Art is 80

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

Here goes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Speak, Memory:

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

archpresbyter

gamesome

penumbral

covert (noun)

eunuchoid

archivolt

fatidic

praedormitary

hypnagogic

palpebral

photism

synesthete

aquarelles

autoplagiarism

cuneate

appraisive

omnivicarious

agarics

stipitate

pilei

lamellate

bolete

tipal

gule

botonee

gorget

clavecin

epitaphical

epigraphical

majorat

platband

racemosa

coarctation

foramen

leathern

ecchymotic

susurrous

berimed

xanthic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to S_____ of White Plains and E_____ of my house,  who corrected this morning’s post. Of course, Crooks was a registered Republican. Can’t even blame my error on autocorrect.

Let’s again start with the assassination attempt. While there is much we don’t know, we do know that Matthew Crooks was a registered Republican, that he was White, and that he acted alone. That puts him in the same category, I believe, as most American assassins and would-be assassins. He is not a crazy leftist, a socialist, a Communist, a transgender individual, etc. He was not part of a conspiracy, he does not represent a political cult or movement, he was just a kid whose mind went somewhat out of whack. Again, like most who do as he did.

So, to me, there is no need to express alarm at what happened, except for two elements of the crime. First, that he was able to obtain an AK-15 (but we have already talked about that). Second, that he shot from a roof that the Secret Service had already identified as a possible site for a shooter. I am sure we will hear more about that at some point, but – as an aside – this is not too different from the failure of Israeli security to be able to prevent the Hamas attack from Gaza. The failures of security happen – in ways that are unexpected, and more often than you wish.

So let’s worry about guns and security, and not try to blame the attack on either Joe Biden. But this is exactly what so many Republicans are doing. Republicans including one J.D. Vance, who said that Biden’s portrait of Trump as an “authoritarian Fascist who much be stopped at all costs…..led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

This from the man the Republican presidential candidate, who says he wants to unify the country after Saturday’s tragedy,⁸ has picked as his 39 year old vice presidential running mate.

Of course, there have others who have said similar things: Congressman Mike Collins (“Joe Biden sent the orders.”), Matt Gaetz (“……Now, they have tried to assassinate him.”), Mike Kelly (this is “an attack from the left”).

Vance has been criticized for his comment, but hasn’t taken it back. In fact, his thinking on the subject (if indeed this is his actual thinking) is probably one of the reasons Trump has selected him.

But Vance has said other things: “My God, what an idiot” (speaking about Trump), “I’m a Never Trump Guy”, “But I also don’t like Trump myself”, Trump could be “America’s Hitler” or “a cynical asshole like Nixon”, “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.” And more.

But all that was before Vance decided he needed Trump’s support when he started his run for the Senate. In other words, we have someone whose thinking changes rapidly and completely when it needs to change to give him a political advantage, and who cannot be taken as a serious individual.

So what about his current policy positions? Apparently, Vance’s positions include being totally against aid to Ukraine (and Israel?), totally anti-abortion with no exceptions for incest or rape, disagreement with Mike Pence when Pence refused to following Trump’s requests to refuse to certify the 2020 election, and high protectionism and tariffs.

It seems to me that all of this is great fodder for the Democrats. In addition, what does Vance bring to the campaign (as opposed to being a yes-man for Trump)? He comes from Ohio, a safe Republican state, he is not a woman nor a minority, and all he can do is cement the MAGA base. I think this gives the Democrats a big opportunity…..if only they can come up with the right candidates.

We did see one yard sign on our trip which said “Any rational individual”, and I saw a picture of a pick-up with “Re-elect Nobody” painted on its back.

This is how most of America feels. Remember “A choice, not an echo”? We have twooooo echooooos. We need a choice.

It is supposed to be 99 today and 101 tomorrow. After cool lower 90’s in southern Maine, this seems like too much. By the way, these temperatures are presumably being orchestrated by the same God who saved Donald Trump’s life after the same God allowed young Mr. Crooks to shoot him. Not being flippant here, but seriously, folks. And why is it that all Democrats seem to be coming out with a “stop the violence” mantra (as usual), while many Republicans are saying “Biden did it – if not directly, he did it indirectly”? Is it time for Biden to add to his popularity by standing before the camera, holding up each hand, fingers outlining the letter V, and saying once and for all: “I am not a Crooks”? (Sorry about that; I hear the audience groaning.)

But seriously, isn’t it surprising not that someone tried to kill Trump, but that this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often? There are 400 million guns in the United States now, and of those between 80 and 100 million are semi-automatic guns. Today, and for some time now, about 50% of guns sold each year in this country are semi-automatic. (These figures are the product of Google’s AI.)

Whom do I blame? Of course, I blame the people who buy these guns. Every single one of them, whether they have shot at a president or former president, or not. I also blame everyone in the business of manufacturing, distributing, promoting and selling the guns, every one of them, whether or not they sold a gun to Matthew Crooks’ father (or whomever it is determined purchased the gun used to shoot Trump). But perhaps most of all, once again I blame our Supreme Court, which in 2008, decided the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, which expanded the reach of the Second Amendment of the U.S. constitution well beyond its previous reach, and decided – basically – that no level of government could ban or heavily regulate firearms. 2008 may seem like a long time ago (16 years by my calculation), but three of the five members who found for Mr. Heller (Roberts, Alito and Thomas) are still on the Court. The other two positive votes were Scalia and Kennedy (Kennedy being the Court’s then swing man, who clearly swung the wrong way on this one).

And since then, other Second Amendment decisions have not only affirmed Heller, but expanded its reach, covering weapons beyond the handguns that were the primary subject of Heller.

Someone once said that Republicans focus on the Supreme Court, while Democrats ignore it. This has manifest itself in two ways – first, in electoral politics, where Republicans have been focusing on the importance of having a conservative Court to deal with not only the Second Amendment, but a myriad of other topics, and second, in Congressional politics, where Mitch McConnell shamefully kept one nomination from the Senate floor, and rushed another one through under the precise same circumstances. He should not be forgiven for this dereliction of duty.

2024 is another election year and the Democrats should push the need for a Democratic president to choose the next Supreme Court justices. But I haven’t seen this as a major push yet, even though the Court has now set itself up as the strongest leg by far of the three legged stool that forms our government.

Although I was not concentrating on the news on the drive home yesterday, I sense that there is a feeling that the shooting is going to help the Republicans. I don’t understand why this should be, why it should favor any group that believes in the Gospel of the pure Second Amendment. I don’t understand why anyone who didn’t like Trump before he was shot would like him now enough to vote for him. Unless of course they believe people like that clearly pigeon-brained Congressman from Georgia who said it was Biden who directed Mr. Crooks to fire the shot.

Heaven help us.

Oh, how was the drive home yesterday? It was fine. Thanks for asking.

I have no idea who Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia is, but did he really say that whoever shot former President Trump was put up to the job by Joe Biden? This tells you all you need to know about America,  doesn’t it?

I must admit I am curious as to who did it. I hope it isn’t an undocumented individual who the Biden administration gave a court date three years from now. (I see it was a 20 year old registered Republican with an AK-15.)

While all this was going on, we were having dinner (a good dinner) with friends at the Himalaya Restaurant in Scarsdale NY. I had fried noodles with chicken, beef and egg, which was excellent. The only problem was that this was Saturday night and that meant MUSIC!!. Two Nepali guitar players and at least one (the one who sang) couldn’t sing at all. And they were LOUD!!

We are staying with those friends (who often stay with us in DC ), but before coming to their house, we had a nice visit with a college friend of Edie’s, who she had not seen in years. The important thing about these two friends is that they both read this blog daily and they “like” it every day. (That is a hint.)

Today, we come home, making a stop in Manhattan to see another friend recovering from surgery. Of course, the difficulty there will be finding a parking space.

Part of yesterday was spent at the Book Barn in Niantic CT, a remarkable establishment with three locations in one small town. This was not our first visit.

Anyway, we are anxious to get home and look forward to our time on the Jersey Turnpike and our stop at the Delaware rest stop.

New Bedford is an interesting city of about 100,000 located south of Boston on Buzzards Bay, which leads directly to the Atlantic Ocean. It is by and large a working city and, aside from a small part of its downtown filled with some buildings 200 years of age, and its port with its many fishing boats, holds little of interest for the normal tourist.

Ita main interest is in its history. It was founded by Quakers, it was the whaling capital of the United States during the first part of the 19th century (and this country’s richest city), it was an active way station for the underground railway before the Civil War, it was a textile center during the early 20th century. Even today it is a major fishing port, where most of its boats leave port for 10  to 14 days at a time and return with thousands of scallops. A hard life, fishing is, and certainly not very lucrative.

The city’s biggest attraction is not the port, but the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which l expected to  like but wound up liking even more.

From the museum:

The pictures do not do it justice. At the museum, you learn about whales, about the study of whales, about whale hunting worldwide and out of New Bedford, about boats and oars and tools and clothing, about art, about the demise of the industry and the rise of the textile industry in New Bedford in its place. There are full size boats, more scrimshaw than you thought existed, maps and books, weapons, everything. We spent over 2 hours looking around.

We also went to the city’s small art museum,where we saw a nice glass exhibit, which included two by Chiluly. Here is one (which, to fool you, might be upside down):

We ate tonight at a remarkable restaurant, The Black Whale, located at the pier near the fishing boats. The food was good, the prices were fairly high, but the remarkable thing about it is its size and how crowded it apparently is at all times every day. This is quite a business, especially in a relatively poor city, but where most customers (from the license plates on the free parking lot) are local.

One of the reasons may be that there seem to be few restaurants and few hotels. So if you have a lot of room, a central location, good food and free parking….

Just a few more pictures from New Bedford. We leave in the morning.

The last? An extra large rooster, made up of discarded scrap material by 11 and 12 graders, copying something similar in Lisbon.

Today, we move west.

We cross into Portsmouth NH and there is a sign that says “Old Books”. The car automatically stops and turns into a parking lot for an old building that looks like it has seen better times. There is a car, two pickups and an old bus on the parking lot. They all are filled (I mean that literally, to the gills) with books. An “Open” sign is on the door, but it looks like no one is there. I try the door and it opens. We walk into space that is about 90% books and 10% air. An old man, short, bald and heavy appears and asks us what we are looking for. It takes me aback and I say “biography” for want of something better. He is not in the mood for small talk and says simply “Aisle 14”.

I go to Aisle 14 and it is pitch black. I see no light switch. I call back and ask him if he can turn on the lights. He does. This is what I see

The books on the shelf are perfectly alphabetical and there are many 19th century books, some of which must be quite rare, along with more contemporary ones. But the space between the shelves and the enormous stacks of books in back of you is maybe 16 inches. Standing and taking a book out requires dexterity, and the fear that the ten foot stacks of books behind you might fall if you make one false move is overwhelming. Each book, by the way, is priced individually and too high.

Because of the difficulty in navigating the space, we decide to leave. I thank him as we get to the door. His response? “I thought you came to buy books…..I even turned the light on for you….Why do you come if you aren’t buying anything?….You are just wasting my time…Get out! You are tresspassing.”

We left, of course, amazed. How does he sell any books at all? What will happen to the books if he drops dead? The books are virtually impossible to get now, but there are many that should be protected and not trashed.

Here is our goodbye image. Google Antiquarian Books Portsmouth NH and look at the various customer reviews if you want entertainment. But so sad.

Meanwhile, food. First, our lunches. Then, my dinner.

These come from Loretta’s in Newburyport MA.

This comes from Riccardis in New Bedford MA.

Today? The Whaling Museum. Did you know, because of whaling in the early 19th century,  New Bedford was the wealthiest city in the country?

I am thinking of a few other things.

Robert Hur, special counsel, reports that Joe Biden comes across as an elderly man with memory problems, and everyone gets so upset. How can he say such a thing? Why would he say such a thing? Why did he throw it in his report?

Now, we realize that he was probably correct. And he probably thought that his impression was important to convey.

But his job was to gather facts. Was it also to give his opinion?

George Stephanopoulos interviews Biden for ABC-TV. I didn’t see the interview, but George S. gets  good reviews as a fair interviewer. The reaction to Biden’s condition after the interview is mixed, or so it appears.

George S. goes to the gym. He is walking home and a stranger recognizes him, approaches him and asks him the question, basically saying “You are the one who should know. Is he fit?” George S says “no”.

George is embarrassed. He realizes that itcwas a mistake for him to have responded. He is a jounalist. Reporting the facts. Not giving his opinion.

But was it a mistake? Biden’s capacity is crucially important, is it not? And because it is so important,  perhaps it is equally appropriate that a journalist and a lawyer violate standard norms to tell us what we need to know.

Let’s move to another topic. Did you see where a Black man, I think in Michigan, applied for a job at a hotel using his given name and was not even granted an interview.  He then turned around and submitted the same information to the same hotel in a second application,  this time using a fake Polish-y name, and was asked to come in for an interview.

Surprised? Of course not. This is why so many Jews changed their names in the first half of the twentieth century.  And now that universities cannot use racial preferences and so many companies feel it safer (or better) to drop diversity programs, maybe Blacks will have to start doing the same. All of those Afrocentric first names, those names starting with a sonorous but unnecessary “De…”, and all those Biblical names that sound all right, but Whites don’t use? Maybe they will begin to vanish.

Oh, and Maine? Here goes:

We leave this morning. Tonight? Hopefully, New Bedford, Mass.

Of course, the most delightful thing about being in Kennebunkport is being able to look at some of the older houses. These, I believe,  are all from 1790 to 1810:

Then, there are the city views:

And there are Kennedy supporters:

And finally, the tourists:

Yesterday was quiet, as vacation days should be. Our Rhode Island friends are here and we are now 5.

Because I have given up on Killer Angels much to the surprise of many, I needed a substitute. Not immediately, because I brought a Penguin mystery with me, but soon. So we went to the book store at the Kennebunkport library and i bought a copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, which is more my speed.

The mystery? It’s called The Bandaged Nude and I am sure you haven’t read it. I am halfway through. The “bandaged nude” is a painting of a beautiful woman, unclothed, but with a bandage on one toe. Don’t ask, because I don’t know. The painter was murdered and placed in a case of spaghetti which had been spoiled by a seawater leak. Now do you see why I am reading it?

It’s set in San Francisco in the late 1940s.  The author is Paul Ryan, but it’s written under the name of Robert Finnegan. Ryan was a longshoreman and a Communist (as a Communist he wrote under Mike Quin), but you wouldn’t know it from the book. His writing was limited because he died of cancer quite young. I have no idea who the murderer will turn out to be.

Enough of that.

What else? I saw this Ferrari parked a block away from us. It wasn’t for sale, but I thought about making an offer. It seems that $350,000 might be reasonable as a start to negotiate from. But then I realized how limited the trunk space was, so I decided against it.

Meanwhile,  I have not paid much attention to the news. Is Biden still president? I don’t know if it makes much difference to the folks on Goose Rocks Beach. Except for this guy.

Today and tomorrow should be just lazy days. I hope. Weather today started off better than the last two because the humidity is down.  The July 4 crowd seems to have gone as well. It’s far from deserted, but you can find a parking space. For your Ferrari.

If you want a nice photo of the lower Maine coast,  how about this one?

This was taken from the garden of the Ogunquit Art Museum. It’s a small museum, with an interesting history, located in the magnatourist town of Ogunquit south of Kennebunkport. It features a selection of American art by a group of artists, many of whom gave connections with this area. Here are a couple that I thought worth showing.

And from the sculpture garden.

Dinner tonight at Chez Rosa in Kennebunkport. There are hundreds of restaurants nearby and the debate as to which deserved our business went on and on. I chose Chez Rosa arbitrarily and said this is where we will go. I expected pushback. There was none. Hake baked in a pastry shell, ratatouille,  and more. Another 5  stars.

The rest of the day – just hanging out. NYT crossword. Reading Michael Shaara’s classic Killer Angels, which I am trying hard to enjoy (but think I will give up because details of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg are of no interest to me). Taking a morning walk in humidity I was surprised to find in Maine.

Watching the hopeful results in the second part of the French voting. Hoping we can learn from that here. Same thing with Iran. All you need is turnout.

Tomorrow,  our Rhode Island friends join us. In the meantime,  we learn one of our Massachusetts friends, whom we are to see on Thursday eve has COVID.

So our visit to their house in South Dartmouth MA may be limited to a drive-by waive.

Another 300+miles, and here we are. And here we will be for the next four days, being generously housed by our friend N_______. We will soon be joined by friends E______ and R______, driving up from Rhode Island.

(You wonder how our friends got those names. It’s from reading classic Russian novels, such as those by D_________ and T______.)

So I will make this short. Breakfast in Oneonta is to be avoided in my experience.  Our hotel oatmeal was so dense that it reminded me more of the mortar we used to make the pyramids than a healthy breakfast food. So we went to a coffee shop we spotted the night before to find it closed. So i went to Oneonta Bagel Store, ordered a bagel and a cup of French Roast, along with a milder Breakfast Blend for Edie. The bagel was not edible (really) and the two coffees tasted identical.

We were redeemed at lunch in an old diner (been there since 1948) in Bennington VT. The Blue Benn Diner. I had a vegetable scramble with the vegetables I like best along with home fries and whole wheat toast. And, because it’s a popular diner and the booths were full,we ate at the counter. I gave my lunch 5 stars.

Other highlights? Troy, New York. Been there? It’s the home of RPI.

In addition, Troy has an unbelievable weekly farmers’ market, which we chanced upon. I took several photos. But……if you find them, let me know. They have vanished.

Finally, in case  you wonder,  Vermont and New Hampshire are still very appealing.

We are about 350 miles from home and it took us all day to get here. Why? Because, in our usual way we said: “Let’s stay off the Interstates” and we did that for most of our trip.

We pulled into Oneonta NY about 6 pm, checked into our hotel and went to dinner. We had made reservations at Toscana, an Italian restaurant hyped on Yelp  just down the street from the local Chabad House. It gets 5 stars from us. Delicious fresh bread served with a mild garlic infused olive oil and home created truffle butter, fresh green salad with an excellent red pepper Italian dressing, barramundi for me and eggplant Parmigiano for Edie and chocolate mousse for the two of us.

Oneonta is a college town with many shops and restaurants, but it isn’t photogenic, so no pictures here.

Pottsville PA, where we stopped for lunch rates high for picture ops. We stopped there by chance. Look the the photos and captions and you will see a few reasons it was so intriguing.

We also found a great place for a quick lunch. A combination book store and coffee shop, with sandwiches available as well. I had an everything bagel with turkey and sharp cheddar cheese.

And their book collection (not large, but excellent quality) was arranged BY COLOR!!!

Other than that, a beautiful drive through the heart of Pennsylvania’s historic anthracite district, the tourist town of Jim Thorpe (worth its own trip), and the Poconos. Only a few spoilers.

And a little humor.

More tomorrow.

I started this blog on November 15, 2022. By my calculations, that means that this is my 600th consecutive post. Of course, you should feel free to correct me, because even though I got all A’s in math in middle school and high school, I always felt those grades were undeserved, and my calculations (or my phone’s calculations, to be perfectly truthful) may be off. And when I got to college, I decided that I would not take any math classes, which I didn’t.

How that affected me, I don’t know. My senior year of high school class was trigonometry. That means a number of things. First, it means that, although I got an A in trigonometry, today I can’t tell you what trigonometry was about. I remember the words sine and cosine and tangent and cotangent, but that’s all I remember. And I remember those words because they are words – and you don’t have to know trigonometry to be able to remember four words. It also means that I never took any calculus. I think most college graduates my age (at least most of those who I know) did take some calculus (or maybe at least pre-calculus). Do they remember anything? Has it helped them in their lives? Do they know something I don’t know?

And, if I wanted to be a scientist, or a computer programmer, or any of those things, would I have to know calculus? What is calculus anyway? Does anyone really know? Or is it like string theory or economics or the language spoken in ancient times on Easster Island (before it was ever called Easter Island)? I have no idea.

Oh, you say, “Arthur, you are just being your usual modest self. You were probably a mathematical genius.” Well, you must not know about my sold geometry class in 10th, or maybe 11th, grade. I understood nothing. Absolutely nothing. On each of my quizzes, I got C’s or maybe C+’s. This was very unusual for me in high school, so I was concerned. I went to see my teacher and told him my plight and that I thought I needed some extra help. His response was a simple “Don’t worry about it.” That of course did not satisfy me at all, but what could I do? I took the final exam. I knew I did poorly, just like I had on the quizzes. I don’t remember my grade on the final, if I ever knew it, but my grade for the class was an “A”. I saw my teacher in the hall and he said, “See, I told you not to worry.” (That last sentence is fake history.)

Okay, that’s it for “600!!” What about “And We’re Off”?

“We’re off” means that we are getting in our car this morning and heading northeast. We will make a 9 a.m. stop at the post office to mail a couple of books (one to Glasgow and one to New Delhi), and then head up Connecticut Avenue, and across the Beltway to I-270. Our first stop tomorrow will be Oneonta NY, and then we head to visit with friends in Kennebunkport ME, then down to New Bedford MA (actually South Dartmouth, but no knows where that is), the to White Plains NY, then the city of which White Plains is more or less a suburb, then maybe a stop or two in New Jersey and home. Unless we get totally diverted, we’ll be home in about 10 days.

But meantime, blog posts 601-610 will be posted and you can follow our adventures (I use that term advisedly) on the road. And what do you think? What will happen over the next ten days? Will we all be rooting for Kamala Harris to be our next President? Things might move more quickly than you think.

Seems obvious, but it could have been different. When Congress adopted the Monday holiday act, the Fourth of July could have been moved to the first Monday in July. This year that would have been Monday, July 1, which is Canada Day, and both countries could have celebrated together – the US celebrating their break from Great Britain, Canada celebrating the creation of the Dominion of Canada within the British Empire. In other words, they would have jointly celebrated totally opposing ideas and realities. Yet, both countries (obviously with significant differences, many if not most, I am afraid, favoring Canada) came out of their opposite experiences pretty much the same and quite friendly with each other.

I know there has been a lot of alternative history written over the years. Generally in that regard, you think of “If the South Had Won the Civil War” kind of topics. I can’t say that I have ever seen any books titled “If the Colonists Had Just Stuck with Britain”, but it is something that I have thought of now and then. What if there had been no Lexington or Concord, no Tea Party, no Revolutionary War? What would North America be like today?

Obviously, there is no reliable answer to this question. If the British colonies in North America had remained British colonies, things might have been quite different. Would France still control the Mississippi River and the Louisiana Purchase never been a purchase? Would Mexico have to this day extended to the Oregon border. Would Spanish Florida remained outside of English speaking North America? Would slavery have ended more quickly than it did, and without a war with 600,000 dead? On the other hand, would wars between the various North American nations have pock marked our history? Would Prince Harry have had to go into exile somewhere else?

So many questions.

But here we are, the most powerful country on Earth, and perhaps today one of the most emotionally unsettled. By winning that war against the Brits in the late 18th century, we got pretty full of ourselves, I would say. By having so much land, and being separated by so much water from potential military rivals, we got to think of ourselves as a bit more clever than we were, perhaps. And of course that has carried over until today. American exceptionalism, in spite of the fact that there is little exceptional about us and, in fact, to the extent that our politics make us exceptional, they may make us exceptional in ways that should not make us proud. I saw a report today that, because of the economic doldrums in which Britain finds itself today, many young Brits would consider moving outside their country. There was a list of 28 countries that I saw, giving potential British emigrants the pros and cons of each. Add them all together and the United States ranked 28th out of the 28.

C-Span was interesting this morning, as their callers were asked about “patriotism”. Most did not define patriotism as waving a flag or grilling a hot dog, but rather as serving one another, treating one another humanely, looked out to each other as a collective to which each of us belongs. This of course is not our current ethos. Spurred on by ex-president You Know Who, we are each out for ourselves, divided we stand.

Those who was the debate witnessed not only Joe Biden’s sleepy performance and Donald Trump’s collection of falsehoods, but the realization that, with 330,000,000 exceptional citizens, this is the best we could do in 2024. Yet, with the Judiciary and particularly the Supreme Court taking over all policy direction for our government, our President may become less important overall. And, as Trump spins out lie after lie, as Biden apparently deceives all of us regarding his physical and mental condition, and the Supreme Court fools us by claiming to be originalists in the way they interpret our constitutional rights while they simply seem to sugar coat whatever they would like to see the country be as if it were historic necessity.

I recently read a biography of James Madison, the fourth US president, and the primary author of so many of the founding documents which the originalists have converted to Gospel. So much of what happened in those days, in the various constitutional conventions and everything that led up to them, was accidental, compromise, reached in frustration. Why these documents should become holy and untouchable, and why they should override the benefit of the people, is beyond me.

As usual, when I sit down to write this blog, I have no idea what will come out. What’s worse, I have no idea when I should stop and say “fini”. Now?

Fini.

Who would have thought that on July 3, 2024, the biggest question in the American mind, a question being discussed on Newsmax and MSNBC, is what it’s like to be 81. Well, I have been 81 for over seven months, so I guess I am qualified to answer this question.

(1) The biggest thing on the mind of an 81 year old is the question: Will I live to be 82. (This, by the way, is a question that vanishes when the 81 year old in question reaches their next birthday.)

(2) People wonder if an 81 year old can take a series of flights between both the east and west coasts of the United States and Europe and have it take almost two weeks for him to recover. All I can say is that the last international trip I took was to Portugal about 10 months ago. I have not recovered yet.

(3) People wonder if an 81 year old remembers the name of his 6th grade teacher. He was Mr. Koger. People also wonder if an 81 year old can remember what he had for dinner last night. He can’t. (But it was really good, Edie.)

(4) People wonder if an 81 year old can think as quickly as, say, a 51 year old. (Let me think about that, and I will get back to it later. If I forget to, send me a reminder by IM. Don’task me what IM is.)

(5) People wonder about the decision making ability of an 81 year old. Let me assure you that it is fine. On second thought……..yeah, it’s fine. (I am pretty sure that is correct.)

(6) People wonder if an 81 year old is stiffer than when he was younger. Yes, and that is an advantage. (I assume the question is about maintaining a stiff upper lip)

(7) People wonder what the typical 81 year old thinks is the best invention of all times. That’s an easy one – the banister.

(8) People wonder if 81 year olds have any trouble remembering names. The answer is no. Let me give you some examples: William, Robert, George, Hermione, Elvis, Naomi, Clara, Donald and Joe. Those are all names. (But some 81 year olds do have trouble pulling up the names of their best friends or of people they have known a life time. But we have tricks. If I see someone I know and can’t remember their name right away, I just run through names alphabetically until I find one that matches. I start with Aardvark….)

(9) People wonder if 81 year olds are better from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. than at other times of the day. The answer is yes (on good days), but you should also remember that, during those six hours, they take two or three naps.

(10) People wonder if it is normal for an 81 year old to be in a televised debate that he has prepped for for over a week, and which his entire future and the future of the entire world depends upon, and “almost fall asleep”. The answer to this is, based on recent statistics, clearly “yes”. (And that’s a good thing because the typical 81 year old does not sleep at night very often. In fact, let me go back to point (9) because an 81 year old often finds that he does his best thinking between 3 and 5 a.m. It is during that time that an 81 year old will most intensely wonder if he will ever reach 82 – point (1) -, whether tomorrow is Tuesday or Sunday, what the name of that god-darned leader of Russia is, what the three parts of our nuclear triad are, and what’s the name of that guy I am to debate tomorrow – I think it may be Aardvark.)

(11) People often wonder what typical 81 year olds likes to talk about, and whether they too often repeat themselves. They like to talk about their past, but often they don’t talk about it enough. For example, take 81 year old President Biden – wouldn’t you like to hear about his youth in Scranton PA, and what his father talked about around the kitchen table after learning he was losing his job?

(12) Finally, what about health in general? What is a typical health goal for an 81 year old? Well, on this I cannot speak for everyone. But, for me? I just hope I can beat Medicare. I mean really beat it.

I hope this is helpful. Tomorrow, perhaps we will talk about the mental acuity of a typical, orange, overweight 77 year old.