I had hoped to continue my recent custom of using weird holiday names as potpourri post titles. But there’s nothing on November 22 that’s strange enough. Instead, I’m using a Bacharach-David song from Promises, Promises, the musical based on Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.
What time is it, readers? It’s Turkey Lurkey Time:
Let’s break this down into categories a la Odds & Sods.
Bernie Does Nuance: The senior Senator from Vermont has written one of the most balanced and sensible opinion pieces about the Israel-Hamas war:
“For those of us who want not only to bring this war to end, but to avoid a future one, we must first be cleareyed about facts. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, unleashed a barbaric attack against Israel, killing about 1,200 innocent men, women and children, and taking more than 200 hostages. On a per-capita basis, if Israel had the same population as the United States, that attack would have been the equivalent of nearly 40,000 deaths, more than 10 times the fatalities that we suffered on 9/11.
Israel, in response, under the leadership of its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under indictment for corruption and whose cabinet includes outright racists, unleashed what amounts to total war against the Palestinian people.”
I dig the preview tagline thing the NYT is running on its web site: Hamas Must Go. Gaza Must Have Peace. Here’s What We Must Do.
Instead of saying Fuck Yeah, Bernie again, here’s some sweet Memphis soul as interpreted by Paul Rodgers:
I’m over the Hillary-Bernie mishigas. It’s been seven years. They agree about the MAGA menace, so you should be over it too.
Ridley Scott Disses Napoleon Bonaparte: I haven’t seen his new epic with Joaquin Phoenix as the complicated French leader but I take issue with these comments from an interview Scott did with Empire Magazine:
“The contradictions at play in Napoleon himself are channelled into Napoleon. While Scott is playing on a vast historical canvas, this isn’t a rousing story of triumph. Instead, we get a film that doesn’t shy away from the considerable amount of blood on Napoleon’s hands. “I compare him with Alexander The Great. Adolf Hitler. Stalin,” Scott tells Empire in our world-exclusive cover feature. “Listen, he’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt.”
I understand that nuance doesn’t work well on a movie battlefield, but the life story of Napoleon Bonaparte begs for nuance. He was a builder and lawgiver as well as a warlord. Hitler was a destroyer.
Nuance is what we get from the WaPo’s KidsPost section:
“How do historians view Napoleon Bonaparte?
Was he a military genius who brought glory to France on battlefields across Europe? An emperor who improved France’s government and educational, banking and transportation systems? A reformer who replaced a hodgepodge of feudal laws with a single code, stressing civil liberties and equality, that became a model for other nations?
Or was he a power-hungry dictator whose wars left more than 3 million people dead? A tyrant who jailed his enemies, attacked the press and put his interests above all else? A proud, vain man who had artists paint him larger than life and who, when he became emperor, crowned himself?
The answer is “all of the above.”
Nuance is the best. It’s a pity that it’s under siege as we’ll see in our next segment.
Amplify Him: Today’s NYT opinion page has lots of good stuff including a piece by Thomas Edsall, The Roots Of Trump’s Rage.
Edsall does his own potpourri post and discusses some pertinent pieces about the Kaiser of Chaos. The root of Edsall’s argument is that the MSM is doing a shitty job of dealing with former President* Pennywise’s most inflammatory comments. I used to be on Team Don’t Amplify but that approach hasn’t worked. It allowed the evil bastard to get away with too much shit.
I am now a committed member of Team Amplify.
Edsall revisits some of the shrinks who analyzed Trump from afar in 2016 and gets their views on the state of his mental health now. They conclude that Trump is even more bonkers today. Anyone surprised? I thought not.
The last word of the segment goes to Aimee Mann:
Sixty Years Ago Today: Jack Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. Some claim it was the end of American innocence. I disagree: We were never innocent. It was, however, a shattering day.
I’ll let The Byrds speak for me or is that chirp?
It’s a holiday tomorrow so I don’t want to end on that morbid note. Happy Thanksgiving Eve, y’all.
I propose a toast. How about some Wild Turkey with Jefferson Airplane and Papa John Creach?
Kennedy assasination. So much for my young psyche to take in over that day and the next four. When younger folk ask this old geezer to share her memories, the first one from that day is still chilling for me:
I was 7 years old and my third grade teacher was asked by an office secretary to come to the office. Ms. Lunsford asked us all to keep our seats and stay quiet. That was usually our cue to do the exact opposite, but we saw all the other teachers go past the door on their way to the office. After that very odd sight, I swear to you, none of us moved a muscle! Sometimes, a moment is so eerie you just feel it deeply even if you are still in the dark on the facts!!
I have sketchy memories of that day. I was 5. Lots of tears.
I was in my junior year in high school when I heard the news about JFK. I rode a bus to a train that took me back home to Westerly RI. I don’t remember anyone saying anything. I turned on the TV. It was a sombre Thanksgiving. Fortunately The Beatles came along and released “She Love You”. They were a balm to this young soul as they were to many others who were listening.