ON MATTERS OF DUBIOUS INTEREST
I’ll call in my valet to brush my teeth. Then my makeup man will give me my golden tan. Get my hairdresser in; he’ll be busy for half an hour. I’ll have my diaper changed, and my valet will dress me in my proper blue suit and red tie. He also polishes my elevator shoes. Continue reading “On Day One. . .”
We were talking here last week about memories. A poignant string of mine pertains to when I was eighteen and just off to college. Basically indecisive, I didn’t have much preference about schools, so my father and I took a brief tour of some of the “better” institutions—Amherst, Yale, one other I can’t remember, and of course Dartmouth, his alma mater. Continue reading “First and Last Days at Dartmouth”
Short-term memory loss can be a horrendous pain in the ass that most of us, young and old, have endured. It gets worse as you age. I’ve written about this before, but it’s usually been in a partial, piecemeal way. I’ll give it another shot, while using some of my more brilliant former insights into how memory works―or breaks down for old people, as it did for Joe Biden. Continue reading “The Trials and Tricks of Memory”
Everyone has had it in for the media for a while now. It’s much worse with the polarization, and many now find the news irrelevant, especially the political news. That’s not true across the board, of course, but even some liberals, including me, have lost faith in the reporting we get. It’s tiresome, repetitive and frequently uninformed. Continue reading “Watching the News. Or Not?”
Well, I passed on Thanksgiving with friends this year because I had just endured a medical test and wasn’t up to an afternoon social affair. As always, there is the grand tradition to celebrate and gather with others, but there are plenty of good reasons―like mine―to stay home. Continue reading “Thanksgiving? Or Not?”
moment of silence for 9/11 victims
Despite the furor about his recent appointments, Trump hasn’t changed all that much. He still executes the same performance at rallies, peddling the same bullshit but more so. He feels invincible, I think, but many of us feel outrage fatigue. We are tired of his unpredictability and bored with his schtick.
It’s going to be neurotic and tense for gringo transplants. We probably have much the same reactions here as our U.S. counterparts, at least so far. The difference is that we have a partial refuge from the madness here. And most of us here are older, which may give us a different perspective. Continue reading “Living in Mexico under Trump”
Nobody likes to eat crow. So here’s David Rothkopf, another public intellectual who refuses to do so: “In my view, not only is Donald Trump a terrible choice to be our president, but that Kamala Harris would have been an exceptionally good leader for America.” Well, David, I endorsed her too, but it’s over and she was partly responsible for blowing it. So let us move on and hear how other prominent liberal critics expiated their guilt.
The first reason is a big increase in voter enthusiasm for Harris, according to Gallup. Their new data gives the Dems a 10-point advantage over the Republicans. Since Harris replaced Biden some 69 percent of all voters now show more enthusiasm than Gallup has ever reported. The caveats here are 1) it’s still a poll, and you know how I feel about that; and 2) voter enthusiasm is not always a good predictor of election outcomes.
I didn’t watch the Harris Town Hall on CNN. My friends and I were busy laughing to old George Carlin and Lenny Bruce records that likely proved much more enlightening. We heard George’s monologue about farting in school on Class Clown, which brought to mind Donald Trump’s farting in the courtroom.
Readers know I have gotten really worked up over President Biden’s consistent refusal to cut off arms sales to Israel. So have a lot of people—and not just progressives.
In April of this year I stressed the political consequences:
If Biden doesn’t come to his senses about the rearming, he will turn off a great many voters in November. The growing protests, particularly among younger people, show that many will sit out the election if the president doesn’t change course. AIPAC’s [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] talking points in fact support exactly what many Republicans are saying about the conflict.
One month later I wrote:
As of now, 57 Democrats in Congress have signed a letter urging Biden to withdraw the billions in aid and arms he still quietly permits to flow to Israel. Some 66 percent of the “41 million eligible ‘Gen Z’ voters in 2024 have opposed aid to Israel.”
Now Kamala Harris is apparently following the same policy, which seems discordant with the values she otherwise proclaims. To be charitable, I think she is in a bind. Right now she can’t afford to alienate the Jewish vote because the election is so close. If she wins in November, I have a strong hunch her administration will stop these terrible arms sales. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
American Jews constitute some 2.4% of the U.S. population, and these 7.5 million people are quite a diverse group. Many identify with no religion. Many feel as I do that Israel’s present government is committing atrocities in Gaza using our weaponry. And it’s not just the bombs. Per Reuters today, “Israel has stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade.” Such things go on with apparent impunity.
A few days ago, top administration officials “warned they would resort to punitive measures, potentially including a suspension of military aid, if humanitarian aid flows are not increased within a month.” I am assuming that would only happen after the election.
Feelings about what Israel is doing in Gaza run high, particularly among younger voters: “Of those under 40 years old, 33 percent believed that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. These numbers were collated two years before the current genocide.” And now the numbers are growing.
Our group affiliations and history largely determine how we think about Israel. I spoke last year about my anti-Zionist youth and the feelings it engendered. See “Down the Rabbit Hole in Gaza.” There is wide agreement on the stark immorality of what the Israeli regime is doing. They have received billions of dollars of U.S. aid and weapons since the October 7 massacre. No one talks about the millions of dollars AIPAC spends on lobbying for Israel each year.
One may blame Harris for being responsible, in part, for what this administration has done. One can also hope she will have the courage, if she wins, to bring this sickening boondoggle to an end.