May 17, 2018--End Times Come to Jerusalem

I've written about this so often that I wouldn't blame you if you moved quickly to something else.

The subject of this is the real reason Christian Evangelicals are obsessed with Israel and the Jews. We got a glimpse of that obsession the other day when Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner presided over the opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. 

The real reason this is a big deal not just for Jews but for all Americans is because Evangelicals have an inordinate amount of political power in America now that Trump is president. He shamelessly panders to them as they constitute the heart of his base.

Hint--the real reason is not because Evangelicals are concerned about anti-Semitism. Quite the contrary. One could argue that the ways in which Evangelicals view Jews is in its essence anti-Semitic.

Evidence for this is the fact that Trump arranged to have Texas televangelist John Hagee deliver one of the prayers at the embassy's dedication. 

Hagee is well known in Evangelical circles for having said that Hitler was doing "God's work" when he slaughtered six million Jews. It was God's work because to millennialist Evangelicals such as Hagee to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the millennium all Jews must emigrate to Israel to participate in awaiting his return.

According to Hagee and his millions of followers, when the Messiah appears, Jews will be given one final opportunity to convert to Christianity. All those who do not will be killed and relegated to an eternity in Hell.

In this mad scenario Jews who go along with Evangelicals' apocalyptic assignment for them will be the ultimate dupes. According to the Hagee crowd millions of Jews needed to be murdered during the Holocaust to motivate or scare the rest of us to flee to the safety of the Promised Land. Safety only if we convert to Christianity. 

What an unholy bargain.

At the very hour the embassy was being dedicated, those watching on live TV, via split screen, could witness another slaughter taking place just a few miles away--Israeli solders killing scores of protesting Palestinians and wounded well over a thousand more.

On the left side of the screen, at the new embassy, glamed-up yiddisher maidella Ivanka Trump was unveiling a plaque on the wall by the entrance, a plaque on which Trump's name was emblazoned in typeface at least as large as that identifying the embassy itself. In effect--not unlike Trump Tower, The Donald J. Trump Embassy in Jerusalem.

And on the right side of the screen we could watch young people from Gaza, living in apartheid Israel, being murdered by the dozens in cold blood by Israeli security forces using live ammunition.

Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said those killed and wounded along the walled border between Gaza and Israel brought it on themselves. They deserved what they got. 

What they got was killed and wounded.

Then there was Evangelical minister Robert Jeffress, head of one of the largest megachurches in the South, who delivered the opening prayer at the opening of the new embassy. He is highly regarded among Evangelical for having said repeatedly that unconverted Jews cannot be saved. He claims that this is confirmed by the words of Jesus, Peter, and Paul, who he misquotes as saying, "Judaism won't do it." Only faith in Christ.  

This is why for all Americans, not just Jews, this is a very big deal.

March 23, 2015--The Wall We Need

The wall we need is not the one we've been talking about for well over a year--Donald Trump's "beautiful" wall along the border with Mexico. The wall for which he in a delusion assured us Mexico would pay.

We now discover that Mexico understandably continues to see this to be offensive and is so furious about the way they are being treated by President Trump that they have virtually severed relations with us.

We also discovered that the budget Trump submitted to Congress last week--the one received by both parties as "dead on arrival"--includes about $4.0 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to pay for the first phase of wall building. There is not a word about Mexico anteing up.

If we want to assess if a wall of this kind will be effective in shutting down illegal border-crossing, we need look no further than how well the various walls Israel has erected to contain the movement of Palestinians have worked.

Two years ago as Palestinian rockets rained down on Israel, fired from Gaza, the Israeli army discovered dozens of elaborate smugglers' tunnels under the fence, tunnels in many cases that were electrified and included lights and even air conditioning.

But there is one thing we can be certain about--the security fence that circles the White House is equally ineffective.

Evidence for that is the revelation last week that someone jumped that fence as if it weren't there and managed to elude Secret Service agents for a full 17 minutes before he was spotted and captured. He apparently had made his way right up to a White House entrance and was fiddling with the doorknob in an attempt to enter the premises.

President Trump was in residence at the time and we can only suspect that when the SS finally learned about the intrusion they roused him from his bed and bundled him down to the bunker six floors below the East Wing.

The same "undisclosed location" where they hid Vice President Cheney on 9/11.

From an electronic sensor the Secret Service was alerted to the fact that there was an intruder, but they could not locate him on the White House grounds.

The White House sits on only18 acres and one would assume that there are motion detectors every few yards and other surveillance devices that are so sensitive and secretive that we can only imagine their capabilities.

Assume away.

Not only should we be concerned about the possible danger President Trump faced but we should also be concerned in general about our capacity to monitor our borders and collect useful and time-sensitive data and intelligence from various hot spots around the world where we depend upon electronic as well as human intelligence to keep us safe.

Very much including what is going on in North Korea.

But who knows--the 26-year-old who snuck onto the White House grounds, when captured, said, "I am a friend of the president. I have an appointment."

Maybe he knew Trump was lonely with his wife and son in New York and would be happy to see him. They could watch Hannity together.

The next morning, the president said the "Secret Service did a fantastic job last night."

I also worry about his sense of what he considers to be fantastic.

Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran

September 18, 2014--Ladies of Forest Trace: Briefly Noted

These days I call my mother at least once a day.

For decades, we used to speak on Sundays. At precisely 12:00. She loved to demonstrate that she was in command of all her faculties by dialing at the stroke of noon, feeling especially proud of herself on those two time-change Sundays a year when we leapt forward or fell back. Those calls always began with a proud, self-satisfied chuckle.

But now that she is nearly three months past 106 and losing stamina and concentration, since I want as much of her as I had in the past when our conversations would last an hour or so, now my seven to ten calls a week add up to about that amount of time. I also know that we're nearing . . .

I want the time together, just being with her, but also to hear her very-late-in-life thoughts.

*   *   *

"Very bad today."

"I can hear. Your breathing sounds labored."

"Labored . . . that's a good word . . . for me."

When I could sense her almost panting I would chatter away to fill the space, to relieve her of the need to hold up her end of the conversation.  "I spoke with Estelle as she sounded good. She is liking where she's living. Making lots of new fiends and--"

"She visited. . . . That was good. . . . She didn't stay long. Which is also good. I can't entertain like--"

"You know you don't have to do that," I interrupted, "Your visitors just want to be with you. Estelle tells me that her favorite thing is just to sit with you, not talk, and hold your hand."

"She's a sweetheart."

*   *   *

"Today I'm feeling unhappy."

She says this rarely, never wanting to upset me, members of the family, or any of her many friends, so I was concerned.

"Any reason?"

"Many. . . . Too many."

"Tell me one." Her breathing was strong and she sounded to be in good form so I decided to ask rather than attempt to change the subject, to try to save her from unnecessary aggravation.

"Israel."

"I think I know--"

"Maybe you do. Maybe you don't."

"So tell me."

"I'm trying to." Her feistiness pleased me. A glimmer of how she had been in the past, over the years.

"Tell me."

"They need to build those houses?"

"In the West Bank?"

"There. After what they did to the children, in their schools in Geezer." I didn't correct her. "I know Gaza. Gaza. I still have some marbles."
"Indeed you do."
"It's a shonda."

No correction needed.

*   *   *

She surprised me by calling a little past noon on Sunday. As in the past, she chuckled at her ability to still do that. I thought to be only 10 minutes "late" was wonderful. Actually, amazing.

"I just wanted to hear your voice," she said, sounding weak. "Call me later. . . . Tonight. You'll be up?" 

Night for her is 6:30 when she gets ready for bed.

"I think I will be. I'll call you then."

"My love to you."

That's all I ever need to hear.

*   *   *

When I called, she asked, "Can you tell me what to think about IRIS?"

"I think you mean ISIS."

"IRIS, ISIS, or whatever Barack Obama calls them."

"For some reason he insists on calling them ISIL."

"I thought I heard that in his speech. My hearing aid batteries were getting weak so I couldn't listen to everything."

"Please, Mom, change them whenever this happens. It's so important to hear--"

"Do you know how much they cost? The batteries?"

"Thankfully you can afford to change them whenever you need to. That's one thing you shouldn't scrimp--"

"Let's change the subject. Batteries are not what I wanted to talk about. Before I have to lie down, tell me about them. Call them whatever you like."

"I'm no authority but they are a very violent jihadist group that wants to take control of much of Syria, Iraq, and who knows what else."

"And kill everyone who stands in their way?"

"I'm afraid so." I was concerned about the direction of this upsetting conversation so close to her bedtime. She has trouble enough sleeping through the night. But she persisted.

"Obama wants to bomb them?"

"I'm not sure he wants to. I think it's as much the political pressure he is feeling to do something."

"Something I can understand but bombing, which will lead to sending boys there, no? First bombing, then boots."

"So what should he do? What should we do? America?"

"What, we did so wonderful in Iraq? In Afghan? Before that in Vietnam? It's always the same story."

"I think you need your rest."

"As your father used to say, 'Rest is for later.'"

I of course knew what he meant.

"You know what he meant?"

I whispered, "I do."

*   *   *

"Morty asked me--he knows how old I am."

She is both proud of the number and vain. So to men, especially, she is reluctant to acknowledge she is more than 106. "He asked, 'Over your very long life, what is the most important thing that happened?'"

"That's a good question. What did you say?"

"I said it's not the things that were discovered and invented. Not cars or airplanes or radio or TV. Or even the medicines that are keeping him and me alive."

"So what did you say?" I wanted to move her along. These days if she unwinds stories slowly, as she enjoys doing, she runs out of gas before she gets to the conclusion.  

"Not the rockets or going to the moon. Not all the civil rights. Not the end of the Russians."

"You mean the end of communism?"

"Thank you, that's what I meant. Important yes. Also defeating the Nazis. Hitler. But that is not most important and Morty, who has a fine education and was principal of a big high school in the Bronx, wanted the most important."

"And?" I could hear she was beginning to flag.

"Women."

"Women?"

"Yes. All the things that happened to them. To us. Voting, unions--my older sisters worked for both of those. How many doctors did you know when you were a boy?"

"You mean women doctors?"

"Yes. And lawyers and scientists and on TV--on the news--and senators and governors. I never believed I would see this in my lifetime. I had to live this long for that."

"It is wonderful."

"How long have there been men and women?"

"Homo sapiens? About 200,000 years. But I know you mean more recently. How long have men and women lived in societies, in cities, in civilizations?

"All of that. That's thousands of years too?"

"Yes. Maybe 10,000."

"And during all that time, almost everywhere, women were 'second-class citizens,' as your father used to say." She laughed remembering that.

"That's true."

"So nothing changed more than that. As I said to Morty, nothing more important."

"I agree."

"I saw most of this happen. In my lifetime. Which is a very long one, but I'm not thousands of years old." She paused. "Though some days I feel like I am. . . . But not today."

"Why not today?"

"I saw Hillary's speech in Iowa. I mean on the TV. Did you?"

"Yes. I thought she did well."

"So all I have to do is live until I'm 108 to see her become president. Then I'll be happy. . . . And ready."

August 7, 2014--Israeli (Jewish) Exceptionalism

The outrage and debate continues over civilian casualties in Gaza and Israel. More accurately, about what has been happening in Gaza. There have been relatively few Israeli civilian causalities and, even if there were many more, the outrage would, by comparison, be muted.

Hamas and the Palestinians are not just the underdogs in this fight--improvised rockets versus jet fighters and smart bombs--but they are also not Jews.

This must be said--being not-Jews means less is expected of the Palestinians.

More is expected of the Jews (and I mean Jews as distinguished from Israelis) because of the Holocaust. Because of it, it goes, Jews should know better when it comes to inflicting harm and worse on innocents--people who are killed or wounded not because they are enemy combatants but because of who they are.

Jews were rounded up and mass murdered in Germany, and in much of the rest of continental Europe, because they were Jews. Not soldiers, not resistance fighters. For this reason, Jews should know better. But they also know that the world stood by largely silent. And thus were complicitous. This complicates matters.

By this logic Israeli Jews, and the rest of us who are Jews, should be very careful about setting upon anyone just because of who they are. We should know that if we allow this, worse perpetrate this, "they" will come for us next. As they have for millennia.

This is the Jews' patrimony. Mine as well.

So here we are today seeing the slaughter of innocents in Gaza. Carried out by Israelis. By Jews.

That is not our patrimony nor the lessons we should have learned from our own history.

All right. Point made.

But there is another, related point to make--

To expect Jews, Israelis to act as if there is something often referred to as Jewish Exceptionalism is to apply a higher standard to them than to any other nation or people.

Where is the equivalent outrage about the United States being responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, a few human rights group keep that tally and attempt to grab an occasional headline. But beyond that there is, again, silence.

How much "collateral damage" (that hideous euphemism that means killing of innocent people), how much has there been in South Sudan or Eastern Ukraine? How widely reported has that been? And what martial etiquettes have been assigned to the Russian-backed forces or the Sudan People's Liberation Army? Certainly not the same as those imposed on Jews and Israelis.

But stories about the 1,400 Palestinians who have thus far been killed--admittedly at least half of them noncombatants--have been on the front page of the New York Times for days. Including yesterday, explicitly, with multicolored graphs distinguishing among different categories of the dead, "Civilian or Not? New Fight in Tallying the Dead in Gaza."

This has the tincture of anti-Semitism.

It is no coincidence that anti-Semetic rallies and confrontations have been erupting in many places in Europe, horrifyingly also in Germany. This derives not just from a long history of festering hatred but from the conflation of Israel and Jews--of a nation with a people.

They, we are not one and the same. Many Jews, including me, though we recognize the existential threat to Israel that Hamas and its tunnels and rockets represent and Israel's right to defend itself, not all Jews support a separate state of Israel or the current reactionary, repressive government.

And thus to expect us to be any better than other people is unreasonable. And since it it expressed so one-dimensionally, and leads so quickly to condemnations and worse, all Jews are wise to have their radar tuned to high. Danger of the old sort is lurking.

August 6, 2014--The Nature of Human Nature

"I know the answer," Rona said, "But still it upsets me when I think about how peaceful mornings are here--how there is nothing but the sun over the bay and the sounds of the tide rushing--while in so many other parts of the world the day begins with terror and violence. Like, right now, in the Middle East, Gaza, and Israel. I know, I know . . ." she trailed off.

"More evidence of how life is unfair and how fortunate and blessed we are," I offered, "And not just us. At the risk of sounding like a chauvinist pollyanna, no matter one's circumstances in America, things are so much better for virtually everyone."

"It's not only about unfairness. If it were, at least theoretically, something could be done about it. To bring about more fairness and peace. But . . ." she drifted off again not knowing what to make of this or how to reconcile her place on the fortunate side of things.

"So what else is involved that clearly has you upset?" I asked, thinking it would be better to try to talk about this than find a way to change the subject.

"Why all the violence? So much of it seeming to be for its own sake. And often brutally excessive. Way beyond what is required to protect oneself, one's family, or even one's nation."

"I have a theory."

"I hope it has a happy ending because I'm feeling terrible about the world's current circumstances."

"I'm not sure about that. It's too soon to know how things will turn out."

"Tell me anyway."

"It's about human evolution."

"Oh that, but, please, go on."

"Humans, homo sapiens, emerged about 200,000 years ago. In geological and biological terms, not very long ago. And for about the next 193,000 years we lived tribally, nomadically widely dispersed across Africa, what is now the Middle East, and also into today's Asia and Europe. We were mainly hunters and gatherers and men--and I mean men--needed to be able to protect themselves from dangerous beasts and other tribes who threatened their territory. It was raw, 'red-in-tooth-and-claw' survival of the fittest. A dangerous time that rewarded the most successfully aggressive and violent."

"I know all this," she was impatient with me, "So according to you what happened next?"

"It wasn't until about 7,000 years ago that the first city was established, when humans learned how to grow and cultivate crops and raise domestic animals so they they could gather in one place and no longer need to live as nomads."

"Ironically, the first cities, true, were in the same region where today there is so much warfare and violence."

"Yes," I said, "Arguably the first was Uruk in Babylonia, present-day Iraq, along the Euphrates. Between 5,000 and 3,000 BC up to 80,000 peopled lived there but, in evolutionary terms, these first city dwellers were very much like their hunter-gather ancestors. Just as aggressive, just as potentially violent."

"I sense where you're going with this."

"That was only 7,000 years ago. A very brief moment in time in the history of life. Living in settled communities and cities soon did not require the same human capacity and propensity for aggression and violence that our distant ancestors needed for survival.

"And, here's the heart of the problem," I continued my little lecture,"over the next seven millennia, until today, social evolution outpaced biological evolution so that while current homo sapiens are still biologically very much like our more ancient relatives, the way we live has changed dramatically. And making it worse, military technology has also evolved at a very rapid pace, far outstripping our basic self-protection needs. This make things infinitely more dangerous."

"By your theory, then, we no longer need to be so violent. We have culture and law and religions and governments and codes of behavior that would allow us to live more peacefully if we weren't still so bound and driven by our early-human DNA. And don't some researchers say that man, humans, have what they loosely call the 'benevolence gene'?"

"Exactly. But that propensity for generosity and even self-sacrifice is still overwhelmed by the aggressive ones that were so necessary long ago."

"So, in your view, what's going to happen?"

"I hope there will be enough change in our biological makeup over the next hundred years so we don't, while waiting for that, destroy the human race."

"Are you optimistic?" Rona asked.

"Look as those clouds," I said. "What a beautiful and peaceful place this is. Aren't we fortunate."

Rona knew that I wanted to change the subject. And let me.

July 31, 2014--Blood Feud

This is the first Arab-Israeli war that isn't about territory--about expanding or protecting borders.

It is about hated and blood letting. Pure and simple, killing. That's the agenda. For both sides.

It is about Palestinians associated with Hamas trying to kill or capture any Israelis they can get their hands on purely in order to murder them or use them as bargaining chips. And on the other side, it is about the Israeli military, in spite of its denials, attempting to kill as many Palestinians as possible without regard to the distinction between fighters and civilian innocents.

There is no place to hide in Gaza--all available land is built up and there are no open spaces where refugee camps can be established and declared safe havens for non-combatants. And so those whose homes have been destroyed or live in fear are either trapped where they live, continuing to be subject to bombing, or flee to shelters provided by the United Nations.

But then, while cringing in these, they are not immune from attack. Just yesterday one of these shelters was destroyed and 20 more civilians were killed, many children. This is the third or fourth time a UN facility was destroyed with significant loss of life. In an era of smart bombs this cannot be explained away as "collateral damage."

So the Israelis claim it is the Palestinians themselves who have been attacking what should be sanctuaries. Hamas is doing this to its own people, they say, to make it look as if Israeli forces are intentionally targeting women and children.

The UN says it has evidence that it has been Israeli rockets and bombs that have destroyed these so-called sanctuaries.

And so it goes.

Each day we have updated body counts--remember body counts? More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 100 Israelis.

Both sides are seeing "progress" in those numbers--Israelis believe that if they kill enough Arabs Hamas will give up its struggle to expel Israelis from land they claim to be theirs while Hamas, recently losing power and influence in Gaza, will become resurgent if they kill enough Jews and thereby reestablish their credibility as warriors for the Palestinian cause.

This is thus a blood feud fueled by decades of hatred on both sides--equally vicious ethnic stereotyping and bigotry that is promoted in schoolbooks and popular media. Recall that this most recent conflict began after an exchange of barbaric killings of Israeli and Arab teenagers. It is Old Testament retributive tribal warfare waged lustfully and hatefully by both sides.

Both have legitimate issues. Israeli has the right to live securely within some version of its current borders and Palestinians have the right to a contiguous state of their own. Both have ancient claims to these lands. But both have moved beyond the normal range of political and geographic struggle, even warfare, and descended into hatred-drivien, senseless slaughter.

July 22, 2014--Terror Tunnels

I've been struggling with what to say about the current Israeli incursion into Gaza and the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. All precipitated by the savage killing of three Israeli youth by Palestinian terrorists and the equally shocking capture, torture, and murder of a Palestinian youth by three equally-youthful Israeli ultra-orthodox fanatics.

One could say that this exchange of barbarisms was precipitated by many decades of animosity, ethnic and religious bigotry on both sides, and claims and counterclaims about territorial primacy. There is enough blame to go around and around and around and . . .

There is no good solution here.

Actually, there is the idea of one--the so-called two-state solution--but the motivation to agree to this in practice is virtually non-existent. Radicals and hateful people--again on both sides--make any possibility of compromise remote. I almost wrote "hopeless."

Hopeless is the way I feel and thus my reluctance to try to write about the situation. I dislike even the prospect of considering hopelessness.

Anyone who feels that what is happening now will lead to any sort of reasonable progress on all the conflicting but often legitimate concerns knows nothing about the irreconcilable history that stretches back millennia in that fraught region. When people feel that their right to exist and have a homeland in the area--actually, in Palestine or, of you will, Greater Israel--is divinely sanctioned or, in Israeli's case, chosen for them by God, it is hard to think what adversaries might productively say to each other if they could be induced or compelled to negotiate.

In truth, both sides, not just the side represented by Hamas, do not recognize the other's right to exist. Militant Israelis--more and more in charge of the situation--would as much like to see the Palestinians eliminated or, minimally, expelled from the contested region as radical arabs would like to see Israel "pushed into the sea."

It has even gotten to the point where Hamas and Israel do not know how to effectively wage war against each other.

The best current example is Israel's inability--despite it military superiority and high-tech capacity to deploy smart bombs and anti-missile missiles--to suppress the fighting capacity of their decidedly low-tech foe who blend into civilian areas of Gaza when Israeli troops and weapon systems appear.

Israel cannot even wipe out the tunnel system that enables Hamas fighters to manufacture home-made bombs and rockets and, using them, infiltrate into Israel proper to carry out acts of war and terror.

As incredible as it may seem, until the new military regime in Egypt clamped down on them, there were at least 1,200 tunnels connecting Egyptian Sinai and Gaza and many dozens of others linking Gaza with Israel itself. Some of these latter tunnels--ones Hamas calls "terror tunnels"--penetrate nearly half a mile into Israel. Others, reenforced by thousands of tons of concrete, are over 100 feet deep and, for reasons I cannot explain, go undetected by Israeli satellite, inferred, and other intelligence assets.

We are not talking about a 2,000 mile border like the one between the United States and Mexico which is thus impossible to make impenetrable, but rather a relatively short one in a circumscribed geographic area. One would think it would be relatively easy for Israel to know about every one of these tunnels since they have the will and technology to do so. But that appears not to be the case as the Israeli military is right know risking life and limb to find and seal them.

And so when they do finally find and destroy them all, where will things stand?

Pretty much where they were five years ago, a decade ago, a century ago, a millennium ago. There will be a brief halt in the mass killings as both sick step back under worldwide diplomatic pressure, lick their wounds, rearm, rage on about the cruelty of the other side, ratchet-up the hatred, and get ready to do it all over again within the next two to five years.

Just as the sun inexorable rises and sets, this too shall come to pass.

July 21, 2014--Clown Car

I don't know if they're still doing this, but in my youth, a favorite moment during the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus was when a car smaller than a VW would trundled to the center of the center ring and slowly disgorge clown after clown after clown after clown. At least a dozen appeared to have been piled into that tiny vehicle. I guess this was the inspiration for Steven Sondheim's Bring in the Clowns.

Of course there was a trap door beneath where the car came to rest and the clowns scrambled up from below the circus floor. Think of this as a metaphor for what follows.

Though Ringling Brothers may have moved on to higher-tech stunts, the good news is that their own version of the clown car is beginning to trundle toward center stage in the Republican scramble for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Three GOP clowns were especially active last week--Chris Christie, thinking his troubles are either behind him or that potential voters in Iowa have not been tracking the Bridgegate scandal (or, what is in fact true for them, seeing it to be a scandal created by the liberal eastern-establishment media) plunged into adoring crowds who came out to see a genuine political celebrity (ironically a celebrity created as much by media-fed scandal as achievement) who was eager to show the Republican competition how a seemingly straight-talking, tell-it-like-it-is anti-Washington regular overweight guy looks and feels like in the flesh (double meaning intended).

It feels pretty good, the ever-modest Christie concluded, all smiles before heading back to New Jersey, praying that the various prosecutors and grand juries investigating the mess at the GW Bridge as well as other signs of corruption will not indict him before next November. My guess is they will, and that that will finally deflate him. In the meantime, he'll keep pressing the flesh. (Sorry, at times I can't restrain myself from being bad.)

Also getting into their clown gear were Rick Perry, who I believe is still governor of Texas, and Rand Paul, Ron's son, who I think is a senator though the last time he was seen in Washington was two years ago when he was sworn in. He's now a part of the Washington establishment, like it or not, and since politically being perceived that way is a ability, he is trying to figure out how to be both a senator and an anti-establishment, anti-governement figure though he is in fact a public employee and earns more than $200,000 a year in salary and generous benefits paid for by taxpayers whose taxes he wants to cut. Get it?

Only a clown could be that audacious. And then have you seen his hair-dye job and eye makeup? Right out of clown school. But there I go again being bad.

What is unusual so many months before the Iowa caucuses is for undeclared but for-certain candidates to attack each other directly, by name. This early in the game unannounced candidates have always talked in broad generalities while wandering around the country attempting to line up wealthy supporters while appearing to be above the fray and trying to act presidential.

But Rick Perry couldn't control himself. He went right after purported front-runner Rand Paul both by policy and name. Maybe he recalled that the last time around, assuming his memory is more intact this time--he had trouble during the debates remembering even his own talking points--perhaps he is acknowledging that that last-minute strategy didn't work. His front-runner status lasted about a week.

Though the problem may have been more him than his strategy, this time around he is working more on the strategy than the "him" part.

The governor showed up last week with a new pair of professorial-looking eye glasses. These are part of a strategy to look smart because, again in 2012, he both looked and sounded, how else to put this, dumb.

And he's even given up wearing cowboy boots. Another strategy to make him look serious. And maybe to appeal to women and independents who don't like to see too much testosterone in their presidents. Though God knows with John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and FDR it flowed freely.

All Democrats. Hum.

Rick Perry, to show he knows the location of Russia and that he can't see it from his ranch, and is thus comfortable with foreign policy issues and therefore ready to move into the White House, but also to distinguish himself from the GOP frontrunner, attacked Rand Paul by name, calling him an "isolationist," "flat wrong," and "curiously blind" (recall the eyeglasses).

Very bold. But before the ink dried on reports about Perry's otherwise high-toned speech, Paul's people retaliated, calling Rick Perry "dead wrong," saying that though he is running around wearing "smart glasses" (not spiffy smart but the style of glasses that make you seem smart), "apparently his new glasses haven't altered his perception of the world or allowed him to see more clearly."

I call that hitting above the belt and not politically smart since so many voters need glasses not to make them look smart but to see. Though someone should check to see if Perry's have prescription lenses or are just window glass.

Now if we could only get Herman Cain wound up and ready to climb into that clown car how much fun would that be this hot summer where nothing else is going on. Except, of course Israel invading Gaza and Russians or Ukrainian rebels shooting down commercial airplanes.

November 27, 2013--Fajr and Sijil

At times, the tragic and the absurd merge to become indistinguishable. I can think of no better sad example than the recent case of the lion cubs of Palestine.

Last week two were born in, of all places, the Gaza Strip. Hamas proclaimed this blessed event as evidence that life goes on quite well in even this godforsaken and embattled place.

And, of course, they gave credit to themselves for creating the political and cultural environment that enabled this to occur. Sort of like what the Soviets used to do with Olympic athletes--shoot them full of hormones so that they would win dozens of gold medals and then cite that as proof of the superiority of their system.

But then the cubs, Fajr and Sijil, "dawn" and "stones of clay" in Arabic, proclaimed by Hamas to be symbols of "resistance, beauty, power, and strength," died.

Ignoring the craziness of attempting to breed and raise wild animals in such a forbidding environment, Hamas blamed, who else, Israel for the cubs demise.

Never mind that raising lions in captivity requires sophisticated zoological facilities and expert veterinary care (the mother lion, which is not unusual for animals in zoos, refused to feed the cubs) and they need to be monitored at all times (the lioness last Tuesday stepped on and killed the cubs), it was still all Israel's fault.

Hamas claimed this was because an Israeli warplane dropped three bombs on a Jihad training camp in northern Gaza not far from the zoo and this spooked the lioness who then . . .

Aware of the emotion surrounding the birth and untimely death of the two cubs, Israel quickly let it be known that the bombing was in retaliation for attacks on them earlier in the day, by rockets Hamas calls fajr.

There are a dozen so-called zoos in the Gaza Strip. According to the New York Times, at one, workers painted stripes on two donkeys and passed them off as zebras; at another, Hamas zookeepers stuffed dead animals and put them on display. I assume a similar fate awaits Fajr and Sijil.