Art is 80

Finally, after a second night of little sleep, I tested positive for COVID. I assume this means that I have been positive (but not diagnosed) since I first tested Sunday morning. So, it’s no surprise. And I thought I would feel relieved that I knew what it was and it was treatable, and I would get better. But I don’t really feel relieved; I feel sick. And a bit frustrated. I started Paxlovid this morning. Waiting for my doctor to return my 6 a.m. call (he is a 24/7 concierge doctor – shouldn’t he sleep with his phone under his pillow?).

Anyway, here we are. Coughing. Sore throat. Still no fever. But unpleasant.

Nothing more to say right now. Maybe later today.

Here’s the status (you may have forgotten): we shared a vacation house last week with a friend who tested positive for COVID (she is feeling much better today) and the next day, on the 400 mile drive home, Edie and I both felt under the weather. Sunday and Monday, we both felt wiped out and assumed we had, or were on our way to getting, COVID. But our tests were all negative. Last night, I slept very little because I added a sore throat to my symptoms. This morning, I was certain that I would be positive, but again the test was negative. I have written by 24/7 concierge doctor for advice (Paxlovid or no Paxlovid, among other things), but have not yet heard back.

But because I was feeling less than perfect, my evening last night was spent atypically – while I was watching a baseball game, a show about coming cultural events in DC, and the first part of a very well done documentary on school busing in Boston (on PBS), which we will finish sometime later, I read through the latest copy of Smithsonian Magazine. When is the last time I did that? Guess what? Pretty interesting.

On the theory that you did not spend last night reading the Smithsonian, and keeping to my goal of making sure my readers are up to date, I offer the following tidbits I picked up last night. Things I did not know. Here goes:

1. Did you know that before the Statue of Liberty arrived in 1886, the symbol of the United States was a classical looking lady called Lady Columbia, or just Columbia? And that the “national anthem” before the Star Spangled Banner was adopted by Congress in 1931 was a song called “Hail, Columbia”, written in 1798? I don’t know “Hail, Columbia”, and never thought that songs which are dedicated to Columbia (such as “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean”) may have been written with a female “mascot” in mind.
2. Apparently, Uncle Sam was named for a New York businessman (not identified in the magazine) and that he didn’t really become an American emblem until after the Civil War and the Thomas Nast cartoons. Before that, we had a different emblem – a much younger and spirited fellow named Brother Jonathan who first appeared in 1813.
3. The book “The History of Little Goody Two Shoes”, first published in 1765 in England and republished again and again in England and America was the story of a young orphan who overcame poverty and loneliness to accomplish all sorts of things that women in literature, must less in child literature, rarely accomplished. No one knows for sure that who wrote the book, but many think it might have been Oliver Goldsmith of all people. “Goody” does not mean a “too good” girl, but was a normal preface, like Ms. in the 18th century, and that the book was one of the first children’s books to deal with real life, and not fantasy or magic. Interesting.
4. Graffiti is not a new phenomenon, and apparently ancient monuments (Greece, Rome, Egypt, elsewhere) are covered with graffiti that could not be read (much less translated). But now things are changing, as new forms of digital photogrammetry and laser technology allows detailed photos to be made from many angles, and models to be constructed that can be read in a way that things cannot be read with the naked eye, and can be read on a screen and not at the site. This project is underway in many places, particularly at Washington and Lee.
5. God did not create the QWERTY keyboard, but Carlos Glidden and S.W. Soule did, and it was adopted by E. Remington & Sons in 1874, and remained unchanged ever since.
6. In 1907, Glenn Curtiss (remember Curtiss-Wright Corporation) rode a motorcycle he engineered 136 miles an hour, a record that remained for land transportation until 1931. Now, however, the record belongs to Rocky Robinson, who has cycled 376 miles per hour. Yes, you read that right (his cycle has 1000 horsepower.
7. How a Scottish forensic artist, based in Thailand, can take a old skull and figure out what the person looked like (he admits to having trouble with hair and eye color). But who can tell him he’s wrong?
8. A large article on how you can find evidence of Moorish Spain in Granada and Almeria and environs beyond the Alhambra (beautiful photos). Did you know that many western movies, as well as Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra and Indiana Jones, were all filmed in southern Spain. I also did not know that in 1609, about 115 years after Granada was captured by Ferdinand and Isabella, the remaining Moors, who had earlier converted to Christianity, were forced out of the country, going to north Africa. The number? About 300,000 – more than the number of Jews who left Spain in 1492.
9. During the 19th century, it was agreed that some of the best coffee in the world came from a particular type of tree found in Ecuador. Those forests have been destroyed and that type of coffee no longer available. Now ways have apparently been found to recreate these trees, and bring the best coffee of the 19th century into the 21st.

There was more. Relations between Choctaw Indians and the Irish – supporting each other as a result of the Trail of Tears and the Irish famine, and continuing today. How mead is again becoming a popular drink, 9000 years after it was first used (or after we know it was used). Preservation efforts to stabilize Caribbean reef sharks. An article about the newly opened and rebuilt bird house at the National Zoo, again with photographs by well known avian photographers. And finally, an article about music written at Terezin concentration camp by inmates, much of which has been lost and is now being recovered by a musician who has devoted decades to this task.

OK, I think that is it.

Yes, I read this magazine so you did not have to. But you can subscribe if you want to. It’s a bargain.

It’s now been 22 years since four airplanes were hijacked and sent to destroy American buildings, and I am surprised to say that there seems to be less attention this year on what happened on September 11, 2001 than in past years. Maybe I am just imagining that, but that’s the way it seems to me.

Had we ever been attacked before? The British invaded the new United States of America in 1812 – quite some time ago. Of course, there was the devastating Civil War, but that didn’t involve an external attack, that was more of a family implosion. And then there was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island in Hawaii, but in 1941, Hawaii was not a state, just an outlying territory of the country.

Of course, for reasons sometimes clear to me and sometimes not, the United States is quite a bellicose nation. We have been involved in war after war, but they were always somewhere else. No other country has fought so many wars in so many far off places when its own territorial integrity or security was not directly under threat. And I guess that’s the way we thought it should be. We were different, exceptional, protected by two oceans, and by neighbors north and south that couldn’t stand a chance, even if they did want to attack us. And we were economically powerful and wanted to stay that way, with an arms industry more than happy to weaponize the rest of the world and send our own military into action. But it was always somewhere else.

Then came the end of World War II, and the 1946 announcement that the Soviets had “the bomb”. Along with slogans like “We will bury you”, and Communist insurrections being fomented in all sorts of places, for the first time in over a century, a war fought on our own continental territory, perhaps through a nuclear attack, became a possibility. And we who were growing up in St. Louis were told that we would be the third most likely target for the Russians, after New York and Washington, because of the presence of McDonnell Aircraft’s jet plane assembly facilities and the other arms contractors who populated our area. Not that we, as kids, took this too seriously, but serious it was.

The fear of Russian attack generally faded, as did the Soviet Union itself, but by this time there had been a spread of nuclear weapons – bombs could come from Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and eventually North Korea. But they didn’t. All was quiet, as they say, on the western front.

But, at the same time, as a result of all sorts of things, including the continuing (and still continuing) problems between Jews and Muslims in what I will term greater Israel, and other intercessions by the West into Arab and other Islamic states throughout out the 20th century, there developed a highly anti-American version of Islamic fundamentalism. The rhetoric was chilling.

But, so what? What could they do?

Then came September 11, 2001.

It was a beautiful day – the sky was sky blue, the temperature probably in the 70s, the humidity non-existent. A perfect pre-autumn day in Washington, DC. I had a scheduled breakfast meeting with a client, who had flown in the night before from Los Angeles, at the Capitol Hilton on 16th Street at 8 a.m. We had a meeting later in the day at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and our breakfast meeting was to make sure we were ready for that meeting. But I knew the client well, and last minute preparation wasn’t really necessary, so our breakfast was more social than anything else. We saw on the TV in the Hilton coffee shop that an airplane had flown into one of the two World Trade Towers in New York.

We thought that was interesting, we joked about the plane that flew into the Empire State Building in “King Kong”, we hoped no one was seriously hurt (although we assumed the pilot of what we knew must have been an errant small plane had met his end), and we left the hotel and grabbed a cab to HUD’s DC Area office, then (now, maybe as well) located in the same building as CNN on First Street NE, near the U.S. Capitol.

Things seemed a bit more ominous as we drove to the HUD office listening to the radio in the taxi. When we got to the CNN/HUD building, we were told at the concierge desk that people were leaving, and that the government offices were closing.

We thought we should check for ourselves. We still didn’t know exactly what was happening, and my client had flown 3000 miles just for the meeting that had been scheduled for some time. Maybe the people we were meeting with stayed, knowing we were coming.

We got in the elevator. There were two or three or four others in the elevator; they all worked at CNN. They told us that they were sure that the HUD office would be closed, but that we should come up to CNN with them, that there were multiple televisions in the lobby and we were welcome to watch and see what was happening.

This is what we did. No, I can’t tell you that we met either the TV anchors or the weather girls, but we did stand around amazed at what was happening for an hour or so. And then we left.

I really don’t remember much about the rest of the day. I don’t remember what my client did; I think we split up and he was going to go to the airport to get a flight back to California. Of course, this did not happen. I don’t remember seeing him again that day, so maybe he was one of those who grabbed a rental car and headed cross-country. I just don’t remember.

I do remember walking on 17th Street near Farragut Square later that morning (I think, morning), the weather still perfect, and hearing about the attack on the Pentagon (we didn’t then know whether any of the building remained, or what the casualties would be), and seeing ambulances and other emergency vehicles on the street, sirens blaring from all directions. The sidewalks were jammed with people who had left their offices and were presumably heading home, or somewhere else to figure out what was really going on. I don’t remember exactly when I heard about the fourth plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

After I got home, I presume we spent the night glued to the television, but I don’t remember that, either.

So, there had finally been an attack on American soil, killing 3000 or so people. It wasn’t carried out by an enemy country. And it took a while to figure out that the planes were taken over by men who were ready to die (or, as they would say, be martyred) for their cause. And that they all had a loyalty to an outfit called Al-qaeda, led by a Saudi named Osama bin Laden, about whom we knew absolutely nothing. That virtually all of the participants were Saudi. That most of the participants were educated (in the west, some in the U.S.) and middle class or above. And that the FBI and other agencies had, in fact, over time many clues that something was brewing, but either failed to connect the dots or didn’t take things seriously enough.

So here we are 22 years later. There have been no more (at least successful) terrorist attacks. Our initial attempts to find bin Laden in the Torabora mountains were completely unsuccessful. We went into an irrelevant and highly destructive war in Iraq based on false pretenses and disinformation, with enormous American and especially Iraqi casualties and blows to our reputation. Years later, we finally caught and killed Osama bin Laden who had been hiding out in plain sight in Pakistan, where we were also engaged in military operations, not against Al-qaeda, but against the Taliban. And that we had little to gain from either of these tragic operations, and if fact we seem to have gained nothing.

Have we learned anything at all from this experience? I don’t know. Time will tell. My guess is we haven’t. We never seem to. Why should this time be different?

How should we remember 9/11? Or is it better to forget about it altogether?

First, I will tell you a joke about climate change. I heard this a few days ago, and have told it several times. Everyone who has heard it seems to have had the same reaction. First, they think it’s a dumb joke. Second, they laugh. Here goes:

Did you hear the latest about what the insurance companies are doing because of all these climate changes? No? They are telling campers that if their tents blow away in the middle of the night in a storm, they won’t be covered.

[Take time to laugh. It’s okay]

We drove home yesterday, leaving Saratoga Springs at 8:30 and getting home at about 4:30. We stopped twice, but because of our COVID exposure, ate in the car, not in a restaurant. And I must say that Mrs. London in Saratoga Springs makes much better chicken salad than Pret a Manger at the Vince Lombardi rest stop. The traffic moved all along our route, we only got lost once by taking the wrong tine of a fork (I am assuming a fork in the road is composed of tines – is that right?), and there was an accident on the NJ Turnpike that slowed us up a bit. It was a nice ride, but we came back very tired (I still am), tested for COVID and luckily and happily all is negative so far.

Off and on rain, heavy rain, yesterday. It meant that the Nats game, scheduled for 4 p.m., did not start until 8 p.m., and looked like it would never be played at all. But it was – the last place Nats against the first place Dodgers. The Nats beat the Dodgers 7-6 in the 11th inning following, of all things, a wild pitch allowing the Nats Michael Chavis to run home from third base.

But it was a terrifically entertaining game, with three Nationals outfielders each making spectacular catches – Jacob Young in center field leaping as he ran into the wall (Nats color announcer Kevin Frandsen said that he wished “it was a Velcro wall”.), Jake Alou against the wall in left field, and Alex Call in right field stretching out horizontally to catch a ball (that was impossible to catch) before belly-flopping on the ground. And then Luis Garcia (whom 8 year old grand daughter Joan calls Cherry Garcia), did what almost looked like a figure eight catching a grounder and throwing to first.

Today is a pretty good day to be too tired to go anywhere, or to be keeping low because of COVID exposure – that final Nats/Dodgers game is at 1:30, the NFL season opener for the Commanders (nee Redskins) against the peripatetic Cardinals, now in Arizona, at 1 (with Fedex Field being sold out – that sure hasn’t happened in years), and of course the U.S. Open men’s finals at 4. By the way, congrats to Coco Gauff for her woman’s win at age 19 (who knows, maybe she reads this blog religiously), and a suggestion. Coco is a fine nickname; I have no problem with it. But I just looked and your given name is Cori (you probably know that). I happen to like that even more (if I count).

Now, I just watched President Biden give his press conference after the G-20. First, I think he is being too cavalier with the CDC COVID recommendations for someone exposed to the disease (his wife is recovering/maybe recovered from COVID as I write this), and he has (without much explanation) not only avoided the use of masks, but traveled across the world to meet with other world leaders. Second, these are tough trips and it is not unexpected that he is worn out, 80 year old that he is, but he looked like a bumbling older man through much of this short(ish) press conference, and to end by saying that he is going to bed (OK, COVID exposure, ridiculously long trip, continual stress, and it was 10 p.m.) does not send a great message.

If only the Democrats, and the Republicans, could nominate younger and more responsible candidates for the 2024 election. Let’s keep the pressure on.

So now we take a turn to the unexpected. One of our 9 friends just tested positive for COVID. We all had post-vacation plans. An extended vacation on Cape Cod with friends, a visit with relatives in Syracuse, a trip to Paris for a week, a drive back to northern Michigan and a flight to South Carolina. We are driving 400 miles to DC today and had a busy week coming up. We had an important Haberman Institute event tomorrow, meetings scattered throughout the week, and Friday night is Rosh Hashonah. Not only were we planning for services, but were scheduled to go to our daughter’s house Friday night and have guests to our house Saturday and Sunday. None of that will happen.

CDC guidelines say that, if you are exposed (and boy have we been), you should mask and lay low for 10 days. Ten days from today is a week from Tuesday. We hope we don’t get sick, of course, but certainly don’t want to expose family and friends.

On a better note, the last day in Saratoga Springs was good. We went to Skidmore College, now co-ed, it appears, and to its art museum, where there was an exhibition of mixed media work by a New Mexico artist, Paula Wilson. Some enormous pieces that scared me, made me very uncomfortable. One of my friends said that they were supposed to do that. Then there was an exhibit of hand made snow globes, which you were encouraged to shake, and a large exhibit of Tibetan art, which would I am sure have been terrific if I only understood it.

We also went to the local historical museum, in an 1870 building in the middle of a city park. A terrific collection of Saratoga Springs stuff, with only a little about horses. More about people, from Iroquois to Black to Irish and onward.

But most interesting , perhaps, was the history of the city as an illegal gambling mecca, patronized by the most well known New York financiers, as well as the biggest Italian and Jewish gangsters. The museum’s building is the former Men’s Club (and casino). And, in the “who knew?” department, it was the place that its namesake sandwich was first served, the club sandwich. Potato chips were also first made here And Saratoga water is still bottled here.

We also saw the racetrack and the harness track, and a great many beautiful homes. I may tell you about the Riggi house later. Let’s now just say it’s probably the most luxurious house in Saratoga Springs and it was sold off yesterday at a no-reserve auction.

Lunch at a bakery/sandwich shop, Mrs. London’s, sitting right to her husband’s place, Max London’s. Called London, I guess, because it is so very Parisian.

Finally, we went to Brandtville, an old Black neighborhood that existed prior to the Civil War, and saw the only original house still standing.

Our final, COVID exposed meal tonight was at Old Bryan’s Inn. Unexciting fried chicken for me. And no, we didn’t know about COVID yet. That surprise came when all we have to do is wake up, load the car, throw out the trash, and go.

Today, we hit the road.

Remember, there are 11 of us in Saratoga Springs. This makes restaurants difficult and no one came here to cook for 11. But one individual took upon himself the responsibility of deciding which four restaurants would get our business (both quality and dietary restrictions to be taken into account) and to make reservations. Our first two nights, at Osteria Denny and The District, were highly successful. And we went to 15 Church Street (located just where you think) last night with high expectations.

But, no. It’s a restaurant that is located in two neighboring buildings. We were sent to their enclosed “patio”, where 11 could easily be seated because it is large and a very open space. It was crowded and loud. And could seat millions.

We were given our table, right next to a table for 12. The 12 were men in their 40s, I would guess, who must have selected themselves to be part of their group because they each had a voice loud enough to be heard from one end of the table to the other, each were able to laugh louder than they could speak, and none liked to do anything more than interrupt each other. This would not do.

And the menu. There were only two fish dishes, sea bass and John Dory, and each was $52. When I asked if the fish dishes were large enough to share, I was answered with a dismissive “no”.

To make a long story shorter, we left. We 11 standing on a street in Saratoga Springs, wondering what to do. The District to the rescue. A deja vu experience, as good as the night before.

We spent the day not in Saratoga Springs, but in Williamstown Mass, a little over an hour away. And a beautiful drive, New York to Vermont to Massachusetts.

Our goal was the Clark Museum and here our expectations were met. A beautiful building (really two) set amongst 100+ acres beautifully landscaped. There was a special and quite large exhibit of paintings and woodcuts by Edvard Munch. So good, it makes you want to Scream. And the museum collection is excellent, with a lot of 19th century work by Renoir, Monet, Pissaro and others. Affiliated with Williams College (not sure exactly how), it is also a teaching, research and conservation center.

It’s probably about a mile from the campus, which we explored by car before reversing course and coming back.

The museum, by the way, owes its existence to Singer sewing machines. The founder was Sterling Clark. His father was a lawyer who helped Isaac Singer get his sewing machines patented in return for half the company. The history of the Clark family is very interested and is posted on a lower level wall next to the bathrooms. As Rodney Dangerfield would say: I get no respect.

Two of the Saratoga Springs 11 leave today, heading for a birthday party on Cape Cod. The rest will hang around town, go to a park or two, and another museum or so, have another big dinner, and tomorrow split for Washington, Traverse City, Charleston SC, and Paris (not Texas).

I hit the publish button too soon last night and you got a draft, rather than a finished product. If you are also on Facebook, the version there has been updated, or you can go to artis80.blog and see the finished product. Sorry about that.

Saratoga Springs NY.

I do like to find a souvenir from each trip. And I know it when I see it. I know that it’s just right when everyone I am with looks at me like I am crazy. Yesterday, I went in to a tobacconist (how often does that happen?), and gave the man five dollars. I walked out with three beautiful, but empty, cigar boxes. How neat is that?

The biggest event of the day was our visit to the National Horse Racing and Hall of Fame Museum. None of us were particularly excited about going, which is probably why we only spent about three hours there. Another way to put it of course would be to say we were there for almost an Oppenheimer.

Tickets are $20, or $15 for seniors 55 and older. That was us. But one of us asked if we could get a group rate. The answer, after much conversation was a very polite “no”. On the other hand, three of us qualified as veterans (including me), which meant we only need 9 15 dollar tickets, or $12.27 per person. But then it turned out that another three of us had North American museum reciprocal cards (something like that), and that each card allowed four to get in free, so our group price was reduced to $Zero. Pretty good deal, I’d say.

What makes such a good museum? First, the building and the flow work well, sending you a long a nice circular route, which ends where it started. Second, it has just the right amount of material, not overwhelming you (like the railroad museum in Scranton), and not too little, but just enough.

You start out with a collection of Saul Steinberg race track drawings, each one more clever than the last. Steinberg, the famous New Yorker cartoonist – did you know he followed the horses? The Steinberg exhibit, according to a sign posted in the room, is being sponsored by the Oak Tree Racing Association. Wow! Did you know that oak trees were so competitive? I also didn’t know they could do more but stand there and spit out acorns. But I guess they have branched out.

Next come the sculptures of horses and jockeys, then you go through a real track starting gate, and YOUR’E OFF!!

You see a large collection of track pictures by a track photographer, which are really well done. And then you are taken through rooms depicting the history of racing in America.

So much I learned. How the first horses were brought from England in the 17th century and racing was going on in, I think, the 1660s, with the horses below deck for over a month strapped so they would not fall as the ship lunged. Who said exercise is important?

I learned how and where the sport grew in America, how it was concentrated at first in a few areas (Maryland, Kentucky) and spread, how racing took off before the 1860s, until the Civil War intervened. And then it pretty well stopped and then later started again from scratch. Then how gambling excesses closed it down again until it became apparent that states could make money themselves by running and controlling betting on the horses.

You learn about race tracks, and health and safety practices and more. And you learn about the horses, the trainers and the owners. You see a special exhibit on Secretariat, one of the 13 horses which have won the Triple Crown and see each of those races on video.

And through interactive displays you can learn about horses, jockeys and trainers who are in the Hall of Fame, and there are many of them. And you get to see a 16 minute film.

Following the museum, another good dinner at The District. Edie and I split salmon (with hummus and spinach) and a mushroom risotto. A delicious lemon cake/custard combo after.

Back home and to bed early. Big doings tomorrow.

Saratoga Springs, New York. We were the first to arrive, we were the last to arrive. Yes, we start with a riddle. The answer? Read on.

We started in Scranton. 75,000 people. But metro Scranton is more like 550,000, so it is both relatively small and relatively big. Another riddle. This time presented as fact.

The server at the hotel restaurant was all in black. Looked like a priest. I made some remark about today being a black day, expecting a blank look in response, but instead got a mini-lecture on trends in server outfits, the relative merits of white and black shirts and more. I should have taken notes.

We checked out, quickly lost our sense of direction and passed by a sign that said something like Scranton Iron Works Historic Site, so we pulled in. There is a lot of signage, most of which I skipped, and you can look down (and I mean down) into four large circular, tube- shaped, bricked, holes in the ground, originally built in the 1840s when iron and steel and coal were making their presence known in what was becoming Scranton. They are next to Roaring Brook, still roaring and up a steep hill, and all of that had something to do with what went on there. I will admit to knowing nothing about blast furnaces before this visit and to knowing nothing about them now. But it was interesting, I am sure.

Onward through the bigger than it looked the night before downtown area to the Steamtown National Historic Site. The best name for this fascinating railroad museum? Maybe not. But fascinating it is. A railroad yard still in use, they say, a roundhouse, many engines and cars, some of which you can tour. Apparently train rides, but we did not see that. A large building with a jam packed exhibits on the technical aspects of railroads and railroading, another on the history of trains in this country, a third where trains are being repaired and restored. Too much for a short visit, but it meant we didn’t leave Scranton until about 11:30.

One thing I learned is that the engineer didn’t have a panoramic view of the track and that you always had two men in the engine room to be able to see the track curves on both sides. And at night, the only spotlight looked straight ahead.

When you leave Scranton vowed to avoid Interstates, you learn two things. Most importantly, the countryside is exquisite. And, yes, there are Trump signs scattered about. Is rural Pennsylvania really Alabama, or is Alabama really rural Pennsylvania? Hard to know.

Through this drive, we really had no idea where we were, blindly following our GPS. But we didn’t realize that our GPS was a trickster, waiting to play its little jokes on an unsuspecting couple.

“Turn left at the fork.”

“Really, shouldn’t we go right? Okay, GPS knows best”

That was the conversation before we went left, lost our Internet connection and came to a T, not having any idea where to turn, and later learning that we shouldn’t have gone left at that first fork and having to go on a gravel road for two miles to get back.

Or….when GPS set us on NY Route 10, which was to take us to Richhmondville (even after we got there, we weren’t sure it existed), where we were going to get on I-88 because time was getting short, we feared. But along the way, GPS changed its mind and told us to take Betty Brook Road for 6 miles. Really? Well, okay.

i have nothing against Betty Brook, but I think she cost us over 30 minutes as we followed her and then followed a series of left, right, left instructions until we found ourselves back on Route 10, not far from it’s intersection with Betty Brook Road.

Our nine friends whom we are meeting here (all readers of this blog) will be disappointed that they weren’t the stars of today’s show. But c’est la vie. (Ha, WordPress is not great on languages. They thought I should say c’est la vida.)

Now for the riddle. By the time we arrived in Saratoga Springs, everyone else was here. We were last. But the last shall be first, as they (might sometimes say. Because we were late, we went right to our first night restaurant, where we were first to arrive.

Food was delicious at Osteria Danny. Everyone seems well. We will see what today brings.

More than the usual number of typos? Maybe. No time to proof. C’est la vida.

We each have a small suitcase and another even small, just like we were going to the airport. But we also have a cooler, a bag filled with bags of home made granola (enough to feed 9 people four breakfasts) and some packages we will mail from somewhere Tuesday morning. I set up the phone via Bluetooth to listen to 45 minutes of Tammy Wynette to honor our getting halfway through Tammy and George last night. We discovered that we like Jessica Chastain’s Tammy better than Tammy herself.

Surprise, surprise. We saw no traffic on Labor Day. We left home at about ten yesterday morning. There is always traffic on I-270, especially when the lanes narrow to two after Clarksburg. You expect everything to move forward in short spurts and lengthy halts all the way to Frederick and where I-270 feeds into I-70 heading west you certainly expect it on Labor Day. But, no. There was no traffic and we zipped right into the Catoctin Mountains in no time at all.

So we zipped past Thurmont and Emmitsburg and even Gettysburg without slowing down, staying in Route 15. And then we found ourselves in Dillsburg (where?) and at Baker’s “newly renovated” diner. While wondering what to order, we decided to learn a little bit about where we were. Dillsburg was named after its founding citizen over 200 years ago. A man named Dill. And even today, he is remembered every year when Dillsburg (I kid you not) holds it’s annual Pickle Festival, where you can get old-fashioned pickle soup. Yes, old-fashioned. Old-fashioned if you happen to be in Poland.

We then assumed that the Dillsburg high school teams would be the Pickles, but lo!, they are the Polar Bears. Go figure.

Just by the way, Baker’s Diner should be avoided. A large pleasant place it is. But the food we ordered was below par. Edie got a Greek salad, where each ingredient was separated so that none touched each other. And, oh yes, she had to ask for the dressing.

And my chicken croquette? Well, you’ll have ask Edie about that. (By the way, the price was okay. On the Senior menu, I got chicken croquettes, mashed potatoes, pickled beets, a large salad and chocolate pudding, all for $12.99.

We then made a radical decision . We would go the rest of the way to our first destination – Scranton by avoiding major highways. Yes, we learned how change a four hour trip into one that lasted over six.

Part of the next 3 hours we’re passed in nice, hilly country, and the other part in areas where all they did was fix cars and sell pizza. We went through a number of old towns, most of which were new to us. Of course, we did know we were in Pennsylvania, because no one had a front lawn. As we drove by some, we could have reached out the window and knocked on the door.

A couple of surprises . Had we ever heard of Tamaqua PA? It’s fairly sizable and has its founder’s 1800 log cabin still in place. And we drove through Hazelton which looked like it was doing okay.

Then we skirted Wilkes Barre, where my Aunt Lee was born and got to Scranton. A large-ish city, birthplace of Joe Biden, its downtown is fairly compact, built around a square with some impressive public buildings, with the old equally impressive Lackawanna railway station a block or so away. This is now a Radisson Hotel and very impressive and well maintained. But how many people come to stay in downtown Scranton? And there is a large Hilton ,(not as impressive) just down the street.

What we did not know is that we were coming the last night of the Italian food festival which ringed the downtown square with maybe 40 or so places selling pizza, pasta, and Italian desserts. A bit overwhelming, we walked through it, as the festival which began Friday was ending at 8 on Monday and the vendors were beginning their cleanup. But we didn’t really feel like eating pizza or pasta and sitting on the grass, so we grabbed something to eat at the hotel bar.

That was Day 1. Tomorrow we continue to Saratoga Springs to meet our 7 old friends.

Short, quick and important .

Last night, I spoke for over an hour with someone who looks at things differently than I do. He has, I am pretty sure, voted Democratic most of his life, but he lives in a blood red state, and he voted for Trump twice. He is now very disillusioned with Trump, would like to see the Republicans nominate someone else, but if they renominate Trump and if the choice is Trump versus Biden, he will vote again for Trump even though he thinks that Trump’s egotism has fueled this country’s divisions.

I can’t pretend to express his opinions exactly as he did, but will do my best. His identity I know, but I will not disclose it even under torture.

I should add that he is not an election denier. But he does think that it is not a coincidence that all of these indictments have been brought so that a Trump campaign will be affected, but that the Democrats in choosing this timing have outsmarted themselves and this litigation will continue to bolster Trump and make the Dems, not Trump, look small.

I should also add that he favors gun controls. He is not a Second Amendment over all type.

He believes that Trump left the country on good shape – the stock market was high, jobs were coming back, NATO countries had upped their contributions. He believes that 2 1/2 years into the Biden administration, the country is worse off.

He was speaking for himself, but thinks that most Republicans believe that under Biden:

1. Inflation is out of control.
2. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates too much.
3. Gas prices are way too high
4. The country is no longer “energy independent.
5. Democrats control cities, and cities are falling apart and riddled with crime and further Democratic rule will (I know this is hyperbole) turn the entire country into his image of San Francisco.
6. He believes that Biden’s age impacts his abilities.
7. With regard to Hunter Biden and his relationship with his father, he believes (my words) that where there is smoke, there is fire often enough that further investigation is important.

I gave him responses to each of these points. His particular reactions to my responses are not important.

What is important is that he is probably right that this is the way much of this country feels. And because he is neither a dyed in the wool Republican, nor a right wing crazy, he should be taken seriously by the Democrats.

I think all of his positions can be refuted (perhaps all not 100%, but close to it) and the Democrats have no idea how to accomplish this.

We talked about the importance of influencing Independents, and increasing turnout. We assume that most minds have been made up. And we recognize that today, polls show a very tight race.

(By the way, there are things we did not talk about, like the southern border and Ukraine.)

Important food for necessary thought.

For those who followed our trip to Portugal last month, here is some breaking news: we are leaving on another trip tomorrow. Not as exotic (to the extent that Portugal is exotic), and not as long. But we are going to Saratoga Springs NY to meet several regular readers of this blog, returning to DC on Saturday. So five nights and six days on the road. We will, of course, keep you posted.

And, yes, we decided to start our trip on Labor Day, when no one else is on the highway. We have always been intelligent that way. Well, here is our plan: we are not going to drive up to Saratoga Springs the way we would almost any other day of the year. That route would take us up I-95 to the Jersey Turnpike, then onto the Garden State to the New York State line and then on to Saratoga Springs, north of Albany, about 400 miles from Washington. It would also cost us about $35 in tolls. But the idea of driving from here to Baltimore to Philadelphia to New York City and onward on Labor was not very appealing. So we are going to change routes.

We are going to drive up through Pennsylvania, west of Philly, up I-81, spend tomorrow night in the birthplace of our President, Scranton PA at the Radisson, which is (it appears) the renovated Scranton railroad station, and turn east when we get to Binghamton to drive to Albany and then to Saratoga. That will save us the $35 in tolls. It would normally add an hour to the trip, but my guess is on Labor Day, the time on the two routes will be closer to the same, but the western route just more pleasant. We will see.

Other than that? We did survive our week as babysitters. We did go to the baseball game yesterday, but were not very happen when the Nats were behind 9-1 in only the third inning. And we did watch the first episode (of seven) of Tammy and George last night (it’s about a year old, on Showtime and Paramount), and enjoyed the music (is Wabash Cannonball the best song ever written other than Beethoven’s Ode to Joy?) and Jessica Chastain. Speaking of best, is Jessica Chastain the best actress of our time? I am thinking she is – I’d give her two Tammies – for her portrayal of Tammy Wynette in Tammy and George, and for her portrayal of Tammy Faye Baker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. She won a Critics Choice award for the first, and an Oscar for the second. We also saw her in the remake of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (did I get that right?) on TV a couple of years ago – she was excellent there too, although the show itself was nothing to write a blog about.

Finally, one more thought. September is going to be the month of the biggest political mess in this country in our lifetimes (and, yes I know, that is saying something). In addition to all of the hullabaloo (I spelled that right the first time) about Trump and his six trials and probably another hurricane or two, we are going to have a really serious attempt by the lunatic right wing Republicans to shut down the government. Yes, I know we just went through this a few months ago, but it’s that time again – the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

The report is that Kevin McCarthy is trying to avoid a shutdown by coming up with something that will satisfy his lunatic right wing (his entire party is crazy right wing – so I will refer to the really crazy ones as the lunatic right wing), and that the something he has decided on was to open up, or to promise to open up, impeachment hearings on Biden. The first part of those hearings, I assume, would be devoted to trying to find some grounds on which Biden could be impeached and by then, the fiscal year problem would be way past.

But the lunatic right wing probably won’t fall for this lame promise. They will set up their own standard for continuing the “unessential” tasks of the government. Like: we will pass a short term continuing resolution if all charges (state and federal) against Trump the neo-Christ are dismissed with prejudice. They could do that, you know. They don’t like the government anyway, so there’d be no loss there in their minds (to the extent they have minds). So, they think, what’s to lose?

If they don’t want to go that far, think of all the other things they could demand as leverage, since that appears to the name of the game right now.

Don’t think I am exaggerating. Or if you do, just wait and see – you may change your mind.

Remember Bette Davis’ “Buckle your seat belt. We’re in for a bumpy ride”? (If it was Bette Davis, if that’s how she spells her first name, and if the quote is at all accurate) For this month, that quote is insufficient. As I said (only one paragraph ago), “just wait and see.”

Until tomorrow.

From my own point of view, Presidents should have more important things to do than travel to disaster zones. Their presence either on the ground or in a helicopter appears to me to be wholly unnecessary. But in this world where appearances matter more than anything else, these visits seem to be important.

Do they ever really accomplish anything, though? Wouldn’t Puerto Ricans have received paper towels even if Trump had not been there to throw them to them? (Really, he was throwing them at them, I guess). And what did Biden accomplish by taking the long trip to Maui?

Well, just two weeks after Maui, Biden will be off to Florida. What is he expected to do there? Shake some hands, express his sorrow and say Americans are resilient? Anything else?

He apparently thought he was going to have a meet and greet with Governor DeSantis. After all, that is what protocol would demand, and it’s what should always happen when a President visits a state on a nonpartisan mission of joint concern.

But no. There will be no meet and greet. Why should DeSantis stoop so low to meet such an inferior human being (if indeed he is human and not a form of CGI created by George Soros), even if he is (in the opinion of some misguided anti-American radical leftists) the president of the United States?

But, says the governor , “Art, you have it all wrong. I respect the office of the presidency. In fact, Id like to fill it one day. But, Art, do you really think Joe Biden is the president? And – whether he is or just acts like he is – don’t you think that the security needed for such a meeting would be so expensive and would probably add a year or two to the recovery time?” (I paraphrase)

Oh, yes, the security. Why didn’t they think about that when Biden went to Hawaii or Trump to Puerto Rico?

So let’s think about it. Whenever the president travels, there is extensive security. Maybe even more is needed when he travels to deep red NW Florida, which has more than its share of loonies. But you see, Ron, Joe is coming and presidential security will be in place.

So it’s not about the cost and disruption of presidential security. It must therefore be the cost of extra security when the precious Ron DeSantis meets with the President. For me to guess, the cost of extra security at such a meeting would be approximately $000,000. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Am I wrong?

So let’s say it like it is, Mr. Governor. “I Ron DeSantis, Great Governor of the Red State of Florida, hereby declare that Joey Biden, so-called (by some) President of the United States, is unwelcome in this State, will receive no appreciation for his coming here, will be left to fend for himself, and will be encouraged to leave as quickly as possible. Oh, yes. One other thing. When he gets back to that swampy cesspool called our nation’s capital, he should make sure FEMA sends us more money. We really need it. And we need it now.”

From me to President Biden: I feel your pain. And, if you change your mind about going to Florida, come on up the street for breakfast. You ever taste Edie’s granola?

Next year (2024) will be the year of my 60th reunion from Harvard College (whew!); that’s what happens when you are 80.

The other day I received the invitation to put together a few paragraphs for the 60th Reunion directory. Harvard sends out a reunion directory each five years – you can imagine that I have quite a collection.

So, yesterday, I wrote and submitted the material to be published in the directory. They ask you specific questions, and then give you the ability to add anything you want. One of the questions that they ask, not surprisingly, is about any graduate degrees. I told them that I had an LL.B. from Yale that I received in 1967.

After I submitted my response, I got a thank you and a note from “Nicholas”, who identified himself as the directory’s editor. Here is our correspondence.

Nicholas: Hi, Arthur. “I see that you said that you received an LL.B. from Yale Law School. I checked their website and they give a J.D., not an LL.B. Did you get a J.D.?”

Me: “Hi, Nicholas. No. When I went to Yale, they gave out LL.B.’s. Later they started to give out J.D.’s instead of LL.B.’s. But I have an LL.B. I never asked to have it converted.”

Nicholas: “Art, can I change it to J.D. to be consistent with what Yale gives now?”

Me: “Nicholas, it wouldn’t be true. I don’t have a J.D. But, since one day the entire solar system will die and be eaten up by a black hole, maybe it doesn’t really matter. So do whichever you want.”

Nicholas: “Understood. I will leave it as it is.”

+++++++++++++++++

One more thing for today.

We had dinner last night at a new Italian restaurant that recently opened on Upshur Street NW in Petworth. When I say recently, I mean during August, I think, although the restaurant marquis had been up for quite a while.

(A digression: San Matteo. I hadn’t put two and two together until yesterday. San Matteo is Italian for Saint Matthew. Duh. Everyone else must already have known this since they about 13, but sometimes I am slow. Also, there is no town called San Matteo in Italy – so the name doesn’t lead you to any particular form of Italian cuisine. And, the city of San Mateo in California only has one “t” – why would that be? End of digression.)

From the outside, it’s a small restaurant, with three or four sidewalk tables. You walk in and the narrow restaurant as a very modern bar with stools on your right and about four high tables for two on your left; there are two tables between the end of the bar and the front windows. Nicely laid out, very sleek in shades of brown, but – not much room, you say.

THEN, they lead you through that room, past a window to the kitchen, into a back room (a recent addition, to be sure) which is very large and airy, with windows on three sides, which can open. I didn’t count the separate tables, but I would guess there may be twenty, nicely but informally set. Very light. Very welcoming. From the street, you would have no idea.

And, on a Thursday evening at about 7:30, it was all quite crowded. Now, here is the dilemma – they made some serious mistakes, but I would go back again.

The menu is fairly small – maybe 8 pasta dishes and 4 non-pasta entrees, plus a bunch of salads and starters. I ordered a pasta amatriciana. The homemade pasta, bucatini, was perfect. There was a rich tomato sauce. Everything seemed just right. But….there was no spice. And an amatriciana is supposed to have a tang to it. What happened?

I called the waiter and asked if he had any flaked red pepper. He said, “pepper, sure”, and went away, returning with a normal black pepper mill, which he put on the table. I was surprised, but I used a little pepper, just to give it a little spirit, and it worked, but it wasn’t right.

After the meal, and after checking the menu and seeing that one of the ingredients was said to be Calabrian chilis, I asked him about it. His response: “Some of our guests don’t like things spicy, so we can make it both ways. You could have asked for the peppers.” “I did ask and you brought me a black pepper mill”, I responded. “Oh”, he said, “I thought that’s what you wanted. My fault.”

I left it at that – but what happened? Had he said to the chef: “the guy that ordered this looks like he must be 80 years old – he probably doesn’t want it spicy.”? Why would they make and serve a spicy dish without spices as their default? How is a customer supposed to know they even have a choice?

I put this to the restaurant being a month or less old. As I said, I think the food (including Edie’s large salad and my non-spicy pasta) was really well put together. It just isn’t what I ordered.

Anyway, we are now on day five this week taking care of our 2 1/2 year old grandson. Will we ever recover?

The New York Times yesterday morning had an article about a new form of drone, the Valkyrie XQ-58A, to be deployed in battle by the United States military. It is large enough to carry missiles, sleek enough to make it hard to detect, and has a range as broad as China is wide. It will be pilotless. But more than this, the XQ-58A will be guided not by someone sitting in a nearby aircraft or in a computer lab, but by its own artificial intelligence. It will be able to identify targets on its own, and know how to approach them with the smallest amount of risk. It looks like it can operate on its own (and if it can’t, surely the next generation Valkyrie will be able to).

There have been, says the Times, numerous instances where human error has led to improper attacks, missing targets or causing unanticipated collateral damages, including killing and injuring civilians. One of the goals of this new missile will be to take human decision making out of the equation and leave the attack determinations up to the non-human brains of the drones.

Of course a battle takes two sides, and perhaps the other sides will also have these non-manned, artificial intelligence controlled weapons. War could be, at least to a large extent, conducted without direct human participation. The only thing you need is someone to power up the Valkyrie – and who says that that someone must be a human being?

You can think of many ways in which these drones could be used, and you may be interested to know that up to 2000 are apparently on order. There have been voices raised warning against leaving this type of decision making to machines governed by artificial intelligence. What if they have been programmed incorrectly, what if they are able to be corrupted (or taken over) or if they can learn to corrupt themselves? These and more questions arise.

As is the case so often, I point to a coincidence. I just finished watching another “Black Mirror” episode, this one from Season 4, titled “Metalhead”. I can’t give you the full story of Metalhead, because much is not explained in the show itself. But basically……the setting is somewhere in the British Isles, after the apocalypse. What sort of apocalypse, we don’t know, but there are fewer people, those cars which are still running look like they have been through the war, and those cars which are not running have been abandoned here are there. Things are so bad and so sad, that the film itself is in black and white.

Three people, two men and a woman, are driving in a battered car to an abandoned warehouse, where they are going to collect something with a mysterious serial number (this number identifies the item for the three), and bring it back to a friend to give to her ailing brother. We learn that this is a dangerous task, and that they need to be in to and out of the warehouse in less than 5 minutes What will happen if they fall behind their five minute schedule, we don’t know. Why the entire task is so dangerous, we never learn.

A box with the target serial number is located, and one of the men climbs a ladder to retrieve it. He pulls the large cardboard box off the shelf, and immediately sees a metal “dog” on the shelf in back of the box. He knows what this is, and he knows it means more than trouble. The “dog” comes to life, makes a rumbling noise. Its two front paws also serve as knife-like weapons, it can sprout shrapnel from its head, and more. It attacks the man – he is dead..

The “dog” can also sense where the others are. It knows that the other man is outside, sitting in a presumed getaway truck. It runs out of the warehouse and down to the truck at superhuman speed, it smashes the window of the truck and jumps through it. It gets its second victim.

It has more trouble with the woman who, while the “dog” is going after the man in the truck, escapes in her car, but the “dog” can run faster than the car can drive, and it catches up with her, although she jumps out of the car, which then careens over a cliff, “dog” inside. The car is totaled, but the “dog” is fine, and the chase is on.

What we learn is that, for the humans, there is apparently no escape. What we don’t learn (in addition to what in hell happened to Mother Earth) is who created the “dogs”, who programmed them, what their purpose is. We know they can think for themselves to a great extent. They know who their prey is; they know how to track them. When injured, they know how to repair themselves. When faced with a dilemma, they can think themselves out of it with a degree of creativity. And one more thing – we learn that the guard “dog” we have been watching is not alone – there are many, many others, and they seem to know how to work together and cooperate.

Okay, back to real life and the military drones, which can also think for themselves and wreak havoc. They are sleeker, for sure, than the “dogs”, but they share some of the same characteristics. And, however sophisticated and able the XQ-58As are, the next generation and the generation after that will be ever more sophisticated and able.

And then comes the apocalypse?

And then?

I spent my usual 30 minutes writing an insightful article on today’s educational challenges. I proofed it (as best as I normally do) and then I hit the “Publish” button. But nothing happened. And then it all disappeared. The tree fell in the forest, and only I heard it.

I am not going to redo it. And maybe what I said was obvious. Basically, I listed the educational challenges that face schools today that didn’t exist in the 1940s and 1950s. They are basically technology driven. The need to teach how to use technology is new and time consuming, and necessarily means that some items that used to be on the curriculum now had to be dropped. But beyond that, technology means that kids today have many more addictive diversions than we had and that many of those diversions are much more destructive than helpful, that technology in class can interfere with teaching, and that what kids see on their various devices regarding drugs, sex, bullying, etc., and what they see about their uber-talented peers on apps such as TikTok further disrupts the educational process by giving them attractive alternatives, many or most of which are more harmful than beneficial.

That’s about it. Sorry you couldn’t see more. BUT……take this opportunity to look at yesterday’s blog about energy independence. It got many fewer viewers than normal – and I think it’s one of the more informative posts that I have written.

That’s it for today.

One of the Republican campaign constants is that the Republicans during the Trump administration made American energy independent, while the Democrats under Biden have reversed course, both making the U.S. dependent once again on foreign sources for oil and causing inflation in oil and gas prices. I read an interesting article on Politico yesterday on this topic. Here are some of the statistics cited in that article:

1. U.S. oil production is at an all time high this year at 12.8 million barrels a day and is expected to grow to 13.1 million barrels a day in 2024. As late as 2008, the U.S. was producing only about 8 million barrels a day.
2. Of this, today about 3 million barrels a day comes from drilling on federal lands, while during the Trump years, this figure was never higher than 2.75 million.
3. This makes the United States the world leader in oil extraction; we are also the leader in natural gas production.
4. Oil prices are not the result of American policies. Increases in American production will not make this country independent in terms of oil prices. A gallon of gasoline nation-wide is now at about $3.87 (up about 30 cents from where it has been most of the year, but down from its 2020 high of slightly over $5.00).
5. Oil prices are controlled by world-wide events – European bank policies, OPEC policies, Russian sanctions, Russo-Ukraine War, climate change.
6. The United States both imports and exports petroleum, but it exports more than it imports. Even so, about 40% of the oil we use in the U.S. is imported.

Nevertheless, Politico points to recent Republican campaign utterances blaming Biden, and only Biden, for the high prices of oil (Pence), stating that she will bring oil production back to the U.S. (Haley), and asserting that Biden has “shut down energy production in America” (Scott).

The Republicans like to talk about American energy independence, saying that Trump made the U.S. independent, and Biden has seriously backslid. I ran across an article in Forbes from May 2023 that talks about this. Forbes agrees with Politico that we produce more oil than we consume and consequently export more than we import. But we import quite a bit, because our refineries are best able to refine the heavy oils produced elsewhere, rather than the thinner, shale oils produced here, so one type of petroleum is imported to refine here, and the other exported to be refined elsewhere.

So what does energy independence mean? Does it mean that we shouldn’t have to import any oil to meet our needs? Or does it mean that we simply export more than we import? Forbes makes it clear that, if you define energy independence as not importing any oil at all – we have not been energy independent for many, many decades, not even during the Trump years when we were still importing over 9 million barrels of oil every day. But if you are talking about simply producing more oil than we consume as the definition of energy independence, we did become “energy independent” during the Trump years. But this is not because we reduced our importing of oil from abroad; it simply meant that the vast increase in shale oil production which hit its stride about five years ago (2019) increased our exports, so that our exports for the first time in recent years began to exceed our imports.

So the Republicans, when they are referring to the Trump years use one definition of energy independence (exports over imports) and when talking about the Biden years, use the other (how much we import only). Apples and oranges.

I decided to look a little deeper and I went to Wikipedia. Wikipedia lists the top 97 oil producing countries (#97 is Spain which accounted for 19 barrels of oil last year; go figure): Yes, the U.S. is first, followed by Saudi Arabia and Russia very close behind. There is then more than a 50% drop-off to get to Canada, the fourth largest producer, with Iraq right behind as #5. The United States last year, according to Wikipedia, produced about 11.8 million barrels.

An article from the Center for American Progress from 2022) looks at this from another angle. It states that American producers own sufficient land, and have sufficient unused drilling permits (about 9000), to increase oil production any time they want, but they believe that they are operating at a very high record profit level, and that their executives and shareholders are very happy receiving high salaries and dividends, rather than have the companies major continue major investments in new drilling locations. The oil companies can, according to the article, increase production whenever they choose to, and this has nothing to do with whether Biden or Trump is in the White House. (By the way, to complement this, another article, this one from the American Oil and Gas Reporter, says that the U.S. (followed by Russia, Saudi Arabia and Canada) holds the largest amount of untapped oil reserves, another fact not often discussed)

And all these articles point out that nothing that U.S. politicians could do would make the cost of oil in the country independent of world-wide ups and downs.

So, the conclusion? The Republicans, by talking about apples and oranges as if they were simply interchangeable fruit, have created some great campaign talking points that are, as so many of their talking points are, made without concern for truth.

But, don’t the Democrats have a problem, too? President Biden’s campaign promised a sort of green revolution, moving away from fossil fuels, something important to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party (and it seems to the world at large). So, if he responds to the Republicans using the statistics contained in this article, he runs the risk of alienating these important voters. Biden can’t simply show that the United States was not independent under Trump, but was importing 9 million barrels a day, and today we are even importing more, and in addition we are also producing more than was ever produced in the Trump years and next year we are going to producing even more oil than we are today. This would be Biden, perhaps truthfully, saying that he is doing Trump better than Trump did.

Or maybe he can say this, assuming that these statistics are correct and this is true. Maybe he can say that the greening of America (Charles Reich’s phrase) will take some time, and our first goal is to increase solar and wind power and to decrease and end coal mining. Once we do this, we can concentrate on reducing the use and the export of petroleum.

Maybe all branches of the Democratic party could accept this, and maybe even some who aren’t Democrats could credit Biden with being truthful to the American people.

Articles cited above:

1. U.S. Energy Independence Soars to Highest Level in Over 70 Years, by Robert Rapier, Forbes Magazine, May 2, 2023.
2. America is Going Through an Oil Boom – And This Time It’s Different, by Camila Domonoske, NPR, June 9, 2023
3. List of Countries by Oil Production, Wikipedia
4. 5 Reasons Why the United States Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Independence, by Jenny Rowland-Shea, Sally Hardin and Miriam Goldstein, Center for American Progress, March 10, 2022
5. Reserve Estimates: U.S. Holds Most Recoverable Oil Reserves, by Per Magnus Nysveen, The American Oil and Gas Reporter, July 2016.
6. The U.S. is Pumping Oil Faster Than Ever; the Republicans Don’t Care, by Ben Lebvre, Politico, August 28, 2023

since I moved to Washington. Time now to think back a little.

I came to work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and I moved to 800 4th Street SW. It was about a ten minute walk between the two.

Southwest Washington was built up in the 19th century, after the Civil War, but there is nothing of that time that remains. It was all bulldozed in the 1950s or maybe early 60s and redeveloped. I am sure there was a lot of trauma associated with that and I am not going to discuss the merits here, but in the late 1960s and for at least a decade after that, SW became a mecca for young professionals moving to DC.

But there was something I didn’t know. My grandfather’s brother, Moshe Reuben Yoelson, who had died when I was very young and whom you may know as Al Jolson’s father, was a Jewish religious leader (exact title unclear), whose Orthodox congregation, Talmud Torah, was located exactly (on 4 1/2 Street) where I was living. It may have ceased operations some years before and had merged with another congregation to become Ohev Shalom Talmud Torah, now located on upper 16th Street NW.

At any event , 800 4th Street, a large building now I think a condominium, was part of an even larger development, Capitol Park, which included four high-rises and a number of town homes. I was very comfortable moving in, as I had three high school friends (all of them good friends) already living in Capitol Park.

Looking back, it seems that everyone in Capitol Park was between 23 and 35 years old. And I met a lot of them, especially during the two summers I lived there around the always busy swimming pool (this was before we discovered that the sun was bad for you).

And the SW urban renewal area went beyond Capitol Park. There were other developments in SW. I knew people in most of them.

Some of these people (you know who you are) I still see. Some, including a young woman I dated for much of this time, are no longer with us. Some, I remember distinctly, some vaguely. Some by name, some by face only. Some not at all.

For two or three years, my entire life revolved around Southwest. I did know a few people my age who lived on Capitol Hill, not far away. And I worked with people who lived further afield, mainly I think in Virginia. I thought those in Virginia had made a terrible mistake when they signed their leases. I still think that.

I did have a car – a 1968 yellow Pontiac Firebird with a black top (that’s another story), and I did use it now and then. I also had my bicycle which I used more often. Short trips to the National Mall and Smithsonians, and to Ft. McNair at Buzzard Point (then open to the public) and longer weekend excursions to Mt. Vernon in Virginia or Great Falls in Maryland.

But mainly I stuck to Southwest, although it was a difficult place to spend your money. There were no restaurants or stores or theaters in my neighborhood.

Well, almost none. There was a Safeway a few blocks away that I almost never went into. Why was that? Not sure, except for a vague notion that I didn’t belong there. You see, next to Capitol Park, they built public housing (it’s still there) and although I thought that was progressive and just fine, the two populations didn’t mix and I thought the Safeway belonged to them, not us. So my recollection is that when I needed a grocery, I would get in my Firebird and wind up at an A & P in Arlington.

But most of the time I bought my food (I didn’t really cook anything) at the small grocery in the basement of 800 4th Street. The couple that ran the store were pretty unfriendly but I ignored that until one day I could do that no longer. On that day, I was buying my cans of tuna, or whatever, and a young woman whom I casually knew came in the store holding a Pyrex baking dish. She went to the counter and told the owner that she bought the dish the day before, had just opened it and saw it had a crack and wanted to exchange it for another. The owner looked at her and accused her of falsely accusing him of selling damaged goods, something “I would never ever do”. She was very polite and soft-spoken and explained her situation again, making sure she wasn’t accusing him of anything nefarious. He doubled down on his position.

i stood there in disbelief. She broke down in tears and said “My father owns a store just like this in Brooklyn and he would never treat a customer this way.” He simply looked at her and said ” Then I think you should take this back to your father.”

She ran out, crying. I told the owner that I would never shop in his store again. And I didn’t.

I hardly ever went into Northwest Washington when I lived us Southwest. Really terra incognita. Occasionally to go to a film, always at the Biograph or at a theater in Georgetown (neither there any longer), and I don’t remember the name of the Georgetown theater. Yes, I do. The Key, I think.

Restaurants? We came quite a bit to the Astor on M Street downtown. That was quite an excursion for us but the food was good and cheap (Greek food) and did they really have a belly dancer on the third floor? Chinese food was more of an excursion – a small strip shopping center place on Lee Highway in Arlington. I don’t remember how I adopted that as a go-to place.

I left HUD in 1972 and went to work for a law firm on Connecticut and L NW. This was all pre-Metro, you know, so the commute from Southwest seemed like it would be unpleasant. Luckily, a friend from my Army Reserve unit was moving back to New Orleans and I was able to take over his Foggy Bottom apartment. The walk to work wasn’t ten minutes, but was well under twenty.

My Southwest life was over. But maybe I will say a little more about it later.

(First, for those interested, I noted a correction to yesterday’s blog. You can find it at the end of the post. If you think you have more important things to do….no big deal. Obviously.)

So, we have a nice, sturdy stationary bicycle in the basement that both Edie and I use most days. Edie, sensibly, uses her time on the bike to read the New Yorker. I, not as sensibly, watch videos on my computer. While I have gone through periods where I watch educational videos on YouTube, my default is to go to Netflix and watch something whose worth is questionable at best.

Recently, I have been watching episodes of the series “Black Mirror”. If you don’t know “Black Mirror”, it’s an interesting series based on, loosely, what could be called the supernatural, but – different from such older series, such as “The Twilight Zone” – it tends to be supernatural based on advanced future forms of technology (actually, I don’t remember. Maybe technology was important to “The Twilight Zone”, too).

So far, I have watched the last two years (Years 5 and 6) of “Black Mirror”. I wrote about one of the episodes already – the first episode of Year 6, “Joan is Awful”. I found this to be brilliant (and the best of the 6 I have watched so far).

Joan is a young woman with a mid-level job she dislikes. She has a very acceptable fiance she is not certain about. And an old boy friend she still thinks about – although she should know better (and knows she should know better).

One day, Joan goes to work, has to fire a friend, gets an unexpected call from her old flame who wants to meet for drinks, tells her therapist all of her problems and questions, has a drink (and a bit – not a lot – more) with her old beau, and goes home to her fiance. They settle in to watch something on their smart (very smart) TV.

They pick an episode of a show titled “Joan is Awful”. Joan, on the program, looks just like Joan on the couch. Joan on the program goes to work in an office that looks like the office that Joan on the couch works in, she fires someone who looks like someone Joan on the couch fired, she goes to see a therapist who looks just like the therapist that Joan on the couch sees. Watching the program, Joan on the couch’s fiance learns that she has questions about their relationship (or at least this is what Joan on the program says) and that Joan on the program has just seen her old flame. None of this goes over well, nor does the scene where Joan on the program is sitting on a couch with her fiance (now on a couch) watching Joan is awful, etc. How long is this loop going to continue? What is real, what is not? How was this done? How can it be stopped (or can it?)?

The episode says a lot about the dangers and promises of technology, about issues of privacy in a technologically advanced society, and so forth. It is well acted (Salma Hayek plays Joan on the program; Annie Murphy plays the real Joan, if in fact she is the real Joan) and directed. Highly recommended.

The other “Black Mirror” episodes I have seen vary in quality, I think. But the concepts are fascinating. There’s one episode (“Beyond the Sea”) where two men man a space ship (it’s purpose never quite clear), and where there is a way that they can be beamed back to earth to visit their families. Okay, let me explain. To come back to earth, they lie on a bed or sorts, insert their ID card into a slot and push a button. They are then back on earth and have a way to reverse the process from their home. But the family of one of the two has been murdered leaving him bereft and his friend thinks that it would help if his grieving friend could borrow his ID card and go to his family for a visit. But when he is beamed back to earth, he is beamed in the body (but not the mind) of the person whose ID card is used. You can imagine what happens. The plot may not be very interesting – but again the technology is.

There are only three episodes in Season 6 and three in Season 5. Season 5 has one episode based on a “doll” made to be a personal companion to fans of a famous singer/entertainer named Ashley O (played by Miley Cyrus), the fans being young teenagers. The doll called Ashley Too has the voice of Ashley O and apparently a mind of her own. When Ashley O finds herself in a coma induced by her evil aunt/manager, Ashley Too develops additional capabilities and, with her 15 year old owner Rachel, determines to rescue her.

A second episode (“Smithereens”) is based on an automobile accident resulting in a death of the driver’s fiance caused by a social media distraction to the driver who takes his eyes off the road. The driver blames the social media company, Smithereens, and takes an employee hostage threatening to kill him unless he can talk to Smithereens’ chair, Billy Bauer. Should they let him, or should they not? And why does he want to talk to him?

The final Season 5 episodes involves a video game that can be played remotely by players, and that, through new technology, not only let’s you see the setting on a screen, but let’s you feel you are actually there – not only visually, but also feeling the emotions of, and the pains of, the characters involved in an action/fighting scenario. Played by two old buddies, their relationship gets a little too close, if you know what I mean.

Well, that’s it for those two years of “Black Mirror” and we haven’t even got to the coincidence. Here’s the coincidence. Having finished my last Penguin, I took the next one off the pile. It turned out to be a book of short stories called “The Seeds of Time” by a British author, John Wyndham. I had never heard of Wyndham who is apparently a very well known science fiction author whose books and stories could all become “Black Mirror” episodes. I have read 5 of the 9 stories in the book, and – in addition to being very, very readable – they also deal with technological changes that have not yet occurred. The stories were written in the 1950s and show the same degree of realistic imagination that you find in “Black Mirror”.

A story based on time travel – you can travel backwards and actually meet yourself, having the power to change, or perhaps to duplicate, history but being honor bound not to do so, but to use your time travel only as historical research. But what do you do if you find out that the reason you broke up with the girl you still love was based on a misunderstanding? A story based on humans stranded on Mars with no hope of return to earth – should they mingle with the Martians, or do they stay apart, and what will be the consequences of either choice? A story based on a rocket taking sixteen humans for six months of duty on Mars, but where something goes wrong and the landing mechanism breaks – the space ship goes into possibly perpetual Martian orbit. The result? Cannibalism, of course, but then what? A story based on a dying planet, inhabited by beings who know they must escape to other planets in other solar systems to survive. One group goes to earth. Their civilization is much more advanced then ours in many ways. But there’s a trick – these beings do not look like us, and they are tiny, about the size of ants. They have a lot they can teach earthlings…..but they don’t get the chance. And finally, another time travel story – where humans of futures years can become tourists in the past. They can be seen by humans today, but they appear to have no substance; in other words, a human of today cannot touch them, but can walk right through them. Unnerving to say the least, especially as today’s humans have no idea what is going on.

All right, that’s it. Interesting post, or a waste of your time? I am enjoying both the stories and the episodes, and thought the coincidence worth reporting.

Tomorrow, back to our regularly scheduled sort of topics (perhaps).

You have probably figured out that yesterday’s secret bio was that of Vivek Ramaswamy (or, as he perhaps should be called, Vivek Superswamy – is that politically incorrect? I don’t think so, it’s a compliment). But there are certain elements of his bio and his campaign that may need a little more exploration.

Of course, one question is why am I even thinking about him? The answer is that he is quite charismatic (you can have good and bad charisma, you know) and therefore is prone to attracting attention, and as Donald Trump sinks further into the legal quicksand, his candidacy may become much more attractive to those Trump supports who sing that well known song, Charisma uber Alles.

There was an interesting article in the Times of Israel (one of three Israeli papers to whose daily email I subscribe), which outlined certain aspects of his candidacy which might interest Jewish (and non-Jewish) readers:

1. He would like to end US financial support of Israel on the theory that (a) Israel doesn’t really need our money, and (b) with an expansion of the Abraham Accords not only to Saudi Arabia but to countries like Indonesia (good luck there) and Oman, Israel has ways to make up for the loss of U.S. contributions. He also would stop American aid to the Palestinians.
2. Apparently a recent law passed in Florida makes it a crime to circulate certain kinds of antisemitic material. Ramaswamy has criticized this law as being anti-free speech, and has suggested that it was only introduced and passed at the behest of Jewish deSantis supporters. He also made it clear that he condemns antisemitism personally.
3. At Yale, he was a member of the Jewish “Shabtai Society”, which didn’t exist of course during the Dark Ages when I was there. It acts like a Yale Secret Society (you know, Skull and Bones and all that), but without a building. It was supported financially by an Israeli businessman named (coincidentally) Shabtai (who also is a big supporter of the Israeli Defense Forces), and has as its leader Rabbi Shmully Hecht. Now I know nothing about either Shabtai nor Hecht (save that for another day): According to the TOI, Hecht has said “Vivek is the most pro-Israel candidate running for the President of the United States. He is not merely a political friend of the Jews. He is a genuine part of our community.” (By the way, Ramaswamy was not the first non-Jewish member of Shabtai – count Senator Cory Booker as another.). SEE CORRECTION AT END OF ARTICLE.
4. As he made crystal clear in the debate, Ramaswamy is firmly against any additional American financial support for Ukraine. He is one of a number of Republicans (I guess including Putin-buddy Donald Trump) who feels this way. In addition, both Ramaswamy and Putin feel that Zelensky is no great patriot and hero. Rather, Ramaswamy has accused Zelensky (who is – by some definitions – Jewish) as having taken measures which are adverse to religious minorities in Ukraine, including Jews. When asked to be more specific, Ramaswamy apparently demurs.
5. While most Jewish organizations have supported the 50 year old executive order which prohibits discrimination based on religion, etc. in federal contractor employment, Ramaswamy would apparently reverse that order. He believes that federal contracting should be based on merit alone, and if this means that certain groups feel they are being discriminated against…….tough.
6. I told you yesterday that (about ten years ago), Vivek Ramaswamy received a fellowship from the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation (I didn’t include Daisy in yesterday’s post), which provides scholarship funds for immigrants and children of immigrants. I suggested that Ramaswamy was not too happy about being associated with a brother of George Soros. Well, the Times of Israel suggests (based on admittedly unverified information) that Ramaswamy actually paid a Wikipedia editor to delete the reference to the Foundation from his Wikipedia bio. At any event, the Soros fellowship is not mentioned on Wikipedia. (It is clearly mentioned on the Soros Foundation site, http://www.pdsoros.org.)

There is more to think about regarding Vivek Ramaswamy than what the Times of Israel wrote about. For example, he believes that there government is hiding important information about who knew what before the 9/11 attack. He also is big on downsizing the federal government: the FBI, the Department of Education, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the IRS, the CDC, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco – they all will be shut down. But……there’s more. During his first two years in office, Ramaswamy told Governor Reynolds of Iowa a week or so ago, he is going to cut the federal workforce “across the board” by 75%! And, he said, “it’s not Yes I Can, it’s Yes I Will”.

Based on people like Vivek Ramaswamy, Josh Hawley, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Bret Kavanaugh, I say (as a loyal alumnus) that maybe it’s Yale Law School that needs to be shut down and not the IRS? It’s a thought.

Correction: The Shabtai Society does have a building. And I think it’s only men. And Rabbi Hecht is controversial

This is a quiz. If you figure out the correct answer before I give it to you, you win. If not, you don’t. You now know all the rules.

1. I was born in Cincinnati and went to a Catholic High School, although I wasn’t Catholic.
2. While I was making good enough grades in high school to be class valedictorian (because I am very smart), I also played tennis (because I am very athletic). I was so good at tennis that I was a nationally ranked junior player (and you know how good that means I must have been).
3. Of course, Harvard accepted me, and I went. I majored in biology, and must have got all A’s, because I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude!!
4. My senior thesis? On the ethics of creating beings who were part animal and part human. Want to read it? Snippets from it were published in the Boston Globe and the New York Times.
5. Because I am so talented, I did other things while I was at Harvard. I was a rap performer. But I can’t give you my stage name because that would give me away. (I guess I already gave you one clue – if I was a rap singer at Harvard, I must not be 80 years old.)
6. I did other things at Harvard. You ever hear of the Harvard Political Union? I not only joined it, but I was president. And I learned to debate at Harvard. Boy, was that fun!!
7. While I was at Harvard, the school needed a new president. Three undergraduates were asked to be on the selection committee. Guess who was one of them? Yes, c’est moi. And no, I am not French.
8. What else did I do while I was at Harvard? Why, I started a business. It was a success and I ran it for a number of years before I sold it. It created a way to connect undergraduate entrepreneurs (like me) to successful business leaders. Not like Donald Trump because it only worked with business leaders who know how to turn on a computer.
9. Oh, and before I forget, I am a real good piano player. Not like Harry Tryior Richard Nixon. More, I guess, like Yuja Wang
10. After I graduated, I took a job in New York to get rich(er). It worked, but I only stayed there three years, because I decided to go to Yale Law School (or did they recruit me? Hmmm). Anyway, I went and got a J.D. It was OK. And while I was there, I was an active member of an intellectual Jewish organization, although I have never been Jewish.
11. Well, the rest is (contemporary) history. You ever hear of Roivant Sciences? That’s me. We are really big now. What do we do? We buy medical patents from other companies for drugs they are working on and we complete the development of those drugs and bring them to market. Sometimes we are successful, but other times ….
12. Rouvant has a lot of subsidiaries. Two of them are Chinese. We don’t talk about them. And Roivant itself is a Bermudan company. That’s because the idea of paying taxes in America when you don’t need to is sort of offensive, I guess.
13. Roivant has also worked really hard to support workplace diversity and other progressive social programs. I don’t talk about these much. They embarrass me.
14. There’s one other thing I don’t talk about. You know I was a Paul Soros fellow? Paul was George’s older brother. I put it near the bottom of my list of accomplishments for obvious reasons.
15. Finally, how much am I worth? Oh, about a billion dollars, give or take. I am just getting started.
16. You know who I am? Better keep an eye on me. Some think I am the most dangerous person in the country. I’d be happy to debate you on that.

I dreamed that Edie and I were attending some large function. She was very interested in what was being said; I was bored to death. I went out into the lobby to see if I could find some reading material that would catch my interest and that I could bring back into the gathering. Newspapers were too distracting, but there were two stacks of what I thought were periodicals, and I took one, came back in and sat down.

It turned out that this was not a stack of periodicals, but the mail of a couple of friends who were on vacation. I realized I should not be looking at their mail (they will remain nameless), but I saw that some of the junk mail was the same junk mail that we get and I decided that I would throw it in a trashcan.

I went back to the lobby, saw no trashcan and went outside. After I threw the mail into the trashcan, I turned around to go back into the building, but the building itself was not there. I thought maybe I had turned a corner, but I went all around in all directions; the building was not there, and nothing looked familiar. I asked a number of people where it was; everyone knew and everyone told me. Every direction I was given was different and none seemed to work. I figured I better call Edie and tell her of my problem. I turned on my phone, but I couldn’t find any app that let me contact anyone.

Throughout this ordeal (and I was getting more and more concerned), I said to myself (I don’t remember this happening before) “Am I dreaming or is this real?” The answer was consistent: I knew that I was not dreaming. I knew this was reality.

It was the same feeling that I had while watching the Republican Vice-Presidential hopefuls last night debate in Milwaukee. Can this be real? Really?

What did I learn? I learned that Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota, has as much personality as does North Dakota. I learned that Vivek Ramaswamy wants a new American Revolution, thinks that climate change is a liberal hoax, believes that human progress and fossil fuels are like love and marriage, and thinks America is in a “dark place”. I learned that Mike Pence thinks that his belief as to what Jesus thinks trumps (to put it succinctly) the Supreme Court and the Constitution. I learned that Chris Christie, who believes that Hunter Biden should get at least 10 years for lying on a gun application, doesn’t know the difference between a minimum sentence and a maximum sentence. I learned that Asa Hutchinson thinks that Asa Hutchinson was a wonderful governor of Arkansas. I learned that Tim Scott believes that if he could do it, anybody can. I learned that Nikki Haley believes that Donald Trump is the most despised politician in America. And I learned that Ron deSantis comes across just as badly as everyone says he does, thinks America is in decline, and – when in the Navy – was deployed “near” Navy SEALS, and will invade Mexico if elected.

Of course, any Republican candidate for president would scare me, even if I thought they personally would be acceptable, because there are so many loony Republicans in Congress. The Trump presidency caused so much damage – and another Republican led government would make it that much harder to fully recover.

It was interesting to see that some of the candidates would criticize Trump, while others would not, that they had differing opinions on abortion, and – not surprisingly – that they have very different opinions on Ukraine. Ramaswamy would pull our support out immediately and Pence, for example, would back Ukraine to the hilt.

Of course, all of these guys are well behind Trump in all of the polls. Like 30 points behind him or more. But, of course, today is the day that Trump is appearing in Fulton County to enter pleas as to his innocence of the many criminal counts filed against him. If Trump continues to hold the overwhelming lead going into the Republican convention next summer, one of the participants in the debate last night might wind up as the Vice Presidential candidate. Who would it be – Ramaswamy, who lauds Trump, or Christie, who doesn’t?

And will the Democrats get their act together consistently to be able to respond to Republican critiques of Biden’s border control policies and continuing inflation? If not, who knows what might happen?

Do we live in interesting times? Is the Pope Italian?

I don’t see a lot about the people who click on or read my posts. But I can tell you that the number per days varies and that yesterday’s post on Israel had the fewest readers than any of my posts over the past few weeks. I wonder why that is. Is it happenstance? Is it that people don’t really care, or follow, what is going on in Israel? What is it?

I tend to write about whatever I am thinking about on a given day, and I am determined to put something down every day during this my 80th year (actually, I guess it’s my 81st). After that, we will see.

And you can tell there is no overall theme to my posts, but that they track some of my interests. Originally, I thought they’d be more like a diary. But my diary does not provide for interesting posts every day. When we are away, like our Portugal trip, or the trip coming up starting Labor Day to Saratoga Springs NY, interesting things do occur. But at home, typically not so much. Especially, since I am not using this blog to talk about family members or friends.

Which reminds me of a “quote” that I have heard attributed to Philip Roth. He said (I paraphrase and have not verified) that if you are unwilling to write honestly about your close family members, you will never really become a writer. So…..there you are.

Yesterday was a fairly uninteresting day for a blogger. My two grandchildren (8 and 2) are on summer break, and their parents have to work. Their mother can work from home most days, but their father has just started (Monday) a new job that requires him to be elsewhere. So, this week, we are entertaining both of them for at least four days, and next week, while our 8 year old is back in school, our two year old won’t be.

So, to make a long story short, yesterday morning, we picked up the grandkids and brought them back here. My wife was pre-committed during the morning, so I had the two of them to myself. After a bit of screen time, we did other things. I don’t remember what. I do remember that after lunch, while the 2 year old napped, the 8 year old started on her dessert cook book, which so far has involved making stickers of desserts – about 8 of them (very cute); the recipes are supposed to be composed starting today. My guess is that they won’t be.

At about 5:30, we started driving them back home. The 8 year old is a pretty good navigator, and she likes to “roam” around, giving me orders “turn left here”, “go straight”, etc. I don’t mind doing that both because I don’t mind doing that and because it helps here get a feel for the surrounding area – at some point that may be important.

When we got home after dropping the kids off, we had a very nice, spicy shakshouka, a rich tomato sauce and two perfectly cooked 4 minute eggs and we watched the Nats hand the Yankees their 9th loss in a row (“hardly a man is now alive” who remembers the last time that happened). It is so interesting how the Yankees with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the Cardinals with Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado and the Mets with what is apparently the highest baseball payroll anywhere ever can all be doing so poorly. The Nats, who broke up their World Series team to rebuild and who lost over 100 games last year, have been playing winning baseball since the All Star Game, and what started out as a season to ignore has become the opposite.

During the evening when we were watching the game and for about an hour afterword, I was reading Evelyn Waugh’s “The Loved One” (it is only 126 pages in its Penguin edition). I have now read five Penguins by Waugh and this is one of the two I would recommend, although it’s not a perfect book. A guy dies, a younger friend is in charge of funeral arrangements, he falls in love with the funeral home cosmetologist but is afraid to tell her that he has a similar job — but at a funeral home for animals. The lead embalmer, a strange fellow to say the least, at the funeral home also falls for the young cosmetologist, and she does not know which one to marry – there are clear problems (beyond those I have mentioned) with both of them, but she believes she should choose one of them. Totally confused, she asks (several times) the local newspaper gossip columnist (off-line), who gets so tired of her questions that he suggests she just kill herself. You can guess the rest.

And that was the day. Today – not quite a repeat. The kids are here again, but so is my wife, and they are all now at the neighborhood playground. I have two Zoom meetings today (one for the Haberman Institute and one for the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee), and tonight it’s time for a birthday dinner for one of our daughters. We are doing it at 6:30, so we should be home before 9 and the start of the Republican debate.

I assume this will give me something to write about tomorrow.

Another post about Israel – but this one a bit different.

I remember years (decades) ago, I was asked something about Israel and the West Bank. I recognized that one of the tactics of political Zionism was to take more land, and explain later. In fact, to a great extent, this tactic was the impost important in setting up the “facts on the ground” that led to the eventually declaration of Israeli statehood.

At the time I was asked about this, the future of the West Bank was uncertain, the possibility of a “two state solution” was seen by some as an inevitability. I was never sure.

The best book I have read on the subject (and I haven’t looked at it for some time) is Gershon Gorenberg’s “The Accidental Empire”. It told the story of the surprise conquests by the Israelis of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as a result of the 1967 “Six-Day” war. It was assumed that East Jerusalem would be retained by Israel for both ideological and practical reasons, and that the Golan Heights would be retained for security reasons, but the futures of the West Bank (until then administered by the Kingdom of Jordan) and Gaza were up in the air.

Gorenberg demonstrates that many or most Israeli leaders of the time, both military and political, assumed there would be a very short period of military occupation and that the West Bank would then be returned to Jordanian control. But it was also assumed that there needed to be some form of security barrier (either a no-man’s land, or a strip with a permanent military presence) to make a further incursion less likely.

It was the debate over the nature of the security barrier which opened the door to what came next. No-one could agree on the best possible barrier – some in the government felt the need for a larger barrier than others, and this argument had no end as it was clear that no barrier would be perfect and something more could always be added.

As this debate continued, and became more intense, another group found its way through that open door. They were the (largely American) religious Zionists who believed that the lands of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the geographic center of Jewish biblical history, needed to be incorporated into the land of Israel on a permanent basis. They began setting up settlements at various locations in the West Bank, vowing not to move, gaining allies among the religious community of Israel, and winning allies in the government. At the same time, many of those in the government and military looking for a security barrier decided that large scale settlements would help discourage future attacks. Working together, adopting the traditional Zionist tactic that first we take the land and then we talk, these groups sets the stage for the West Bank today, now the home of about 600,000 Jewish Israelis.

The details, for our purposes here, are not necessary. But let’s go back to the question I was asked so long ago. The question was: what did I think of those who were pushing for more settlements and eventual incorporation of the West Bank into the Jewish state?

Now my personal thoughts about the use of these tactics, or the goal of these tactics, were not (and are not) very important. So as I recall, I answered a different question. The question that I answered was how history would view these Israeli political and religious leaders. My answer was simple. If they succeeded, they would be lauded as heroes. If they failed, they would be considered incompetent and evil. That is still my answer.

But that gets us to today’s ultra-right wing coalition in charge of the Israeli government. If I were living in Israel, I would be violently against everything they are doing. I would consider it unethical, immoral, divisive, shameful, and discriminatory (to pick a few adjectives out of many).

The goal that the more extreme members of this government are taking reflects their belief that Jews and Muslim Arabs of the West Bank will never be able to live together in peace, that a two state solution is impossible for any number of reasons, and that the only true solution is to (one way or another) kick the Arabs out of the West Bank and incorporate the entire area into an expanded State of Israel.

The sad fact is that they might be right in the longest of long runs, even if they are as wrong as can be when looking at a shorter time period. And if they succeed in implementing their goals, it is possible that – a hundred years from now – they will be viewed as heroes and visionaries and not as miscreants and fools. That’s just the way history works.

We are now living through a period where the people who object to these tactics on some or all of the grounds listed above have no better answer, or at least no better answer which has a good chance of success. Yes, I guess it’s possible that moderate Arab leaders will emerge in the West Bank, and more accommodating leaders in Israel, and that the newly friendly Arab nations like the UAE will be able to bring both sides together. But it doesn’t seem like a likely possibility, does it?

It’s more likely that there will be a rocky, rocky road ahead. And as much as most of us condemn the current Israeli government’s actions toward the West Bank, it is possible that they will fulfill their goals and that – at some point in the future – their maliciousness will be forgotten. We just don’t know.

Am I wrong? If so, tell me.

And, by the way, did you notice that I left something out? It’s called Gaza, it has well over a million Arab residents, and even the current government hasn’t come up with a solution to this problem. In Gaza, the tactics of first take the land and then explain has no relevance at all.