning over the various performances – all of them. I guess they were good enough. The only one that I really liked was Monica Barbaro, who played Joan Baez. As to Timothee Chalamet, I really don’t have an opinion. Because I don’t like watching or listening to Bob Dylan, I can’t hold the fact that I didn’t like watching or listening to Chalamet against him. The singing (and there was a lot of it) was not done through recordings, but by the actors. And they all did great. Chalamet sounded as bad as Dylan does, Edward Norton sounded just like Johnny Cash, and Barbaro sounded almost as good as Joan Baez (no one can sound just as good as she does).

Now, time for The Room Next Door. There are only two main characters, two old friends who had been out of touch played by Tilda Swinton (a former war reporter) and Julianne Moore (a writer of fiction). Swinton is under treatment for a cancer, and her treatment has ceased to be effective; an imminent death seems certain. Moore feels guilty she has not kept in touch, and vows to do better.

Swinton plans on suicide, using some sort of an illegal pill. Having failed to convince three other friends to help her, she does convince Moore, and rents a vacation home, somewhere (perhaps) in the Catskills, and the two of them go for a vacation to end in Swinton’s death. Moore will know that her friend has ended her life when she sees her bedroom door closed.

It tugs at the heartstrings, sure, but it is a very unlikely plot. And there are a few subordinate stories that are even less likely – a male personal trainer who wishes he was allowed to hug Moore, and Moore’s old boy friend, who is on a lecture tour not only talking about how climate change is destroying the world, but yelling and screaming about it in the most unpleasant of ways.

I did think that Swinton did a fine job wasting away and dying, and thought less of Moore’s performance. But…what do I know?

In between all of this, I read a short book by scholar Cecil Roth, Dona Gracia of the House of Nasi. I say that it’s a short book, because it is only 185 pages long. But, because the writing is so convoluted, it seems much longer. I mention the book here because this story would make a great movie.

The Jews of Portugal, at the end of the 15th century, can stay only if they become Christian. And the New Christians are soon in potential trouble because of the entrance of the Inquisition into Portugal, looking for backsliding New Christians. The Mendes family, one of the many prosperous Portuguese New Christian families, eventually all relocate to Antwerp, where they must remain New Christian, but there is no Inquisition.

This family becomes one of Europe’s wealthiest, perhaps the most wealthy, financing monarchies the way the Rothschild family did centuries later. After the death of her husband, the leader of the family businesses, Dona Gracia took over and ran them with great success. They were monopolizing the entire Dutch spice trade, among other things. When things got hot, they relocated to Italy, to Farrara (this was not easy to do, as they had to sneak not only themselves, but their assets out of Antwerp), and then to Constantinople, where they were able to revert to Judaism.

Dona Gracia became a financial leader in the Ottoman Empire, and a major philanthropist for Jews Europe-wide. The family’s trading business was now mainly carried on in Constantinople and on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Trouble came when a new Pope decided to go after the Portuguese New Christians on the Italian coast, and the Jewish world was torn as to how to respond.

This entire story, including the question as to how to respond to the Pope after twenty five New Christians were burnt to death in Arcona, and how this problem was solved, would make one great (yes, and expensive) film.

Any takers?