Art is 80

Perhaps President-to-be-elected Harris has already selected her running mate by the time that you are reading this, but she hasn’t announced anything at the time I am writing it. So, you might know more than I do. And I am certainly not going to speculate.

I am also not going to post today anything about Rhode Island Avenue. Rather, my plan is to go back to Rhode Island this morning, and begin the preparation of the next few posts before the temperature rises over my relatively low tolerance level, so we can continue our trip tomorrow or the day after. The next segment should take us from 3rd Street NW to North Capital Street. Then we will go into North East DC for about 30 blocks are so, when we move into Maryland.

So what to write about today? Three shows I have recently watched. You may have watched two of them. I cannot imagine that you have seen the third. Two were recent Netflix series; the third a film that Edie and I saw yesterday at the National Gallery. (The National Gallery shows films you are unlikely to see elsewhere on weekend afternoons.) And what do these three shows have in common with the Trump/Vance ticket? They were all weird.

We finished Friday night watching the new seven part (each part only about 30 minutes) series “Baby Reindeer”. Have you seen it? It was written by a Scottish comic (I use that word only because he uses that word to describe him, not because he makes me laugh) who first put together a semi-autobiographical production which he presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and which, surprising to him, won a major prize. So he did what all fringe festival winners do, he turned it into a full scale production, a show that he traveled with around the world. And then, it becomes a Netflix series, no longer a one-man show, but now a production with a full cast.

Donny Dunn, the protagonist, fails in his first attempt to storm Edinburgh, but meets a predatory TV writer who promises to give him some career help. He then goes to drama school, where he meets a beautiful girl. He moves to London with his girl friend and he tries to become a comic, taking advice from the predatory TV writer, who turns out to be predatory plus. Exactly the man you would never want to meet. Drugs and unwanted same sex sex, all those sorts of things.

To make at least some money, Donny also works at a pub in Camden (you know Camden? Not the one in New Jersey, but the very pleasant “I’d-like-to-live-here” one on the north side of London), and a down in the dumps, bedraggled woman named Martha comes in and says she can’t afford anything. He treats her to a diet cola, her drink of choice.

Martha begins coming in every day, talking to Donny, staying longer and longer, sipping a free soda. Then she learns his email address, becomes his Facebook friend, and learns everything there is to know about him. She wants something more from this relationship; he says just enough to egg her on.

Martha is, it turns out, a graduate lawyer, and a serial stalker, who has served time in prison. She has some emotional problems, to be sure. But Donny, it seems, is as disturbed as Martha is, and neither of them are really fit for normal life. Martha becomes the stalker, Donny the stalked. He claims that his life has been turned upside down. He is correct. But his life, to be honest, has never been upside up.

“Baby Reindeer” is the story of Donny and Martha, and Donny’s girl friend from acting school (no longer his girl friend), and the trans woman whom he seems to maybe really sort of fall in love with, and his parents in Scotland, and the guys at the bar and at the comedy club and, oh yes, the police handling his complaint.

What did I think of the show? On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a W for weird. I also give it a U for unique. Also a 7. It’s not a comedy, although it’s about a comic. It’s now and then quite uncomfortable. You might like it.

Next. Season 2 of “Kleo”, another Netflix series. It is a real comedy (I think) with a fantasy plot. I had watched Season 1 a few years ago, although it took me a while to remember it enough to really help me through Season 2. But you can see both seasons now on Netflix. Season 2 only has six episodes, although each episode was close to an hour long. It’s in German and Russian, with a smattering of English. It’s pretty basic German and Russian, the two languages I have studied in the past, and I could understand a fair amount of it……as long as I was looking at the English subtitles while I was listening.

Have you watched any of it? The general plot is that Germany has reunited, but in Berlin there are still those who are both to the former East Germany and to Moscow, and they have formed a group, it seems, to stage a coup to reverse German unification, to recreate the eastern German Democratic Republic, and then somehow to meld it into the Soviet Union as a constituent part. The CIA knows about this plot, and probably isn’t going to worry about its success, but it is interested in the participants because they are said to have a copy of the “Reagan-Honecker Pact”, a document that has some importance that I could never really figure out. I learned what it contains, but I just couldn’t see why that matters.

What else should I say about it? Oh, yes, it is extraordinarily violent. Not the way war movies or movies about the Mafia can be violent, but in the ways that a slapstick comedy can be violent. And yes, this is a comic, with people getting shot left and right, generally in the middle of the head. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Kleo herself is a young woman who grew up in East Berlin and whose family was at the highest rank of East Berlin Communist society, so high that they also hobnob with Russians at the highest levels of Moscow Communist society. She knows the importance of the Reagan-Honecker Pact, and she is determined to get it, so that the world can be saved from whatever it would be like if the Pact wound up in other hands. She is no longer a Communist; she is certainly not a capitalist. And everyone is out to get her, because she is determined, powerful, impossible to stop, and Otto’s granddaughter. Who is Otto? He was the man who came up with the idea of the Reagan-Honecker Pact, and of the plan to take over the government of Germany through a coup. Kleo is under the eye of the wary CIA, and is approached, befriended and not let alone by Sven, a West Berlin police officer, who has been kicked off the force by failing to follow orders, and who would be more comfortable in a Keystone Kop farce than the Berlin police force anyway. His job is to follow Kleo around, and try to keep her from killing everyone she comes across, and to provide comic relief.

The show takes a little suspension of belief (obviously), and realization that you aren’t going to understand everything, and that if people get shot in the head, it’s all great fun, and that Kleo clearly will always come out okay, because if she didn’t have an imaginary shield around her, she would not have made it through Season 1, Episode 1.

Sort of spoiler: Kleo kills her grandfather and her father (to be fair, for a long time she didn’t know he was her father), her father kills Kleo’s mother and tries to kill Kleo, and Uwe – a socialist moron – kills Ernest Honecker (the real former head of East Germany) and his wife, known both as Aunt Margot and the Purple Lady. (You can Google Margot Honecker and see why she deserves this title)

How do I rate this one on a scale of 1 to 10. An 8. I give it a W and a U, as well. But it’s fun, while Baby Reindeer is more of a “let’s see how uncomfortable this can make me” show.

What should I say and “Night and Day”, the film we saw yesterday afternoon. It’s a 2008 Korean film written and directed by Hong Sang-Soo, a prolific Korean film maker, with a very unique style who makes very weird films. You got it: I give it a W and a U on a scale of 1 to 10.

A Korean man, thinking he is going to be arrested on a charge of smoking marijuana, flees to Paris, leaving his wife behind, running into an old girl friend, meeting two young Korean women (much younger than he) and falling in love (so he says) with one of them whom he gets pregnant, and, after two months, returns to his wife in Seoul and leaves his pregnant girlfriend to fend for herself (he told her he had to go to Seoul because his mother was seriously ill). It gets a Rotten Tomatoes 87%, but it’s really an awful film. The next paragraph, quoted from the Wikipedia article on Hong, will tell you why:

“Hong is often spontaneous when shooting, delivering the day’s scene on the morning of the shoot and changing the story on set. He rarely prepares scripts in advance….and writes his scenes on the morning of the filming day, making changes throughout the day….he sometimes shoots scenes while the actors are intoxicated.”

In addition to the W and the U, I’d give this film, still on a scale of 1 to 10, an L. And a 3 (being nice). For long. Not only is the film poorly made and acted, it clocked in at about 2 and a half hours. The National Gallery seems to be showing four or five of his films this August. I wonder why.

By the way, there was something similar about all three. A totally clueless man. No more ditzy young blondes.

Tomorrow, back to more normality here.

We have seen that Rhode Island Avenue has entered Washington the city as opposed to Washington the capital, and in Part 5 looked a number of “affordable” housing developments. Today, we will look at different aspects of this part of Rhode Island and hopefully end up at 4th Street.

We can start with the local branch of the DC public library. Named for civic activist Watha Daniels, it is emblematic of the effort the city has put into the rebuilding of its library system over the past fifteen years or so. In front of the library entrance stands a sculpture by local artist Craig Kraft, one of the best known neon sculptors of the country. His nearby studio on 9th Street is in one of Washington’s oldest firehouses, built in the 1880s, Station No. 8. In keeping with Washington’s history of segregation,  this was a firehouse for Black firemen only.

The entrance to the Shaw Metro station can be seen behind the sculpture.  Which reminds me that this part of Rhode Island Avenue runs through the DC neighborhood known as Shaw.

You can Google Shaw and learn about it. It could be the subject of books, not just noted in a short blog post. This mural is painted on the wall of The Roasted Bean, a trendy coffee shop I have yet to try.

Speaking of murals, we have several leading to an outdoor beer garden, Electric Cool-Aid, another place I have yet to enter. I think it is a popular place. But not for me.

You see a mural on the inside, on the second floor overlooking the garden, and on the fence enclosing it. Is there more outside art nearby?

Yes, we have a three-dimensional animal, a two-dimensional animal, and a skeleton in the Confederate army?

We also have a very tasteful momument dedicated to Carter Woodson, an African-American historian and Dean of Howard University, who lived in the neighborhood. W.E. DuBois was the first Black man to receive a doctorate from Harvard. Carter Woodson was the second.

One more thing. At Rhode Island and 6th, you will find the Barber of Hell’s Bottom. What is special about this place? It seems that a simple man’s haircut would cost you $95.

Oh, you want to live here but don’t qualify for affordable housing? Try the Bailey

Or the Josephine

A small 900 square foot two bedroom on the first floor of the Josephine is for sale for $600,000.

We have now reached 4th Street NW. It’s three blocks to 3rd Street. Two major diagonals, New Jersey (turn right for the Capitol) and Florida (turn right for Gallaudet University, left for Adams-Mogan) interrupt your walk and there are three gas stations and one Dunkin Donuts at the intersections. Next time, we will pick up at 3rd Street.ll

This seems to be the message of many Republicans after the announcement yesterday that Russia was releasing 16 prisoners, 7 of whom are Russian citizens and 3 of whom are American citizens, in return for western countries,  including the United States, releasing 8 prisoners and returning them to Moscow. The Republicans wish the deal was never done.

Of course, the overall question of whether negotiating for the return of hostages in fact simply encourages more hostage taking is a question as old as the hills. In Jewish tradition, redeeming the hostages is a necessity. In American political tradition, it seems to be the standard practice, but seems always to be questioned as a matter of principle.

The primary criticism of this week’s release goes to the release from German prison, where he was serving a life sentence, of Vadim Krasikov. Krasikov was convicted of murder in Germany following the killing in 2019 of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in cold blood (shots to the head) in a German park in broad daylight. Let’s assume that Krasikov in fact committed the crime – there is no reason to doubt it. Let’s also assume that he did it upon orders from Moscow, from Moscow at the highest level. No reason to doubt that. Let’s agree that he is a Russian “hit man”. He obviously is.

Now let’s look at Krasikov’s crime. Khangoshvili, his victim, was born in the then Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (now the independent Republic of Georgian) and is fully or partly ethnically Chechen. (Under Trumpian terms, I guess he would have had to have selected one or the other, because you can only be one thing at a time, but……that’s under Trumpian terms.)

At some point, Khangoshvili left Georgia and went to Chechnia, not an independent country but a sub-republic constituent member of and fully a part of the Russian Federation. During the second Russia-Chechnia War, he was a Chechen platoon commander, fighting against Russia. Because Chechnia was a part of Russia, to Russians, this makes Khangoshvili a traitor. After serving as a Chechen fighter, Khangoshvili returned to his home country Georgia, no longer an SSR, but an independent republic. Georgia and Russia are far from friends, and, as you may remember, fought a war in 2008. In that war, Khangoshvili was an officer in the Georgian army. After the war, the Russians claim (no reason to doubt them) that Khangoshvili infiltrated Russian spy circles in Georgia and reported names of Russian operatives to the Georgian government. All of this made Khangoshvili an enemy of the Russian state, to be sure.

My point being that this was a political crime and, for example, from a Russian perspective, may be not that different from the three recent Israeli assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah high level operatives, or even the American killings of, say, Bin Laden or of Qasem Soleimani of Iran. If the “perpetrators” of those “crimes” had been imprisoned by Iran or Hamas, wouldn’t we want them released? The answer is “of course”, and if Iran or Hamas told us they couldn’t release them as part of a swap because they were simple “criminals”, we would be outraged. Krasikov  may be no different than the American who targeted Soleimani with a drone.

I say all of this simply because those people who say we are obtaining the release of our hostages by releasing dangerous criminals back to Russia are either not looking deeply enough at the circumstances, or being somewhat unknowingly hypocritical. None of the others released to Russia were violent criminals, either. They were either spies or perpetrators of financial crimes.

This is not to say that I believe Russia had a legitimate right to hold the three Americans as prisoners, but once they were there, it was our duty to get them out, and the price we paid was not close to being excessive.

I also have to say something about Mr. Trump. First, President Biden was correct when he said that Trump failed to get Paul Whelan out when he was president. Whelan has been imprisoned almost six years. (And, by the way, although my knowledge is very limited, the Whalen case is an odd one. He was found with a flash drive on him containing some confidential Russian military information. He says it was planted on him by a “friend” and he was the victim of a sting. I don’t think many details have been released. But Whalen, now an American hero, it appears, has a very spotty background. Yes, he was a Marine, but he was a Marine who was court martialed and reduced in rank after allegedly being involved in theft in Iraq. Maybe we need to know more about him?)

Secondly, when Trump said that, after he won the election, Putin was going to release the Americans held in prison as a gift to him and not before, he was obviously wrong, and he had no basis for his comment.

And third, when Trump said he could have had them released without giving Putin anything, as opposed to paying much too high a price, he knew this not to be true.

Finally, during his four years in office, Trump released to foreign governments many people we had imprisoned in trades to get Americans released from other countries’ jails. In 2019, he did a one-for-one swap with Iran. In the same year, three Taliban members held by the legitimate government of Afghanistan were returned to the Taliban in exchange for the release of two Americans, a swap in which Trump’s office was involved. In 2020, there was a second one-for-one trade with Iran, and there was the release of 200 Houthis held by Oman in return for two Americans, another American brokered deal.

And of course, you remember the release of 5000 Taliban members in 2020, as a quid pro quo for starting peace negotiations with the Taliban. That extraordinarily misguided deal was made by the Trump administration without even informing the American backed Afghanistan administration that it was being discussed. We know where this got us – making it clear to the people of Afghanistan that we did not acknowledge their government as a serious governing body (thus making it impossible for that government to continue to operate with any gravitas). Trump then made a promise to withdraw from Afghanistan by a date certain, setting the stage for the chaos that occurred in 2021.

Beyond Trump, there was J.D. Vance yesterday, who said that the release of prisoners by Russia shows that dictatorships all around the world want to “clean house” before Trump returns to office, because they know that – after that – they won’t get away with anything. All that comment deserves is a big “Huh?”.

The prisoner release was a discussion point on  C-Span yesterday morning. Most (not all) of the callers thought the deal was bad. I wish they could read this post.

We are crossing 9th Street NW on Rhode Island Avenue, and heading towards 5th Street, our next stopping place.

Three of the larger buildings on this part of Rhode Island Avenue qualify as affordable housing.

Their stories are very different.

The first, Foster House, at 8th and RI, is a development for low income seniors that was built over 50 years ago by New Bethel Baptist Church. The church, located a few blocks from this property, still owns Foster House through a non-profit corporation.

This is a 76 unit property, and about four years ago, it was about one third vacant. Whether this has changed, I don’t know, but Foster House is one of the three subsidized housing developments in the city that has been targeted through enforcement actions by the DC attorney general. The allegations relate to failure to upgrade or update the building since it opened in 1973, and failure to provide adequate maintenance. There was an attempt to put the building into receivership last year, but I don’t know where that stands.

The church maintains it just does not have the funds to do what is needed and that the building can not be fixed, and should be demolished and replaced. The church proposed to do just that a few years ago, but the plan has been caught up in processing issues since that time.

The second building, at 7th and Rhode Island, is much different. It is brand new, opening up within the past year.

This is also an “affordable” building, but I believe was constructed under a program that primarily serves middle income tenants, rather than low income tenants. On the first floor, there is retail space. 7th Street, like Rhode Island Avenue, is a major street that deserves its own walk. As it heads north, it passes the Howard University campus (its name is changed to Georgia Avenue), it goes by the former Walter Reed Hospital grounds (now the site of major development activities) and goes on to downtown Silver Spring, Wheaton, Olney and beyond (“beyond” literally means “the great beyond”), to Judean Gardens cemetery, where Edie and I have our plots).

But I digress. This building at 7th and Rhode Island will, I am sure, be very successful. And it is attractive, something you cannot say about Foster House (well, I guess you “can”).

The third building, Asbury Dwellings, has the most interesting story of all. Like Foster House, it is an apartment property serving low income seniors. While Foster House was built in 1971, Asbury Dwellings was built in 1902. It started out as McKinley Vocational School, a trade school for White high school students. When McKinley moved to a new campus, it became the Shaw Junior High School, a school for Black students. (Remember, until 1956, DC schools were completely segregated.)

I am not sure when the building was remodeled and converted to housing, but it has been several decades. From the outside,  this building has always looked immaculate. I assume it fills its role more than adequately.

Let’s finish up today with one other group of residential buildings in this area.

These small row houses look like they were built before 1900. While most DC row houses are brick, these have wood facades. The houses look to be in very good condition,  with fresh paint and clean yards. That’s all I know about them. But they provide one more element in the eclectic mix of housing on this part of Rhode Island Avenue.

Tomorrow we will look at other aspects of these few blocks. Sculpture, restaurants, monuments and more.

The news of the swap for Russian prisoners (24 prisoners in all affected, as I have heard) is phenomenal. Phenomenal. Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whalen, Vladimir Kara-Murza and 13 other western prisoners held by Russia. Extraordinary.

Where was I wrong? I expected a swap, yes. A smaller swap. But I did not expect it today. I thought it would be a gift from Putin to Trump as an unofficial quid pro quo for the second Trump administration pulling back support for both Ukraine and NATO, and that Trump would be able to announce this as an October surprise to help win back the presidency. I did not expect this to be accomplished by the Biden administration. I was wrong. And I admit it.

This is an enormous victory for the prisoners and their families and for this country and certain of our allies. It is one more defeat for Trump and his campaign. I wonder how he is going to spin it.

While I am at it, I will add one more thing. Yesterday it was announced that a deal had been made to spare Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others from the death penalty. I have heard Republicans screaming about how this demonstrates the incompetence of the Biden administration and demonstrates the weakness of our country. I want to try to counter that position.

The cases against the 9/11 masterminds, strong as it may be on the facts, faced a number of problems. First, there was a question of jurisdiction of military courts and civilian courts. Second, the limitation passed by Congress that would not permit them to be transferred out of Guantanamo even for trial or punishment. And thirdly, defenses which would have been raised by their lawyers about procedural shortcomings, especially allegations that they had been tortured (e.g., waterboarded) while in American custody.

In other words, their convictions were far from assured, and their trials already been postponed for decades. Now, we are spared all of that, and we have guilty pleas. And they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

The news reports are that the Earth is spinning more slowly on its axis. Some reports even say that it is spinning backwards. I admit to not really knowing what that means or how that affects us. But I must say that it doesn’t sound good.

In fact, there is not a lot that sounds good these days. But there is one thing that does, the increasing probability that Donald Trump will lose his attempt to retake the presidency. And we can only hope that the current trajectory continues and that nothing happens to disturb Kamala Harris’ move towards victory.

It’s quite amazing. Two weeks ago, we were all down in the dumps because we didn’t like either of the presidential candidates, and we were afraid that, because the Democrats were so demoralized by the possibility of Joe Biden running and losing (or even running and winning), and that it seemed that Democrats would stay home, and Independents be tempted to vote Republican and that Trump was destined to win.

The pressure for Biden to withdraw was growing, but Biden himself seemed to be impervious to the hints that he should leave the race. He was on a mission and he, like his putative opponent, Biden seemed to think that “only he could fix it”, and that (was this a sign of mental deterioration?) that only he could beat Trump.

But then something happened to change his mind. I actually think that the thing that changed his mind was Covid. When he was diagnosed with Covid, a number of things happened. First, he had to slow down, get off the treadmill, sit and relax. That broke his momentum. Second, he had time to think and to listen to the increasing number of people, people very close to him, suggesting it was time for him to leave the race. Third, he had time to listen to himself in recent appearances, to watch himself on recent videos. Fourth, he was in contact with his doctors, although we don’t know what they told him, or suggested to him. Finally, he had to face his own mortality and realize how he felt as an 81 year old who was sick.

What am I saying? I am suggesting that, had Covid not struck the President, he might still be in the race, destined to lose.

As an aside, I do feel quite bad for Biden. Two weeks ago, he was running for president. Now, he is the lamest of lame ducks, and has been told by virtually everyone who previously supported him that he made the right choice to get out, that he was not physically or mentally strong enough to continue. There doesn’t seem to be anyone telling him anything else, and the “too old and too decrepit” mantra seems to be repeated everywhere and often. He can’t turn on a TV, or look at a newspaper or at social media, without hearing it over and over. He must feel awful. He has been abandoned by most of his political allies, and probably most of his friends.

Not only that, but he is still president. He says he has things to do over his last six months in office (remember, even though the election is in November, he is in office until January 20), like bringing peace to the Middle East, bringing down consumer prices, and reforming the Supreme Court, either through law or through a Constitutional amendment. Of course, he won’t accomplish any of these things. That’s in part because they are impossible things for anyone to accomplish. But, it is also true (I think) that no one is paying any attention to Biden anymore. As I said, he is the lamest of lame ducks, and he must know that.

Another part of this situation is equally fascinating. Only a few weeks ago, Democrats who wanted Joe Biden to step down were suggesting a number of potential replacement candidates. Most of those Democrats suggested people other than Kamala Harris, and the most interesting articles were about timing and process.

Well, timing and process turned out to be a bit too complicated to contemplate, it appears, and the Democrats, knowing that they needed a candidate and certainly not wanting to highlight internal disagreements or fights between “progressive” and more middle of the road Democrats, came together quickly and settled on Kamala Harris, someone already on the proposed ticket, the sitting Vice President, as the rightful, and the only practical, candidate, whether or not she was anyone’s actual first choice.. Suddenly, there appeared to be no opposition to her and endorsements kept coming in. Democratic party dissension was not going to be a problem.

And then? Then, something miraculous happened. All of a sudden, Harris was the perfect candidate. Experienced, charismatic, Black, female, smart, funny, upbeat……absolutely everything you would want in a candidate. And Democratic dismay turned into Democratic excitement, Democratic lethargy turned into Democratic activity. Money began pouring in, volunteers began signing up, and polls, especially polls in the six or seven states that really matter in this presidential election, began to turn (quickly turn) from Trump to Harris. This is something that no one foresaw.

And then there’s Israel.

As all of America’s attention has turned to this riveting race, the world continues to fester in so many spots. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a speech before the American Congress that deepened, but did not change, the views of individual Americans as to what was happening in and around Israel, and what should be done about it. IDF attacks into Gaza continued, settler/Arab unrest on the West Bank continued, armed drones kept arriving from Lebanon and from Yemen, over 100 hostages remained under Hamas control in Gaza (assuming they are still alive), and ceasefire/hostage release negotiations continued to drag (really drag) on. Then, a Hezbollah rocket kills 12 Druze children in the Golan Heights, and Israel retaliates by targeting and killing a very high level Hezbollah official in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. The same day, or maybe it was the next day, the Israelis kill one of the highest ranking Hamas political officials, a man they were negotiating with to get the hostages released and reach a ceasefire agreement, and what is more, they killed him by shooting a rocket into Tehran, the capital of Iran, where he was a guest during the installation of Iran’s new president.

Tonight, Prime Minister Netanyahu gets on Israeli TV and says (my usual paraphrase): tough times are ahead of us; we will be united; we will win in the end.

I have no doubt that the United States will support Israel in whatever type of conflagration arises. But tonight, listening to Netanyahu speak, I thought of something else. For months (in some respects for years), we have been saying that Hamas (and that means Iran as well) does not want a ceasefire, does not want a temporary or “final” peace treaty, because they are playing a long game, and believe that in the end, no matter how far in the future the end is, they will succeed in wiping Israel (at least as an independent nation) off the map. If Arabs die in the process, so be it. They become martyrs, and after all we all have to die sometime.

But today, I wondered if it might be possible that Netanyahu and his followers are (at least now) of the same mindset. That they want a war, even if it’s a terrible war, because they are confident in their (and our) strength, and they are confident that they will win such a war and destroy the enemies on their borders and in their neighborhood. And to the extent Israelis die or suffer in the process, it will be worth it in the long run.

Neither side wants a stalemate. Each side wants a victory. How can you possibly have a victory without having a war. So, Netanyahu is saying, bring it on, Ayatollah! The next move is yours.

It will be a challenge for our current president and our next president, whoever that may be. Maybe Israel can win such a war. But maybe, at the same time, the cost that they will have to pay isn’t worth it.

On the day I walked from Logan Circle on Rhode Island and 13th Street, I went as far as 5th Street. I don’t think we will get that far today in this post, but then, I guess you don’t really know before you start.

You may recall that I said that we are leaving Washington the capital and entering Washington the city. Here are three examples of residential developments on the next two blocks. First, row houses, now restored after some years of decline, a typical modern apartment/condominium building recently completed, and another new building,  designed to fit in with and resemble older architecture.

Walking on, I wanted to meet some neighborhood residents. I found Gary, who looked very comfortable,  and who obviously only spoke to me in sign language.

I also found our first example of street art. These delicious murals, painted in an alley on the side wall of a moderate townhouse,  draw a lot of attention from passersby.

And we are already now walking between 10th and 9th Street.

We pass some school athletic facilities, and if you look around the corner onto 9th Street, you see the entrance to Banneker Academic High School.

Banneker High School is known for many things, including being the school at which my son-in-law Andrew teaches. Beyond that, it is known as an academic magnet school, one of two in the DC public school system, which admits its students in 9th grade and admits no transfer students, and from which virtually all students move on to college. It is a relatively small high school, with about 500 students overall, who come from all sectors of the city. It was named after Benjamin Banneker.

Benjamin who?

Banneker (I downoaded this mural from the DC Recorder of Deeds office) was a free Black, born in Baltimore in 1731. He died in 1805.

He was the owner of a hundred acre farm, a naturalist, an astronomer, a surveyor, and the author and publisher of several almanacs. Exceptional accomplishments for an African-American in the 18th century in colonial America (or for anyone else). You can see an extensive summary of his life on Wikipedia.

Between 10th and 9th Streets, you pass two other important institutions on the north side of Rhode Island Avenue. The first is the Hillcrest Children and Family Center, the second the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA.

The Hillcrest Children and Family Center is a social service agency which concentrates on mental health assistance and substance abuse recovery programs. It is not, by the way, a new organization. It was established in 1815. And not only that.  Its founder was Dolley Madison.

The Wheatley Y also has an interesting history. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about it. But its building is 100 years old, and it was established as a Y for Black women (maybe the first). For the last decade, and after a full renovation, the building now contains 86 units of housing for low income women of several races, and provides related services. Phyllis Wheatley, by the way, was an African-American poet who, like Benjamin Banneker, lived in the 18th century.

On the south side of Rhode Island Avenue,  there is another school, the Seaton Elementary School. Its entrance has this sign:

William Seaton, by the way, was mayor of Washington for about ten years in the 1840s, and was a supporter of public education (as well as a slave holder). I looked at the school’s website. The school is 1/3 Black, 1/3 Hispanic, and 1/3 White and Asian. Its students come from about 30 countries.

So…..we have reached 9th Street. Enoigh for today. Next time, we will see if we can get to 5th Street. I think we can. I think we can.

(This is such a complicated subject that I fear you may get lost in my short(ish) post. If you do, just remember that it’s my fault, not yours.)

Because I don’t know what Zionism means, I have no idea if I am a Zionist. I know exactly what I think about Israel, but I don’t know if that puts me within anyone’s definition of Zionism. The term, except to those who view everything as either black or white, is too ambiguous. There are religious Zionists, there are secular Zionists, there are spiritual Zionists, and there are political Zionists. There are Zionists who believe that the Zionist mission is not fulfilled until the Third Temple is built on the Temple Mount. Their are Christian Zionists who believe that until the State of Israel completes its mission, Jesus will not return for a second visit. There are Zionists who believe that Israel should be a home for those Jews who want to (or who are forced to) come, and there are Zionists who believe that all Jews should resettle in Israel. There are Zionists who believe that Israel should be a liberal democracy, with equal rights for all who live there. There are Zionists who believe that Israel must be a Jewish state (some even say a theocratic state), where non-Jews have no role, or a role only as second class citizens or residents.

Joe Biden says he is a Zionist. But I have no idea what that means.

In fact, I think the concept of Zionism, and the use of the term, should probably be relegated to history and retired. Zionism was a crucial concept in the latter part of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, before the State of Israel came into existence. But since then? You be a supporter of Israel without calling yourself a Zionist. Wasn’t the premise of Zionism fulfilled when Ben-Gurion declared a state, and most of the world agreed? Yes, you may feel it is important that Israel continues to exist, grow, and prosper. But you can feel that without thinking yourself a Zionist.

And now Israel’s future is really being tested. It’s being tested as a result of a terrifying invasion from Gaza by Hamas that never would have happened but for a massive security failure.

Security failures can be devastating. Think of Pearl Harbor. If American security had been working as it should have been, the Japanese invasion would have been thwarted. Who knows what might have happened then. When the US declared war against Japan, its ally Nazi Germany declared war against us. If that had not happened, would America have still even fought the Nazis, or would the isolationists have won out and the whole of 20th century history changed?

Or think about September 11, 2001. We had a lot of intelligence about the Saudis who organized the devastating attack on the Twin Towers. Think how different the world might be today if that attack had never occurred.

Even think about young Mr. Crooks who took a shot at former President DJT. As it turns out, Trump was not seriously hurt. But obviously, he could have been killed and, were he killed, it too would have been the result of a security failure.

Yes, security failures do occur, and do have consequences. And it’s the response to a security failure that really counts. As jazz pianist Errol Garner once said (I paraphrase): Everyone now and then hits the wrong note, but if you are talented, you know what note to hit next.

In politics, it is hard to find that talent. In the case of World War II, we had no choice but to fight back, and it took over four years, but we won when both Germany and Japan agreed to unconditional surrender. In the case of the Twin Towers, the American reaction was to go to war against Iraq, a country not involved in the attack on America, on the basis of a false belief as to the intention and capabilities of Iraq’s political leader. In the case of the Hamas attack, the Netanyahu government’s response has been harsh, and its success still unproven and not looking very promising.

You walk to the side of a cliff. You wonder if you should jump. You can always turn away and get to safer ground. It is never too late to do that. Until you jump. Then, it’s too late to save yourself. You are done for. Unless you tied that bungee cord tight enough. If you did, you still have a chance. If not….you are done for.

This is where Israel is. On the cliff. We, the United States, are the bungee cord.

Back to the first question. What does it mean that Biden calls himself a Zionist and that Harris has not? I suggest that it means nothing.

I am not concerned that a Harris administration will make decisions that will harm Israel’s ability to prosper, or that will make that country less safe. (Of course, she will be coming into office, it appears, when Israel’s prosperity is under attack and its security highly compromised.)

But I am concerned about what her position will be during the three month election campaign. She has a tightrope to walk to keep all Democrats happy. And all Democrats include those young Democrats who seem to be aligning themselves with the Palestinian cause. These young Democrats, which include some Jewish Democrats, are of many minds. Some are simply anti-Israel – they believe that Israel is an illegitimate country that simply should not exist. It is a colonial outpost, it is on land that rightfully belongs to Muslims, not Jews. How can land belong to a people? Uh-oh, I guess that is one premise of Zionism.

Others will defend Israel’s right to exist, but believe that Israel’s general treatment of its Arab neighbors has been heartless and wrong from the beginning. And then, of course, there are the traditional Democrats, young and old, who support Israel in its battles with its neighbors, but who are not always comfortable with Israel’s methods.

Harris must cope with these varying positions among her party’s supporters, knowing that this is far from a simple problem, knowing that most of Israel’s neighbors have fought against its existence for the past 75 years, since the day the State of Israel came into existence. She knows that telling Israel to lighten up might work to weaken Israel beyond saving, and that refraining to tell that to Israel, might lead to never ending wars.

As to those who believe that Israel should not exist, and for whom Israel’s existence with almost 10 million citizens does not change their position, there is little that she can do, except hope that they vote for her for other reasons. As to those who think Israel is too tough, she should sympathize with them – most of us probably feel that way. But she must also try to educate them as to the dilemmas facing Israel, that ignoring the enmity of its neighbors won’t automatically lead to greater security.

I have said much of this before, I know. The changes must come from better leadership on both the Israeli and the Arab sides. How and when this changed leadership will come about we don’t know. But that should be a goal of American policy.

And let me add something. My source is Donald Trump, who says, speaking about our border with Mexico, that without a border, you don’t have a country. It’s a silly statement regarding our southern border, but it is true with regard to Israel. Israel does not have settled borders. Seeing to final borders between Israel and its neighbors should be another goal of American policy.

New leadership, established borders. Add to that continued support for Israeli security,  continuing to build strong relations with moderate Arab countries, and the education of the American public, and you have the position that the Harris campaign should take.

If she does this over the next few months, I think it might be helpful. But it would be very difficult to do it well. And there would be mistakes made along the way. But as Errol Garner says: “Everyone hits wrong notes, but if you have the talent, you know where to go next”.

Oh. Am I a Zionist? Do you know?

We are now leaving Scott Circle, where 16th Street tunnels under Rhode Island Avenue, and heading up Rhode Island Avenue towards Logan Circle at 13th Street. We see a change in the neighborhood. No more downtown type office buildings. We now see some residential buildings, both midrise apartments and elegant row houses.

But there is more than just this. There are about six hotels on these three blocks, including the Beacon, the Darcy and a Holiday Inn, to mention three. But the picture below is of the Viceroy Hotel, a 180 room upscale hotel which has an art gallery inside and a tube of toothpaste outside.

But there’s even more. Washington is the home of many associations, as everyone knows. But some of these are often overlooked. Such as the National Society United States Daughters of 1812, located at 1461 Rhode Island.

Located in a older house, the NSUSD1812 has a museum and library, open to the public upon request. I have never been in, but the library is an extensive library of the period, and the small museum filled with items donated by members. Even without making special arrangements,  though, you can see an important piece of American history. The flagpole in front of the society is not just a flagpole. It is the original mast from the USS Constitution, ” Old Ironsides”. The Constitution,  available to visit in Boston Harbor, was first floated in 1797, and was particularly busy during the War of 1812.

And again because this is Washington, there are a few hundred embassies scattered across the city, including the very unattractive Australian embassy at 16th Street, which was recently completed.

And then there’s the Hungarian embassy at 15th.

The Hungarian embassy is located in one of the few remaining late 19th century mansions in this neighborhood. And a special house that at times has served as the residence of Alexander Graham Bell, Vice President Levi Morton, and Secretary of State Elihu Root. It was constructed in 1879 and remodeled by famed architect John Russell Pope in 1912. In front of the embassy, which is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, is a statue of a Hungarian freedom fighter to commemorate the 1956 failed insurrection.

And then we get to Logan Circle, named for Civil War general John A. Logan, who later became a Senator from Illinois, and a Vice President candidate in 1886.

The sculptor of Logan’s statue is Franklin Simmons. The base was designed by Richard Morrris Hunt, who also designed the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Breakers in Newport RI.

Interestingly, one of the bas-reliefs is flawed.

This relief shows Vice President Chester Arthur swearing Logan in as a Senator. Unfortunately,  Arthur never did this. He wasn’t vice president at the time.

Around Logan Circle are some magnificent mansions. Look at this one.

Ulysses S. Grant lived there for a while.

Next time, we will find we are getting closer to Washington, a dynamic city, rather than Washington, the capital of the country.

I must admit that I have not read all of the criticism that has been thrown at The 1619 Project, and that I don’t intend to. But I will say this: I have just finished reading through the entire book, and I don’t find much to criticize.

The 1619 Project started out as a lengthy article in the New York Times Magazine sometime in 2019 by Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones (or was it an entire issue of the magazine?) that claimed that the central feature (or at least one of the most important of the central features) of American history was slavery, and that the lengthy and widespread historical existence of slavery in this country influences the way we are and the way we think even today. And that this history begins in 1619 when the first slaves were brought to what is now the United States, one year before the landing of the Mayflower. What’s to argue about?

Now, I understand that one may quibble with this or that incident and its relative importance or how it may continue to resonate today. But that is not what the argument that has been thrown against The 1619 Project is about. The criticism of The 1619 Project is holistic. Donald Trump, for example, told Judy Woodruff of PBS that The 1619 Project, along with Critical Race Theory, is a “crusade against American history”, and “toxic propaganda, ideological poison, that if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that hold us together, will destroy our country.” (As an aside, how many things has Donald Trump says will destroy our country, or have already destroyed it?)

Let’s make this clear. The 1619 Project is not a “crusade against American history”, and it is not “toxic propaganda” or “ideological poison”.

What is it? It is telling (I won’t even say retelling) of American history from the perspective of Black American history, and I don’t think it is easy to refute. It clearly demonstrates the centrality of Black America not only to the America that existed during the almost 250 years when there was slavery in our land, but subsequently. And how the treatment of Blacks after the end of slavery has been clearly influenced by those 250 years when slavery was permitted to exist. Things that should be obvious, and are to most or many of us, but which will be even better understood by those who take the time read through this book.

And that gets me to my next point. If I ran the Zoo, I would make this book, or large parts of it, required reading in America’s schools, because what it says is so, so important. And, although it is a fairly long and heavy book, it is surprisingly easy reading, smooth reading. They must have worked hard at that.

The book was published in 2021 and, until I picked up a copy and started looking at it, I didn’t think I would ever read it, and certainly didn’t think I needed to read it. But I was wrong. Everyone – White, Black or something else – does need to read it. (And, I should add that parts of the book deal with Native Americans and refer to Asian immigrants; this is not a “black power” book.)

The book has, in addition to a valuable preface, 18 chapters, each written by someone different (I admit not to have looked up the background of each of the 18). Their titles give you an idea of their breadth, and each of the chapters takes a general aspect of American history, demonstrates how Black Americans, slave and free, have been treated by the country in connection with each of these topics, beginning with the country’s early history, through the Civil War years, and beyond until today.

Let’s look at the chapter titles (with my brief and simple minded explanations):

(1) Democracy (how it was determined who could vote and who could not, for example)

(2) Race (how race affected how people were/are treated, beyond the question of slavery)

(3) Sugar (how the plantation system developed)

(4) Fear (how fear of Blacks influenced White reactions)

(5) Dispossession (how, even after slavery ended, Blacks had a difficult time not only obtaining, but retaining their property)

(6) Capitalism (what is the goal of our society after all, assuming there is a goal?)

(7) Politics (Blacks in politics – from Reconstruction onward)

(8) Citizenship (the Constitution didn’t define it)

(9) Self-Defense (White self defense; we are back with “fear”)

(10) Punishment (Just look at our statistics)

(11) Inheritance (the rich get richer – and not by the sweat of their brows)

(12) Medicine (it’s more than just the Tuskegee scandal)

(13) Church (what’s the real history of the Black church – why is it the most segregated activity in the US today?)

(14) Music (Black music – Black and White performers – appreciation or exploitation)

(15) Healthcare (who gets treated and who does not)

(16) Traffic (why is Atlanta so congested anyway?)

(17) Progress (two steps forward, one step back? one step forward, two steps back?)

(18) Justice.

Each of these chapters is filled with interesting facts and history. I guarantee you that, no matter how much you know about these topics today, you will gasp at some of the things you see. I guarantee you that this book will expand your appreciation of the Black situation in this country.

Now, does that meant that you will look at everything that is written and say “I agree!!”? Of course not. And you may not agree with Hannah-Jones’ concluding position that reparations are owed to Black Americans (although they were paid to some Native American tribes, and they were paid to the Japanese who were incarcerated during World War II – I did not know that, b the way), or her “easy” definition of which Blacks should be entitled to reparations.

But that is besides the point. This not central to the book or the “project” itself. And, I should add that this book does not give, or attempt to give, answers to our problems, or to the additional problems many Blacks face. This is a history book, not a book attempting to create a predefined future, or a book of predictions

But this book will get you thinking. And if you think that it is wrong in some, or even most, aspects, the thinking you will do will be worth it.

But again, let’s be clear. There is nothing in this book that sets race against race or class against class. There is nothing in this book that should lead White children to feel “guilty” or Black children to become anti-White. This book is meant to show how we got to where we are. The next steps should be better be able to understand what the next steps should be. That will be a continual discussion, to be sure, but not one that will “destroy our country”. Donald – once again, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Tomorrow, we will continue our walk up Rhode Island Avenue. That is, unless you want to talk about who Harris should select as her running mate. I still sorta like Andy Beshear.

One thing is true. I know how to avoid boredom. It’s the one thing I have learned in 81 years. I keep busy. Sometimes with little things, but I keep busy.

For example, when I eat out – breakfast, lunch, dinner or sometimes even a snack, I make a note of it, and I give it a grade. A+ is the best, C- the lowest grade. Just a note and a grade – not a review. Don’t think I am really qualified to write actual reviews.

As we are now almost 7 months into 2024, I thought it might be good to look at my restaurants experiences and give a report to you (after all, sometimes a grade gives you as much information as a review would). And, because I really don’t want to badmouth anyone based on one meal, I decided to stick with my A reviews. You might think that A’s would be rare, but actually I have given 30 As, or about 2 a week. I guess this is why I continue to eat out.

One other thing. A disproportionate number of the A grades are meals eaten when we are out of town. I think this is because a greater proportion of our out of town meals are dinners at some of the best restaurants in town. Here, we go out for dinner less often and, when we do, it is more down the street, rather than across the town.

The DC area restaurants are:

1. Villa Maya – a Tex-Mex restaurant near daughter Michelle’s house in Rockville, off Norbeck Road and Bauer. (4.4)
2. Puzukan Tan Korean Grill in Arlington (4.7)
3. Cafe of India – our go-to Indian restaurant, often for carry-out, located on Wisconsin Avenue, five minutes or so from our house. (4.4)
4. Java Nation – a coffee house/lunch spot, with two locations, one in Kensington MD on Connecticut Avenue, and the other on Rockville Pike in North Bethesda. (4.4)
5. Ambar – a Balkan restaurant on 7th Street NW in Shaw (with other locations on Capitol Hill and in Arlington) (4.8)
6. Sushi Toro – a small Japanese restaurant on Nicholson Lane in North Bethesda/Rockville. (4.8)
7. Ada’s on the River in Alexandria VA (4.5)
8. Izumi, a new Japanese Restaurant in Adams Morgan on Columbia Road NW (4.6)
9. I’m Eddie Cano, our neighborhood Italian restaurant with very good eggplant Parmesan. (4.3)
10. Fresh Baguette, a breakfast/lunch/bakery with a branch in Georgetown on Wisconsin Avenue. (4.6)
11. Mamman, a coffee shop/lunch spot in Washington’s Union Market neighborhood in Northeast. (4.1)
12. Maya Cuisine – our go-to Nepalese restaurant in downtown Bethesda (4.6)
13. Moko Sushi – Japanese next to Villa Maya (4.2)
14. Jyoti – Indian food in Adams Morgan (4.0)
15. Taco el Costalilla – casual Mexican off Route 1 in Alexandria
16. Shanghai Lounge – Wisconsin Ave (4.3) between Georgetown and Glover Park (4.2)
17. Buck’s Camping and Fishing – on Connecticut Avenue next to Politics and Prose (4.3)
18. Mother Earth Cafe – coffee, breakfast and lunch on 6th Street NW (5.0)

On our Virginia Beach trip, good food at Side Street Cantina (4.4) and First Watch (4.4). On our St. Louis trip, Oceano in Clayton (4.5), Panorama at Art Museum (4.5) and Oishi Sushi in Creve Coeur (4.5). On our recent trip to Maine, Pressed Coffe and Books in Pottsville PA (4.6), Toscana in Oneonta NY (4.7), Blue Benn Diner in Bennington VT (4.6), Chez Rosa in Kennebunkport ME (4.9), The Tides at Goose Rocks Beach (3.9), Loretta (Newburyport MA) (4.6), Himalaya in Scarsdale NY (4.7), and French Roast in Manhattan (4.6).

The numbers in parentheses are Google ratings.

Any thoughts more than welcome.

The first post in this series got us exactly one block from Rhode Island’s start at Connecticut. Let’s see how far we get with this one. We start at 17th Street and move northeast.

The first building we see on our right is the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign.

The Human Rights Campaign is a non-profit which serves the LGBTQ+ community. Their website states that they have already come out in support of Kamala Harris for President. And, although they are not a race-oriented organization,  they have adorned the 17th Street side of their building like this:

The HRC has occupied this building for the past 20 years. Before that, from 1953 through 2002, it was the headquarters of B’nai Brith and the small but excellent B’nai Brith Museum. And for those of us who remember the incident, it was the site of the attack by the Hanafi Movement,  which held hostages in the building for several days and gave Washington DC its first taste of Islamic terror.

By the way, the artifacts previously housed in the B’nai Brith Museum are now located on the campus of the Hebrew Union College in the Skirball Museum in Cincinnati.

Next to the HRC building is a flat front building, the home of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

CSIS was established, I think, as part of Georgetown University, in 1962 and became independent in 1987. It moved to Rhode Island Avenue in 2013. I don’t see much about CSIS, but a visit to http://www.csis.org will show the range of its studies and activities. In the last week of July alone, CSIS is offering web programs on  Gaza’s Water Crisis, Countering China in the Gray Zone; Lessons from Taiwan, Global Regulation of Essential Patents, and The Defense of Guam.

And next to CSIS is the Washington branch of the University of California, one of the many university branches here in Washington.

16th Street, Rhode Island Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue meet at a circle, Scott Circle. 16th Street runs under the circle.

Scott Circle is named for General Winfield Scott.

This 15 foot high statue stands in the middle of the Circle. Created by New York sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, it is said to have been the third major equestrian statue in the United States.

Winfield Scott (“Old Fuss and Feathers”) led the American Army for 20 years  prior to the Civil War. He had fought in the Mexican War and in various of the Indian Wars and, in 1852, he ran for President, but lost to Franklin Pierce.

There are two monuments on the sides of Scott Circle, one dedicated to Daniel Webster and one to Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.

Daniel Webster served as both a Congressman and a Senator, and served two terms as Secretary of State. He was a lawyer who argued over 200 Supreme Court cases, including the Dartmouth College case, which solidified the validity of contracts. Webster was an orator and an opponent in the years prior to the Civil War of the theory that states could ignore, or nullify, laws which they disliked. This bas-relief, one of two on the monument,  depicts a famous debate between Webster and Senator Hayes of South Carolina.

Two more things. The sculptor was Gaetano Trentatove, originally from Italy. And, no, Daniel Webster did not write a dictionary.

The opposite sited memorial is to German doctor Samuel Hahnemann. He was a contemporary of Webster, was German and never visited the United States.  This made him an unusual and controversial  subject for a monument. Hahnemann was the founder of the medical science of homeothopy, now largely discredited, but then pretty much the rage.

The sculptor, Charles Henry Niehaus, was born in Germany, but was living in Ohio.

Both the Hahnemann and Webster monuments were dedicated in 1900. Now, onward toward Logan Circle, three blocks away.

Let’s start out with the one thing that is clear: if the solution to the problems of Israel in the Middle East were simple, they would be resolved by now. But in fact, they are more complicated than ever, now that Israel is dealing with the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack, and now that Hezbollah, from the north, and the Houtis, from the far south, are attacking the country as well, and threatening what could amount to full scale war.

Let’s continue with another thing that is clear: Bibi Netanyahu is a very controversial fellow in his own country, for many, many, many reasons, with polling showing he is supported by a decisive minority of Israeli voters.

Let’s continue with still a third thing that is clear: Israel’s response in Gaza has (if you believe Hamas figures) killed almost 40,000 and injured more, and has resulted in physical and economic disruption at home, with hundreds in the IDF killed and many more injured.

And one final clear thing: Hamas has shown no signs of giving up and is taking a long view that eventually, if only by numbers, they will succeed.

In the midst of all of this, while the United States has greatly assisted the Israeli war effort, there is much opposition at home, some to the continuation of providing any aid, some to providing aid only under certain conditions that will alleviate the condition of the residents of Gaza. By and large, the further left an American is in his/her politics, the greater likelihood that he/she will at least want strings attached to any additional Israeli aid. Further, those who wish to make further aid contingent, or who want to stop all aid whatsoever, include Jews as well as gentiles.

What to do?

I obviously don’t know what to do, but I think I know what not to do. What not to do is to have invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to give a talk before a joint session of Congress.

In his speech, Mr. Netanyahu said (1) that Israel will win, (2) that no one in Gaza is suffering from a shortage of food, except to the extent Hamas is stealing it, (3) that the IDF is the kindest and most careful army in the world, and (4) when the war is over and Israel declared the winner, Israel will continue to control the borders and finances of Gaza for a significant period of time. In addition, he said that those in this country who protest against Israel are “Iran’s idiots” and those who do so saying they love Israel are the equivalent of those who would say “I love chickens” while transporting them to KFC. As to the 114 or so remaining hostages, when some are talking about a potential deal, all Bibi could say is that he won’t rest until they are all brought home.

In the meantime, the Republicans in both House and Senate applauded him and whooped it up, as if he were the head of the GOP and not the head of a foreign party, Likud. And the Democrats, looking uncomfortable, did not know quite what to do.

Perhaps that was the goal, this election year.

This will be a tough one for Kamala Harris (in fact, for the Harris-Emhoff family). Let’s see how she handles it.

I have two suggestions for the future:

First, no foreign politician should be invited to speak to a joint session of Congress without an invitation approved by the leaders of the majority and minority parties of the Senate and the House. And of course, none should be invited to speak to only one of the two houses.

Second, when a foreign politician speaks, there should be a “no applause” rule. Polite applause when the leader enters the chamber, okay. Appreciative applause after the speech is completed, okay. But that is it. And the foreign leader should not be permitted to bring his own guests as prompts for applause (boy, did all but one of them look uncomfortable). This is a speech, not a show.

Wonder if I am telling it like it is? Look at journalist Anschel Pfeffer’s column on Haaretz: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgzQVxlMmPDdLzvJHhNvvPKJpCQCT.

By the way, a lot is being said about Kamala Harris’ absence. Let it be known there was someone else absent: a certain J.D. Vance.

Rhode Island Avenue is one of the major diagonal streets in Washington named after a state. Named, in fact, after the smallest state, it is one of the longest avenues in the city, starting at its intersection with Connecticut Avenue NW and heading through the city in a northeasterly direction. At 6th Street NW, it begins also to be US Route 1, which – as you probably know – extends from Fort Kent, Maine (on the Canadian border) to Key West, Florida, over 2000 miles.

As Rhode Island Avenue leaves the city of Washington, it enters Prince George’s County, MD. About 10 miles or so out, it bridges above the Beltway, passes Ikea, and heads on to parts unknown. Between Connecticut Avenue and the Beltway, Rhode Island Avenue is quite interesting and I decided to explore it on foot, a mile or so at a time and create a series of posts which I hope will interest you. Each will be identified, so that you can skip them if you wish.

The first segments are the only downtown segments,  so they will look a little different from the others.

Starting at Connecticut Avenue,  the two sides of the street are bounded by two stores, each with a story to tell. On your left, you have Brooks Brothers.

Everyone knows Brooks Brothers and this is one of five stores which it operates in this area. Just two interesting points. First, founded by the Brooks family in 1818 in New York City, it is the oldest clothing store in the country still in business. Second, from 1967 to 1981, Brooks Brothers was owned by a DC based company, originally known as the Julius Garfinckel company, and has since then changed ownership a number of times. When Garfinckel bought Brooks Brothers,  it apparently had 8 stores. Now, it has 140 in the US alone.

Across the street is The Tiny Jewel Box, which is not so tiny. Its story is different from Brooks Brothers.  The Tiny Jewel Box was started by the Rosenheim family in 1930 and is still family owned. Why is it Tiny? Because when founded, it was in a little space of only 100 square feet (that’s 10 by 10). Now it occupies 22,000 square feet.

On the same block, near Connecticut Avenue, you find a monument dedicated to 600 Catholic nuns who worked as nurses during the Civil War. There were no other “professional ” nurses at the time. Many of the 600 were Irish, and this monument was approved by Congress but commissioned by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. It was not commissioned until after World War I, and in September 2024, it will be 100 years since its dedication.

The sculptor was also Irish, Jerome Connor, who had a studio in Washington from 1910 to 1925. His work in Washington include the statue of Archbishop John Carroll on the campus of Georgetown University,  the statue of Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet on Massachusetts Avenue NW, and the tomb of John Alexander Joyce in Oak Hill cemetery in Georgetown.

One other thing. After he completed the sculpture for the Hibernians,  he had to sue for his fee. Maybe they didn’t like it?

Obviously, I can’t post a photo of every building on Rhode Island Avenue,  so I have to pick and choose.

I first pick and choose this one:

This is 1701 Rhode Island Avenue NW. It’s a new building, and to me very attractive, walled of glass and copper, and standing on the site of the old (really not that old) YMCA building.  When the Y was torn down, there was a lot of opposition, because it was a popular downtown spot for gym and pool. But you cannot stop progress.

This building is now four or five years old. All seven floors are occupied by WeWork.

On the same block, you find the massive St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral. Known as the site of the funeral of President John F. Kennedy,  the cathdral was completed in 1917. It was designed by a prominent New York architect, Christopher Grant La Farge, and I believe was his only Washington project. The cathedral is the “mother church” of the Washington archdiocese and has been since 1947, when the Baltimore-Washington  archdiocese was split in two.

In front of St. Matthew’s is a sculpture by Canadian Timothy Schmalz.

It is a cast of one of six sculptures made by Schmalz, portraying the six situations listed in the Book of Matthew 25:36. When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you took me in. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was sick, you healed me. When I was imprisoned, you visited me.

This sculpture obviously portrays nakedness.

Another of his six sculptures is apparently on G Street NW in front of the headquarters of Catholic Charities.

All of these items are on one block, between Connecticut Avenue and 17th Street. We have a long way to go.

I often refer to the end of Jules Feiffer’s play Little Murders, when a father and his estranged son sit at a window in their New York City apartment, shooting random passers-by. Their wife and mother looks on appreciatively and says something like “It’s so nice to have the family together again.”

This the feeling I got yesterday watching the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.  The witness was Kimberly Cheatle, Director of the Secret Service, and the attack on her was truly bipartisan. In fact, the outrage was so universal that, if did not know otherwise, you’d often not know to which party an individual speaker belonged.

Yes, it took a terrible situation to bring the family back together.

Cheatle admitted failure in Butler Township Pennsylvania on July 13, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t describe exactly what led to the failure. Sometimes blaming her lack of response on an ongoing investigation,  sometimes on the lack of information at hand, and sometimes not blaming anything in particular, she simply refused to provide a meaningful answer to virtually any question. Not since Donald Trump’s performance at his infamous debate with Joe Biden, have I seen so many questions ignored.

Perhaps the best example of this was the series of questions asked by Virginia Democrat Gerald Connolly, who started with a no-brainer, asking Cheatle if the existence of AK-15s (and the existence of 400 million guns in the country) made the job of the Secret Service harder. This one seems pretty easy, but she hemmed and hawed and tried to say something about how the Secret Service worked in whatever conditions existed at any time, and then saying something about the Second Amendment and so forth. She couldn’t give an easy answer to a soft ball (as they say) question. It reminded me of the three Ivy League school presidents when they testified, and it was just the type of testimony that Congress members of both parties did not want to hear.

The facts seem pretty stark, although that is often the case in hindsight. Why did they let President Kennedy ride in that open convertible? Why didn’t they check the Texas Book Depository when it provided such an obvious place for a shooter? And so forth.

Yes, in every case, it is easy to look back, but today, when the 13th is still fresh in our minds, and the pieces are still being put together, some of the warnings, the general relationship between the podium and the roof, make a failure seem quite apparent. Yes, it seems clear that people saw the shooter and warned officials before the shots were fired, yet no one told Trump to stay away from the podium. No one considered cancelling the rally. And then there was the idea that Secret Service agents don’t go on sloped roofs?

Of course, there may have been some limits on what Cheatle could or should say. There is an ongoing investigation (or perhaps more than one) being undertaken not only by the Secret Service, but the FBI, and you don’t want to say something that could compromise an investigation, but there was no sign that Cheatle and those leading the investigation had talked about what could or could not be said. And you don’t want to compromise the Secret Service with regard to future activities. In other words, you don’t want to give prospective shooters hints as to how the Secret Service operates, so that they will have a better chance of avoiding being stopped from carrying out their plans.

But I didn’t get a sense that this was the driving factor. It appeared that Cheatle, who remember had to be subpoenaed to appear before the Committee, just didn’t want to tell these guys anything. Like she thought it was just none of their business.

I have no doubt that she will soon be out of a job. But that does raise other questions. The Secret Service and its 8000 agents have a lot of responsibility always, and especially in the months preceding a presidential election. Under Cheatles’ leadership, can candidates feel safe? Do they need more protection than they get, or a different kind of protection? Should outside venues be dropped altogether?

And a couple of other questions. Does the leadership of the agency really matter that much? Cheatle said that she did not review individual assignments or venues. And she made it appear that no one does. In response to questions about responsibility for individual events, she talked about different reviews from different perspectives, but made it appear that there was no one person who says: “OK, that’s it We got this one.” If that is correct, is that a failure of Cheatle’s leadership, or is that the way it always has been?

And, if a new leader is appointed 100 days prior to an election, does that harm the agency’s performance while the new leader is just getting his/her feet wet? Which is better, to stick with the unappealing date you came with, or to finish your evening with the cute guy/girl you just happened to meet?

It’s a parlous time (another new word for the blog – parlous), and we gotta be careful.

While we are all focused on the transition between Joe Biden, the candidate, to Kamala Harris, the candidate, and appalled (for a change) at the gracious statement issued by the Trump campaign, we all need to spend a little time focusing on something else. I seemed to have realized this last night, while I was asleep, because I remember five separate dreams (probably out of a significantly larger number) that had nothing to do with politics.

Here goes:

(1) I was attending a concert in a large room (not a fancy concert hall). There was a piano and some other instrument, a man and woman playing. It was a special concert with music by a relatively unknown composer. The music seemed rather ordinary and I was getting restless, when all of a sudden I saw three people (who turned out to be EMTs) running up the aisle toward the back of the room where someone was having a medical emergency (I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, though I tried).

One of the paramedics then came down the aisle towards the front, saying loudly to everyone: “sorry about this; sorry we had to turn on the lights”. Meanwhile, the music went on, but people started to leave out a side door. I stayed. The music never stopped.

(2) I received a draft notice from the army. I knew there was a crisis and that they were calling up as many people as they could, but I thought that at 81, they would leave me alone. But, no, I was being drafted, and the notice said that I had to report in a few days, that I would be in for 18 months, and that I was going to be headquartered in Alaska. I didn’t know what I would be doing, but whatever it was, I was sure it would be more than I could handle and that I would not live through my period of service.

(3) Edie and I were in a car. It was dark outside; I was driving. In front of us (not in the middle of the road) was a monument of some sort. It was like a short Washington Monument with a very ornate top. Edie asked me what it was. I told her that it’s the Washington Monument. She said it wasn’t (and of course it wasn’t). On closer look, I realized it wasn’t the Washington Monument, but I had already made my position clear. “Yes, it is”, I said.

(4) I was at a nursery admiring a large flowering plant. Somehow, I decided that the plant was a “yellis”, or something like that, so I went inside and asked to see their yellises. A very helpful woman took me out back, and showed me some very unappealing plants in pots and said “here they are”. I told her these all looked like indoor plants. Yes, she said, they are yellises. I went back out front and looked at the flowering plant and decided it would look good in my front yard. Suddenly, I was in my front yard. I had the plant. I tried to figure out where to put it. It looked no good anywhere. “This is why they have landscapers” I thought. By the way, the front yard looked nothing like our real front yard; more like the yard of the house I grew up in in St. Louis.

(5) I was in a nondescript room with a lot of people. Not sure what we were doing, but we weren’t strangers. We were part of some sort of group. I sat on the floor near the door. An animal crawled in through the front door. It looked like a manatee, but it had a few colorful red spots, and it walked on land. I wasn’t surprised to see it, because it was always hanging around (I knew that). As it walked (not really walked, but moved) by me, I petted it on its back and said, “Good to see you, Raskin”.

That’s it. Back to our regularly scheduled presidential election.

(1) Did you watch CNN this morning? I thought Jake Tapper’s guests said some interesting things. First, there was now Independent Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. While the main topic, of course, had to do with Joe Biden, Manchin said some other interesting things as well. He praised Biden for his past service and said he thought that the last 5 months of his administration could be very productive, but he thought that, as far as the upcoming election, it was time to pass the torch to the next generation. He said there were many qualified individuals, and named not Vice President Harris, but Governors Beshear (Kentucky) and Shapiro (Pennsylvania) as two of them. He also said that he “didn’t leave the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party left him.” “This is not my father’s Democratic Party.” (As usual, my quotes are not quotes, but paraphrases.)

Tapper was then joined by Congressman Jim Clyburn, who had a very different take. Clyburn, a long time Biden ally, stood by Biden as the candidate saying that he would support someone else only if Biden decided not to run. He did not say whether or not he thought that Biden should step away. But he did say one more thing. He agreed with Joe Manchin (whom he “respects” greatly) that today’s Democratic Party was not “his father’s” Democratic Party, but – as opposed to Manchin – he didn’t remember the old Democratic Party with the same degree of nostalgia. To Clyburn, the old Democratic Party was an anti-Black party, not something to be looked back upon as part of the “good old days”.

An interesting differnce, I thought. For Manchin, the old Democratic Party was simply more centrist, less leftist. For Clyburn, it brought up old memories of second class citizenship.

By the way, Manchin, who left this Democratic Party and declared himself an Independent sometime last year, said that he was waiting for the Democrats to encourage him to return. I had not heard that before, but as he is not seeking reelection, does anyone care?

(2) I finished a book yesterday titled The Fall of the Shah, by Fereydoun Hoveyda. It’s not a new book, published in 1979, almost immediately after the Shah left the country in April, and clearly before the attack on the American Embassy in November. Hoveyda was an Iranian diplomat living abroad at the time. His brother, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, was the prime minister of Iran (under the Shah) from 1965-1977, and was executed shortly after the Shah left the country.

It’s a very interesting book, showing the run up to the internal revolutionary movement which toppled the Shah’s regime. Reza Pahlavi took control of Iran in 1941, when he was only 22 years of age. He ruled with differing amounts of success over the next 38 years, often tussling with his prime ministers, including Mohammad Mossedeq, whose power eclipsed his own, and who was removed from power with the help of the CIA under invitation from the Shah in 1953. According to to Hoveyda, the Shah’s attitude and life style became more and more grandiose in the 1970s, leading to more and more resentment and to the increasing power of SAVAK, the Shah’s police force.

I am mentioning this not to go into detail (although I could) but to compare the Shah, when it became clear that he could not stabilize his control over the country, and President Biden today, who may be in a similar position. Of course, the situations could not be more different, but that is not the point. The point is that each of them started with denial that they weren’t still in control, denial that they weren’t still popular, denial that anyone else could take their place, support from their family members and from all of the upper level government officials whose fates were tied to the fate of the shah and whose loss of their own jobs seemed to be a major factor in their continuing support, and – as time went on – more and more resentment of any of their former allies who turned against them or who determined that there was not way for them to retain their position. But the Shah was adamant that all would work out well, until the day he got on a plane and flew to Egypt for “a vacation” (that never ended).

I write this to show how difficult it must be to give up power, for so many reasons, whatever the circumstances.

And, by the way, I thought the last paragraph of the book interesting: “The fears which I expressed in my epilogue are beginning to be realized. Not only has all hope of liberalization vanished, but the provisional government is leading Iran into a regime of which the fascist character is daily more marked. Its vindictiveness, intolerance and repression far surpass the excess of the preceding dictatorships, and in its hatred of the Pahlavis the new regime has destroyed even the positive advances of the last fifteen years. With each passing day economic paralysis, anarchy and corruption take a greater hold on the fabric of the nation……If the Iranian people do not wake up soon, their long struggle against oppression will be brought to an end by the establishment of a monstrous tyranny without precedent in modern history.”

(3) For those who are interested, let it be known that our new microwave has been unboxed and installed and heated part of last night’s dinner, and that our new vacuum cleaner seems to work just fine. And I must commend the Shark vacuum folks for putting together the best set of instructions of any piece of equipment that I can remember seeing. As to our microwave, which is Farberware, no instructions were necessary – take it out of the box, plug it in, put in the glass plate, and start pushing buttons.

On a different note, I must say that I got nowhere with my new Carego ear buds. I followed instructions carefully, I charged the ear buds successfully, I paired the ear buds with my smart phone successfully, but I can’t figure out how to make sound come out of my ear buds and not out of my phone. I will take a few breaths and start again today to figure this one out.

The other two pieces of equipment (the cell phone holder for my car and the TV fire stick) are still waiting for me to free them from their packaging.

At some point today, I will take a deep breath and dig in. I have five Amazon Prime purchases to debox and set up. The prospect of making each of them usable is, to me, frightening.

First, our new microwave oven. It’s in a box marked (by Amazon) “HEAVY”, but I don’t think it is really that heavy. What I recall is that the ad said it weighed 33 pounds. I should be able to handle that, even though I have to lift is rather high to get on its shelf. And then, although I measured the shelf (enclosed on four sides, and of a certain depth) and I looked closely at the measurements of the microwave, what if I calculated wrong? Or what if the machine itself is a lemon? Or what if the plug is too big to fit through the hole on the top of the shelf to get to the electric socket and, therefore, we have to redo the entire kitchen? Or what if I have to send it back and I can’t get it back in the box correctly or if I get to the Post Office or USPS or Fedex or wherever and they refuse to take it? Or what if it just doesn’t work well? A microwave bought on line (a first for us, to be sure) is a frightening thing.

Second, our new vacuum cleaner. Now, we don’t rely on our own vacuum cleaner for heavy vacuuming. We have someone come in every two weeks to do that. But there are those times when carpets need to be vacuumed. Well, I know how tall a vacuum cleaner is, unless it is built for children to operate, and the box which holds our vacuum cleaner is just not that big. You know what that means. That means that it has to be put together. And anything that has to be put together is frightening. Plus, the vacuum cleaner is a brand that I have never heard of. It’s a Shark. The names scares me, too. What if it turns on me? What if it only operates in deep salt water? So many potential problems.

Luckily, the other items are smaller. One is a holder for my phone when I am driving a car and need to look at GPS. Right now, I just set the phone down and look down and Edie tells me that this is dangerous and that it would be better if I could just look at the road. And, to be fair, I have long envied those Uber drivers who have their GPS at eye level. When I went on Prime to buy a cell phone holder, I saw that I had thousands of options and that each one, although they were priced differently, looked pretty much the same. I saw that some operated through suction and others through attachment to the heat and air conditioning vents. I struggled over which kind to get, until I realized that I had no idea. So I just bought one. I honestly don’t remember which kind I bought or whether it will fit my car, or fit my phone, at all. I also don’t know where to put it so that it won’t distort my vision, but I assume that once I have placed it securely on the car, I won’t be able to move it very easily. Finally, I did look inside the box, and see that it comes in pieces. Why? I thought I would be able to take it out of the box and just put it on the car dashboard. But it looks more complicated than that.

Then, there are my Bluetooth ear buds. Now I have lived for 81 years without ear buds, but for some reason on Prime Day, they seemed essential. I had no idea how they would work. But it seems that the buds fit into a case, and the case has to be electronically charged with the buds in the case, and they can be charged by my laptop, and then placed in my ears (and there seems to be one specifically for my left ear and one for my right ear, although I don’t know why), and then they have to be paired with my phone so that the Bluetooth will work. I will probably figure out how to do all of this. But – honestly – when will I use them?

And finally there is my TV fire stick. I had never even heard of a TV fire stick, but once I saw it on Prime Day, I said to myself (and to Edie), “that is exactly what we need”. Well, we will see if it makes our smart TV smarter. After all, that is the goal, I think. I looked at the start of the instructions which said that I needed my wifi password (that’s easy) and my Amazon Prime subscription details. I guess I can dredge those up, too. Maybe this will be a quick set-up, but based upon my experience with a smart TV, the TV may outsmart it and it may turn out to be both complicated and useless. We will see.

So, I don’t know what you have planned for today. But my day is filled.

So today started out as my usual Friday. I got up fairly early, dressed, got in my car and drove to Breads Unlimited to pick up a challah. But when I was ready to pay, things changed. My credit card was not in my wallet.
Luckily, I know where it must be, because I used it to pay for our dinner last night, and I obviously have not been anywhere since. So I am hoping that, when the restaurant opens, I will be able to pick it up. Otherwise, yuck. Once again, I will have to change my registered card everywhere I use it.

The talk about Biden drones on and on. I wish he had the courage to withdraw now, so that his heir apparent, Kamala Harris, could stop wondering what is going to happen and could receive the full support of the party so that she could mount a full campaign against Donald Trump. I started listening to the Trump acceptance speech last night, but I found it rather listless and boring and at about 11:15 I gave up and went to sleep. I don’t think I missed much. It seems that the tone was subdued, the words not so much.

And I see that the fact checkers are having a busy time this morning, as there seems to be more than 20 clear falsehoods. It’s interesting. I did listen to C-Span this morning to and from the bakery, and one Republican caller brought to mind the problem any Democratic candidate is going to have. This was a very rational sounding man, who started by saying that he just couldn’t understand why any Democrat wasn’t clear that everything was better under Trump.

He then went through a number of issues, one by one. The problem was that the facts on which he based his conclusions were virtually all alternative facts. Alternative facts that he clearly believes because Trump refers to them time and time again, and they have lost their identity as “alternative”.

The ones that struck me most were (1) illegal immigrants taking American jobs, (2) energy independence under Trump but not under Biden, (3) Americans involved in foreign wars under Biden, but not under Trump. The most difficult issues for the Democrats, though, do not involved alternative facts, but real facts – the number of unauthorized border crossings and inflation. As to the first, there is no denying – and the Democrats have not come up with a story to show that the U.S. has not been hurt by this influx, even if the number of crossings today are no longer excessive, and if the Republicans in Congress killed a workable reform bill. Trump of course is talking about a mass deportation of those who have come without prior authorization – this is something that probably is impossible to organize, even if you think it appropriate, and gives the Democrats some good talking points, but I haven’t heard them yet on this topic. As to inflation, the Democrats have talking points: you have to look at inflation world wide and the effect of the COVID pandemic in holding down demand and creating both manufacturing and supply chain issues everywhere, not only here. But they have not been able to relay these points with much success.

As to foreign involvement, I guess people really believe that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine under a Trump presidency, and that Hamas (or Iran-backed Hamas) would not have attacked Israel. Why do they believe this? I think it can only be because they want to.

At any rate, I think that the Democrats will have a very rough time, no matter who the candidate is, and that if the candidate is Biden, they will have the roughest of times.

Of course, the Democrats do have the advantage on some issues – the most important being issues related to the rights of women. A Republican administration, with a Republican Congress and even more entrenched Republican judicial system, will most likely try for some sort of national ban on abortion and national restriction on other issues pertaining to women’s health and freedoms. Because this is not a popular issue, the party took reference to these things out of the party platform as I understand it, and I don’t think they were mentioned at all during the Convention.

And then there is the questions of Ukraine and NATO. There has always been a strong isolationist strain in this country, and it continues today with the Trump party. If, as J.D. Vance has said,  we shouldn’t care at all what happens in Ukraine, someone needs to explain to the American voters the reasons that a strong NATO and a strong Europe are important to us. This will clearly be a major issue in the upcoming campaign, even if it was not really discussed at all during the convention.

Lawrence O’Donnell made a good point last night on MSNBC, I thought, although I didn’t hear the entire discussion. He was speaking generally about the Electoral College and the number of times recently, the elected president of the United States has lost the popular vote. Had popular vote winners become president, we would have a different Supreme Court because of the number of justices nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote. What kind of a democracy do we really have, he said, if we inaugurate the candidates who come in second as president, and then allow them to choose Supreme Court justices with lifetime tenure? There is a lot to that, of course.

So, buckle up those seat belts. The ride will be bumpy for a while. But we will survive.

I was half-listening to the morning call-in show on C-Span yesterday. The guest was a professor from Milwaukee (I didn’t get her name) and she was asked a question about populism. She said that in her opinion, populism was not an ideology, but more of an approach to politics. She said (and I am, I am sure, adding my own gloss in this definition) that a populist must convince a large number of people that they belong to a group which is central to the nation, and which is being ignored by the ruling elite, and therefore must fight against that ruling elite in order not only to look out for themselves, but to preserve the nation. In order to do this, a political leader must be charismatic, and must maintain a keen focus.

Okay, maybe this isn’t at all what she said. Maybe my gloss has changed what she said completely. But this is a definition that I like and that I think is helpful. And it does help explain the Trump phenomena. Of course, there is the added question about Trump himself, since by any rational thinking, Trump is not a member of the group that he is preaching to. But remember that Napoleon was born on Corsica and his family was Italian, Garibaldi was born in Nice, on the Riviera, in France, Stalin was Georgian, and Hitler of course was born in Austria. Being an outsider by birth or background does not seem to be a detriment to fashioning oneself as a populist leader.

I haven’t been watching the Republican convention religiously, although it has been on the TV in the background the past three evenings, and we have turned on/up the sound when things looked interesting. Last night, we watched more than we did on the first two nights. One thing is clear. The Republicans know how to put on a show. I remember thinking this in 2016 and in 2020, so why should it be different this year?

In fact, this year is more low-key, I think, and pretty tasteful. I have heard that the ratings have been low, that not many have been watching, and I am glad of that. But (with exceptions), the radical MAGA Republican party has been trying to sound mainstream, and I think has succeeded to a great extent.

On one night, most of their presenters were Black, or Latino, or female. This is smart. Last night, they had Gold Star family members, and the parents of a young man being held hostage in Gaza, and a recent Harvard graduate who has sued the university over what he claims is its failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitism. And they had Donald Trump’s 17 year old granddaughter Kai talking about her “grandpa” who calls her to see how school is going and gives her ice cream when her parents aren’t looking.

There were some overly partisan moments from the Don, Jr. world. His perpetual fiance Kimberly Guilfoyle gave her typical rant (scaring me to death, not by what she says, but by how she says it), and then Don, Jr. himself whose talking was filled with political nastiness. And there was Peter Navarro, fresh from prison, talking about the Biden Department of Injustice and the unfairness of his being convicted of a crime that he obviously committed.

Then came J.D. Vance. Vance has, as we know, said some absurd things during his short political career, and started out as a Never Trumper, so we know that he is not someone whose word can be trusted. This is clear (or should be) to everyone.

But none of this came out in his speech, of course. In fact, almost nothing came out. It was delivered in a slow cadence, and somewhat in a monotone. He talked about his background, he introduced his now sober mother, he spoke warmly of his gun-toting Memaw (if that is how you spell it, or maybe it was Moomaw, or Mawmaw, or Mowmow), and his cemetery plot in Eastern Tennessee. He talked about the wonderful Mr. Trump. But he really didn’t say anything controversial about his policies or plans. He didn’t mention his radical abortion position or any of the domestic social issues. He didn’t mention Ukraine – he has been very vocal about our pulling out from support for Ukraine. He just didn’t bring these subjects up.

Meanwhile, of course, Joe Biden got COVID, we saw him get on Air Force One in Las Vegas maskless, and we saw him get off Air Force One in Dover, DE maskless and looking somewhat less than half alive, as he seemed to struggle down the plane’s stairs, and across the runway to a waiting car. He even tried to muster up a smile, but could not. His symptoms may be “mild”, but they looked debilitating. Yes, for Biden it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

We will see how this unfolds. I have long predicted that Biden will not be the nominee, but time is growing short. My daughter Michelle suggests that this is the best day for Biden to withdraw as a candidate – that it should be done at the same time that Trump is speaking. Or maybe right before the speech, to make Trump’s speech about the incompetent Biden totally irrelevant. That would be clever, no doubt about it. But probably won’t happen.

But it does look like Biden cannot hang on, and that if he does hang on, he and the Democrats will lose badly, and that means four years (and who knows, maybe more) of chaos before the Trump populist cult runs out of steam. And by that time, NATO maybe decimated, Ukraine may be dismembered, China and the US may be in truly economic warfare, Iran may have the bomb, climate change may (if it already isn’t) be irreversible, and who knows what else?

The Democratic candidate will probably be Harris, and she will have a big hole to climb out of. Perhaps, she will herself back off, and give the party a new chance, divorced from the current crippled administration. (This is not to argue that the Biden presidency was a bad presidency, but it is crippled for sure at the present.) And then? The Democrats will need a charismatic ticket filled with hope and energy, will need to come up with a new border policy (one that is not afraid to criticize the first 3 years of Biden’s administration) and will need to explain the successes of Biden and the dangers of Trump and the MAGA movement and especially the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

A tall order, to be sure, but achievable. Keep your eyes on this space (as Rachel M would say).

Fulvous, enuretic, lambency, euthanasium, japanned, entoptic, limpidity, montane, comania, lemurian, tubercules, palemoniums, umbellifer, macule, hymenopteroid, geometrid, melilot, retiary, tabanid, dipterist, discarnate, uliginose, consecution, equilibrist, anastomosis, questing (not what you think), nankeen, samara, massacrous, cacologist, hiemal, hyperborean, lamel, tintype (verb), landaulet, consociative, tyro, breloque,  cuirassier, mustanger, amelus, Welsh waggle, agglutinate, isba, campanula, mandible, zoolatry, ghyll, fritillary, scud (not an Iraqi missile), palmoid, ovipositor, ichneumon, laciniate, concolorous, karakul, Cynara, chamfrained, syncopal, persiflage-misted, gloriette, self-mate, inanition, intrados, triadic, casement,  plangent, couvade, postlactic, autoid, phylogenetic.

From Speak, Memory:

None of these words are recognized by Dictionary.com. And I stopped copying them here on page 100 of a 300+ page book.

archpresbyter

gamesome

penumbral

covert (noun)

eunuchoid

archivolt

fatidic

praedormitary

hypnagogic

palpebral

photism

synesthete

aquarelles

autoplagiarism

cuneate

appraisive

omnivicarious

agarics

stipitate

pilei

lamellate

bolete

tipal

gule

botonee

gorget

clavecin

epitaphical

epigraphical

majorat

platband

racemosa

coarctation

foramen

leathern

ecchymotic

susurrous

berimed

xanthic

What did I read on my vacation? I actually finished one book, read another, and started (and stopped) a third.

The book that I completed was Robert Finnegan’s The Bandaged Nude, a 1950s mystery that I wrote about just before I left on the trip. The only thing I didn’t know then was who done it, and now that I know, I am not impressed. As one pondered all the possibilities, a new-ish character came in from left field and it turned out he was the one. That’s cheating.

The one I couldn’t finish, and I do thank friend T_____ A_____ for sending it to me was Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels, his 1975 book that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction that year. This is a book that everyone loves. But me. It’s the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, fictionalized not as to who won and who lost, but as to the emotions and conversations of the major participants. It’s just not a topic I care about (I care about what caused the Civil War, but not about how individual battles were won or lost), and I just didn’t have any interest the conversations during the run up to the war, especially as they were all made up. So, I went through a little more than 100 pages and decided that was more than enough. If you have read this book, I am sure you loved it. Everyone that I know did.

Having need, then, of something to occupy my time during our days hanging around friend N______ B_______ home in Kennebunkport (actually Goose Rocks Beach), I went to the local library’s basement book store (I had been there before) and bought a copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, much more my style.

You probably know Nabokov as the author of Lolita, and maybe more. You may know he was born in Russia (tsarist Russia), lived much of his life in the U.S., where he taught, wrote and chased butterflies. He is a clever writer, but not necessarily someone you want to have a drink with. Why is that? Not because he isn’t interesting, but because his world was so different from yours that I am not sure you’d have much to talk about.

His memoir (perhaps written for his wife? Unclear to me. And unimportant) came out when he was already a senior citizen, and it is comprised to a great extent of pieces he had written much earlier. Most of these pieces were written in Russian, translated (by him) into English, translated again from the English to the Russian (with emendations), and then translated back from the Russian to the English. He did all of this himself, which tells you (I am sure) something (but I don’t know what).

The book is only somewhat chronological. He divides it by subject matter, and some of the subject matter follows from earlier to later, but some does not. But there are chapters on his early years in Russia, his friends, his family, his schooling, winter, summer, butterflies, chess, exile, France, Berlin, Russian intelligentsia, more butterflies and more butterflies (and more chess – by the way the chess chapter is well beyond me).

Oh, and as to having a beer with him, you also learn that he doesn’t want to have a beer with you. After meeting Russian Nobelist Ivan Bunin for dinner in Paris, he writes: “I happen to have a morbid dislike for restaurants and cafes, especially Parisian ones – I detest crowds, harried waiters, Bohemians, vermouth concoctions, coffee, zakuski, floor shows and so forth. I like to eat and drink in a recumbent position (preferably on a couch) and in silence.” (I imagined him a couch potato, eating a couch potato.)

His life was clearly interesting. He was born in 1899 in Russia into a very, very, very, very rich and very, very, very important family of very, very noble people. Not only did his family have a large summer country estate (not to speak of a mansion in St. Petersburg), but each of his aunts and uncles had their own very large summer estates. At the Nabokov estate, they had approximately 50 servants, including cooks, cleaners, chauffeurs, gardeners, nursemaids, personal maids, valets and so forth.

He was an odd child, preferring his own company and the company of his butterfly net to anything else, so he was a loner much of the time, disappearing early in the mornings, and returning home in time for a midday meal. He got into trouble enough, and his intellectual ability might not have been apparent until later.

When the revolution came (his father, a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, had already been jailed by the tsar at one point), the Nabokovs left Russia. He father was killed by an assassin in 1922 in Switzerland where his mother remained, and Vladimir roamed around Europe for years until he came to America. Speak, Memory stops when he got to the United States, so we don’t hear about his years and accomplishments here.

Of course, when they left Russia, the uber-wealthy Nabokovs became the very poor Nabokovs, and Vladimir lived in Paris and Berlin, floating around intellectual emigre circles in various states of poverty, earning a little here and there from his writing.

And, oh yes, he did get to England where he studied at and took a degree from Cambridge. Another quote: “Not once in my three years of Cambridge – repeat not once – did I visit the University Library, or even bother to locate it. (I know its new place now.)”

In addition to being interested in most everything he writes about in the book, I am intrigued by the vocabulary he uses. He has an enormous vocabulary, and uses words you have never heard of in a casual way, as if they are the most common words in the world. And when he doesn’t have a word, what does he do? He just makes one up.

It’s 9:13 a.m. and I have a 10:00 a.m. meeting to go to in Rockville and I want to publish this post. Later today, I think I will put out a supplement that does nothing but show you some of the words he uses. I may even proof-read this one….something I have no time for right now.