Art is 80

As you probably know, Tim Snyder, his wife, and a third Yale professor are moving to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. “Why Toronto?”, I asked him. He responded: “I wanted to find a city that reminded me of New Haven.”

Toronto is, of course, an extraordinary city. After the Anchluss, it will be the best large city in the United States by far. Well, maybe not. It will probably have a lot of competition from Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary. You can see why Canada is looking forward to joining us.

But Snyder told me that his menage a trois (that’s French Canadian for “trio”) is not looking forward to Le Merge (that is not French Canadian for anything: it just looks like it should be), and that they will look for other cities across the world with that New Haven vibe. Believe it or not, there are very few.

By the way, as our president has signed an Executive Order making English THE official language of the United States, it is not clear what the French Canadians are going to do. They don’t want to speak the Official Language. We know that. But life sometimes doesn’t give you a choice, or as they now (but not for long) say, “C’est la vie”.

That last phrase is demonstrative of the problem that lies ahead. The fact that “c’est” and “say” are pronounced the same is a prime example of what drives President Trump both cuckoo and coucou. Yes, big changes are coming to Quebec.

One other change will be that there will be no Quebec. Canada will be only one state. It will be the equivalent of Rhode Island. That seems fair.

One other thing you may have noticed. The race is on between Greenland and Canada. The winner will be the 51st state, the loser the 52nd. Or the other way around. Whichever wins, both will become states. Canada will be our largest, Greenland will be number two. Poor Texas will flip to number 4.

And one more thing about equity. Greenland, with 50,000 people, will get 2 Senators. California and Canada, each with 40,000,000, will also each get 2. So will Caribbea.

What is Caribbea, you ask? That will be our 53rd state, combining Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone (A man, a plan, a canal, Trump), and the Virgin Islands.  There is also a move to combine Washington (now DC, but not for long) with Guam and Mars (to be known as The Great Canal Zone) to be our 54th, but I don’t think that will happen, do you? But we can dream.

Bye…

Elon Musk has apparently now paid $1 million to two young, white Wisconsin residents as part of his campaign to elect a Republican to the State Supreme Court, something which would, as I understand it, help Tesla sell more cars in the State. Musk stated that “I think this will be important for the future of civilization. It’s that important.”

I have done a little calculating. I think that, based on the current valuation of Tesla stock, he could give $1 million to about 350,000 Americans, and still remain comfortably a billionaire. Or he could hide $1 million in new Teslas over the next, say, ten years. At the 2024 rate of sales, that would be about 2,400,000 cars over the next ten years, with a $1 million gift hidden in about 15% of the cars sold. Of course, with so many opportunities to wind up with a million dollars, the number of cars sold would be greatly increased, bringing down the percentage of winners, but probably still enough to promote the sales.

In fact, why stop here? This would be a brilliant marketing device for any company, turning the US economy into a massive lottery which would raise consumption levels, benefit both buyers and sellers, and even help close the trillion dollar annual deficit for the federal government.

“Brilliant idea, Art”, you say, “But if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

We don’t have to answer that question right now. Let’s just move on.

Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I don’t think I watched any TV news. I guess what I missed was Trump saying that he might run for a third term as our president. I will tell you this: I have as much chance being elected for a third term as Trump does. This is not something to lose any sleep over. But perhaps Trump could run, in 2028, for the presidency of Greenland. I say that, without having any idea of the limitations of the Greenland constitution (or if there even is such a document), because there are only about 45,000 adults over the age of 18 in Greenland (this is an estimate based on information provided me by the friendly mental robots at Google AI). Let’s assume (Google AI could not really help me on this one) that this included 30,000 adults in two person families, and 15,000 who live by themselves. Let’s assume (for the sake of this demonstration) that everyone voted (I know what you are thinking: half of the Greenland population is always out fishing, and wouldn’t be available to vote on a given day), so Trump would need 22, 501 votes to win. Let’s also assume that the population of Greenland is less materialistic than the population of the United States and that they would be satisfied with $100,000 rather than $1,000,000.

You can do the math. Trump (even without help from Musk or Peter Thiel or any of the others) could buy presidency of Greenland in 2028, and then work to incorporate Greenland into the United States.

But, you say, there will be roadblocks. You would need the president of the United States (much less Congress and others) to agree. And you don’t know who the president of the United States will be.

Oh, but I think we do. By 2028, the Musk fortune (due to the Art-ful Tesla marketing campaign) will be growing exponentially, and Elon will have the ability to pay off potential voters once again, helping select the next president of the United States.

But who will that be? I can’t pinpoint specifically, who it will be, but I will predict this. THE 48TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE A “DEI” SELECTION!

“Art, you gotta be kidding. DEI is dead in the water.”

No, it isn’t. In 2028 it will be alive and kicking: Don Jr., Eric, or Ivanka.

(And you thought if I didn’t watch the news, I wouldn’t have anything to say.)

Geography can be a mysterious subject. Take, for example, the distance between Washington DC and Philadelphia PA. When you look at a map, it seems that the distance between the two is the same irrespective of which one is your starting place, and which one your destination. But…..through years of observation, I have concluded that this is just not so.

Going from Washington to Philadelphia is a major excursion, something you do if you have family living in Philadelphia and you haven’t seen them in a long time (you wonder why they chose to live so far away) or maybe if there is a special art exhibit (or flower show, I guess). You do it rarely.

But going from Philadelphia to Washington is like driving to the grocery story. You do it at the drop of a hat. You don’t even think about it.

Take yesterday, for example. Even though we only have tickets to 8 or 9 Nationals games, our first 2 games were the team’s first 2 games of the year, against the Phillies. The Opening Day game where the announced crowd was a sellout of 41,500, and yesterday’s attendance was announced at about 38,500. Well, truth is that (I would bet) over half of those at the stadium, especially yesterday – a Saturday, rather than a Thursday, were Phillies fans. I guess some of them live in the DC area, but many (most? I don’t know) took the short drive down from Philadelphia. Our seats are in the second deck on the third base side. That’s the visiting dugout side (it’s also the shady side). I would guess that Phillies fans on that side outnumbered Nats fans at least 2 to 1, maybe even 3 to 1.

And this is not an unusual phenomenon. For the 20 years that the Nats have now been in Washington, massive Philadelphia fans have filled the stadium. And it’s not only the stadium (this should be obvious), it’s the restaurants and bars and streets surrounding the stadium, and its the Metro going to and from the Navy Yard/Nats Stadium station.

And it isn’t only at the baseball games. We used to have Washington Capitals tickets through my office when I was working, and it was the same when the Flyers came to town. And you know it must be the case when the Super Bowl champ Eagles come, and probably when the Warriors are here as well.

But have we ever gone to Philadelphia to see the Nationals, Eagles, Flyers or Warriors play? Of course not. It is just so far away.

At any rate, the first two games have not been auspicious for those of us here in Washington. The Phillies are a better team, thanks to the three ex-Nats who are their stars at the plate: Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber. But other than that, on paper, our teams are probably not that different. We had two very strong outings from our starting pitchers (MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin), but our relief pitchers, starting in the 6th inning when the game was 2/3 over allowed 16 runs in the first two games. I can tell you one thing: if your relievers allow an average of 8 runs a game, your season is going to stink. You don’t have to know anything about baseball to know that.

Oh, well, let’s move on. I haven’t said much about food recently, because we hadn’t eaten out much since returning from our vacation. Two weeks of three meals a day at restaurants will have that result. But now we have had two very good dinners (Thursday and last night), so let’s give credit where credit is due. The first was at a restaurant called Mi Vida, located at 7th and G NW in the former Rosa Mexicano spot, right at the south Gallery Place Metro entrance. While I am told that the guacamole was too salty (I don’t eat guacamole, or anything else made with avocado), the two entrees we got were very, very good. I had the fried cod tacos, and Edie had what they called enchiladas rancheras, which consisted of open-face enchiladas smothered in vegetables and a rich sauce. There are three Mi Vidas in DC, the others on 14th Street NW and on the Wharf. You should try it.

Last night, we ate a Via Roma, which I would call a neighborhood restaurant on Connecticut Ave NW, near Calvert Street in the Woodley Park neighborhood. It is a unique restaurant in that it calls itself a pizzeria, but it doesn’t serve pizza (no, I don’t understand that, either). It serves what it terms “pinsa”, which is a Roman (not only 2025 Roman, but Time of Caesar Roman) dish which is pizza like, but does not use a dough which you throw into the air, but a dough which you press and then let ferment for three days before topping it and heating it. This makes an extraordinary crust, and the toppings on the pinsa we shared (including, if I recall, pesto, black olives, artichoke hearts, red peppers and cheese) were also perfect. If you only have that Pinsa via Romana, you will get out of the restaurant for $19 plus tax and tip. We added an anchovy and buffalo butter appetizer (you read that correctly) and two glasses of Lambrusco Secco, and made it a party.

One more thing about these two restaurants. Excellent service at both. And that is important, especially since both came right after our relief pitchers allowed 16 runs in two games. Or have I already mentioned that?

Last April, we went to Carbondale, Illinois in order to see the full solar eclipse, and it was worth it. Over the past few days, we learned there was to be another solar eclipse in DC, a partial eclipse, this morning at about 7 a.m. We still have our eclipse-viewing glasses (thank you, Warby Parker), and thought we might get up early go outside and have a partial reprise of 2023.

Last evening, I looked for the precise schedule. We decided to sleep in. The partial eclipse was to start at 6:57 a.m., be at its greatest at 6:59 a.m., and disappear in its entirety by 7:01 a.m. That’s pretty quick, but you haven’t even heard the most important statistic. The greatest amount of the sun covered by the moon at 6:57 a.m. would be exactly 1 percent.

The site of the eclipse is the Northeast. If you live in Portland ME, I read you had a 62% eclipse and it will last for 45 minutes. Worth getting up at 6:27 a.m. in Portland. But what if you are in the 52nd state? In Nuku, Greenland, the eclipse was set to be 87% and the partial eclipse will last about two hours. It looks like the Vances have left Greenland too soon.

My Googling about the solar eclipse (which, to be truthful, didn’t mean much to me) was myyway from escaping MSNBC last night, where we watched both Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. So much is going on ….. and of course, none of it good.

There were two shocking events. One related to this Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, whose student visa was canceled and who has been arrested and imprisoned. Okay, you say, she must have deserved it. Well, I don’t know. All that I have seen reported so far is that she and three other Tufts graduate students wrote an op-ed criticizing the University’s failure to follow up on student Senate resolutions regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza. If there is more, I don’t know about it. And I think I would.

But there is an additional element to this situation. No one from the government told Ozturk that her visa had been canceled. She did not know, and had no way to know. She was simply walking down the street, when she was stopped by a number of armed police officers, handcuffed, put into a police car and carted off to jail. That was it.

Ozturk, by the way is from Turkey. This is how things work in Turkey. This is not how things work here. Strike that. This is not how things are supposed to work here.

Now, Ozturk needs a lawyer (maybe she already has one; that I don’t know), and where will she turn? She won’t go to Wilmer Hale, now under a Trump sanction. She might hesitate to go to Perkins Coie or to Jenner and Block, because although their sanctions have been put on hold by District Judges, their cases are still alive and, who knows, the District court opinions may be overturned.

That leaves Paul, Weiss and Skadden, Arps, the two firms who have signed agreements with the government to, among other things, undertake a certain amount of pro bono works that support the Trump agenda. They are not now being sanctioned and can, in fact, undertake any business they want to, in addition to what they promised Dear Leader. So, all to the good, right? Not so fast. If they take a case that involves fighting the government and the MAGA agenda, such as the Ozturk case, they will probably have the sanctions slapped right back on them. So they will say “No” to her request.

But let’s say that you aren’t Ms. Ozturk. Instead, you are a corporation that has business arrangements with the federal government or is regulated by the government. Would you go to Skadden or Paul, Weiss? I wouldn’t suggest it. For one thing, you know those firms are not only in the Trump crosshairs, and they could be resanctioned at any minute. For another, you would doubt how strongly they would represent you before the government for fear of being resanctioned.

This is why I think the caving of those firms, even from a practical perspective, is misguided.

And this is why the entire law world is endangered, and with it, of course, the entire American legal system. All lawyers, whether currently under federal sanction, formerly under federal sanction, and never under federal sanction, and all potentially under federal sanction for taking and pursuing any case which puts you at odd with Mr. Trump and his minions. That’s just the way it is.

By the way, as to Ozturk, did you see what Marco Rubio said when asked about her? I quote: “We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.” Yup, that’s our Secretary of State.

By the way, it is starting out to be a beautiful Spring in Washington. The blossoms all look beautiful and are coming out at the right time, in the right order, to basically blue skies. Has there ever been beautiful weather like this before?

The answer is yes. On 9/11, the weather was gorgeous when the Twin Towers fell. And it was equally beautiful, I am told, on September 1, 1939, the day the Nazis attacked Poland.

Luckily, there is that little thing called a partial eclipse, which may – even for just an instant – mar that beauty, and thereby let us avoid another tragedy.

Yesterday was Opening Day for the Nationals’ 2025 season, and we were there. The final score was Philadelphia 7, Washington 3. That doesn’t look very good, and it isn’t, but it was an extra-inning game, tied 3 – 3 at the end of nine innings.

We’ll come back to the Nats in a minute. But first……let us return to those exciting times of yesteryear. (Did I get that right?)

I went to my first major league game during the summer of 1950, 75 years ago. I was seven, and I went with my Aunt Millie and my Uncle Jules.

(Digression: Aunt Millie was my father’s sister, Mildred. My mother was also a Mildred. No one ever called my mother Millie. Make of that what you wish.)

The game, of course, was at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, and the Cardinals were playing the Chicago Cubs. I have mentioned before that, due to the influence of my grandfather, I considered myself a St. Louis Browns fan, but most of St. Louis followed the Cardinals, and I assume that included Millie and Jules.

Like most seven year olds, I brought my baseball mitt with me, determined to come home with a foul ball. Imagine my disappointment when I found myself sitting behind home plate, separated from any possible foul ball by a screen. I had never considered that possibility.

The final score was Chicago 6, St. Louis 1. Except for yesterday’s game, that is the only score I remember after attending games for 75 years.

(Okay, let’s dig into that. I distinctly remember the score. I have always remembered it. There is only one problem. For some reason, none of the baseball statistics books, and there are many, remember any game during that period where the Cubs beat the Cardinals 6 to 1, except for a game in Chicago. That proves you can’t rely on the statistics books.)

Yesterday’s game against the Phillies showed two pitchers giving remarkable performances. MacKenzie Gore of the Nats (who struck out 13 in six innings) and Zach Wheeler of the Phillies. But the Phillies have something that the Nats don’t have – Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber. And, as you know, all three are former Nats.

Last year, the Phillies won about 25 more games than the Nats. I don’t have much confidence that this year will be any different. The Nats added three veteran starting players to the club this year (Lowe, DeJong, and Bell). These three are not Harper, Turner and Schwarber, and I do not see them helping the club win games. (I should add that Josh Bell, who was with the club previously, seems to be an extraordinary individual  and a good, but not extraordinary ball player. He is our designated hitter, but his average doesn’t really warrant that position, and I guess his defensive play doesn’t give him an edge at first base.)

I know that I know nothing, but for those readers who follow the Nats, I would have liked to have come out of Spring Training differently. I would like to have seen Stone Garrett make the team. We would have had 5 outfielders – Crews, Wood, Young, Call and Garrett. I would rotate them (except for Young) and (except for Young) would have used one of them in each game as designated hitter, still holding one to go to the outfield if necessary.

I also would have used Jose Tena as our starting third baseman, and kept Nasim Nunez as an infield utility player. Should Bell or Lowe be the first baseman? I am not sure. As to DeJong? Sorry, just no room.

Okay, it is a long season, and maybe Wood will be another Harper, etc. We shall have to wait and see.

Meanwhile…..I will skip the Crackerjacks.

I think I will continue with a few other small incidents that I remember from past years. Today, the subject is air travel.

Like most of you, I cannot even begin to think of how many airplanes I have traveled on. Many hundreds, I am sure. And most of them aren’t particularly memorable. But a few of them were.

(1) Port-au-Prince to Cap Hatien, Haiti, February 1977. It was our delayed honeymoon, a week or so in Baby Doc Duvalier’s poor, but very very safe, Haiti. After several days in the capital, we were to fly to the north of the country and its historic capital. We were surprised when we wound up at the airport (if in fact, it was an airport) to find out that we were flying on a single engine, eight passenger plane and that there were to be nine passengers. I don’t recall the airline, but the pilot looked very un-Haitian. He was probably about 25, had blond hair and blue eyes, and was very good looking. There was no co-pilot. He told us that he needed to assign us seating to balance out the plane, and he began to point to us one by one and tell us what seat we should sit in. Soon, the eight seats were filled. I had my assignment. But Edie had not been given a seat. Our pilot then looked at her, smiled, and said, “you will sit with me and be my copilot”. Hmmm, I thought. What a honeymoon.

(2) Kennedy Airport, NYC, to Madrid, May 1972.

I had just left my job with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and was about, on June 1, to start my new career as a private attorney, and I thought a month in Spain and Portugal would be a good way to bridge those two positions. I was flying by myself and was to meet a friend in Madrid for the first several days, our vacations overlapping, and we were to meet at American Express at a set time. I had never been to Spain, and was very excited, as I took my seat. It was of course an overnight flight, and the plane took off without incident. We had a steward, rather than a stewardess, which was somewhat unusual in those days, and he had given us the normal safety message, and was telling us what a wonderful flight we were going to have, what films we could watch, and what we were going to have both for dinner and then for breakfast. Finishing his speech, which he gave through a microphone at the front of the coach section, and without missing a beat, he then said: “But first, we have to return to New York because one of our engines is on fire.”

This was not exactly what you wanted to hear, and you could see flames coming from the engine on the wing opposite where I was sitting. The steward, very calmly told us that, we in fact were not going to head directly back to New York, because first we were going to fly in several circles as we had to dump excess fuel into the ocean. The dumping and the flight back seemed to take forever, we did not get our dinner, but everyone on the crowded plane seemed remarkably at ease. When we landed, I remember we landed on some sort of foam that had been spread on the runway, and we were surrounded by fire equipment. I don’t remember anything special about the landing itself, and I think we exited the plane through the regular doors and our luggage was offloaded without a problem.

It was a long wait until another plane was ready to take us to Madrid. I lost a day of the trip. And of course, I could not meet my friend at American Express at the scheduled time. By quirk, however, I did meet him the next day. Not at American Express, but just wandering down a street.

(3) DC to Greenville SC, 198?. It was a routine business trip. I was heading down to Greenville for the day (or maybe it was overnight; I don’t remember), where I had a long time client. The flight left National Airport and all was fine. Until we got in the air, and the cabin started filling with smoke. A lot of smoke. Was it a fire? Was it poison? No one, including the crew members, had any idea. Having taken off from National, we landed in about 15 minutes at Dulles. The plane was cleared, and it turned out that there had been some sort of cleaning powder left in a duct. We were able to take off after a relatively short wait.

(4) Shannon Airport, Ireland to Toronto, ONT, probably about 1990. We were returning from a wonderful trip through Ireland. Our flight was on Air Canada, with a stop at Toronto before coming back to DC. What could be easier? The first thing that happened is that, waiting at Shannon for a late night flight, the flight was delayed for reasons that were unclear and we were eventually told that there was a mechanical problem, and that another plane (currently in Glasgow) would be sent to ferry us to Canada, but that there would be an additional wait of several hours. It was by now the middle of the night, and we were stuck at Shannon. For those of you who have been to Shannon, you are probably thinking that there are worse places, because Shannon has so much shopping and so many restaurants that we would all be well entertained. What we learned, though, is that all those shops and restaurants close at night, and there is nothing at all to do at Shannon, waiting for a boarding call that could come at any time.

When the plane finally arrived and, worn out we were escorted on, we knew that we had probably missed our connecting flight and wondered how Air Canada was going to take care of us. We landed in Toronto, went through Canadian customs (I think we had to do that), and then went into the baggage claim room. It was, once again, the middle of the night, but at least the hard part of the trip was over, right?

Wrong. We (the hundreds on our plane) mulled around the baggage claim for over an hour, with no baggage, and with not a single message about the delay. It was like we had been forgotten and abandoned. Finally, we were told that the delay was because the door opening the baggage department on the plane had jammed, and it took them that long to figure out how to get in. It was now maybe 3 a.m., or something like that, and no one knew what to do. We were told to go to a certain gate and that we would be taken care of. At that gate, there was one Air Canada representative, and hundreds of passengers. It probably took us more than another hour (maybe much more) before they told us when our connecting flight would leave the next day, and that they had food, taxi and hotel vouchers for us.

As you probably know, Toronto is not a small city, and metropolitan Toronto is enormous. We expected when we got into a taxi that we would be driven to a nearby airport hotel, but no. As I recall, the ride was over 45 minutes to the other side of town, and the next morning heading back to the airport was even longer because at that time there were other cars on the road.

For the amount of time it took us to get home from Ireland, we could have returned home form Bora Bora.

(5) Moscow to DC, January 1974. I should tell you my best plane ride, I think, at this point. It was getting on a PanAm flight in Moscow after a week in the Soviet Union. The food in the USSR was so bad in January 1974, that the chicken dinner we were served by PanAm was (and still in my memory is) the best meal I have ever had. You cannot imagine how tasty it was.

That’s it.

We sat around with friends last night, basically telling anecdotes about things that happened during our lives that were “interesting”. It may be that most days, you get up have three meals and go back to sleep, without anything happening that is particularly memorable. But on some days, interesting things do happen. You may remember these days all the time, or they may just pop up in your mind now and then. My question is: how do you preserve these small, and disconnected events, so that you – and maybe your children and grandchildren – will remember them?

We ca n start with a couple of incidents from my 1962 summer in Europe with three college friends (who are still my friends today):

(1) We are driving in our rental Opel Rekord toward the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. We had rented our car in Paris, and it had Danish plates. We are minding our own business when a police car behind us starts flashing its lights, with a voice telling us to pull over. I am behind the wheel, wondering what I could have done wrong, and naturally concerned. We stop, a young policeman gets out of his car and walks to us, and says (I don’t even remember the language he used): “My wife and I are planning on a trip to Copenhagen next month. I wonder if you could give us some tips on restaurants and sites.”

We relax, laugh and tell him we aren’t Danish. He is, as you would imagine, very embarrassed and says that he owes us a favor, thinks a bit, and says: “Would you like to see the Reichstag?”

To remind you: the Reichstag is the German parliament building, burned down in 1933 shortly after Hitler took control. It was most likely a false flag operation, but blamed on Communists, giving Hitler an opportunity to increase his control over internal German politics. The Reichstag remained a ruin during the 12 Nazi years, but was occupied by Soviet troops when Berlin was freed from Nazi control in 1945. In 1962, the Reichstag was still a ruin, now within the British quarter of occupied Berlin, and not open to the public.

We told our friendly policeman that that would be great, and he said “Follow me.” He pulled in front of us, turned his siren and flashing lights on, and led us to the gate to the Reichstag grounds. He said something to the guard at the gate, the gate opened, and we were driving towards the ruined building on a road on which such travel was verboten.

We parked, walked to the building, and entered. It was a completely gutted ruin, with no internal walls remaining – only the external walls and support columns. All over the walls on the inside was Russian graffiti (the equivalent of “Kilroy was here”) written by Russian soldiers. We walked up some concrete stairs and found ourselves on the roof, along with a number of British soldiers who maintained a lookout post from which they could see over the one year old Berlin Wall into Communist East Berlin. After we were given some information by one of the soldiers about what they were looking for in East Berlin, an British officer appeared, asked who we were and how we got there, admonished our friendly police officer, and kicked us out.

To our knowledge, we were the only innocent tourists to visit the Reichstag in almost 30 years. Today, of course the Reichstag has been expanded and restored beautifully. Edie and I were in Berlin some years ago, and toured the building, now again the home of the German parliament. The Russian graffiti is no longer there.

(2) On one of our first days in Paris in 1962, we wandered through Montmarte (it must have been a Sunday), looking at the work of the many painters lining the sidewalks and streets. One in particular struck me, and I bought it.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I had probably made a mistake. There were four of us who were going to be traveling in our small Opel all around Europe for another ten weeks or so with our luggage and with two pup tents. How was I going to protect and hold onto this painting?

The answer to every question an American had in Europe in 1962 was to be found at the closest American Express office, so that is where I went, with painting in hand. The AmEx clerk was an attractive young French woman, and I asked her if American Express had a way to hold this painting for me.

The answer was “no,” but after some more conversation, she told me that she would take it to her apartment and keep it for me. All I had to do was tell her when I was coming back, and she would bring it to work that day.

I knew I would probably never see the painting again, but thought at least it would have a good home. I don’t even think I knew her name, or that I told her mine. But on the appointed day, I showed up at AmEx, and there she was, maybe surprised that I showed up right on time, and there was my painting.

Today, 63 years later, we still have the painting. The artist, Rafael Daroca Benavent, was still alive in his late 90s a few years ago. Today, I am not sure.

Yes, the perspective is weird. But there something about the design and colors…..

I am so concerned about the government’s attacks on the country’s legal system that I started a column last night that looked just like the one I wrote a few days ago.

You know the drill. Executive Orders and sanctions on law firms that have represented the president’s opponents (read: enemies), even if only tangentially.  Threats (overt and assumed) against all other law firms, making it likely firms will turn away prospective clients. Instructions to the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute firms and lawyers who take any cases that challenge the federal government, including, for example, cases involving anyone accused of violating immigration laws. Threats to bring lawyers up before bar associations for censure or possible disbarment.

And then there is the cowardice of firms like Paul, Weiss and the others who refuse to, or actually don’t know how to, defend themselves.

Then, there are threats against mainstream judges who are being called leftist lunatics and who are receiving real-time threats from MAGA lunatics. Judge Boasberg lives about 3/4 of a mile from us. Want to know his exact address? Google it. Threats to ignore their rulings, some times by actions, sometimes by inaction. Threats to impeach them.

We are a country of laws? Don’t count on it.

But, guess what? I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about eggs.

I am not sure where we stand on bird flu. Is it spreading? Is it diminishing? Will it become the norm? Prices seem to have stabled, I think, but at an inflated level. So the answer of the Trump administration is to import millions of eggs. As I understand it, most European countries have refused, but South Korea and Turkey have stepped up to the plate and Trump says prices should be back to normal by Easter. Maybe so, since the Christian calendar has set Easter late this year.

But how do you set up a system to bring millions of eggs into the country so quickly? How do you establish that health and safety standards are being met, especially as you fire Department of Agriculture inspectors? How do you set up an internal distribution system so fast? How do millions of eggs suddenly appear. Do Korean and Turkish officials order their chickens to lay more eggs, or do Turks and Koreans seeegg prices rise in their own countries, or have to cope with egg shortages? I don’t understand.

That brings me to my final topic – the White House Easter Egg Hunt. Trump is looking for a sponsor for only $200,000. Let’s see. The Jewish National Fund Easter Egg Hunt or, on a more personal level, the Adas Israel Easter Egg Hunt. But let’s get serious. How about the Paul, Weiss Easter Egg Hunt? I could go on and on, of course. But whoever decides to sponsor the Hunt will face quite a pushback. Although they will hope to create a splash, my guess is they are more likely to create a splatter.

I am sure that someone could prepare a lecture, or even a book, on the relationship between the cities of Boston and Jerusalem. But for my purposes, the only connection that is important is that they are both subjects of today’s brief post.

Let’s start with Jerusalem. Yesterday, the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies (I am vice-president) held its first in-person Day of Learning since before the COVID pandemic. Our presenter was Jodi Magness, who is a world renown archeologist, and holds the somewhat strange title of Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She had spoken for Haberman before, most recently in 2018, when she spoke about a current dig in Israel in which she was involved.

This time she gave three lectures about Jerusalem, which I think were part of a course she teaches to undergraduates in Chapel Hill. She recently gave the entire course on-line for the Orange County (CA) Jewish Federation; I listened to several of those lectures.

Jodi Magness is a personable and magnetic speaker, and the crowd yesterday at Kol Shalom in Rockville MD included several Jodi Magness groupies. Her three lectures were very well received.

I know that I can’t do her justice this morning, so I am not going to try. Yes, I am.

Her first lecture was about the early history of Jerusalem, and particularly about how the Old City, as we know it today, was an Ottoman creation, and did not represent the original boundaries of the city, which in fact included a part of today’s Old City, and the land to the south of today’s Old City walls which is now known as the City of David. She spent a long time on the topography of the city, it’s high and low places, how it slopes down from north to south, how the Temple Mount is at a very high point, and the City of David is much lower, but was the original part of Jerusalem because it was built around the water supply, a spring. She explained how, of all old ancient capitals, only Jerusalem was not built on water, nor on a trade route, but at an isolated, yet easy to defend, location.

A thousand years after King David, around the time of Jesus, Herod built a palace to the west of the Temple Mount, in today’s Armenian Quarter of the Old City, which was again on a high ridge, with the area between the Temple Mount and the palace being the region of homes of the wealthiest of the residents of Jerusalem at the time, mainly members of the Saducees, or priestly caste, some of which have been located through digs, and which were designed similar to Roman villas throughout the Roman Empire.

To protect Herod’s palace, a three towered fortress was built just to its north; one of the towers, now known as the Tower of David, remains. And, at the northern end of today’s Old City, near the Damascus Gate if you know the area, was another fortress, parts of which remain, and from the roof of which (if you are lucky enough to gain access), you can watch the comings and goings on the Temple Mount, against showing the need to build on the tops of the hills, and not in the valleys.

She spoke quite a bit about Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built about 300 years after Jesus’ death and after Constantine legalized Christianity. As you follow today the Via Delarosa, supposedly proceeding along the various stations of the cross, she showed again how this route was defined well after the time of Jesus, and that it was very unlikely that it was historically correct. She has concluded that the current path, demarked in the Middle Ages, running from north to south, is incorrect, and that the true path would have started near Herod’s palace and run north to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

She spoke of burial practices of the day, of Herod’s reconstruction of the Second Temple, of the origin of the arched support system under the south end of the Temple Mount known today as Solomon’s Stables (like the Tower of David had nothing to do with David, Solomon’s Stables have nothing to do with either Solomon or horses), and the role of money changers during late Second Temple times.

A terrific day.

Okay, on to Boston for a shout out. Some time ago, Washington Post book editor Michael Dirda wrote that, when you go into a used book store, you should always buy at least one book. That is why, when ladt month we went into the Pamlico Book Store in Wilmington NC I bought A City So Grand; Boston 1850-1900 by Stephen Puleo. A pristine copy, signed by the author.

I didn’t really have any expectations for the book, but it turned out to be extremely well written and organized, and very, very interesting.

Here goes: abolitionists, the Fugitive Slave Law, Civil War recruitment, the Irish, the infilling of the Back Bay, streetcars, suburbs, universities,  railroads, first American subway, Italians, the invention of the telephone, exhibitions. They are all here.

The book was published in 2010 and was the author’s third book about Boston.. Highly recommended.

Until tomorrow.

Once upon a time, there was a supply company in Washington called the Atlantic Plumbing Supply Company. It was housed in an old building on V Street NW. The business and the building are now gone, and on the site is a modern apartment building with a 6 screen movie theater called Landmark Atlantic Plumbing Theater.

We hadn’t been to this theater since before the pandemic, but went this afternoon to see the Academy Award winning Best Picture of the Year, Anora.

Is Anora worth four Oscars and the Cannes Palme d’Or?

I think the short answer is “No way”.

The plot line: Ani (Anora) works as a dancer/stripper/escort/prostitute at a club in Manhattan called Headquarters, which seems, at all hours, to be filled with dozens of attractive young girls and even more not as attractive male customers.

Ani, who speaks a little Russian “because her grandmother never learned English”, is taken to meet Vanya, a young Russian customer. They have “a good time” and after a few more, Vanya invites Ani to his house for a private session. Vanya, by the way, is 21 going on 12, and Ani is 23. She knew from the club that he was a big spender, but was taken aback when she saw his much too large and much too fancy house in a gated lot overlooking water in Brighton Beach. It turns out that Vanya’s father is a major Russian oligarch.

After more “fun”, all of which you witness on the screen, and is so continual that it becomes as boring as possible, Vanya hires Ani to be his “girlfriend” for a week (he will pay her $15,000 in cash up front) and he takes Ani and four of his friends to Las Vegas. They stay in the penthouse suite (at least as large and fancy as his house) at a casino hotel, and they have so much more fun that they decide to get married at a Las Vegas chapel. And so they do.

Shortly after getting back to Brighton Beach, rumors of the marriage gets back to Russia, and from Vanya’s rich Russian parents to three thugs (one of whom seems to be an Armenian priest?) who are supposed to keep an eye on Vanya.

Knowing their jobs and maybe their lives are at stake, they break into the house. After trying to keep them at bay, Vanya runs away, leaving Ani with the thugs. The film is no longer a sex film, and is now a film based on an assault and break-in, and no longer tries to be tawdry, but becomes more of an off-beat, comic invasion, as the thugs turn out to hardly be a match for Ani, who really doesn’t know what is going on, and wrongly assumes that Vanya has gone for help.

The third part of the film shows the thugs and Ani as a foursome chasing around New York in an Escalade looking for Vanya. They find him at Ani’s old club, naturally, Drunk (with a capital D), with Ani’s rival who had told her that the marriage would never last.

The fourth part of the film shows Vanya’s parents arriving from Russia on their private jet to have the marriage annulled and their son brought back to Russia. After much travail, they succeed and return to Vegas, the only place the annulment can be accomplished. It turns out that Vanya is in favor of the annulment and never took the marriage seriously (or so he convincingly says). A sadder, but maybe wiser, Anora flies back to New York with Igor, a somewhat sympathetic thug who seems like he just got into the wrong business, and who knows? This just might be the start of something big.

I could tell you more about why I didn’t thing the film very good, but it probably isn’t necessary. Let me just leave you with one question. At a time when there actually seems to be fewer direct sex scenes, and less nudity, in major films, why have Mikey Madison (Anora) and Emma Stone (Poor Things) won the best actress awards the past two years? Was it based on their acting or their bravery? And what advice does it give young actresses as they look to the future?

I am not making a moral judgment.  Just asking a question.

Donald Trump, when history will be written, will be known as the president who treated everyone fairly, and never played favorites. He will be viewed as the president who never held a grudge, who was always eager to forgive his former enemies. He will be viewed as the president who never took advantage of the bully pulpit to bully anyone.

And that would include law firms. Donald Trump would never try to extort a law firm, be it Perkins, Coie or Covington and Burling or Paul, Weiss.

All right, so much for fiction. Let’s move to the factual part of this probe.

Donald Trump wanted to punish (and I mean punish) the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison because, as I understand it, a former (yes, former) partner left the firm, moved to the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and investigated and worked on the indictment of Donald Trump for the crimes for which he has been convicted. To my knowledge, the firm itself, which employs more than 1,000 lawyers in its many offices, was not itself involved in any of this.

Yet, Donald Trump decided that Paul, Weiss needed to be punished, and issued an Executive Order saying that its attorneys could not get any security clearances and could not (I think this was in it) practice in federal buildings, and certainly could not be hired by the federal government. Paul, Weiss is primarily a litigation firm and these restrictions would cripple the firm both as to ongoing and future work, and would certainly discourage clients from engaging the firm.

When the Executive Order was announced, law experts expected the firm to stand up and fight. But it didn’t. The managing partner of the firm paid the White House a visit, and walked out with a deal with the president, who promptly canceled the Executive Order.

The details were publicized both by Paul, Weiss and the president. There were some differences in how the two parties described it. Obviously, there was no single written description signed by both parties.

The legal and journalism worlds seem stunned by what Paul, Weiss did, presumably putting its own interests over those of society at large.

I think it was a Hobson’s choice, and I am not giving an opinion now on whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. I am going to make a few points.

First, Paul, Weiss had to think not only about its future business, but it had to think about its present clients. If suddenly, Paul, Weiss’s ability to continue matters it was currently involved with was compromised, where would it leave its clients? Secondly, while I heard George Conway say that he would have resigned from a firm that caved like Paul, Weiss the very next day. Well, maybe and maybe some lawyers will, but active lawyers can’t simply leave a firm for the same reason. They need a place to go. Otherwise, what would happen to their current work and clients? Big cases need large teams; you can’t just move across the street without a lot of preparation. And, who knows? Who knows if Trump would just follow you across the street and punish your new firm just for taking you in?

Other problems relate to the discrepancies, as I understand them, in the two versions of the deal. Paul, Weiss says they agreed to merit hiring, and the White House said they agreed to no DEI. Those are different standards, and how will the White House determine if Paul, Weiss is in compliance? Secondly, Paul  Weiss agreed to perform $40 million of pro bono work. That seems like a lot, but it is probably about what they do now. But from here on, the work must involve representing a variety of clients, including conservative as well as liberal clients, but according to the White House, must support Trump initiatives, at least in part. The Paul, Weiss description does not mention White House initiatives.

So, there’s the rub. Paul, Weiss takes a pro bono matter. Do they have to report it to the White House? Or will there be an annual White House report and audit. There is, of course, such a thing as lawyer/client privilege. Will Trump expect Paul, Weiss to violate it? Will Trump expect Paul, Weiss to let DOGE look at its books? And how do you balance representing both liberals and conservatives (just to be simplistic for a minute)? Everything doesn’t fit into those categories, and a law firm has problems if they take two matters, otherwise not connected, and their lawyers have to argue opposite sides of a single issue. I only see problems ahead.

Two of the best scholars of historic and contemporary Fascism are Tim Snyder of Yale and Ruth Ben-Ghiat of NYU. They both say you can’t successfully fight Fascism by making agreements with the Fascists to avoid punishments. It only emboldens the Fascists. Okay, Fascism is just a label, somewhat ill-defined, and it may or may not really apply here. But you know what I mean.

One more obvious point. Most everything I say here applies to universities, too.

Down we go.

I have been writing this blog every morning since November 15, 2022. On most days, when I sit down to write, I know what I am going to write about. Something strikes me as important enough to put down on paper. This is not one of those days. I have no idea what I am going to say.

There is so much that I am unhappy about. Some is personal, some is global. I normally stick to the global, but I am going to rant about the personal first.

As I reported during our vacation earlier this month, Edie’s cell phone disappeared somewhere in South Carolina, where it now must lie. But we couldn’t find it, either in the car (where she first noticed it was not in her purse), nor at the restaurant where we had lunch (where we know she had it), nor the coffee shop where we stopped an hour or so later. It just disappeared.

We decided to wait until we got home to get a replacement, and we went to AT&T and bought a replacement iPhone. The store was out of the model we wanted, so it was ordered, and we were told it would be delivered either Monday or Tuesday of this week. Of course, it didn’t work out this way, and it wasn’t delivered until Thursday. (By the way, Apple ships through UPS, and requires a signature when a phone is delivered, so it meant that each time when we were told the phone would be delivered, someone needed to be home, only to find out there had been a delay and a new estimated delivery time).

The phone came yesterday, and we took it back to AT&T, who had told us that they would help us get it set up. They started by asking Edie her iPhone password. This seems to be necessary to make the phone operative and to be able to move everything from her iCloud account to the phone. She had it written down in her password book, so this seemed easy. She gave AT&T her password, they did what they did, and they told us that this password did not work, that it must have been changed at some time. They then told us that this was an Apple problem, not an AT&T problem, and they there was nothing they could do for us, and we needed to go to an Apple Store, where they would take care of it. We were pretty unhappy, thinking that at the beginning, AT&T should have told us to go to the Apple Store, not to come back to them.

But, Okay, we went to the Apple Store in Bethesda directly from AT&T in Friendship Heights. We were met by an agent (I was surprised there was no wait – that seemed good), and told him our story. He took the phone, put in Edie’s password, and it worked fine. We don’t know why it didn’t work at AT&T, but did at Apple, but that was good…….until they told us that in order to download everything, a second verification was needed. Normally, this would work through a text to the phone number, containing a code, but when the phone has been lost, the phone number is not available. We were told that if we needed to get things reset, we had to contact someone by telephone at Apple, that they were not able to do it at the Apple Store. “Huh?”, I wanted to say, but realized it wouldn’t do any good. He offered to give us the phone number. How nice of him.

But then he asked if we had any other Apple devices. Because I detest Apple based on years of experience, my phone is an Android and both of our laptops are PCs. But we do have an Apple tablet, and I told him that (my mistake), and he told me that we didn’t have to call anyone. He pushed some buttons on Edie’s phone and said that we could get the code when we opened the tablet at home. Of course, when we got home and opened the tablet, I couldn’t find any code or anything else sent to us, and couldn’t even figure out where it could possibly be.

But I went back to Edie’s new phone and started clicking on things about how to receive the needed code, and finally got to a place where they allowed me to put in a second recovery phone number, so I put in my phone number, hoping that I had actually solved the problem.

But, no….

I then get a message on Edie’s phone that it will take them 24 to 48 hours to verify my phone number, and that there is no way to shorten the process, that there is no use calling Apple Support, that we just have to be patient.

So, we are 24 hours into that 24-48 hour period, and I have no confidence that I am going to get a code on my phone by tomorrow, but also realize that we are paralyzed and cannot do anything until the end of that period.

Meanwhile, no one can call Edie on her phone, and she can’t call anyone. If she goes anywhere by herself, she has no phone with her if anything problem arises. She has no idea what calls she has missed over  the past three weeks without a phone.

I have always felt that Apple was an evil company. Not like Facebook or X, which are morally corrupt, but just technologically evil. I understand that people who are tech minded find Apple to be the cream of the cream. But you sure can’t prove it by me.

That’s it. I don’t know if Edie will ever have a phone. If anyone can help us, I have only one message: HELP!!!

My complaints about the rest of the globe will have to wait.

Oh, yeah. The answer to the riddle: I like apples, but not Apple. You probably already figured it out.

I ask this question not being sure of the answer. Let me explain:

For almost 45 years, I was involved with Federal and other government programs designed to provide affordable housing throughout the country. I started my career working for the City of St. Louis, moved to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and, for 40 years, dealt with these government initiatives as a private lawyer.

Throughout this time, I often found the federal and other government programs, and the administration of those programs, to be problematic, to say the least. Yet, either as I tried to work with their complexities, or as I represented clients who were tussling with them, I always actively supported the role of the government as an essential player in the housing and community development world. Was I deluding myself and simply engaging in cognitive dissonance?

The United States has always prided itself on the amount of “decent, safe and sanitary” housing available across the country, and the size and general quality of what an average family can afford. Of course, today, we find this pride tarnished a bit because of inflation, the continuation of homelessness, and the high subsidy costs (and therefore the diminution) of federal housing programs when government budgets are so stressed. But, nevertheless, this country has a lot to be proud of.

If there were no government programs to support housing, things would look very different. Entities like FNMA  provides a market for the securitization and creation of a market for mortgage loans, the Federal Housing Administration, the Farmers Home Administration and the Veterans Administration insure individual mortgage loans, and the Department of HUD and other agencies provide direct below income loans to developers and public bodies, or subsidies enabling families to pay rents at levels they could not otherwise afford. All this is crucial.

Of course, it would be nice if all government programs were perfectly designed, adequately funded, and run by government officials who were competent, patient, understanding, and unbiased. But guess what? Most programs don’t meet any of these qualifications.

What made this country work in these areas as well as well as they have has been the interaction between the private sector and public officials. And, in this regard, I usually (not always, but usually) felt that the private participants were more on the ball than the public officials when it came to particular projects, and I felt that the public officials were often overly suspicious of the private participants, thinking that they were trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

I understood this feeling, having worked at both the local and federal levels, and realizing how little government employees in the agencies dealing with housing programs really understood about the private participants’ motivations and needs. I know how little I understood before I joined the private sector myself.

On the other hand, the private participants often had no idea of the financial, time and programmatic limitations and pressures the government representatives were under, whether  because they were given constraints by their supervisors, or whether funding limitations that the private sector just couldn’t understand, and so forth.

In other words, the private and public representatives really did live in separate worldss, but were trying to work together with a high degree of misunderstanding and suspicion.

And, as you can see, between developers and managers on the one hand, the government regulators on the other hand, there was a kind of partnership between them.  And when there is a public/private partnership, it is ofyen the public partner that is the less reliable, as government programs, can so abruptly change or disappear

Without government, essential things can not be done. Working with government, there will always be misunderstandings, disagreements, and constraints. Of course, all should strive to make things go ever smoother. But the conflict is built into having these two worlds have to work so closely together. It is just a price that has to be paid.

So I could spend my days trying to get my clients’ positions to be understood by government officials, to rid these officials of suspicion about what my clients are really trying to do, and to rail against government workers who just don’t seem to get it. I can complain about the limitations of the programs, or the inadequacy of the funding.

But I never wanted to get rid of government. I never expected government officials to violate their own standards just to make my clients happy. And I thought the overall process may be too time consuming, too anxiety promoting, or unnecessarily complex. But as I said, that’s the price to pay.

So I am pro-government, yet I think that government actions are often wrong. I don’t think this is really cognitive dissonance. It is just life.

Did I make any sense today at all?

A child throws a raw egg at a wall, and it splatters. An angry parent yells at the child and says, “Get that egg off the wall, put it back together, and put it back in the carton.” The child says “OK, but I hate you”, but does not put the egg back together, and takes all the eggs out of the carton snd throws them at different walls, yelling “Bad egg. Bad egg.”. The parent realizes he/she can not control the child and decides to get someone else to put the eggs back together. No one can. The eggs keep flying, and you can’t put an egg back together.

Welcome to the United States of America.

Yesterday, courts told Trump he had to reinstate all USAID employees, and that he couldn’t summarily preclude trans people from serving in the military. Another asks more questions about sending Venezuelans to El Salvador without any semblance of due process. Trump says he will follow the courts’ orders and that he hates the judges. He will do nothing. No one else will or can do anything, either.

Welcome to the United States of America.

DOGE raids the Institute of Peace. The Institute of Peace does not let them in and calls the police. But someone else has called the police. The terrible, horrible , no good, very bad US Attorney for the District of Columbia also calls the DC police. The police respond only to the US Attorney, and kick the officials at the Institute of Peace out of their offices, allowing DOGE to enter. Say, what?

I don’t understand the Institute of Peace, which is a non-profit founded by Congress and funded by Congress. It claims that it is not part of the executive branch and that its employees are not government employees. Its directors are approved by the Senate, but include certain specified executive officials, like the Secretary of Defense.

Wouldn’t you think some process should have been undertaken to determine whether DOGE had any authority? This certainly was not an emergency. I think the police need to explain their actions.

The Institute of Peace website, interestingly, boldly states that their activities are consistent with the America First agenda. Weird. And what do they accomplish, anyway?

Speaking of peace, how is Donald doing? How are things looking in Ukraine and Gaza? Those were to be his easy fixes. But maybe he’s too busy bombing Yemen? That will work out well, I am sure.

Donald Trump probably thinks he is smarter than Vladimir Putin. Or if not smarter, at least as smart. He thinks that they can divide up a large portion of the world and then align with China, the three countries controlling all parts of the world that are really important. We would then wind up with a world split into four parts – the America Zone, the Russia Zone, the China Zone, and the Subordinated Zone, a zone dominated by the other three. Donald Trump thinks, as to the three major zones, the American Zone will be the strongest both because it is, and because it will remain so (because of the talent of Elon Musk) even in the unlikely case that Donald himself will turn out to be mortal.

Donald Trump may or may not know this is what he thinks, but take my word for it – this is what he thinks.

Ukraine is clearly in Russia’s zone. This is why the invasion of Ukraine is not something to be condemned, and the effect on Ukraine of a peace that would see 20% of its land mass become part of Russia is no problem. The same would be true if Putin decided to move west into the Baltics, or Belarus or Moldava. These countries are rightfully part of the Russian Zone. The remainder of Europe is of little concern; it is in the Subordinated Zone.

Just as Putin invaded Ukraine, the United States may be preparing to invade Greenland, Panama and perhaps even Canada. These places are all part of the American Zone, and he would expect Russian support and Chinese neutrality. China, in return, would not be opposed if it invaded Taiwan, of course.

Two major questions remain. One has to do with the two Koreas. We know Trump has a crush on Kim, and believes Kim loves him back. But we also know Korea falls naturally into the China Zone, so we will have to see how the three major zones work this out.

That leaves the Muslim world, not worthy of its own zone, but a large area that must be reckoned with. Trump believes that he can, in effect, bring Saudi Arabia into the American Zone, and that he can work with Russia and China to put the rest of the Muslim world into the Subordinated Zone.

And Israel? Israel is obviously a special case. Too small to be its own zone, Israel will also be part of the American Zone, with American protection. After all, God is not neutral in all of this. God has two favorites, America and Israel. And with God’s backing, what could go wrong?

That isn’t a rhetorical question. What could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes, when you go to see a play, you wonder why you spent both the time and the money. Sometimes, you come out of a theater pleased, having seen a good show. Rarely, you come out of a theater and say: “Wow. This is what theater is all about.” Today was one of those days.

We have a subscription to Washington’s Shakespeare Theater, one of the city’s preeminent theaters. This afternoon, we saw Kunene and the King, written by John Kani and starring John Kani and Ed Gero. If you live in Washington and tend to go to Shakespeare or other top DC theaters, you probably know Ed Gero, who has been performing her for about the last 40 years. But do you know John Kani? I must admit I didn’t. Or at least I should say that his name didn’t trigger any response.

John Kani is three months older than I am, and looks like he is 65. He is a South African native Xhosa speaker, who became an anti-apartheid activist, was beaten up when he was in his 20s and left for dead in Johannesburg, saved by a White doctor whom he has never been able to identify. He had been stabbed eleven times and lost his left eye in the process.

At a young age, Kani worked with white South African playwright Athol Fugard (who died just a little over a week ago at 92) to write Sizwe Banzi is Dead, which he also starred in. He has been a champion of South African theater, a Shakespearean actor, a Black South African cultural leader and much more. Googling him will tell you a lot.

But back to the play. “Kunene” is the Xhosa word for “truth” and “King” is “King Lear”. In other words, the play is about facing the truth and embracing culture (both English and South African).

There are two main roles. Jack is an aging, white South African Shakespearean actor, just diagnosed with terminal Stage 4 liver cancer. Lungo is a Black, male nurse who has been engaged to care for, and live with, Jack until he “gets better”. They have both spent their entire life in South Africa, but they have never lived in the same country, and their relationship is a challenge.

But they do have something in common– Shakespeare. Jack pretends he will be able to fulfill his obligation to play Lear in Capetown in several months. Lungo helps him prepare, tells him that he once performed in Julius Caesar, but in Xhosa.

Their relationship goes back and forth, depending on whether, at a given time, they see each other as two human beings or as a representative of White or Black South Africans. The play is funny and sad and deep, and beautifully written.

As far as I know, wherever this play has been performed, including in South Africa and New York, Kani has played the role of Lungo. But there have been several Jacks and several directors.  So, each time, even though the playwright has not only been present and played a lead role, the performance has been different.

But I can not imagine it better than this. No one could be a better Jack than Gero. Playing a sick man is difficult, and Gero can actually make himself look sick and then immediately take on a healthier appearance. He can writhe in pain and then start to dance. His soft, calm voice can scream and become highly agitated and in a second turn soft again. Both roles have a high degree of physicality. A lot for actors who are far from being spring chickens.

The show closes one week from today. See it if you can.

Changing subjects, yesterday I mentioned three podcasts that I recommended. One on Ezra Klein’s YouTube channel, one from Politics and Prose, and one with Andrew Weissman and Joyce Vance. I still recommend all three.

And now I add a fourth. A post from two days ago on the Foreign Affairs channel festuring Fiona Hill. She gives an overlay of the state of the world, and it’s a bravura performance. The US, Canada, Greenland,  Panama, Europe, Russia, china, Taiwan…..they are all included. What you see is how interconnected everything is, and how much can go wrong through misunderstandings or miscalculations or just plain mischief. In the course of an hour, you will see today’s world from a global perspective, and you will learn much. And you probably won’t be able to sleep for a week.

If you read yesterday’s post, you may remember that I was very mixed up as to the day of the week since we got back from vacation on Wednesday. I hope to straighten myself out soon, and I know that, as I write this, it is Saturday night. Other than a visit to see Michelle, we stayed home today, the telephone didn’t ring (none of the telephones), and it was very quiet.

A couple of accomplishments:

(1) I heard a podcast with Gillian Tett, a trained cultural anthropologist who writes for the Financial Times talk about Donald Trump (she was speaking with Ezra Klein). She seems very bright, speaks very well, and believes that Donald Trump is motivated, pure and simply, by POWER.

(2) Then I watched a video of an author presentation at Politics and Prose with Michael Wolff, speaking about his fourth book on Donald Trump, All Or Nothing. Wolff, who has been (most surprising to himself) writing about Trump now for a decade, knows all about Trump and believes that Donald Trump is motivated, pure and simply, by a craving for ATTENTION.

There you have it. Two experts, two different Trump motivations. And clearly neither of the motivations have to do with the good of America or Americans.

(3) Then I watched another podcast, this time a conversation between two MSNBC legal analysts, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, and former FBI General Counsel, Andrew Weissman. This one was basically just an enjoyable conversation between two friends. They really didn’t talk about Trump. They talked about the first time they met, about their admiration for former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, about how much wine Andrew Weissman drank over the course of the pandemic, about Joyce Vance’s 12 week old German Shepherd puppy, Elsa, and mainly about the book that Vance is now writing about what to do now that we are in so much trouble in order to restore democracy. I learned that Andrew Weissman thinks he is a bad dinner guest because all he does it ask too many questions of the other guests, and that neither of them are natural book writers. As Weissman said regarding his book, when he describes a meeting, he says something like: “We had a meeting and three things were decided.” His editor then says: “And how did you feel about that?” And Weissman says “Huh? How did I what?”. [obviously, I paraphrase]. It is a remark I identified with. He says it’s the result of legal training. I say it’s a characteristic of someone who decides to become a lawyer.

What else happened today? I did watch the Capitals/Sharks hockey game. Alex Ovechkin scored one of the Caps’ five goals, and is now only eight goals shy of Gretzky’s record. Final score: 5-1.

What else? I made a pasta dinner, and did not burn the spaghetti. Actually, my biggest dinner accomplishment was finding the oregano. I did not wash the dishes.

I spent about 45 minutes on our exercise bike, and we ended the evening by watching Episode 4 of Who Is Erin Carter? My guess is no one else has watched that series. We now know who she is, which is more than I can say for her husband, unless he has seen the series himself.

And, oh yes, I started a book. The first one that I started since we got home. I did read one short book while we were away, Alejandro F. Pascual’s Key West: Passion for Cuba’s Liberty. Yesterday, I started A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis: Boston, 1850-1900 by Stephen Puleo. I read the first four chapters of the book (101 pages). They were about: Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston; The coming of the Railroads, Clipper Ships, and horse drawn street cars; The arrival of the Irish to Boston; and Filling in the Back Bay. Having spent four years in Boston, I find it all very interesting.

But now to bed.

I went to Breads Unlimited yesterday and bought a challah for Friday night and some hamentaschen for Purim. The bakery has a special on apple pies for Pi Day, Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, even cookies shaped like Easter bunnies. I looked for the Ramadan specials, but they were nowhere to be seen.

We had dinner last night at daughter Hannah’s house. The DC public schools were closed Thursday and Friday for teacher conferences, and 9 year old Joan was embarrassed to be thinking that she had school the next day, forgetting she was on a four day weekend.

But I am with her, totally confused as to what today is. On a 2 week vacation, days merge into each other. We got back on a Wednesday afternoon, went to the nightly minyan for Edie’s mother’s yahrzeit, and the next night back to the synagogue for Purim, after having our 4 year old grandson at our house all day since he had no school.

I woke up this morning, thinking of all of yesterday’s news, and my reaction was: wow, they sure did a lot yesterday, considering it was Sunday. Will Ivever straighten out?

A lot did happen yesterday. Unsurprisingly,  nothing good resulted, at least as of yet, from negotiations to end the wars in the Middle East or Ukraine. Trump, who promised peace in His time, has pretty much left Israel out of Middle East talks and Ukraine out of Ukraine talks. He has also kept any experienced American diplomats out of those conversations. So far, things are worse, not better. Surprise!

Then, there was a court decision in Trump’s favor, saying that He could shut down DEI offices. I don’t find that surprising, as neither the Constitution nor, to my knowledge,  any statute require a DEI office. But, and I haven’t heard any details about the decision, there still needs to be compliance with Civil Rights laws and the 14th Amendment. And with Trump’s base being White Christian Nationalist, there is an assumption that the 14th Amendment will be lost in the weeds, and the definition of discrimination will be turned on its head. The best example, perhaps, being the dropping of the case against the petrochemical company in Louisiana because the pollution victims are Black and a claim that the basis for the case was DEI. As I said yesterday, “Yes, you read that right.”

In the meantime, Trump spoke yesterday at the Department of Justice. He apparently spoke for an hour. I saw only a short clip, showing Him making a few misguided statements to the repeated applause of the DOJ audience, which really surprised me. I then learned it was an invitation-only DOJ crowd. Any dissenters could dissent somewhere else.

The speech was highly political, even though Trump and Bondi promised no politics at DOJ. That was not surprising. Trump declared Himself the country’s chief law enforcement officer,  I understand and set out a list of nefarious tasks He wanted to see accomplished.

Perhaps the worst thing He did yesterday was to take away security clearances from the lawyers at Paul, Weiss, another major law firm. He had just been raked over the coals by a federal court for doing this to lawyers at Perkins Couie. Told he could not do this in no uncertain terms, He went right ahead and did it again. This may be the first real indication that He will simply ignore court rulings He doesn’t like.

Our country is being upended by a man who believes in power and not in law. It is as simple as that. The goal of MAGA is greatness as defined as untamed power externally and internally. What could be more un-American?

I do not think He will succeed in the long run. Dictators tend to wind up on the ash heap, destroyed without pity. Their place in history is far from glorified.

We don’t yet know how this will happen. But, Mr. Trump, you should beware the Ides of March

As I understand it, the Continuing Resolution that the Republicans are putting before the Senate would keep the government “open” for six months, giving Congress a further opportunity to adopt a budget and certain other essential bills. In the House of Representatives, not one Democrat voted for this CR. What will happen in the Senate, where a vote is scheduled for tomorrow (the day before a shut off would start), is unclear. There needs to be 60 votes to end a filibuster, and it had been assumed that the 60 vote threshold would not be met.

But, surprisingly (to me, at least), Democratic leader Chuck Shumer has said that he will vote for a terrible CR, rather than let the government shut down. But the CR is not really a CR, as we have known it. A normal CR says that there will be a time extension where the existing spending levels would continue. But in this CR, there are changes to spending levels of all sorts, including spending by the DC government for such priorities as police (yes, the GOP wants to defund DC police), the fire department (and that includes EMT services), and the public schools, even though all this spending comes from DC tax income (that would be my money).

The majority of Democrats, I am sure, will vote against this CR. But Shumer, unless someone convinces him between now and tomorrow afternoon, will support the CR as an alternative to a shut down.

Obviously, neither position is a good one. It is a lose-lose. But I would rather lose in opposition to the Trump White House, rather that in collaboration with it.

The unnecessary reduction in permissible DC spending leads to a question. Why is this occurring, as it doesn’t even affect the budget? The answer seems clear. While DC residents are hopeful that one day, DC becomes a State, the Republicans of the world are hopeful that one day soon (really soon), DC will not only not become a State, but will lose its 50 year old Home Rule rights, and rather than being led by an elected mayor, would be controlled by a commission appointed by the President.

Again, because 60 votes would be needed in the Senate, this is unlikely to happen. But even without this, Trump will take the position that He can run the DC government by Executive Order or fiat, and will try to do so. His success, I am sure he feels, will be influenced by his ability to convince everyone that DC is competent to run itself. And one way to do this, is to make unilateral cuts to federal funding of DC or to pass laws which restrict DC’s funding or authority on a piecemeal basis. This CR is Step 1 in this process.

While ensuring that DC residents cannot receive the benefits that other Americans have (like controlling their local environment), Trump today is expressing determination for American dominance in other ways. He is doubling down on Canada becoming a State (won’t happen, of course) by threatening tariffs and more if it refuses, he is putting together military plans to take over the Panama Canal, and he is saying that he will annex Greenland, and capture half of the rare mineral wealth of Ukraine. As to the future of current American territories, like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Island and the various lands in the South Pacific, he is silent. Just like he is silent as to whether citizens of Canada and citizens of Greenland would automatically become citizens of the United States, rather than have to go through individual vetting.

Yes, this brave new world is certainly exciting. And we cope with it as best we can, day to day. And, today, one of the ways we cope with it is to hear the Magillah Esther read on the holiday of Purim, and boo all references to the evil Haman (who perhaps has his counterpart in today’s America).

At Adas Israel tonight, the Purim Spiel (traditionally a comic and/or musical skit) was done very professionally. A large crowd (it looked like it filled the sanctuary, which has just under 2000 seats, if I recall correctly) was on hand. And the reader of Chapter Six had his assistants.

Whenever I return from a vacation, I am usually happy driving back into Washington. The city always looks beautiful, no matter the weather, and it makes me proud to be a resident.

But yesterday, when we drove back from our 13 days away, I had a very different feeling. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining, daffodils were blooming along Beach Drive near Rock Creek Park, and I couldn’t enjoy it at all. I felt burdened, and sad. The city seemed a tragic place, and anything I saw that looked like it was something new seemed to me that it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Bad.

And then I thought about it. Everything that has happened since Donald Trump got into office has been bad. I can’t think of one good thing that has happened. And I, like everyone else, has not figured out what to do about it.

Watching MSNBC last night was so depressing (yet important to see) that I turned on Newsmax to see how they were reporting the news. Not for long, but long enough. I saw two things. First, I saw that even Newsmax could not help but noting that things were not really going swimmingly over the first six Trump weeks. And of course, even Trump realizes that. But that does not mean that they are admitting that mistakes have been made, or even that a single mistake might possibly have been made. Their response to Trump era problems are twofold: first, you can’t turn the Titanic on a dime. Second, it’s all Biden’s fault.

They had Tommy Tuberville on, the Alabama Senator who was clearly a better football coach than public statesman, and he spoke for several minutes talking about how it was just going to take time to move the country in the right direction because, after all, Joe Biden was such a terrible, corrupt, criminal and demented president, that unraveling what he did was not easy.

And then the host of the show (maybe his name is Michael Schmitt?) began talking about Joe Biden’s use of an auto-pen to sign various documents, showing identical auto-pen signatures and comparing them to a document hand signed by Biden. For Schmitt, this proves beyond a reasonable doubt, that Biden was too sick even to sign a document, showing that his dementia had made him a hollow president relying on the real president (an unidentified man, a Deep Throat from the Deep State), who was the real president during the Biden term. And, according to Schmitt, the use of an auto-pen to sign things (even Thomas Jefferson had one, right?) by Biden was perhaps the biggest scandal in American history.

And back to MSNBC. Showing a Republican House committee chairman calling newly elected Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, a trans woman, “Mr.”, and insisting that he was correct in doing that. And then there is reporting that Donald Trump, having wasted money sending “illegals” to Guantanamo Bay (in Cuba) in shackles (to the tune of $16 million), has now brought them all back to the country, and is housing them elsewhere. He was under criticism for taking them out of the country, many calling it illegal. And now they are back.

In this regard, you may also remember a gloating Marco Rubio saying that El Salvador had agreed to house American prisoners in its 40,000 prisoner facility in the mountains of that country. Of course, no one has been moved there, and I am pretty sure no one ever will be.

And then there is Mahmoud Khalil, the supporter of Palestinian rights who strongly has opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza, and been a leader (making speeches, not doing anything physical) of the protests last year at Columbia University. He was arrested by ICE officials, even though he is a Green Card holder with First Amendment rights, without any charges being brought. He was then shipped out of New York to Louisiana, where he cannot communicate with his lawyers and where the government thought they would get a more sympathetic judge to defend against Khalil’s attempt to quash the arrest. I have read a fair amount about Khalil, and do not think he is a national security threat at all. But the government will argue that courts cannot review national security threats determined by the president.

Yes, there is more. There is the attempt to destroy the law firms of Covington and Burling and Perkins Coie, a few of whose lawyers assisted Special Counsel Jack Smith and others, by denying any of their lawyers security clearances, cutting off their representation of any parties whose cases involving the government which might involve matters of secrecy, and making it clear to clients and potential clients that hiring this firm would not help them reach a settlement in their cases. An apparent blatantly unconstitutional act, which would mean that any lawyer or law firm could be destroyed at the whim of a president.

The president yesterday went further in his destruction of the Department of Justice, and  fired half of the employees of the Education Department, and a quarter of the employees at NOAH. The Education secretary said that they didn’t fire any of the “best people”, and the leader of the employee union at the agency said that, basically, they fired the people of color and left the whites in place.

After there were firings at the Office of Personnel Management, where also all of the good people were left in place, including one young white woman who used much of her office time to create Instagram videos where she modeled and sold appropriate office clothing for the professional woman. This was shown by Rachel Maddow. It was not that different, I guess, from Donald Trump selling Teslas on the White House lawn. And, by the way, that heartfelt endorsement given by Trump might not have been heartfelt. He was reading it.

Then, there is the area in Louisiana, inhabited almost all by Blacks, where there have been decades of very high cancer rates, presumably because of a petrochemical plant in the area, and the law suit brought by the government against the owner of that plant. The lawsuit was apparently dropped today by the government, because it was viewed as a DEI lawsuit. Yes, you read that right.

Finally, there was Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office alongside Irish president Michael Martin, proclaiming that the EU was created “to screw the United States”, and that Chuck Schumer was no longer Jewish, but rather had become a Palestinian.

This is only a part of what I heard yesterday. Now, do you understand why I felt so blue coming home?

Late start yesterday, after a relaxing breakfast with the Goldmans in Charleston. Most of the day spent coming up Interstate 95, with only a few short diversions. Lunch was at the Orchard Cafe in Manning SC. A tuna and a turkey sandwich, best described as ordinary and inexpensive. Dinner at Don Juan Mexican Restaurante in Roanoke Rapids NC, whose food can best be described as ordinary and inexpensive.  We are staying there at a Hampton Inn.

After our lunch, we splurged on a bakery-made chocolate and pistachio bar that can best be described as excellent.  After our dinner, I tried one of the brittles we bought at Georgia Peach World, which can best be described as inedible.

A few more podcasts today. Trying to keep up with the news. I do have a reaction to everything that is going on: AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Not really. That is too mild.

Okay, what else? Oh, yes, we stopped at Buc-ees for the first time. It’s like Costco on the road. I knew nothing about the store at all, except seeing the billboards. But our friend Shelly (last name on request), when we had dinner in Key West, told us about Buc-ees, and told us (believe it or not) that he stops, whenever they pass a Buc-ees, in order to buy several containers of key lime pudding. My own reaction is that Buc-ees is an enormous store filled to the brim with things that, as far as I am concerned, should stay in the store, forever.

And have you read about the reorganization of the news desk at the Washington Post,? I have read several articles about it, and I hardly understand a word of what is being said. It seems that the Post will concentrate on its digital footprint, not the print version. But I don’t know what that means, just as I don’t understand the difference between the political and national desks. If you haven’t heard about this yet, Google the CNN article or any other.

Time for me to watch Rachel Maddow to see what’s new.

AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

The Best Western on US 1 in St. Augustine turned out to be okay. Until we checked in the night before, I hadn’t really realized that it was one of those motels where the rooms opened to the outside, rather than to an interior hallway. I have long avoided those, but the room here was large, clean, modern, and so forth.

It reminded me of my mother, traveling in the 1950s. She was always someone who had certain standards and who made sure she maintained them. One of her inviolable standards was that she would never stay at a motel that did not have a swimming pool. It simply was not a safe thing to do. You could not trust its management.

Now, of course, my mother never used the swimming pool. That, too, would have violated some standard. But in fact, I don’t think my mother could swim. Here is the story as I heard it:

My mother graduated from Washington University in 1936, after six years where she earned both a bachelor’s and a law degree. One of the inviolable rules of Washington University in 1936 was that, to graduate, you had to pass a swimming test. My mother refused to take the test. I assume she never entered the pool. My future-lawyer mother won her first case, arguing that the swimming test rule simply didn’t apply to her.

The day yesterday started off with loud thunder and blinding rain, our first of the trip. We did, however, drive through the oldest continually occupied city in the United States.

Let’s put it this way. St. Augustine was founded in 1565, and was the capital or major city of Spanish Florida for more than 250 years before the United States took control in 1822.

The oldest part of the oldest city is relatively small, but very picturesque. This is how it looks in the rain.

The drive from St. Augustine to Charleston was not very noteworthy, except to say that the traffic was heavy and that the cars seemed to be outnumbered by the trucks and RVs.

We stopped at Georgia Peach World, where they sell peach everything (and probably real peaches in season). They have peach jams, peach cookies, peach oils, peach salsas, peach pies, peach salad dressings, peach butters, peach brittle, peach relishes, jars of half peaches, quarter peaches and peach slices, and peanuts. We bought one of everything they had.

Close to Peach World is Angie’s Diner.

If you want to go to a place that was last remodeled in 1952, and where the clientele has not changed since then, this is for you.  Edie had a sandwich and fries (the fries thrown in compliments of our waitress), but I attacked the $7.99 buffet: fried chicken, fried okra, collards, mac and cheese, potatoes and cheese and more. I skipped the jello and puddings because we had peach cobbler cookies waiting in the car.

A very nice evening with our friends, the Goldmans, the conversation centered on the many ways civilization and humanity itself will probably be destroyed before summer. I now have a list: Leonard Cohen has nothing on us. Excellent dinner at one of their favorite Frenchish restaurants. The hostess recently had a baby, our server was very personable and attentive to detail (“Do you want your Ketel One with a few rocks or a lot of rocks? Do you want plain olives or olives with blue cheese?”), and she was accompanied by a waiter who was on the first night of his one week training. He did just fine.

Today, we continue. Tomorrow,  we finish.

Let’s talk about swordfish. Not about which ones are kosher, but about which ones are good.

I have always liked swordfish. But I don’t eat it often. We don’t have it at home, so I don’t pay attention to it at The Fishery. And it isn’t on every restaurant menu. And it has a lot of mercury.

I have ordered swordfish several times over the past few years at the Parthenon and have always been a bit disappointed. Not terribly disappointed. Just a bit.

Saturday night, we went with our friends to Carmine’s Trattoria in Riviera Beach, FL. Carmine’s is an upscale and very, very, very, very big and popular restaurant, the kind that has Bentleys and Astin Martins parked out front and has every table filled. We had eaten there before, but I don’t remember what I ate. This time, I ordered swordfish.  It looked similar to the swordfish at the Parthenon. But it didn’t even make the disappointing grade I give the Parthenon. In fact, it was so dry that I sent it back. They were nice about it, offered me substitutes, took it off the bill, etc. But I said, “No, I am fine.” I learned from the years I was a vegetarian that skipping the main course does not leave you hungry.

Yesterday, we got off the highway to find a lunch spot overlooking water. We found the Sebastian Saltwater Marina Restaurant.

This was a view from table on the large deck. It had an interesting menu which included a “catch of the day,” which turned out to be (ta-da!) swordfish.

I thought this might be my last swordfish ever, but I took a deep breath and ordered it, slightly blackened. It was perfect. Undoubtedly caught that morning. Restoring my faith in swordfish. But I will only order it dockside.

Our drive yesterday was fine, listening mainly to podcasts about Ukraine, with one diversion when we again left the road to explore Daytona Beach, where we had never been before.

I remember Daytona from tales about Spring Break dusturbances and NASCAR racing. The beach stretches a long way, there are many spaced out condos and hotels which looked nice enough, but the commercial areas did have sort of a sad and left-behind look, which I think is accurate.  No need ever to get off the road to explore it again.

We are now in the outskirts of St. Augustine, the country’s oldest city, at a nice Best Western. The plan was to explore the city a bit this morning,  but we are faced with our first rain of the trip, complete with very loud thunder, so I am not sure.

The desk clerk told us we should go to the historic part of town for dinner last night, but we ignored her advice and went to Cortesse’s Flamingo Bar (1 minute drive, said GPS) and had a delicious dinner at a small but packed restaurant which has piano music 7 nights a week. Yesterday, playing was Alex Richman, playing blues and the like, and singing, and she was worth the price of admission.

Today, onward to Charleston and friends, and the hope that the weather doesn’t slow us down too much.

Nice day yesterday with our friends, and seeing another baseball game. Now, the true climb north begins. We bought a new Bentley for the trip north, trading in our reliable, but aging, Prius. We understand we will get the same mileage, about 65 mpg on the highway.

And it won’t just be the rwo of us. Our friend Screech will be sitting in the back seat.

But while enjoying the good company and good weather,  the serious worries obviously continue. We listened to a podcast with Yale’s Tim Snyder talking about how we should be approaching the country’s march into a form of dictatorship, which was chilling.

One of the things that Snyder warned about was acting in anticipation of the pending dictator. Of normalizing the abnormal on your own. This reminded me of something that happened in Europe as Hitler moved east, and residents began chasing Jews on their own before forced to by the Germans. The thinking was: the Nazis are coming, they will roundup and kill the Jews, and if we do it first, thdy will like us and treat us well.

I see this happening in the 180 degree response to DEI going on now in so many places. Anything that smacks of taking race into account in any hiring or admission decision is being avoided like the plague.

This does not result in an even playing field, as the proponents of this change dishonestly suggest, but rather enables prejudices against Blacks and others silently come into operation. Not only is the history of Black oppression ignored, but there is now an assumption that every Black has earned his or her position only through DEI, and his probably unqualified, that there is a more qualified White who should have that job, and whoever hired the Black employee in the first place should be canceled. If you haven’t read about it, a good example is the firing of the chancellor of VMI.

And when a company or institution changes its hiring practices on its own, it simply plays into the hands of the authoritarian. Think about it.

Yet, I don’t see or hear a groundswell of opposition from Black leadership yet. I go back to the Hitler days when so many American Jews refused to raise their voices for fear that it would simply stoke more antisemitism here.

So many issues. So little time.

Time to hit the road.