January 9, 2014--The 2040 Diner

We had just placed our order at one of our favorite on-the-road places, the 2040 Diner in Fredericksburg, Virginia--eggs and grits for Rona, and the $7.95 county ham special for me--when the owner plopped an overflowing plate of eggs and sides on the counter and himself on a stool.

"That looks good," Rona said, sipping her tea.

He turned in our direction, not responding, looking annoyed by her interrupting what must be a daily ritual.

I thought, "Here we go. We're already in trouble."

"Is that lemon you're squeezing on your eggs?" Rona asked, ignoring his ignoring us.

Without turning he nodded and grunted something indecipherable.

"I've never seen that before."

I mouthed to Rona to "Cool it."

But she persisted, "I never tried that. I love lemon and maybe I'd also like it on eggs."

"Very Grek," he said with a thick accent, squeezing another half lemon all over everything on his plate.

"Grek?" Rona said.

"Grek," he turned fully in our direction, "Grek, Greek. Dot's me. Grek."

"The lemon is very Mediterranean," Rona smiled at him.

At that, with effort, he lifted himself off the stool and lumbered in our direction, hunched over with his arms dangling at his side.

"Lemon we have with everything in Grek." His accent thickened as he neared us.

I was beginning to feel nervous. We were the only customers. 8:30 is often a quiet time in diners that cater mainly to locals--late for those headed to work, too early for older folks, and too off the tourist route for travelers. Usually, exactly our favorite kind of place.

But at the 2040 I was beginning to feel threatened. The two waitresses, who looked as if they had worked there for decades, watched, smiling, which partially reassured me.

"You Brooklyn?" he asked.

"What?" I finally joined in, thinking that might ease the situation. He stood pressing his huge stomach against our table, still with his arms dangling and swinging simian-like.

"Brooklyn? From dare?"

"Yes," Rona chirped, the caffeine in her tea taking hold. "Both of us." She included me in her sweeping gesture.

He glared at me and pointed, laboriously hoisting one of his thick arms. "Him too?"

"Yes, he and me. We were both born there. Are you also from Brooklyn?"

"Grek," he said.

"So how did you know we--"

"Sound just like your mayor. Bloom. Both you and him." He dismissed me with a wave of his massive hand.

"Bloomberg," I said, taking a chance by correcting him.

"No gut."

"He's not our mayor anymore," Rona informed him. "As of January 1st we have a new one. De Blasio."

"De who?"

"Bill De Blasio."

"What kind of name dat?"

"I'm not sure," Rona said. "Maybe Italian?" I nodded.

"Where does he stand on guns?" His accent miraculously gone. "Not like Bloomberg I hope."

"I assume--" I cut myself off, stunned by the change in the way he spoke and not clear where this might be headed.

"He doesn't understand us." What happened to all the Grek business, I wondered. He sounded like someone more from Virginia than Athens.

"In what way?" Rona asked, eating away at her eggs and grits as if not noticing. I was feeling substantially relieved and took to enjoying the wonderful country ham.

"He should come here and talk to people. Real people. Then he would see."

"I think he's not--"

"He is," he corrected me before I could finish.

"Is what?" I was feeling bolder with him backed off from us. But I was still thinking about his disappearing accent.

"Take my son, for example," the taller of the two waitresses said.

"Your son?" Rona said.

"Yes. He has a gun. Most of his friends do."

"I assume," I stammered, "To me it depends on how old he is. I mean from my perspective. But what do I know about these things. I'm just like Bloomberg. From New York. The city. Brooklyn."

"Exactly," she said, having wandered over to us.

"I mean, if I may ask, how old is he? You don't have to tell me, of course."

"I know that." She smiled a bit condescendingly in my direction. I deserved that, I acknowledged. "If you must know, he's eight."

"Eight?" Rona could not hide her surprise. 

"I know what you're thinking but you don't know my boy. Or his grandfather."

"Who is?" Rona ventured.

"He works for Homeland Security."

"Really? What does he--"

"He teaches marksmanship. Trains their best people to become snipers."

"Really? That's amazing," I said.

"To tell you--"

She interrupted Rona. "I think I know what you're thinking. That this is a terrible thing to do and--"

"Not really. I mean I know--"

"That in the real world," she completed Rona's thought, "as awful as it is, it's necessary. Don't you think? I don't need to spell out all the situations where we need them. Snipers. There's no other way to describe them. That's what they do. So we should call them what they are. And are proud to be. To help keep us safe. You remember those Somali pirates?" We both nodded. "Well, my father teaches Navy Seals too."

There was no need to say more. "His grandfather taught him, my son, all about guns. Starting at six."

"Not to--"

"No not to become a sniper," she and Rona laughed together. "But how to handle and respect them. Guns."

"To tell you the truth," Rona said. "This is not something or a world that I know anything about. I guess I'm OK with people having guns. I mean--"

"Among other things, it's in the Constitution," the owner rejoined the discussion. "The Second Amendment says--"

"We coud debate that all day," I said, "The history and meaning of it."

"You mean about the 'well regulated militia' part?" He said, now directly to me.

"That and other things," I said. "But at the moment I'm just enjoying your eggs and wonderful ham. Every year when we're here I can't wait to have some."

"Let's just agree," he offered,  "that things are often more complicated than they seem."

I couldn't disagree about that.

"Like, for example," the waitress said, "how few people from where you're from could learn from my father how to defend us."

"Fair enough," Rona said, "But there are many ways to do that. Not everyone has to . . . . There are other things that need to be done. And people from Brooklyn and other places are helping as well. In their own ways. About things they know how to do."

"One thing, for sure we all agree about," he said, "is that there are some bad guys out there and we have to figure out ways to keep people safe. There are probably other things we could agree about. Like privacy, for example. On the other hand," he caught himself, "considering where you're from, maybe not."

"It might surprise you," I said, finishing my ham, "but for a New York liberal I'm no so liberal about privacy and some of the things the N.S.A. does."

"And it might surprise you that I voted for Obama. Twice. And she did to,"he pointed toward the waitress who was refilling the coffee pot.

"Just once," she winked. "The second time, I didn't vote at all. A plague on all their houses," she said.

"While I'm holding this can I heat up your cup?"

"I'd love some," I said.

October 24, 2013--"You're Fired!"

As The Donald likes to say, "You're fired!" But in Washington, in this White House, those words are rarely spoken.

No one was fired for the killings at our consulate in Benghazi. No one was terminated for the Wikileaks leaks. No one for the Edward Snowdon N.S.A. disclosures. And no one from the Justice Department for likely illegally obtaining private telephone records for Associate Press reporters.

Basically, no one is ever fired for anything.

This, by-the-way, has been true for all recent presidents--who did Ronald Reagan fire? George H.W. Bush? Bill Clinton? George W. Bush? Pretty much no one.

A few were asked to resign, which is very different than being fired for good cause, and those who did invariably claimed it was so that they could spend more time with their families.

General Stanley McChrystal is the only Obama person I can think of who was out-and-out fired. For indiscreetly criticizing President Obama to a Rolling Stone writer. Compare that to President Truman very publicly firing General Douglas MacArthur in the middle of the Korean War.

But now we have another who was fired by the Obama White House. According to the Daily Beast, a national security official was fired last week for issuing two-year's worth of tweets in which he made insulting comments about Obama administration officials.

He is Jofi Joseph, who has been secretly tweeting under the moniker @natsewonk. Up until last week he was part of the team working on negotiations with Iran.

For the past two years he posted insults about the intelligence and appearance of top White House and State Department officials.

"I'm a fan of Obama," he tweeted, "but his continued reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me."

On another occasion, he wrote, "Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Weiner? Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers [U.S. Ambassador to the UN] and Cass Sunstein [Power's husband and former Obama aide]."

General McChrystal and Jofi Joseph. A short and not very impressive list.

Americans understandable frustrated with our government would like to see officials held accountable. And fired if they foul up in big ways.

Case in point--while Jofi Joseph is looking for a new job (which I assume he is unlikely ever to secure), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius still has hers.

Considering the importance of the rollout of Obamcare and the political capital Obama has expended to get it approved, funded, and defended, considering the software disaster that is making it almost impossible for people seeking to purchase healthcare insurance on line to do so, shouldn't the person in charge be held accountable? And be dismissed?

Hundreds of millions were spent on the design of the Obamacare website and it is virtually useless. Shouldn't Sebelius have been monitoring the situation daily while it was being constructed? And since she obviously didn't, shouldn't Obama do what The Donald would do?

July 8, 2013--Obama Agonistes

Sad to say, but the Obama presidency is over.

Yes, he may get us involved in knocking out Iran's nuclear facilities and this could lead to another ground war in the Middle East. That would be both perversely presidential and dangerously consequential. But unless a crisis is presented to us, or there is one we ourselves engender, Obama no longer matters.

The cascade of events and his behavior that rendered him ineffective began in Benghazi last September when our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed. It wasn't the tragic murders that began to bring down Obama, but his administration's and his careless and perhaps deceitful handling of the narrative about what happened.

Then for at least a year, Obama's back-and-forth fumbling about what to do about the unraveling in Syria is a further example of his inability to have America exert influence or, more important, contribute to solving global problems. Admittedly, the situation there is likely intractable. The colonial and big-oil history of Western involvement in the region for more than 100 years, which included ignoring tribal and ethnic issues, is a classic case of proverbial geopolitical chickens coming home to roost.

Closer to home was and is the Internal Revenue scandal. "Scandal" is not too strong a term to describe the situation where the IRS, the most hated of the federal government's agencies, apparently targeted Tea-Party-related organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Once again, as serious as the deeds themselves was the ham-handed way in which the Obama administration handled the excuse-making and eventual staff changes.

Of course, perhaps worst of all, were the disclosures about the unfettered N.S.A. spying on American citizens at home and abroad. Yes, much or most of this may have been, is strictly-speaking "legal" and needs to be secret; but the casual way in which constitutional-scholar Barack Obama attempted to shrug off the facts that were emerging and the out-and-out dissembling, OK, lying by his national security team is beyond disappointing. And this gave his opponents, and the rest of us, further reason to be concerned about his ability to lead.

Speaking of his opponents, his domestic ones have effectively shut down any hope of legislative fixes to any of our daunting closer-to-home problems.

Because Barack Obama is inherently incapable of establishing personal relationships with congressional leaders of both parties--it is obvious that he even hates to have any of them over for a drink--do not expect comprehensive immigration reform. Tea-Party members in the House will assure that nothing comprehensive occurs.

Forget dealing with tax reform and sensible deficit reduction. Again Tea-Party Republicans are happy to do nothing and in that passive way see, to them, hated programs such as subsidized college loans and food stamps wither for lack of funding.

Forget doing much about climate change. Obama can make all the speeches he desires about this and other critical issues, but Republican opponents will continue to shrug him off.

Further, President Obama does not appear to have any international friends or partners. At the recent G-8 summit, when he attempted to sit down with Russian President Putin to talk about Libya and Iran, the pictures of them not relating to each other were worth many more than a thousand words.

And when the N.S.A. leaker revealed that the U.S. has been massively spying on our European allies, not one Western leader came to Obama's or America's defense. In fact, the head of the E.U. compared this outrageous behavior to what the Stasi did in East Germany during the Cold War.  To have the U.S. government compared publicly and angrily to the oppressive and barbaric East German communist regime may be hyperbole, but it is hyperbole engendered by Obama's passive behavior.

Then as a kind of piece de resistance, there was the announcement late last week, via a staffer, that the roll-out of Obama's signature, perhaps historic health care program's, Obamacare's implementation will be delayed for at least a year. This brought glee to Republicans who claimed, rightly, that the Obama administration is incapable of running even its most-favored initiative.

Lastly, at a very different level of concern, when my mother turned 105 last week, Rona attempted to get the White House to send her a letter of congratulations. She was able to get such letters from hapless George W. Bush when my mother's sisters Gussie and Fay turned 100; but my mom is still waiting for her letter from the current president.

Barack Obama may be gifted at delivering speeches and getting elected and reelected, but for running his administration, for leading the country, to acting effectively as the "leader of the free world," not so much.

So, it's on to 2016.

June 13, 2013--Itty Bitty Boo

In spite of my best attempts to distract myself, I can't stop feeling my every electronic move is being monitored by someone or another.

Who knows what the N.S.A. and C.I.A. are up to. Maybe they're checking to see if I'm googling about homemade bombs or trying to reach an Al-Qaeda e-mail address in Waziristan. In fact, I hope they are.

But I do know for sure what Facebook is up to.

My friends Hedy and Tony just celebrated their 23rd anniversary and Hedy made mention of it on her Facebook page. I sent them a note, saying something like--"Congratulations. I hope you have many more."

Less than a second after I clicked send the message, I received a note from Facebook, saying, "Surprise Hedy with a gift." And with it, up popped an icon to help me buy them a gift certificate for Fandango movie theaters.

To tell the truth, though I should know better, for a number of reasons this shocked me--

How did they know I sent them an anniversary wish without "reading" the text of Hedy's posting and/or "reading" my note of congratulations? This is a lot more of an intrusion on privacy than the N.S.A. "just" keeping an eye on e-mail traffic in western Pakistan.

And then how did Facebook know about Hedy and Tony's movie-going habits? Perhaps from their having gone to a Fandango theater and paying for their tickets with a credit card?

I confess I'm OK with the N.S.A. monitoring e-mail traffic back and forth to known Al-Qaeda e-mail addresses, including if American citizens are doing the e-mailing; but it really spooks me when I think about what Facebook and Google and my credit card companies know about me and then sell that information to various hucksters.

Thinking maybe I wouldn't go for the Fandango gift certificate, Facebook offered me 20 other anniversary gift suggestions, including--

An iTunes gift certificate; one for Starbucks; an Itty Bitty Boo stuffed bear; and, better fitting my mood, a Grumpy Cat Mug.

June 10, 2013--Snooping

There is a fierce debate underway about what data the government collects, especially should collect, in order to thwart terrorists.

Should the CIA or the National Security Agency (N.S.A.) have the authority to know who you call and for what duration? Should the Feds be able to access individual's Google searches and e-mail traffic?

President Obama, employing the authority of the Patriot Act which was passed shortly after 9/11 and reauthorized and signed during his presidency, says there are ample safeguards so that our constitutional right to privacy is being carefully protected while the CIA and N.S.A. root around looking for terrorist activity.

But Obama said on Friday, in today's world of threats, "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy."

Like it or not, this is probably true.

But there is criticism from the left--for example, from the American Civil Liberties Union--that this policy and these practices threaten our civil liberties; and there is equally fervent criticism from some on the right such as Rand Paul that the expansion of the powers permitted by the Patriot Act is yet another example of the growth of government's intrusive powers.

Polls show that Americans support what others see to be intrusive polices. To keep us safe from terrorist bombers and mass murderers, most appear to be reasonably comfortable with all the street surveillance cameras (look, they say, without them the Boston Marathon bombers would not so easily have been identified and captured) and are basically all right with police and intelligence agencies being able to read what we say on our Facebook pages or to be able to know if we are using Google to learn how to make pressure-cooker bombs.

Do we prefer to keep all of this information secret and private until after the fact--after the hijacking, after the bombing, after the plane is blown out of the sky--do we want to maintain all of our civil liberties, our full right to privacy, habeas corpus and all that (information that might be useful to prevent terrorism), do we want authorities not to have access to any conspiratorial information until after heinous deed are done?

This is very complicated; but, again, most Americans are willing to allow federal agents to do a good deal of preventative snooping.

In addition, consider this significant irony--

How many in the ACLU, how often does Rand Paul, how frequently do Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow, how prevalent is it for the media and bloggers to talk with urgent concern and outrage about other, more substantial breeches in our privacy perpetrated by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and even the Home Shopping Network?

Though they are not governmental, still these companies make billions by gathering all sorts of very detailed information about each of us and then either run targeted ads aimed at us or sell the intimate information they have collected to data-miners and anyone who wants to sell us books, vacations, pots and pans, dating services, or Viagra.

Google knows more about you and me than N.S.A. or the CIA combined. Including the detailed sexual preferences of those tens of millions of us who search for erotica on the Internet.

This is not as fiercely criticized; but if we had been able to know in advance the intentions of the marathon or underwear or shoe or 9/11 bombers, if we had seen what they had been googling or e-mailing or posting on Facebook, would the ACLU and New York Times be as agitated as they currently are by what the government has been up to in gathering information about citizens and legal residents?

A final word--

If it were impermissible to gather this kind of information or, shifting the subject slightly, if our security forces were not allowed to use laser-guided weapons and drones, what would the Civil Liberties Union have us do to intercept incipient terrorist activities?

In print and on all the talk shows during which critics of the Patriot Act are given free reign, this question never gets asked--the what-should-we do question. The criticism is at times thoughtful and trenchant as it needs to be--these kinds of policies and PRISM programs need careful scrutiny and must be kept within constitutional bounds--but, once more, in this era of asymmetrical threats, where even U.S. citizens are plotting against us, what should we do?