Art is 80

1. I didn’t know if I was going to watch the videos of five Memphis police officers beating up Tyree Nichols, leading to his death. It seems, among other things, an unnecessary invasion of privacy to me. But his family apparently wants the world to view it in the hopes that it will do some good in keeping this sort of thing from continuing to happen. Last night, when the videos were released, we did watch them. Probably a mistake. Who wants to see a man being assaulted in this way?
2. Nichols’ funeral is going to be next Wednesday. Will his mother decide here, too, that his casket should be open for the same reasons she wanted the videos made public? We shall see.
3. I just watched an absolutely fascinating (I mean absolutely fascinating) interview on TV on the Christiane Amanpour Show with Michele Norris interviewing Rev. Wheeler Parker of Chicago. Rev. Parker was Emmett Till’s first cousin, and was with him in Mississippi at the country store where Emmett got in trouble for whistling at a white woman, and was staying at their grandparents’ house the night Emmett was dragged away and then murdered. You may remember that Emmett Till’s mother insisted on an open coffin funeral, so that people could see the condition of his body, in the hope of keeping this sort of thing from continuing to happen. Parker, after all these years, has just released a book of his recollections. I think this is very important and hope that people read it and watch the interview.
4. That led me to thinking about that old joke about the elderly Jewish couple who moved to Miami to enjoy their golden years. But shortly after they moved, the husband passed away. At his funeral, too, was an open coffin. A friend of the widow said to her at the funeral “Bernie looks so good”. “Yes”, she replied “Florida did wonders for him.”
5. Then, I thought back to my grandparents’ funerals in the 1950s and 1970s, where all the caskets were open. And how much things had changed by the time my parents passed away, when most Jewish funerals, at least, had closed caskets, as they do today.
6. And my mind went to Lenin, and Mao, and Ho Chi Minh, whose bodies today can still be viewed, and whose bodies are today still carefully tended to make viewing possible.
7. And finally to King Tut and the exhibit we saw this week at the National Geographic Museum and whose mummified body was discovered 3000 years after he died. One of the most interesting part of that exhibit was the explanation of how mummification was accomplished – including taking the organs out of the body. Like Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, the “person” was no longer there.

Should a dead person’s body be displayed? What is the right way to do things? What is the wrong way? It just isn’t an open and shut case.

I don’t remember before ever having a baseball dream. It wasn’t a long dream. Just one scene. But so unique.

I don’t know what team it was, but it was early in the season, and the manager decided to do something unexpected. It was time for a pinch hitter and he chose himself to be that pinch hitter. He was an older man, a one time star with a lot of power, but no one thought he could play the game today.

He hit the first pitch. It didn’t leave the park, but it hit the wall in left field and then, luckily, it rolled into a crevice in the wall, making it very difficult, possibly impossible, for the left fielder to retrieve it.

I said luckily because the old manager was no longer a Speedy Gonzalez (did I just make up Speedy Gonzalez, or is that a thing?) and he limped about at walking speed around the bases. The difficulty in picking up the ball in left field enabled him to get an in-the-park home run, to the wild cheering of the sold out stadium.

That’s it. I remember one other dream, more typical for me, but with a twist. Something happened to my law firm and we had merged (I think we had to, for some reason) with a larger firm about which we knew very little. Our new firm took in all sorts of lawyers and was enormous – much to big for its offices which were over crowded. To the confusion not only of people from my firm, but from all these other peoples, crowded on rows of chairs and in narrow hallways.

Work was impossible. I had a client in Toronto who needed to hear from me, but I had no time to call him, didn’t know where his files were, etc. (There were no computers in this dream).

Where would be our offices? Clearly, there was no room for us here. The head of the firm told us that we would all be moving into our new offices on Tuesday. But he also said that he did not know where they were going to be. It was Thursday – how would he find office space by Tuesday?

It slowly became clear to all of us. There would be no offices. There would be no new firm. This firm was going out of business.

The next day I walked by the building where we were so crowded the day before. The parking lot was full. Not with cars, but with furniture and other items for sale. The head of the firm was in charge of the sale.

I saw my red leather couch and red leather chair from my office on the parking lot. I told the head of the firm that those were my personal items, that they didn’t belong to his firm. I waited for an argument, but he gave me two stickers and told me to put them on the furniture, so no one else would take them. I knew I had to remove the two pieces that day – I needed a pickup truck. I didn’t know anyone with a pickup truck. And I needed to find a place at home to put the pieces. I couldn’t think of any place where they would fit.

By the way, I did have these two red pieces in my office. They were great. I don’t have them now. Someone else does.

My other dreams? Less clear. I was advising a group (a committee or something) on which young person they should sponsor or hire. There were a number of candidates, but the favorite was a young man, who had a rather unique background (don’t remember what) and personality. But he blew it. The first questioner said “I hear you have quite an Irish humor”. The young man looked at him and said: “It is OK for you to ask me that if you are Irish. But otherwise it is very very insulting. Are you Irish, Mr. KOWALSKI?”

The next candidate was a young woman, who told me that she didn’t want to meet the group because she just got a job. “Where?”, I asked? “At ‘Vogue’”, she said. “Oh, I said,”, you are becoming a journalist?” “I don’t know what the job is”, she answered, walking away from me.

Maybe it’s because I am 80 and it’s all my perception, but I really think that time is moving faster and faster and faster and faster.

For example, on Sundays I have to take out the trash. But it seems to me that as soon as I take out the trash, it is time to take out the trash again. Why? Because it is already Sunday.

On Friday mornings, the sheets and pillow covers get changed. But it seems to me that it is time to change the bed clothes again by the time I go to sleep. Why? Because it is already Friday.

I remember when Shabbat came only once a week. Now, as soon as the sun goes down on Saturday, it is Shabbat again. Why? Because it is again Saturday.

Yet, nights are still very, very long. And days themselves seem the same length that they used to be. I think the problems arise only when you calculate weeks (which are now about three days long), months (which now have about 2 weeks), years (which last about 150 days now) and decades (which, in spite of their name, last only 5 or 6 years).

And centuries? The 21st century is now almost 25% over. How can that be? Wasn’t last year 2000? It wasn’t very long ago that we were worried about the turn of the millennium. I remember that New Years Eve, sitting with friends waiting for all the computers to blow up.

And, speaking about the millennium. The last one lasted1,000 years. But the current one will be different. Even though I am 80, I expect to live to see the year 3000. It’s only a decade or so away. And I will be more relaxed on the evening of December 31, 2999 than I was on December 31, 1999, because I know that the computers will be just fine when the clock ticks midnight in the eastern time zone.

Yes, tempus keeps fugitting at an ever increasing speed. And having fun or not seems not to have any effect on it.

Did you know that I am a member of the Silent Generation? Perhaps not, because we never talk about it.

The Silent Generation includes people born between 1925 and 1945. We were preceded by the Greatest Generation (you can’t top that) and followed by the Baby Boomers.

I am not the only member of the Silent Generation (you may think that because we members never talk about it for fear of having our tongues cut out). Joe Biden is just as Silent as I am. (As is probably clear, we were born just one week apart.)

Joe Biden is (shh, don’t tell anyone) the only Silent president. Our most recent presidents have otherwise all been BOOMERS! Can you imagine Donald Trumpet being a BOOMER? Or Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush, or Barack Obama? All BOOMERS. (In fact, Trumpet, Clinton and Bush are Barely BOOMERS – all were born in 1946, the first year of the BOOMER generation. Born in June, July and August, they were among the original BOOMERS. They were extremely young when they were born; perhaps this is why they have earned the title Baby BOOMERS.

I looked up the Silent Generation on Wikipedia to see what we were like. Here we go. Does this sound like me?

1. We want to work within the system, not change it. (Sounds like me)
2. We are not risk takers. We want to play it safe. (Sounds like me)
3. We are thrifty and sometimes miserly (Sounds like me only on those days when the stock market falls)
4. We tend to have hoarding behavior (who? me?)
5. We married young (not me, but I came close)
6. We had our children young (my children were both babies when born, so I guess so)
7. We had a lot of divorces (not me)
8. We have generally been optimistic and not part of the counter culture (that’s me)

What about those who were born after the BOOMERS? Generation X. Millennials. Generation Z. Gen (not Generation, just Gen) Alpha. What can we say about them? We can say that they have bad titles. And that says it all.

The world today is under the control of BOOMERS and Xers. Look at the mess that it’s in. Don’t blame us Silent types. We just look and shake our heads. And keep our criticisms to ourselves.

This is where dreams get complicated. Last night, I dreamed that I went outside to drive somewhere and my car was not there. I knew it had been stolen. And not only had it been stolen, but it was the second time that week that I had a car stolen (my green car had been stolen on Thursday; I think this was Sunday and my tan car was now gone). I was supposed to pick up my daughter no later than 6 p.m. How was I to do that? And, yes, there was an old, banged up, blue station wagon in the driveway, but it had been so long since that car had been driven that I didn’t know if even could be driven. And think how long it has been since I had seen the key.

I was very angry about my cars. I knew that I was the only one who had cars stolen on a regular basis. Yes, these two cars were not the first that I had taken from me. I kept thinking of more that had disappeared over the years, of all the claims I had made on the insurance company. I even thought of the car that had been stolen and then found, and that was sitting at the gas station/repair place on Rhode Island Avenue near the Subaru dealer. Why didn’t I go to pick up that car? Repairs should be finished by now. Oh, yes, I remembered. I went there several times, and each time they looked for my car, but couldn’t find it and told me to come back later.

When I woke up I thought about this dream. And I realized that this was a recurrent pattern. That I often dreamed of stolen automobiles. And that this was just the most recent. That’s one thing I was sure of. But…..was it true?

During the pandemic, for a period of months, I kept an informal dream diary, to write down dreams that I remembered after I awakened. During this period of time, I had many “recurrent dreams”. By “recurrent dreams”, I mean dreams that at least were closely related to past dreams, often related closely to a series of past dreams.

But, as I said, was it true?

During the period of time that I was writing down my dreams, each dream was different. No two dreams were closely related to each other. Certainly none were clones. There were none which I could identify as recurrent.

So the question is: does one have recurrent dreams, or does one only think that a dream is recurrent?

You may think you have an answer to that question, but I will tell you this. Whatever your answer is, I, for one, don’t trust it at all.

Gotta close now. Going somewhere. Hope my car is still in the driveway.

And now for a diversion – Read on.

I had to stick to my desk yesterday afternoon to get a bunch of things done, so I decided to put a movie on TV. The trick was that I needed something in English (can’t watch subtitles and not watch at the same time) and I didn’t want it to be too good (again, because I didn’t want to be diverted). I had no idea what I wanted to watch.

I turned on On Demand and looked at the various networks I subscribe to. I chose EPIX, because I figured that most of its films would fit my bill. Not good, but not too bad. Not surprisingly, I had heard of very few of the ones that popped up on my screen, and I chose one called “Ghosts Can’t Do It”. You have probably never heard of it, but its lead characters were the odd couple of Anthony Quinn and Bo Derek. I had never seen a Quinn film I didn’t like, and I only remember one Derek film, which was quite bad.

It turned out that “Ghosts Can’t Do It” is the worst film ever made. It was filmed in 1990. Bo Derek was 33 years old; Anthony Quinn was 75. They were extraordinarily happily married, but Quinn dies, and Derek doesn’t know what to do (she is totally hapless on all accounts). Quinn works it out with his angel (his angel is Julie Newmar, and he is her first dead human client) that he can communicate (by clear sound and blurry vision) with his beautiful widow, and help lead her through life. Now, I can’t tell you all the ins and outs, because I was only paying half attention for most of the movie. But……

at some point, Derek learned that she was the CEO of all of Quinn’s businesses and that there was a deal she had to negotiate in Hong Kong. She flew there with her business advisor (Don Murray) and she was not concerned about making any missteps because Anthony Quinn, from afar, was telling her what to do (Murray didn’t know this was going on, of course).

She enters a conference room in Hong Kong and sits opposed to her opponent in these negotiations. He is DONALD TRUMP!!!

We don’t see most of the negotiations, but she apparently succeeds, and Trump tells her that “she has won the situation”, but that there is more to come. She looks at him and says something like “You just like to make trouble, don’t you?”. He smiles back and says, “So you’ve noticed.”

Yes, you can’t make this up! But of course, someone did. And, in the credits, after all the the actors were listed, the next item was “Yes, that really was Donald Trump”.

Watching the film, I wondered how in God’s name, Anthony Quinn ever agreed to this dumb film (I don’t know the answer to that), and I was sure no one could be as bad an actor as Bo Derek. Until, I saw Donald Trump. You would think he could act, right? No, he can’t. I assume it’s because an actor has to take direction from someone, and that’s the last thing he could do.

I then went to Wikipedia and learned the following:

1. Donald Trump won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor.
2. The film won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture.
3. Bo Derek won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress
4. John Derek won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director

Now I know that the Golden Raspberries have been given every year for over 40 years. And I don’t know if they have ever taken all their Raspberries and ranked them against each other.

But if they had, “Ghosts Can’t Do It” would outrank them all.

I am not an alarmist on the topic. I understand the statistics well: there has been a significant uptick in antisemitic attacks over the past several years (thank you, Donald Trump), and this is a matter of serious concern. But I have seen other statistics as well. They show (see the recent ADL study) that about 20% of the American public consists of people who harbor significant misgivings about Jews. But they also show that this is not a recent increase. For some years, 20% of the American public has been in this category.

During the first half of the twentieth century, a larger percentage of Americans undoubtedly were antisemitic, and they showed it. Not only in ways that are seen today, but in deed restrictions that did not permit Jews to buy properties in a large segment of American cities, in the creation of country clubs for Christians only, in hotels and other establishments that would not allow Jews to enter, in corporations and law firms and the like who would not hire Jews, in universities with strict quotas on Jewish students and Jewish faculty. None of these problems exist today and, in fact, polls show that the vast majority of Americans respect Jews (presumably for their accomplishments and contributions to society), and certainly many (perhaps, most) don’t mind if their children marry Jews, or if their grandchildren are brought up Jewish. I have seen statistics showing that more people convert into Judaism (as hard as that sometimes is) than convert from Judaism. This was certainly not the case one hundred years ago.

Yes, we may not have these earlier problems, but we have others. Right wing crazies (I know no other way to describe them) have been given free rein by virtue of Donald Trump’s presidency to come out of the closet, and many of these right wing crazies are anti-everything, including antisemitic. Our social media enable antisemitic messages to be spread widely and quickly, something that was not true even twenty years ago. And finally, our love affair with the Supreme Court’s erroneous understanding of the Second Amendment, and with the guns it permits, have enabled the right wing crazies to have weaponry at their disposal that would not have been dreamed of, say, fifty years ago. So, yes, we have problems.

But I know so many Jews who think that Auschwitz is just around the corner. What they don’t realize (or what they don’t find significant) is that every place (I think, every place) where Jews have been significantly adversely dealt with, the antisemitic elements of that society have been ignored by, and often encouraged by, the government. It was the Soviet government which was attempting to abolish Judaism and all other religions, it was the governments of the Muslim states which began to crack down on their Jewish populations in the 1940s. It was certainly Hitler and the Nazis who encouraged the German people, and the conquered European peoples, to act against the Jews (even to the point of exterminating them) in Europe between 1933 and 1945. Up until now, even during the Trump years, I see no element of American government (federal, state, local) acting at all in this regard, and I don’t see any sign that this will be the case in the future. If these signs develop, and can’t be taken care of quickly, my mind on this topic will change just as quickly. But I would be very surprised if this happens.

Now, think about the 20% of the American populace that might fit a definition of antisemitic. How many of them are going to pick up a gun and shoot at a synagogue or a Jewish day school? Very few, and hopefully they can be dealt with. And for the remainder of the 20%, their antisemitism will probably waft and wane. This is not surprising. A lot of people are prejudiced against groups other than Jews – against Blacks for sure, and Latinos, and French, and Indian, and Muslim, and disabled, etc., etc. We can’t expect everyone to love, like or want to spend their time with Jews. But we can expect them to obey the law. So the fact that 20% of the country have negative feelings about Jews doesn’t really bother me that much.

One more point: Israel. I am one who believes that Jews should not generally take anti-Israel sentiments as being antisemitic. For some critics, obviously, they may be one and the same. But it certainly ain’t necessarily so. But it becomes complicated because, on both sides, some of the people some of the time want to combine them. Israel has declared itself “a Jewish state”, even though it is 20% non-Jewish and has a declaration of independence guaranteeing equality among all citizens; in the minds of Israeli leaders, it is sometimes helpful to equate anti-Israel and antisemitic thoughts – they think it rallies the diaspora Jews. And perhaps it does. And the pro-Palestinian elements on American campuses certainly like to equate the two. How else will they stay in the news? And staying in the news is essential if they want to get their geopolitical message across?

I should add that I, in my 80 years, have never experienced personal antisemitism. Anywhere (or if I have, I didn’t recognize it as such). I understand that this lack of personal experience influences my overall thoughts on the subject, and I have no problem with that. Perhaps, if I had experienced the Holocaust in my family, or if I had been run out of an Arab country, and so forth, I would think differently. I recognize that. But if my beliefs on this overall subject were all or in part the result negative personal experiences, and were different from what I think now……that does not mean that I would be correct in those beliefs.

Anyway…..that is what I think.

For the 70-somethingth time, the U.S. Congress is debating whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. And for the 70-somethingth time, the U.S. Congress is wasting its time. Failure to raise the debt ceiling would not only be potentially catastrophic, but stupid. In fact, having to even think about whether the debt ceiling should be raised is itself potentially catastrophic and stupid.

As we all know, the purpose of raising the debt ceiling is to enable the government to borrow funds to pay for activities and items that the government has already approved. Failure to raise the debt ceiling would be to tell the government that it can sign contracts for activities that will cost the country money, but once those activities are completed, the government will not honor its contracts and pay for them. That’s a little simplistic, to be sure. But that’s the gist.

The House Republicans are saying that they won’t support paying our bills when due unless we agree to cut spending in the future. But this is apples and oranges. One has to do with bills already incurred and one has to do with obligations to be made in the future. It is immoral and dumb to condition the firsts on the second.

It may be that our national debt is too high, and cutting back on some expenditures may be part of the answer. But there are other parts of the answer: our tax policies of rewarding the rich at the expense of the poor are part of the problems, as are the costs of becoming involved in distant wars.

There has been a large rise in governmental debt during this first quarter of the 21st century (putting aside the rise during the Reagan years). George W. Bush got us into horrific wars and presided over a major recession (almost a depression), and the rise continued during the Obama years. Then Donald Trump doubled the rate of increase during his four years in office. He was fighting Covid, to be sure, but he also orchestrated tax decreases that cost the government several billions of dollars.

The debate over the debt ceiling increase has no upside. It threatens our already threatened economy. You can expect that the stock market will drop precipitously, hurting those who depend on 401ks and the like, and this will increase serious recession chances. It will also raise interest rates on United States bonds, exacerbating the problem but putting even more pressure on the economy. And all for nothing – all to debate whether we should pay for expenditures already authorized, due and owing. Yes, it is stupid.

But, although Congress will not pass the legislation to be passed by the House of Representatives (with the necessary votes of George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Green, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert), and if Congress did pass the bill, the President would veto it. But obviously, no bill will pass Congress without the vote of the House, and it remains to be seen whether Kevin McCarthy (Speaker by one vote) will allow a bill to the House floor unless he knows that it will carry. So I don’t know where we are, but I know we don’t want to be here.

And as to George Santos, three more revelations today?

1. His mother was in Brazil on 9/11 and thus not a “survivor” of 9/11.
2. He never performed as a drag queen in Brazil, although not only corroboration but presumed photographic evidence exists.
3. He sponsored a Go Fund Me for a disabled veteran whose service dog needed surgery, and pocketed the proceeds.

Add these to the list. He isn’t Jewish or Jew-ish, he didn’t work for Goldman Sacks, he didn’t work for Citigroup, he didn’t go to Horace Mann H.S., he didn’t go to Baruch College, he didn’t go to NYU, he didn’t play on a championship school volleyball team, he was not vice president of LinkBridge Investors, he didn’t found a legitimate animal charity, he has no husband (there is no marriage record anywhere), and he had no employees lost in the Pulse shooting in Orlando, In addition, he is being investigated in Brazil for check fraud.

And what will be Alex Baldwin’s defense? “I Didn’t Know the Gun was Loaded and I’ll Never, Never Do It Again.” This was really a tragic situation. And it seems clear that Baldwin wasn’t trying to kill anyone. But involuntary manslaughter is a statute that covers incidences when (1) someone is killed, (2) there was no intention or premeditation, and (3) there was gross negligence, or its equivalent, involved. (As to any situation such as this where a celebrity becomes involved, my mind goes to my grandmother, who once said, after Lana Turner slipped in the bathtub and injured herself: “and with all that money”).

And what about the six year old who shot his teacher? His parents say that the gun was in his mother’s closet over six feet up on a shelf, locked with a trigger lock that required a key to open. And that he had an “acute disability” (what is that?). And that, up until that day, he always had a parent with him……so weird.

Six old friends from my high school class (along with spouses and significant non-spouses) decided years ago to form a modified travel group. Every few years we would get together for a short, relaxing reunion. We have been to places like Chico Hot Springs, Montana; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Traverse City, Michigan; Sullivans Island, South Carolina; and Niagara on the Lake, Ontario.

The the pandemic hit and, of course, all travel stopped. In addition, tragedy struck and we lost one member of our group. But over the past nine months or so, we decided it was time to resume our reunions, and we picked the summer of 2023 as our target date.

Then the discussions began, and continued and continued and continued. Where should we go? When should we go there?

Over the past several months, we went through so many possibilities. Hawaii would be nice (but far away). There’s a lot to do in California (but what if there’s a forest fire?). Everyone (almost) likes Colorado (but the high altitude can be a problem with just an in-out trip). These all may sound like flimsy excuses, but remember, not only is Art 80, but so is at least one member of each other group.

After going back and forth (sometimes “back and forth” meant that we agreed on something, only to disagree with our agreement shortly after), we decided to switch to the east. Somewhere in New England? Maine, or Burlington, or the Berkshires? A month or so ago, we reached a “final” agreement: we would go to Saratoga Springs NY. It’s a place with things to do, with a history, it will be new to all of us, and it’s only moderately inaccessible. (Our group lives in Missouri, California, Michigan, South Carolina and Washington DC., and most of us will fly into Albany, less than an hour away.)

Last night, we had our monthly Zoom. Saratoga Springs still seemed to be acceptable to all. I had half-expected someone to decide that this was not the right place to go, but if anyone thinks that, they have been keeping it to themselves.

Then, we had to decide the dates. The dates, as well as the location, had been the subject of much discussion for months, but we had been narrowing it down to just after Labor Day. The dates also held – for four of the six couples, we would arrive on the Tuesday after Labor Day and leave Saturday morning. One couple couldn’t get there until Wednesday, and one had to leave to get to Cape Cod by Friday night. But this was good – we would do no better.

Where to stay in Saratoga Springs? I had done a little research and discovered that Saratoga Springs is very pricey. A lot of the places that looked good seem to cost $400 – $600 a night. That might be good for the refugees from Wall Street, but not for all of us. Even the chain hotels were in the $250 range. But then I found the Inn At Saratoga, which has about 40 rooms, has been in operation since the 1840s, has a restaurant on site, and gets good reviews. We could get 4 nights for a grand total of about $720 per room. I presented this as the best option (but explained that I had not looked at B and Bs). The discussion lasted about 5 minutes and there was agreement that this was the place.

We knew that rooms in Saratoga Springs go fast, and that the week after Labor Day is a big tourist week for people without children, and that we should work quickly. A brief look at the Inn’s website made it questionable whether they still had 6 rooms available. The one of members of our group had a brilliant idea — she called the Inn, there were 4 king size bed rooms, and two double bed rooms, and we booked them on the spot. We each got our confirmations before our Zoom call ended.

Four miracles happened here last night. All eleven of us decided where we would go, we decided when we would go, we decided where we wanted to stay, and we made our reservations. Four absolute miracles.

Hanukkah has nothing on us.

An editorial piece in yesterday’s New York Times was entitled “New York City Doesn’t Have Nearly Enough Free Bathrooms”, and included such lines as “New York should be the greatest city in the world, and it is time that our bathroom access reflects it”.

OK, a weird editorial, but it brought to mind my only thoughts about public access to toilets. And let’s be clear here, they aren’t “bath” rooms, are they? Isn’t a bath room a place where you can take a bath? (But I digress) Here are the thoughts that come to mind:

1. Men and women have different challenges in public toilets. Men usually have it much easier. I don’t know if that can be remedied.
2. Public bathrooms in the United States are generally free. But, in much of the world, you have to pay. And where you have to pay, you get better service: the bathrooms are cleaner. You may have some toiletries at your disposal. They are generally safer. What is the tradeoff?
3. I remember when I saw “Urinetown” – my reactions? (a) and embarrassing subject, (b) an extraordinarily clever show, and (c) you have to pay to go to the bathroom?
4. I am actually reading a book about this now. In my going through my Penguins, I came across a French novel from the 1920s, called “Clochemerle”, by Gabriel Chevalier. I don’t expect you ever heard of it. It is a satire, they say, on the relationship between ultra-secular France and the Catholic church. In a small town in the Beaujolais Region, the mayor decides the town needs to have its spirits lifted. It needs a new public facility – the new public facility is to be a fancy urinal (sorry, ladies), and the place to put it is right across the street from the town’s Catholic church.
5. I remember the pissoirs in Paris (and I guess throughout France?), where men could go in and do their business. They were not fully concealed. From the knees down, everything was open to public view. And to public smell. I think they are long gone now.
6. And then I remember somewhere in Italy (a country where every alley seemed to be a pissoir – again, apologies to the ladies), where there was a alley that actually had a ceramic urinal installed – totally in the open.
7. I remember the Washington University Law School bathroom, in the days before the new law school was built. You went downstairs, you went through a locker room (every student had a locker) and the through a large open door into the bathroom. There were very few female law students in those days (1960s) and the bathroom, open that it was to anyone in the locker room, was for men only. Women? Try across the campus somewhere.
8. And then there are the public bathrooms in bars, cafes and restaurants where signs like “Restrooms for customers only” seem to be more and more common.
9. And then there are those bathrooms in bars, cafes and restaurants which are particularly well designed: they will be the subject of the series of photo books I will never complete – or start – “Where to Go in Washington” and other places.
10. I am now reminded of public bathrooms in third world countries (some of which are not too third world at all), where toilet seats are rare, and where sometimes there is just a hole in the ground.
11. And speaking of that, what about all of those Don’s Johns and other Porta-potties which are just smelly holes? All can’t be like those we once ran into in Israel which were clean as can be and had a TV built into the inside of the door, so you could watch while you do your business.
12. Today, of course, with all of the gender issues running around – there is another question about bathrooms. Should they be multi-gender? Should they be gendered, but the patron chooses their own gender? Should all bathrooms be single use only? We were surprised in October, when we went to my 55th law school reunion and discovered that all of the bathrooms at obviously woke Yale Law are now multi-gender. It didn’t seem to be a problem for anyone. Maybe that is the answer. Maybe not

So many thoughts pop up. If New York City decides to expand its public toilets, it has a lot to consider.

Lisa Marie Presley and I had no relationship whatsoever. Let’s get that straight at the beginning. Now, let’s talk about her father.

I listened to a lot of Elvis Presley when I was in my last years of high school, and liked him a lot. Not visually – not sure I ever “saw” him then. Just the music. He was continually on the radio (I listened mainly to KWK, KXOK, WIL) in St. Louis), and I owned a couple of his albums. After high school, even though I hardly ever listened to rock and roll or the like, I always stopped and listened when a Presley record was on.

Move ahead 40 years. (That isn’t to today, but to the year 2000) The entire family went to Memphis to help my great aunt Rose celebrate her 100th birthday. She was my mother’s mother’s younger sister, and she thoroughly enjoyed her party, and left this world only days later.

While we were in Memphis, the family wanted to go to Graceland. I am not sure if I wanted to go, was indifferent, or didn’t want to go at all. But I know everyone else did. I was surprised to find it in a part of Memphis that was not where all the wealthy people seemed to live, and that it was a house that didn’t seem to be in a residential area at all.

It was big house, built in the 1930s, part of a 500 acre farm, which explains why it isn’t surrounded by other houses. I don’t know if the 500 acres still belong to Graceland, but I know that Presley bought it in 1957 (when he was in his early 20s) and remodeled it. Upon entering the house, I quickly realized that Presley (to me) had no taste as a decorator. It was such a stylized, 1950s house. “Modern” furniture, tiger rug, no patterns, simple and ugly. That’s how I remembered it. And it freaked me out, completely. And I never freak out.

I couldn’t imagine Elvis Presley, of whom I had a very set image, living in such a horrid place. Then, I looked at all the mannequins wearing Elvis costumes, and they seemed so stylized and old fashioned that, while I could imagine him in the costumes, I assumed he felt stupid wearing them. And there were so many, one sillier than the next.

And then I saw all the “gold” records, and thought they were fine as awards, but awful as decoration. Outside by the pool, I saw Elvis’ grave, next to his parents, with tons and tons of tourists traipsing by them. I couldn’t imagine a worse place to be buried (I understand that is where Lisa Marie is going to wind up).

There were tourists all around. Elvis could not have envisaged or wanted this. I was sure of that

I had to sit down. I couldn’t really look at anything. Most of the house I rushed through. I felt physically sick. And mentally disturbed. No place has ever affected me that way. I HATED IT.

No one else that I have ever talked to had that reaction. I don’t know why it hit me like it did. Heartbreak Hotel? No. But heartbreak something for sure.

My most immediate thought about Martin Luther King, Jr. is the day he was assassinated. I was in basic training at Ft. Ord California on that day in 1968, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, in a company of Reservists. A few of us were from St. Louis, waiting to get back to our clerical unit at home. A large number were from Dallas, where they were part of a unit that, once basic training was over, was going to Ft. Bragg or some such place to learn to jump out of airplanes without having a heart attack. A third group was from Jonesboro Arkansas, and a fourth from semi-rural Louisiana, centered around the city of Alexandria. We had many university graduates, and we had people whose only job after high school was pumping case and washing car windows.

One day, we were on the rifle range. It was probably what you think it was. Very large. Very flat. A large number of us could fire our rifles at the same time towards targets, which were large white rectangles, with outlined bodies of men. You didn’t have to run up hills at the pace of a drill sergeant whose legs were taller than your entire body, and you didn’t have to crawl around in the mud. You stood there (or maybe you lay there, (I don’t really remember) and fired at the target.

This day was different. In the middle of our practice, there was a ceasefire order and a “special message” came over the loud speaker. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed in Memphis. I guess everyone was shocked. Half of us stood there with our mouths open. The other half whooped it up and applauded. They were over joyed. When I heard that, my mouth opened further.

The next day or so, I was talking to one fellow in my company who I had become quite friendly with. A very nice guy, tall and a little chunky. He was from Louisiana, but he was not one of those who clapped. But he was not surprised. He had just received a letter from his mother. She would have clapped had she been in our company. Her words were something like “I’m glad they shot at least one of those Commie N……..s”. He was aghast. I think I was the only one he told.

(By the way, as you recall, Bobbie Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles just about two months later. He was shot at night, and we found out about it when we had our 6 a.m. reveille the next morning. Politics didn’t seem to play a role here. Everyone was shocked. What is the world coming to? We were waging war in Vietnam for reasons most of us did not understand, and at home everything was falling apart. We were on base, in a protected military cocoon, but what would become of us when we were sent back home? I remember that one of the songs you heard over and over on the radio when I was at Ft. Ord was “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”. I was amused because, being just about 60 miles from San Jose, I could answer that question with confidence. A month earlier? Not so sure. But on that morning, I did not know my way anywhere with any confidence whatsoever)

Years later, when we were in Memphis, Edie and I (and maybe Michelle and Hannah – I don’t remember which trip it was) went to the Lorraine Motel to the room where Martin Luther King, Jr was shot. I assume it is still open as a memorial – it is very evocative, and you should go.

The New York Times this morning has a front page article entitled “As Historical Dramas Mushroom, So Do Complaints About Their Inaccuracies”. It speaks to the “historical” dramas with made up facts, that are meant to look to be historically accurate.

I have been concerned about this for some time. On previous blogs in varying blog posts, on Facebook, and it private conversations, I have railed about fake histories. For years.

The NYT article focuses on the British royal family and The Crown. That’s probably a good one to focus on, although I have watched very little of it. But there are many, many, many examples.

My own practice when I watch a biopic, or any historical drama is to go to my friend Professor Google, a master historian, and check up on the real facts. Then I complain to anyone interested in the film or show about the inaccuracies. While I am always waiting for a response like “Wow, thanks. I had no idea. They shouldn’t do that. What can we do?”, the response I usually get is “That’s interesting”. A “that’s interesting” that usually seems to be “that’s not very interesting at all”. And any response is followed by a remark like “artistic freedom, you know”.

The question is whether or not history is important. Because, like it or not, people these days learn history from these shows and films, not from taking courses or reading detailed biographies or histories. So, the reality of the history becomes the fake reality of the video, not the real history of the legitimate historians.

Now, when Philip Roth wrote “The Plot Against America”, an excellent novel about the presidency of Charles Lindbergh, everyone knew that this was make believe “history”. Same with, say, Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”. I have no problem with that. They are clearly fictionalized, and normally written not only to entertain, but to make a moral point, to teach a lesson. A lesson by analogy.

But that is not what you find in modern entertainment. There are hundreds (probably thousands) of examples. The one that comes first to my mind is a drama performed at Theater J about a decade ago called “The New Jerusalem: the Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza”. Written by the more than talented playwright David Ives, it was a gripping and well performed production. Set in 17th century Amsterdam, a relatively liberal city that housed, in its diverse population, many Jews whose families had been victimized by the Catholic Inquisition in Portugal, it tells the story of Baruch Spinoza, young intellectual who had the temerity to speak out against certain aspects of biblical and rabbinic Judaism and posit a form of philosophy that was remarkably non-sectarian. Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community of Amsterdam, and forced to lead a solitary and impoverished life, eking out an income as a lens grinder, unable to marry (there was no one who could perform a marriage for him) and create a family.

The play centered on a relationship between Spinoza and his girl friend (I don’t think such a girl friend existed), and upon the “trial” after which the Jewish authorities placed its ban on Spinoza. At the trial, various people testified, including – as I remember it – a representative of the Christian community, and Spinoza’s sister (who may or may not have existed) gave an impassioned plea from the audience.

Of course, such a trial never took place and, if the rabbinic authorities had such an open proceeding, it is hard to believe that they would listen to the words of a Christian, or the words of a woman. It was all made up.

I was infuriated by the play – it purported to “tell the story” of Spinoza. It obviously didn’t do that. And the reviews (I just looked again at a few of them) did not at all try to differentiate between the history and the fantasy.

Films, shows, stories about American history are much the same. There was a recent film about Harriet Tubman – a lot of excitement, most of which the real Harriet Tubman was able to avoid. The recent award winning film about Churchill and Dunkirk contained much that didn’t happen. And on and on.

It seems to me, without trying to stifle “artistic freedom” or “artistic license” (whatever that is), attempts should be made to inform the public where the entertainment piece varies from historic truth. Perhaps, when the forum is live theater, it could be done with pieces in the playbill, or separate statements handed out to attendees. Information could be provided to critics who would be writing reviews. Where the play is discussed on line, material could be highlighted talking about the historic distortions.

Much of this could also be done in cases of movies (where there could also be screen shots stating that “the scenes of ____ and ____ are not historical. For a historical account, see _________ or _____”. There are many ways that these “historical dramas” could be converted away from fake news to elements to teach actual history, along with permitting artistic changes for entertainment’s sake alone.

Of course, historians themselves show a bias, as to documentary films, and the like. And when there are distortions here, there needs to be push back to be sure. But this is a different situation (or in some cases a different problem). Maybe I will deal with this on a different posting.

I started my first blog in 2005. I printed everything out then and put it all in a loose leaf folder. I was working and my office had a copy machine, so it was easy to do that. But that was then and this is now.

I have been reading through my 2005 blog. I think it was better than this one. So far. I did have an entry almost every day. Some were long, some were short. But they were clever.

There were differences in my life then. For one thing, I was 18 years younger (not young, but younger) – I think that makes a difference. And I got around more. I went to museums, for example and I wrote about that. And to see films. I wrote reviews of books that I read. A good mixture.

And then I wrote about trips that I had taken, and things that occurred throughout my life. I liked those entries, and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but maybe I should just copy them from time to time into this blog. I may try that. You would enjoy them, I think.

But today, let’s just stick with the New York Times. The front page.

1. First, “Idaho suspect wrote of a life of no emotion”, and that he could “do whatever I want with little remorse”. WHOA!! When word of the suspect first hit the news, I thought of Dostoevsky and “Crime and Punishment”. Remember Raskolnikov? The student who figured out how to commit the perfect crime, the murder of an old woman (an informal pawnbroker) in her apartment? And it turned out that it wasn’t so perfect, after all? But that, for most of the book, the investigation did not focus on Raskolnikov, and that even when Raskolnikov wanted to show the police that he, indeed, had committed this crime, and brought to them evidence that should have led right to him, they ignored him? Didn’t believe him? That’s who I thought of when I first read about Kohberger. But maybe that’s not the best example, for after all Raskolnikov eventually did show remorse as he was sent off to prison exile. Maybe a better choice would have been……..ta da…….Donald Trump. Does I can “do whatever I want with little remorse” sound like “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”? Doesn’t Trump lead a life with no remorse? Hmmm.
2. Second, there was a front page article about a fellow named Larry Price, Jr., who staged his own kidnapping or mugging in order to hide the fact that he was trying to escape some folks who were involved with him in a number of illegal activities. I hadn’t heard about this case, and don’t know if I am really interested in it. But I am interested in the fact that it took place in Bluefield VA. Bluefield VA adjoins Bluefield WV, and I once spent a lonely a couple of days in Bluefield WV, probably about 30 years ago or more. I had a client who was engaged in a major conversion of an old downtown hotel into housing for seniors, and I flew into Bluefield for a short meeting, with the intent to fly back late that afternoon. But the beautiful 50+ degree day quickly changed, and by the time that I finished my lunch meeting, the temperature had fallen 20 degrees and it was snowing hard. I then learned that the small Bluefield airport had closed because of the weather. It was a Friday, and I soon learned that it was not only closed for the day, but it was not planning on opening before Monday. Big deal, I said to myself, I will rent a car and drive home. Snow never scared me. But the only auto rental company in Bluefield was Hertz and, guess what?, its office were located at the airport and they would be closed until Monday. I was stuck. There was a small motel with an available room, so I checked in. There was a modest restaurant next to the motel that served pancakes for three meals a day. Luckily, the winter Olympics were on TV, so I wasn’t completely bored. But I figured that I was OK, since the snow was so deep that everything was paralyzed and in that way I was caught like everyone else, not (in that sense) alone at all. But as I watched TV, it occurred to me that most of the world, including the local world was still operating. And, after thinking a bit, I decided to see if any close airport was open. I learned that I could fly home from Roanoke VA (about 100 miles away) and decided to see if I could get a taxi to take me there for a price less than the price of another day or two in the motel. I called a taxi company and they said they could come and drive me. So I said OK. The cab came Sunday morning, and I got in. Bluefield still had a few feet of snow on the ground and the roads were hard to navigate, but once we got on the Interstate, the roads were clear and the sailing was smooth. I realized that while Bluefield had been socked in, it was alone in being socked in and I could have gone to Roanoke on Friday to fly home. My vision had just been clouded by the clouds and snow.
3. Third, there’s an article titled “Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health, Research Shows”. There are so many studies saying that moderate alcohol is good, no, it’s bad, no, it’s OK, that you really don’t know what is right and what is wrong. But I was struck by the following advice “So people who are drinking five or six drinks a day, if they can cut back to three or four…….”. That’s when I realized that maybe this article wasn’t speaking to me. I actually have cut back over the past six months or so. I was never “a drinker”, but I might have a glass of something (rarely more than one) most evenings. Now, maybe I have a drink two or three times a week. Why did I cut back? I don’t know. But it happened after I recovered from Covid in June. Connection? Maybe, I guess.

That’s it for today. Back to my regularly scheduled activities.

(Oh, one more thing. Edie tells me that all my posts have typos. That is largely because they are all first drafts; I don’t read them over to proof or edit. The same was true in 2005. I had more typos then)

The question is: Name two businesses that you wish would be wiped off the face of the earth.

It gets harder and harder to watch anything on TV or listen to anything on the radio that have sponsors without turning off the sound whenever their ads air. Between all of the pharmaceuticals with unmemorable names (I do remember the name Prevagen, which shows that I don’t need it, and I do want to take Skyrizi, because I like to say the name) and now these gambling sites (which come with the welcome “If you have a gambling problem,….”), I turn off a lot of sound.

But then I thought: Maybe I should place a bet with Fan Duel or Draft Kings, as long as I am comfortable with knowing that I can’t lose the bet. But, I changed my mind, so I will bet any of you readers: I bet that George Santos is going to resign. Any takers?

And why, on such a sure bet, did I change my mind?

I thought about this as I was listening today to Georgia Tech (of all places) professor Jeremy England (a Haberman Institute program) talk about the imperfections of science in predicting the future, no matter how much you tried to predict the future, because (1) you never know fully how one thing connects to the other (he called in the butterfly theory – if a butterfly flaps his wings, does that affect the likelihood of a hurricane on the other side of the world), and – since this was a talk on science and Judaism – (2) some things may only be understood through divine intervention. (This is probably an awful condensation of a very interesting talk)

If Jeremy England is right (or at least if my version of Jeremy England is right), then I could bet that George Santos will resign, but find out that he won’t – either because a butterfly flapped its wings in, say, Dubai, or because God intervened and kept him in office. The first of these possibilities is something I just can’t know, and the second something that I would imagine I couldn’t influence.

So, tonight I am watching the news. The Biden story on classified documents requires a detailed analysis, and is dependent on facts we don’t yet know. It’s different from the Trump story on classified documents in major ways, because Trump denied he had any classified documents, and then said that he declassified the classify documents that he didn’t have, necessitating an FBI search. Other than that, whether the cases are similar, we don’t really know.

And then there is this guy Matt Schlapp. I was always suspicious of him, so if he did what Mr. Republican Anonymous said he did, I am not surprised and, as usual, expect other Mr. Republican Anonymouses will come out of the woodwork, as all other sorts of mouses do.

And then there’s this guy who it looks like murdered his wife. I have never had any thoughts about murdering my, or anyone else’s, wife, but now I know what I shouldn’t do. I shouldn’t ask Prof. Google how to dispose of, or how to hack up, a body. That would be a big mistake, as this guy is finding out.

That’s it for now. Oh, and for the record – I also cut the sound on ads from the Shriner’s Hospital and St. Jude (not because they don’t do good work, but because their adds are tearjerkingly bad), as well as Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and more. There were, for sure, many things bad about the USSR – but one thing strikes me today. When you watched TV or listen to the radio……you never had to put up with ads.

I had an early morning breakfast appointment today in Olney MD at the Royal Bagel Bakery. For those not familiar with this area, Olnehy is just about 15 miles from here. It’s an easy shot – when I turn onto Connecticut Avenue, one block from my house – I just stay on Connecticut until it ends at/merges with Georgia Avenue in Aspen Hill and keep on going until I get to Olney. When we move to Judean Gardens Cemetery many years hence, the trip to Royal Bagel Bakery will only take about 5 minutes, so that will make it a lot easier.

At any rate, this was a new bagel bakery for me, and the bagels are quite good. We generally get our bagels either from Bethesda Bagels or Goldberg’s Bagels, but Royal Bagel Bakery, as well as the Bagelry (where Randolph Road meets New Hampshire Ave, about 10 miles from here) are equally as good. Closer bagels include the bagels at grocery stores (not good), Breads Unlimited (not good), and Bread Furst (limited variety and expensive), and a brand new source, Mamma’s on Connecticut Avenue at Livingston. Mamma’s is primarily a pizza house, but the storefront used to be Pumpernickel’s Bagels (I know, cognitive dissonance), which went out of business 5 or so years ago. Maybe the bagel ovens were still in the basement, but Mamma’s announced a few weeks ago that they were going to make there own bagels and open for breakfast. We shall see; no chance to go there yet. And then there is Call Your Mother, a deli-type restaurant taking over the Little Red Fox space about 1500 feet from here, but based on my tasting their bagels at the Capitol Hill location, I am not holding my breath.

So be it. But let’s digress. What are the House Republicans thinking? It seems clear. They are not thinking about legislation. They are not thinking about finding ways to cooperate with or work with the Democrats. They are going to use the next year or two to investigate and impeach, with the hope that they (facts aside) will be able to convince not only their general supporters, but others as well, that the Democrats should crawl back under their rocks. And, based on what we know of the general American public, they might be right.

Which should I tell you first?

OK, the humidifier.

Last night, a little before midnight, Edie and I heard a crash. It sounded close, but we found nothing wrong on the second floor. There seemed to be no good reason to go downstairs to search – once something falls, it can clearly wait until the next day.

The mystery was solved early in the morning, where we saw that a large part of the humidifier attached to the furnace had fallen off. We called our HVAC regulars and they found that something had snapped causing the fall, and that the fan had been affected by falling and could no longer spin smoothly enough.

So, we were told, we need a new humidifier (ours was probably between 15 and 20 years old). OK, I thought. And then I asked the next question: how much is new humidifier? I expected maybe $200 or $300, but no!! $1100 to $1500. Really? (I still don’t know the details)

So……since early December, our house has required the following:

1. A new furnace.
2. A new humidifier
3. Dishwasher repair
4. New kitchen faucet
5. New Terminex contract because we seem to have a mouse
6. Installing reflectors to scare away the woodpeckers that were drilling holes in the house.

And we have, during that same time:

1. Repainted all the wood trim on the outside
2. Repainted all the outside doors
3. Repainted our picket fence.
4. Repainted and done minor repairs in an upstairs bathroom
5. Power washed the house and the walkways, the driveway, the stone fence around our property.

I thought when I turned 80, I might start to fall apart (still possible, of course), but no – it’s the house that needs everything.

Now, on to Kazakhstan.

I took a 45 minute trip through Kazakhstan on the Cool Vision YouTube channel while I drove about 7 miles on my stationery bike. Wow! The cities of Astana and Almaty are spectacular. The mountains, lakes and agricultural portion of the country are beautiful.

I won’t say more. Find the YouTube video and tell me what you think.

(1). I don’t usually subscribe to “channels” on YouTube. I am not even sure what a YouTube channel is, but I saw a video made by a young Russian woman several months ago called “Eli from Russia”. In the midst of this terrible war, Eli is creating 30 minute videos to show “the real Russia”, and I have enjoyed the few I have seen so far. This morning, I accompanied her on a trip from Yakutsk to Omyakom, which just took place. That is, in the middle of the winter (of course, in those places, winter is a seven month season), with temperatures between 40 and 55 degrees below zero.

We saw beautiful scenery – frozen lakes and rivers, snowy mountain views and so forth. We traveled about 600 kilometers, I think, over the one road that exists, but that meant driving on the frozen River Lena for a while, driving on a well kept, cleared road for a while, and waiting while the narrow road was totally blocked by a car that had sunk into some ice and could only be removed by being towed.

Omyakom is a small Siberian village in the large Sakha Republic of Russia, with a population of about 650, and with the distinction of being the coldest inhabited place on earth. We spoke with native farmers and with a native crafts person and author. We went ice fishing, and even ice swimming (well, dipping). We saw the unique breed of Yakutian horses. We learned about eating raw horse to help ward off scurvy. We learned about village central heating, and available wifi. We learned how cars are protected from the bitter cold. And we learned that the natives are so accustomed to the weather that if it is over below 40, they are pretty comfortable.

(2) I started a class today on Torah-in-Motion website. Torah-in-Motion is a Toronto based website, run by an orthodox rabbi, which has an extraordinarily full schedule, and on which I have taken several classes. I hesitated on this one, only because I am six classes behind on the last one I took. This is OK, because (a) the classes are free, and (b) because they are immediately available on YouTube, but still…..The last class was on the Book of Daniel, about which I know virtually nothing. It is a text based class, slowly going through the book (English, with Hebrew gloss), something that I normally find tiring, but in this case, because it gave me an overview of Babylonian and Babylonian Jewish history, I found fascinating. But it isn’t the kind of class you can listen to while you’re driving to the grocery store; it’s a class that takes an hour of concentration, and those are hard to find when there are so many other options. The Daniel class is taught by Rabbi Moshe Shulman, the rabbi of Young Israel in St. Louis

At any rate, the current class has a more complicated title: “Halalkha, Public Policy and End of Life Dilemmas”. The first session, which I attended today, was titled: “Are Jews Obligated to Spread Observance of the Seven Noahide Law? Ethics, Interests and Moral Ecology”. Enough to drive anyone away, huh?

The instructor is a young rabbi named Shlomo Brody. Originally from Houston he is now the director of the Halachic Organ Donor Society in Israel and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He is an extremely personable instructor and seems to have a large range of interests, all related to the intersection between Jewish law and public policy. An interesting combination you don’t always find. He seemed quite bright, so I was only partially surprised to learn he is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard. He is currently a post doctoral fellow at Bar Illan University.

Speaking from a Jewish perspective, his points today were (as far as I noted them down):

Why should Jews bring a Jewish perspective to public policy issues? 1. Things in our non-Jewish world affect our Jewish world. 2. We live in societies which can only continue if they are governed by civil discourse and law, and its our obligation to participate in the civil discourse and the structuring of the laws. 3. Because all humans are made in the image of God, civil discourse and laws should recognize that. 4. Without doing this, how will we become a “light to the nations”.

Is this purpose of this to protect Jews in their observance of Jewish law, or to convince others? The Lubavitcher Rebbe apparently would say that Jews should convince others, as well as protect themselves, although most other Jewish scholars do not go that far. So that is one question. (He also cited a Canadian Jewish scholar, David Novack, who said that if gentiles would study Talmud, maybe more Jews would study Talmud). And clearly civil law should be followed by Jews resident in a civil society.

There is much more to be discussed in this class, taking specific issues and looking at them from both a Jewish and a public policy perspective. A number of elements need to be considered: human autonomy, community preferences, legal provisions, religious considerations, ethical and moral thinking.

We shall see what comes next.

(3) 100 year old Bernard Kalb passed away, after suffering injuries from a fall. Did you see the obituary in the Post today? A cute reference: apparently one day, the mother of Bernard and his brother Marvin called at CBS, where they both worked, and told the operator “Hello, this is Marvin Kalb’s mother. Is Bernie in?”

(4) The clock on the wall tells me it is 4:32. You know what that means. Only 28 minutes until we can watch the House of Representatives agree to, or not agree to, the rules of the game.

When Donald Trump became president, my attitude was: well this will be a problem, but it’s an aberration and in four years, how much harm can he do? It turned out that he could do more to tear things apart than I thought he could.

When Joe Biden became president, I breathed deeply and was certain that things would now start to right themselves, although it would take a little time to undo the harm Trump had done. It turned out that it was unclear that things would right themselves, and that it would take much longer than I had thought it would because the Trump years were so detrimental.

The result was that on Jan 1, 2021, I was certain we were on the right path and that (seeing what happened over that entire year) on Jan 1, 2022 I hoped we were on the right path. Today, January 8, 2023 (Happy 88th, Elvis!), I am concerned that there is no right path.

I believe that 2023, or at least the first half of 2023, will be frustrating, confusing, dangerous, and fascinating. Only one of those four characteristics is positive, and 1 to 3 is a poor ratio.

I will watch the House tomorrow to see how the proposed McCarthy rules package is treated. My guess is that there might be a repeat of the Speaker chaos – after all, four defects from the Republicans on the rules package will block its passage.

The radical right wing House will not be able to put into effect any legislation that does not pass the Democratic Senate, so not much of a danger there. But the danger will be inaction – nothing will pass the House that can pass the Senate, and important matters (debt ceiling increase, appropriations) won’t be moved along at all. Simple paralysis.

In the meantime, we are going to be facing interminable investigations which will go nowhere, and we will beset with problems that are beyond the jurisdiction of Congress. For example, continued and increasing weather disasters, and foreign problems caused by the new right wing Israeli government, by the continuing Russian-Ukrainian war, by China putting more pressure on Taiwan, and so forth.

A bumpy ride, for sure. Hopefully, not more than that. And I hope we all remain safe and sound. Reminds me of that oft-stated Chinese proverb: May you live in interesting times…..but only by Zoom.

*************************************

Has this young blog become a broken record already? There is just so much to worry about.

I have to have more varied content.

By the way, last year I read 106 books, and I should at least name the ones I liked the best. My reading is largely coming from my collection of Penguins, so I am not reading what you are reading. I read 3 books the first week of this year: “The Roots of Heaven” by Romain Gary, a 1950s novel set in French Africa, where protection of elephants from big game hunters and poachers get mixed up with anti-colonialist revolts (I had a hard time keeping the characters straight, and the books is dense, but its message is interesting and the book was apparently quite influential when it came out first); “Foreigners” by Leo Walmsley, a fictionalized memoir of the author’s early life in a fishing town in North Yorkshire; C.S. Forester’s “Brown on Resolution”, a short and terrific story of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy and her goal for her son to follow his father (whom she only met one time, and he knows nothing about) into the British navy.

I am now reading “The Green Mare”, a French farce by Marcel Ayme. So far, it is quite clever and not at all worth spending time on.

Donald Trump will try to take credit for the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. If he will be correct in that (and he may be right), I will give him one more. Donald Trump can take credit for this post. For, after all, if McCarthy hadn’t been elected, undoubtedly I would have written something very different.

When Congress reconvenes on Monday, the House will try to pass the rules package that McCarthy had worked out with various members of his party. The rules of the Pelosi era have expired, and the House needs rules. The sessions leading to the election of the Speaker were governed by what I have heard referred to as general parliamentary rules, which are those the presiding officer declares under the advise of the House parliamentarian. Maybe those are still in force now. I don’t know.

I haven’t seen a draft of the rules, and don’t know if they are still being negotiated over the weekend, but some of them are rather problematic. Such as a rule that would permit any member of the House (that would include Democratic members, by the way, as I understand it) to call for a vote of confidence on the Speaker. This could cause chaos and make the passage of controversial legislation impossible, unless the rules themselves constrain this power somewhat. And it will make us come closer to a parliamentary system, where votes of confidence bring down governments all the time. Of course, the vote here won’t bring down the government and lead to new elections; it will simply partially paralyze the existing government.

It will also add an element to the tough negotiations that always occur when difficult legislative decisions must be made. Think, for example, as to what will happen when negotiations over an increased debt ceiling are required this summer. When debate can be cut off by a member of Congress requesting again and again a vote of confidence on the Speaker or, more likely, when the Speaker is told “if you don’t do what we want, we will move for a vote of no-confidence”. Remember there will always be 212 Democratic votes ready to vote against a Speaker who is not able to control his/her own party.

Another change will apparently drop the Pelosi proxy voting rules. In part because of Covid, and I assume also because the House was so close in recent years, the last Congress allowed members of vote by proxy. No more, I hear. Now, all 435 members will have to be present to cast a vote. It is true that they got all elected members to attend the hearings for election of the Speaker (with a few minor exceptions for one hearing), but they can’t do that throughout a two year term. Covid and other diseases are still going to be around – and I don’t think anyone wants a Covid positive member of Congress to come to a session in person to cast a vote, do they?

This also could slow down legislation. It certainly adds another element to the Speaker’s decision to have a vote on a bill. With a Congress with only a 4 vote separation by party, I can see votes canceled at the last minute because someone important to the vote will be absent. This also will give extraordinary leverage to Republicans who do not want to see a particular bill passed. Another way to keep a bill from the floor (and if the Speaker doesn’t remove the bill from the agenda, what then? A vote of no confidence once more.)

Other issues won’t necessarily involve the rules package. There will be questions about committee assignments – were deals made to put Matt Gaetz in charge of important military affairs, will Marjorie Taylor Greene be given important assignments, what will Jim Jordan be as head of the Judiciary Committee? The Democrats (for good reason in my mind) did set the stage for what might happen next. They took Marjorie Taylor Greene off all committees; they rejected people like election denier Jim Jordan from serving on the Jan 6 Special Committee. Who knows what McCarthy might do in retaliation?

And we know the Republicans are fond of investigations. Look at all the time they wasted, for example, on the Benghazi investigation. Now, they have a big list of investigations they want to take up. Afghanistan. Hunter Biden. The Border. Hunter Biden. Politicization of the Department of Justice. Hunter Biden.

So what kind of McCarthy will Speaker McCarthy be? Will he be a Joe McCarthy who sets out the dogs to rankle and destroy his political enemies? Will he be a Charlie McCarthy, who will just mouth the words of his right wing ventriloquists? We know he won’t be a Gene McCarthy.

I expect the next month will be terrible, as the foxes will circle the hen house readying their attack, staking out their territory. The Republican party is clearly not united on many issues – they have, to a large part, like Pogo, found their enemy to be themselves. But the Democratic party, and we the people, are also their enemies, it appears.

And Kevin McCarthy? Egotist, election denier and Trump sycophant. He his now the chief fox in charge of a fragile hen house. We can only wait to see how this plays out.

And will Donald Trump play a role? That too remains to be seen.

One digression: This is now Day 6 of my head cold, and I am sick, sick, sick of it. Will you let whoever is in charge my head cold know, so they can do something about it? Thanks.

Tonight is the first full moon of 2023, the Wolf Moon for those of you who live where wolves are a protected species and spend their time howling outside your windows, or the Ice Moon for those of you who live in pre-Christian Europe (and Happy Holiday to you). The night of the Full Moon has been targeted as a time where particularly horrible events are more likely to occur. Those who have studied crime and other statistics say that this is fake news. But I say: what do they know?

I personally have never been bothered by a full moon – but the night prior to the full moon has always been a challenge for me. It is on that night that I am most likely to have a difficult time sleeping. This is true whether or not, upon going to bed, I know that it is Erev Full Moon.

Last night, I was determined to win my battle on the Eve of the Full Moon. And indeed I fell asleep rather quickly and assumed (or at least I assume that I assumed since I was asleep – duh) that I was the victor. But something happened at about 3:30 a.m. I heard a loud sound, or was it a scream and woke up abruptly. I quickly saw that everything was all right, and told myself to go back to sleep.

It wasn’t going to happen. As far as I know, I was up from 3:30 on.

Now, I did do some dreaming last night and, to be honest, I don’t know if my dreaming was done before or after 3:30. Either way, I think that the dreams were influenced by the Wolf Moon.

Edie and I were going to an outdoor concert to see a singer that we both liked. The singer was an older woman and we assumed that the crowd would be small. But as we approached the venue, it appeared that the audience would be enormous, and in fact, although we were early, we were shunted to a line of people waiting to get in. And we wondered if there was room, because the crowd seemed so dense. And we were far from the stage itself, which was not in sight.

We were told to sit down where we were, so we lost hope of getting anywhere near the performance. Next to me, there was a wide gravel path, which I took to be the course on which the horses would race. That, then, turned into a train track and a train came up which we were all told to enter. The train started up and we thought we were being transported to the concert. We went on and on and realized what a long walk (an impossibly long walk) it would have been.

The crowd was shepherded off the train and we all walked slowly forward. Then everyone was halted, and we were divided into two groups. We were in the first line of the second group. The first group kept going forward, but we were directed to the left, up stairs, down stairs, up an escalator, down an escalator, outside into a green area surrounded by monumental concrete buildings that looked like government buildings or maybe museums (I wondered what part of town we were in – this area was new to me), and then back inside and down a long, long, long corridor.

We were all quite distraught. One man read from a document, telling us that just last month, they controlled a crowd of 400,000 at this very place, and wondering why they couldn’t do it now. A young boy of maybe 8 years old looked at the document and said that the document didn’t say last month, but was dated years and years ago. The man apologized.

We never got to the concert and, at some time, we realized we were nowhere near where we wanted to be and that we, and the hundreds or thousands with us, were simply lost.

First, a digression. You see those two guys on Tik-Tok who tell what they call dad jokes? Such as:

1. My wife told me I was going deaf………… Boy, was that hard to hear.
2. Three conspiratorialists walk into a bar……… That sure can’t be a coincidence.

Back to my regularly scheduled programming. The village.

Next month, we are going to celebrate a special anniversary. Forty years in our house. Which was new when we moved in.

For the first forty years, you can pretty much ignore things, except at times of crisis. We did get a new roof about twenty years ago, and our insides (and outsides) have been painted a few times, one shower redone, and about five years ago we needed to redo our kitchen, but most things have been left on their own.

Over the past few months, the house has beginning to show its age. Our furnace conked out and needed to be replaced. We had to call an exterminator to rid ourselves of some small, unwanted guests. We needed to replace our kitchen faucet. The electricity went out in our basement guest room and bath. Our gutters needed cleaning.

And our outside, even after our lawn maintenance folks, trimmed and mulched for the winter, needed some sprucing.

We looked to see what we needed, and hired a company we have used before to: paint our outside trim, repair several woodpecker holes in the outside trim and install woodpecker shields, paint our exterior doors, replace some external wood trim that had outlived its useful life, and paint our front picket fence.

Three men showed up Tuesday morning to start the work. But since then the work has expanded, and keeps expanding. We decided that everything (house, walkways, patios and porches, driveway, and exterior stone walls all needed power washing, we added the garage door to the list of things to be painted outside, and trip around the doors, we added caulking for our two tiers of brick stairs in front, and on and on.

Well, when you get to be 40, things begin to go wrong, and you do need sometimes to have some plastic surgery. And one handyman can’t do it. You need a village. Or, even better, it seems you need a permanent staff. These guys are here forever.

As the Republican Party looks for a Speaker of the House, I will throw my support behind Jim Jordan. The other candidates are so old-school. They talk politely (even if out of both sides of their mouth), their wear suits or sport jackets, they don’t yell and scream. Frankly, they are boring.

But Jim Jordan? He throws off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and let’s out a big yell. There is nothing boring about him. Yes, it’s true, he is disgusting, but – more importantly – he is entertaining.

And who wants a Republican led House that isn’t entertaining?

Now, every candidates needs a theme song, and Jordan is not exception. I have selected a song that needs little changes in the lyrics that honors Jordan and his potential as Speaker of the House:

“House built on a weak foundation will not stand (oh, no).

Stories told through all creation, will not stand (oh, no)

Jim Jordan, he built a House oh

Jim Jordan, he built a House oh

Jim Jordan, he built a House oh

Jim Jordan”

Of course, Jordan says he does not want the job. He wants to lead the Judiciary Committee. For those who are not Jim Jordan supporters, I say: the thought of Jim Jordan leading Judiciary is enough to lead you to support him for Speaker instead.

It is going to be interesting. Clearly, the Republicans lack common goals, and leadership. Without leadership, you cannot achieve common goals, and without common goals, you cannot achieve leadership. In parliamentary societies, this is when parties split and collapse.

Let’s assume that the Republicans do elect a speaker. From everything we see, it will not be a speaker who is tempted to compromise with the Democrats in the House on any matters. After all, the new speaker probably won’t even want to compromise with other Republicans. Another blow to democracy. A do-nothing Congress by design.

Steve Bannon wanted to break down the administrative state. Because the election of Joe Biden, he was only partially successful. But his acolytes in the party may accomplish the same goal a different way, by breaking down the legislative state. And, as we know, they have already achieved in inflicting serious blows on the judicial state.

So, Democrats, don’t be too ambitious the next two years. Sit back and enjoy the show. And keep that administrative state strong.

By the way, in watching most of the voting yesterday out of the corner of my right eye while my left eye and part of my right eye were busy doing other things, I noted that the entire day in the House of Representatives was a festive one. Everyone was in good spirits. So much geniality and so many good spirits. Only two people seem to have been left out of the jollity.

One – unsurprisingly – was Congressman-elect-for-a-short-time George (nee Anthony) Santos (nee Devolder). No one wants to touch him with a ten foot pole. Can you imagine what his future life will be like?

The other was Elise Stefanik formerly moderate Republican, now MAGA lady, who nominated Kevin McCarthy for the Speakership. She gave him a rousing introduction, and then settled down in an aisle chair. She stayed in that chair watching everybody around her backslapping and joking, while she just sat there, ignored. Hmmm.