My Latest Book

The next installment of Downland Tales.  There are the birthday stories that have been written since the last volume, a series of random character sketches, and a couple of other random stories.  The fifth book that takes place in Downland.

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict 101

The podcast provides some background of the conflict from 4000 years ago until the modern day.  It is broken into 3 parts, each about 45 to 50 minutes in length.  The narrator does an excellent job of being neutral in the conflict.  She announced from the start that it was meant to inform those who know next to nothing of the conflict and is merely a primer.

Part 1: 4,000 years ago to 1917.  Our story begins with Abraham, whose sons are the putative ancestors of the conflicting parties.  Jews trace their ancestry to Isaac while Muslims trace theirs to Ishmael.  The Jews lived in the region that is now Israel for hundreds of years, interrupted by the all too frequent conquest by a more powerful state.  However, the Romans grew tired of Jewish rebellions and deported many Jews from the area; this was the Jewish Diaspora.  Moreover, the Romans renamed the region to Palestine.  Though there were still Jews in the region, they were a minority.  Time passed and the Romans were replaced by the Byzantines who were replaced by a series of Muslim caliphates.  Then the Crusades conquered the area, briefly, before Egyptian Sultanate took over.  In turn, the Ottoman Empire ruled from the 16th century.  Meanwhile, Jews in Europe were suffering pogroms and needed somewhere to go.  In the 19th century, many migrated to Palestine.  During World War I, the British proposed a homeland for the Jews in the Balfour Declaration (1917).  That was not popular among the resident Muslim population.

Part 2: 1917 to 1967.  In the wake of World War I, the Ottoman Empire - which was on the losing side - had its territory divided among the victors.  The British acquired what is now Israel along with the growing tensions between the Jewish and Muslim residents.  There was a lot of unpleasantness between the wars.  Then World War II came.  Jews in Europe sought to escape to Palestine but were largely foiled.  After the war, they flooded in and Britain decided to split the territory in two and bug out.  Immediately, there was war between the Jews and the Muslims.  The Jews fared far better, claiming the majority of the territory.  Many Palestinians who had fled during the conflict demanded the right to return to their homes now that the fighting was ended.  Denied.  Instead, those homes were provided to the incoming flood of Holocaust survivors.  In the 1960s, Egyptian President Nasser threatened to destroy Israel, stating it had no right to exist.  He put troops in the Sinai Peninsula and prepared to attack.

Part 3: 1967 to 2023.  Taking Nasser at his word, the Israeli Airforce attacked Egypt, disabling its airforce and making its ground-based force in the empty desert an easy target.  The Israeli Airforce likewise bombed Jordan and Syria.  This was the Six-Day War and saw Israel capture the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.   Egypt and Syria took another crack at Israel in 1973's Yom Kippur War.  In 1978, President Carter hosted a peace conference between Egypt and Israel which resulted in Egypt recognizing Israel, a first for an Arab country.  At this point, the Palestinians, who had been in the wilderness for 4 decades now, gave up hope of being restored by neighboring co-religionists and took matters into their hands.  The PLO and similar groups emerged to fight by other means: terrorism.  In the 1990s, the Oslo Accords were negotiated but never fully implemented; it was another effort at a two-state solution going back to dividing the region like the British tried during the Mandate period.  Since then, there have been a series of Intafadas (uprisings) as well as Israel trading land for peace (evacuation of Gaza, some of the West Bank).

The podcast was released in August and September of 2023.  On October 7, 2023, the latest and most dramatic Intafada took place.

As mentioned, the narrator sought to be neutral regarding the conflict, offering the reasons each side views their position as superior.  She points out that atrocities have been committed by each side and each has been dispossessed of homes in the area.  She does not delve into the religions, giving each equal merit.  She does not delve into the governmental systems, again offering equal merit.  By ignoring the differing character of the competing peoples, it is easier to stay neutral on who should prevail.

Recommended.

Used Cars (1980)

Rudy "Trust Me" Russo (Kurt Russell) is a used car salesman with dreams of political office.  In order to secure his nomination, he must provide a cash donation; he's $10,000 short.  His boss, Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), offered to give him the money.  Rudy is so grateful that he offers a 50-50 split on all the graft once he's in office.  However, Luke's brother, Roy (Jack Warden), owns a used car dealership across the street and has eyes on securing a monopoly.  If something happened to Luke, he would inherit the lot.  Well, as long as Luke's daughter didn't show up.  Barbara Fuchs (Deborah Harmon) came looking for her father and found herself as the owner of a failing car dealership.  Could she and Rudy keep it solvent long enough to benefit from a new highway exit?

The movie is a series of zany gags and crazy humor.  In order to drum up business, Rudy contacted Freddie (David Lander) and Eddie (Michael McKean) to hijack the local TV signal and air a commercial for the dealership.  That Lenny and Squiggy appear was itself hilarious.  The commercial goes horribly wrong with the female model (Cheryl Rixon) somehow made topless; the lot was packed the following day.  Further such antics saw the pair hijack a presidential address!

Jack Warden makes for a terrific villain as Roy Fuchs.  There is no underhanded tactic that is beneath him, including an effort to put his niece in jail.  Kurt Russell inhabits his role as a sleazy car salesman, only too happy to do whatever it took to sell a car.  Despite his dishonesty, manipulativeness, and general lack of morals, he was somehow likable.  Gerrit Graham was a great wingman to Russell.  His faith in superstitions from rabbit's feet to saltshakers to fear of red cars made him a constant source of laughs.  By contrast, Deborah Harmon is left as the straight man in most of the gags.  To add yet another classic guest appearance, Al Lewis (best known as grandpa from The Munsters) played Judge Harrison.

At the time this was released, it was quite the raunchy comedy.  Today, it feels tame.  Nonetheless, it is a lot of fun.  Recommended.

9/11 + 25

It has been 25 years since planes crashed into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. In the wake of this attack, President Bush declared Islam to be a religion of peace. Nonetheless, we went to war with a couple of Islamic countries: Afghanistan and Iraq.  Moreover, a new department was created to keep the country safe: Homeland Security.  Where the hijackers had come into the country to execute their terrorist attack, such an agency would surely curb future intruders.  Clearly, those who would scream Allahu Akbar must get the hairy eyeball before entering.  As such, the number of Muslims in the United States has been careful monitored so as to rise from 2.5 million to 5.5 million.  Likewise, where there were approximately 1200 mosques in 2000, there are now only 2,800 or thereabouts.  Of course, New York City has been particularly active in preventing future incursions.  Where there were 120 mosques in 2000, there are now only 300.  Additionally, where NYC was in the process of electing a Jewish mayor - Michael Bloomberg - during the 2001 attack, it now has its first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

To look at where things stand, the Muslims are winning.  They have changed tactics - for the moment - and just begun to migrate into the West.  The situation is dire in England, but the West has chosen to just idly watch as the invasion progresses.  Eventually, the numbers will favor the Muslims and, like Lebanon, they will take over and oppress the infidels.

Good Intentions

In Good Intentions, Walter Williams, a noteworthy economics professor, discussed the unintended consequences of those good intentions.  He detailed his own youth, education, and job history compared to what was possible today (early 1980s).  Education had degraded since his time, seeing a dramatic rise in administrators at the cost of resources to the classroom.  Furthermore, efforts to give control of education to parents was foiled by teachers' unions and government.  Where he had a job as a teen for a $1/hour, a modern teen could not be hired for less than $3.35/hour.  That minimum wage, intended to protect the youth from an employer who would take advantage, limited the number of teens who could be hired.  Rather than get job experience - even for a pittance, the teen was instead unemployed.  Then there was the licensing scam.  Many governments required a license to participate in an industry.  He gave the example of driving a cab.  In Philadelphia, it cost $20,000 to get a license and thus be an independent cab driver.  By contrast, Washington D.C. only required $50.  Unsurprisingly, vastly more cabs were available in DC and there were more independent cabbies.  All too often, government efforts to assist the citizenry results in exactly the opposite.

Highly recommended.

Mr. Baseball (1992)

Jack Elliot (Tom Selleck) was a New York Yankee, an MVP from the World Series.  He viewed himself as untouchable.  Then a new player arrived and the Yankees traded Jack.  "Not Canada!" Jack insisted.  No, not Canada.  "Cleveland?"  Nope.  He was being traded to Japan.  Jack arrived in Japan to find himself assigned an interpreter, Yoji (Toshi Shioya), who often changed Jack's replies to completely change the meaning.  His coach, Uchiyama (Ken Takakura), was a serious and sober man who did not appreciate Jack's disrespectful antics.  Hiroko (Aya Takanashi) was his assigned agent and arranged for his mandatory endorsement deals and TV commercials in Japan.  She soon became his love interest.  Jack was not the only American on the team; Max 'Hammer' Dubois (Dennis Haysbert) had been in Japan for 5 years and offered pointers on assimilation, most of which Jack didn't take.

The movie doesn't know what it wants to be.  The comedy elements are purely situational and fish out of water variety humor.  There are no laugh out loud gags or jokes.  The romance between Jack and Hiroko is bland.  She's the only woman he knows in Japan who speaks English; she's the only fish in the pond.  Later revelations about her parents paint this in an even weirder light.  Because much of the dialogue is in Japanese, the other players - except Max - don't get much development.  It is unclear why this movie was even greenlit.

Of course, this was the year that ended Tom Selleck's movie career.  Also in 1992, he had a cameo in the critically panned Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, and stared in Folks!, a movie where Don Ameche played his senile father who moved in with him; it was a comedy.  All three were box office bombs.

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Lake America

 

He's done it again! So long to Lake Ontario and hello Lake America.

I would prefer a bit more creativity in Trump's naming.  Gulf of America vs. Gulf of Mexico made sense.  Lake America?  We weren't calling it Lake Canada.  Ontario is a province.  May Lake New York?  If he does manage to acquire Greenland, will it get renamed to Americaland?