AUSCHWITZ, SWITZERLAND AND WORLD WAR II INTELLIGENCE by Eliyho Matz

The memory of the Holocaust has enabled Israel to be a responsible and restrained conqueror. Memory is the key to morality.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg

(I would assume that many American and Israeli Jews would agree with him.
“Think before you think….” EM)

In the almost seventy years that have passed since the end of World War II, among the questions that remain unanswered are a number that have to do with the arrival and dissemination of the information about the German government’s systematic operation of mass murder. More specifically, the question involves the path the information took into Switzerland, and out to the West -- how it was received, and then disseminated once it reached contacts in Switzerland. This is a short essay in which some incidents are presented as interwoven vignettes to introduce some new aspects of Holocaust research in this regard. I leave it to the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.

In his attempt to unravel the identity of the German informants who brought to the West the plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, historian Walter Laqueur mentions an American by the name of Sam Woods, who resided in Switzerland during WWII and was a key figure in the mysterious and intriguing world of Intelligence. According to Laqueur, Sam Woods was in a key position during WWII in Intelligence circles [Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1980); pp. 96-97]. Although not much is known about Woods, we know for sure that he was the person who received in Berlin a copy of the German plan to invade the Soviet Union.

Many years ago when I started, sort of in total darkness, to figure out certain events that led to the Holocaust, I did not pay much attention to the issue of Intelligence in Switzerland. In the mid-1970’s, it was well known to most scholars of the Holocaust that Switzerland had been a hotbed of spying. Moreover, Switzerland was also recognized to be the place where Germans who were unhappy about Hitler’s Nazi regime came to unload their evidence and complaints to the Allies -- their hopes of enlisting the Allies’ help to overthrow Hitler were not met with too much success. The German dissidents eventually had to go it on their own, and they of course paid the ultimate price for their adventures.

Dr. Gerhardt Riegner was World Jewish Congress representative residing in Switzerland during WWII. As a result of his own claim, he is widely believed to have been the person who met with one of the German dissidents who laid out details about the ongoing massacre of European Jewry. It was eventually Dr. Riegner who did send the informant’s testimony to the United States, consequently forcing the US government to recognize the facts of the Holocaust. Also as a result of this testimony, the American Jewish leadership was prompted to ask for a meeting with FDR. The President subsequently invited the entire American Jewish leadership to the White House, in fact the only time that such a meeting was to take place during the war. In the August/September 1980 issue of Midstream, I published an article that included comments that Adolf Held, the president of the Jewish Labor Committee, wrote on that meeting; Held’s comments represent the only source found to-date describing the event. Unfortunately, FDR, aside from a verbal show of sympathy, hardly took any steps to act to save Jews. Meanwhile, later on in my research I discovered that Dr. Riegner would have been the wrong person to be in a position such as to have met personally with any German informant during WWII, for he apparently lacked the strength of character and insight necessary to take on the responsibilities of this position; in fact he was in reality not the person who met with one of the German informers. This issue of German informants about the massacre of European Jewry is a very complex one, some aspects of which I will illuminate below [see also my “Letter to the Editor” in Commentary (Vol. 77, Number 1,January 1984)].

In the course of my research to understand the Holocaust, I ran into an Israeli who, in the early 1970’s, was writing a book on the Zionist leadership and its response to the Holocaust. His name was S.B. Beit-Zvi [S.B. Beit-Zvi, Post-Ugandian Zionism in the Crucible of the Holocaust (Tel Aviv: Bronfman Publishers, 1977). Unable to find a single publisher who wanted to take it on, eventually Beit-Zvi self-published his book. As he and I predicted, the book raised some eyebrows, and some articles about it appeared in Israeli newspapers, but when his book came out in Israel in 1977, it basically hit a brick wall. Eventually, Beit-Zvi convinced professor Yehuda Bauer of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to arrange a year-long seminar on the topic of Zionist Leadership during the Holocaust. But Beit-Zvi’s assessments were criticized and ridiculed by an Israeli Holocaust research establishment that was too caught up in its own politics. Today a number of historians have accepted Beit-Zvi’s assessment of the Zionist leadership. In an unpublished article I wrote in the early 1980’s on the American Zionist leadership during the Holocaust, my conclusions were similar.

Ideology, the ideology of Zionism and building a nation, was so overwhelming to them that no serious attention was given to the Holocaust events. The question of how they would build a nation without Jews was on their minds, but was not treated seriously. In a very significant revelation in his book, Beit-Zvi for the first time published the June 11, 1944, minutes of the Executive Zionist leadership in Jerusalem in which a discussion ensued among the Jerusalem Zionist leadership concerning the issue of whether Auschwitz should be bombed. Beit-Zvi points out that our very dear and larger-than-life leader, David Ben Gurion, declared that Auschwitz should not be bombed; he based his reasoning on what he stated to be a lack of information. However, in reality, as many documents show, including the documents of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, as well as newspapers published in Palestine, there was enough information about Auschwitz if only one wanted to know.

In 1982 I published a book review [“Britain and the Holocaust” in Midstream (April 1982)], in which I also included the text of the minutes of that famous meeting, including the following paragraph:

The Chairman, Mr. Ben-Gurion, summarizes: The opinion of the Executive is that it ought not be proposed to the Allies to bomb places where there are Jews.

I always felt indebted to Beit-Zvi, who became a personal friend, for his book and for the revelation about Ben-Gurion.

It is well known in many circles, among historians as well as former Intelligence officials and other mavins, that the United States was at a great disadvantage in the area of Intelligence during WWII (for a short summary of this fact, see the “Introduction” to Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al-Qaeda, by Thomas Powers.) The Intelligence agencies were late to be established, thus requiring further time to acquire the right personnel to work with Intelligence and set the wheels in motion. The Americans’ approach to create an Intelligence Agency was first to consult the British Intelligence agencies in order to establish a close relationship and cooperation with them. Consequently, the British opened an office in New York City at Rockefeller Center adjacent to the office of Bill Donovan, who was the head of America’s Intelligence agency (the OSS). The close relationship between these two agencies produced some level of friendship and mediocre Intelligence, but it also created some major snags, as some of the British Intelligence officers turned out to be double agents for the Soviets, and perhaps even for the Germans [see William Stevenson, Intrepid’s Last Case (New York: Villard Books, 1983)]. In their broad scale of Intelligence work, the British were responsible for many Intelligence disasters on a number of fronts. Among them was Switzerland, where, especially but not only in this instance of the Holocaust, their failures became evident, specifically in the area of dealing with the German dissidents who wanted to negotiate with the Allies to end the War and eliminate Hitler.

In the mid-1970’s, I worked with Dr. David S. Wyman doing research on the American response to the Holocaust [David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984)]. During that time I supported most of his arguments, except that I had a few questions concerning the role that Dr. Gerhardt Riegner played in transmitting the famous cable to the Secretary of State in Washington on the extermination of European Jewry. I wrote but never published a short article titled, “The Mysterious Riegner” on this question. In the October 7, 1983, issue of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, correspondent Dan Margalit published an interview he had with Riegner on the subject of that mysterious German whom Riegner supposedly personally received the information from concerning the German’s program of extermination. In answer to Margalit’s question on the matter, Riegner is quoted as saying, “I don’t respond, I don’t confirm, and I don’t deny” any information about the identity of that German informant. It seemed odd to me that Riegner, after so many years of withholding the name of the informant, would still not release his name. This otherwise pointless refusal fueled my belief that Riegner simply did not know the answer to that question because he was not the person who met the informant. I questioned Riegner’s sincerity and his character, and my suspicions were confirmed later on when I met with a woman named Cecilia Zimmermann, who had been secretary to Abraham Silbersheim. Silbersheim had founded RELICO, the committee for the aid of the war-stricken Jewish population. Originally he worked within the World Jewish Congress with Riegner, but, due to a dispute over policy between them, Silbersheim was forced to leave. According to Zimmermann, Riegner was not courageous enough to show flexibility in saving Jews through any creative methods, illegal or otherwise.

For me, the second more serious issue with Wyman’s book concerned the question of bombing Auschwitz. I strongly supported his arguments on the necessity and feasibility of bombing Auschwitz; the only point of his that I questioned was one issue that had to do with when Auschwitz and its death machine were discovered and made known to the wider world. Contrary to Wyman’s argument that the full extent of the information was known only in June 1944, I think, and I am almost sure, that as soon as this machinery of death started to operate at the beginning of 1942, sketchy details of this place and its happenings were transmitted to the world via various ways and were reflected in news reports coming out at that time. I totally disagree with the absurd arguments set forth in a book against the bombing of Auschwitz that was published in the year 2000 in association with the US Holocaust Museum (Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum, eds, The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies have Attempted It? [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000]). I often wonder how can it be that Israeli children are brought to this site to complete their education and understanding of the Holocaust. What are they to learn at Auschwitz? From my point of view, this place should be condemned, and not a single person should ever enter within its gates again. A memorial is one thing, but a tourist attraction? How Jews of modern times, after the Holocaust, can be tourists at Auschwitz, is beyond my understanding.

During the late 1970’s, I worked in the office of Samuel Merlin and Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook), those two individuals who worked day and night in 1943 with the mission to save European Jewry. Their work was in some ways successful when in January 1944 President Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (for further explanation see my article “Political Action vs. Personal Relations” in Midstream [April 1981]). I raised the issue of Auschwitz with them, along with the possibility of my searching the OSS archives to see what type of information the US Intelligence services had on that machinery of murder. Samuel Merlin contacted his friend Paul O’Dwyer, a very distinguished Irish American lawyer and one of their supporters in the 1940’s. With O’Dwyer’s help we received the necessary permit, and I subsequently spent one week at the Carlisle Army Barracks in Pennsylvania examining Bill Donovan’s papers. As it turned out, I found almost no messages from Europe concerning Auschwitz. However, I did find two documents of special interest. One was a “United States Strategic Bombing Survey” dated 25 August 1945, in which the maps in the survey showed the year 1943 where Auschwitz was indicated as a producer of methanol. In addition, I found an OSS document from 23 June 1945 titled the “Memorandum of Information for the Joint U.S. Chiefs of Staff Subject: OSS Operations in Switzerland 1942-1945,” in which it was written, “Contacts leading directly into the German Abwehr [German Military Intelligence Service] were developed through a key agent with close connections to high German political circles.” To better understand some issues concerning Switzerland, Merlin encouraged me to travel to Israel to visit the former Irgun member Dr. Reuven (Rudolf) Hecht, whose family had lived in Switzerland and was involved in the shipping and supply of grain. What they did during WWII is still a mystery. Dr. Hecht, an avid Zionist and supporter of the Irgun, worked in Switzerland during WWII and was involved in his family business. After WWII he moved to Israel and established the same sort of business in the port city of Haifa. He was an avid supporter of Menachem Begin and his political party. Before I left for Israel, Merlin handed me a letter of introduction to Dr. Hecht, along with another letter which was a copy of an official US document that Sam Woods had handed to Hecht as a thank you note for his service to Allied causes during WWII. It took awhile for me to secure an appointment, but finally I arrived by invitation at Dr. Hecht’s office. But my welcome was brief: as I had suspected, once I just opened my mouth and mentioned Sam Woods, Hecht politely asked me leave – he had no interest in telling me what had happened between him and Woods. Switzerland, a supposedly neutral country during WWII, was not so neutral after all.

The relationship between neutrality and Intelligence during WWII remains, I believe, a worthwhile subject for research, for it bears on the whole issue of the massacre of European Jewry -- might the extermination process at least have slowed to some degree, if not been halted, if Intelligence had not been sabotaged, or if some Jews who were free to act, had acted more courageously? Today’s Jewry, which is living and thinking after the events of Auschwitz, should look with objective introspection at the Holocaust event. It is sort of sad, or one might say too early, to analyze events that just happened to Jews seventy years ago. To me, the attempts to explain the Holocaust via Elie Wiesel in the United States or Yad Vashem in Jerusalem have been total failures. Wiesel prefers to limit his writings to telling Chasidic stories rather than dealing with political realities that are associated with the Holocaust. Following his release from Auschwitz, Wiesel ended up in Paris, where he sympathized with the Irgun and knew Peter Bergson [Hillel Kook]. Later on Bergson came to Wiesel’s aid in NYC after he was injured in an accident. To-date I have not yet seen any reference in Wiesel’s writings about Hillel Kook, who definitely knew what to do in the Holocaust, and certainly understood the post-Holocaust historical momentum of the establishment of Israel as a modern Republic with a written constitution (which has not yet happened). On the other hand, Yad Vashem focuses on Jewish heroism in the Holocaust but completely forgot until a year or so ago to include the sole most important Jew of the century, Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) who, with a few Irgun members persisted in their insistence that the United States Government should take an active role in saving Jews (who but the US would be capable of such a feat?). Jews living after the Holocaust in the US or in Israel need to find better ideas, deeper thoughts, in order for them to conduct their affairs in such a way so as not to be blinded from the real and evolving world around them.

The Happy Table of Eugene Walter..

My UCLA film school classmate Don Goodman has a new book, The Happy Table of Eugene Walter: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink. He is featured in this UNC Press interview:

Q: Who was Eugene Walter?

A: Eugene was a creature of the Deep South who expressed his talent and interests in a variety of areas. He identified with a cat's curiosity and a monkey's playfulness. He wrote poetry, short-stories, and novels; translated French, German, and Italian works into English; designed sets and costumes; built and manipulated marionettes; served as editor for a number of literary journals; published a number of books relating to the history and preparation of food as well as being a gourmet chef; and, acted in films produced in Rome.

Q: Why is his legacy important?

A: Eugene Walter's career is an intensely personal vision of what constitutes the good life. Good cooking is a part of it, but only a part. The arts and an appreciation of beauty are crucial. Friends are essential. Good writing is a path to clear thinking. Fame would have been nice, but Eugene's long list of projects which interested him but never found a commercial market are evidence that it was never a driving force. Money, too, would have been convenient, but he never had much of it and managed to live a very happy, productive life anyhow. In a time when people are career driven, fame driven, money driven, Eugene Walter remains an example of what it means to be true to oneself and one's own sense of what's important and how that can lead to a life of substantial achievement.

Q: Although Walter was the author of several cookbooks, including the celebrated American Cooking: Southern Style, which was published in 1971 in the Time-Life Foods of the World series, his New York Times obituary makes no mention of his food writing at all. Why was his reputation as a food writer eclipsed by his reputation as a poet and novelist?

A: Eugene led a multifaceted life with groups of people knowing him and his reputation based on the interest of the group. There may have been an awareness of Eugene's other interests but he was known for many things and mainly the one in which a particular group was interested. For example, in the literary world he was known for his prize winning first novel, The Untidy Pilgrim, and the many books and journal articles published throughout his life. Artists knew him for his paintings and humorous "squiggles" which were pen and ink sketches. Musicians appreciated his collaboration with a number of composers. He was known in the food world as a publisher of several cookbooks and a keen observer of traditional as well as new variations of southern foods. Above all, his humor and wit were appreciated by his many admirers.

Q: This is a posthumous collection of Eugene Walter's recipes. How was it compiled? Have these recipes appeared elsewhere?

A: At the time of his death, Eugene was working on a variety of books. In his personal papers which were collected and boxed was a cookbook titled, "Dixie Drinks." The cookbook was organized into sections with each containing a jumble of recipes and essays. It was our task to make sense of everything and get it organized into a coherent book. Eugene included recipes published previously, primarily in Delectable Dishes from Termite Hall, and essays from Alabama periodicals. Since the recipes and essays were included in this cookbook and no longer available in print we decided to follow Eugene's wishes and leave them in.

Q: What were some of the challenges that you faced when putting this cookbook together?

A: Eugene titled the book, "Dixie Drinks," but it contained not only drink recipes but a wealth of food recipes which incorporated wine or spirits as an ingredient. He had intended the book to be in three sections: Mixed Drinks, Homemade Wine and Cordials, and Food Recipes. We were unable to find pages referring to wine and cordials so that section was dropped. Every recipe had to be examined for obvious errors along with researching what appeared to be mistakes in ingredient proportions. Some essays seemed to be included for further elaboration by Eugene but which we deleted since they were incomplete.

Q: Talk about your editorial collaboration.

A: Tom's wealth of knowledge and history in the food world helped with determining the validity of statements in Eugene's essays about food. I was able to verify Eugene's "voice" throughout the cookbook since I spent countless hours talking with Eugene about southern foods and drinks. Being from Alabama as well as remembering Eugene's tales about southerners he knew, I confirmed names and places associated with various essays and recipes.

Q: What is distinctive about Eugene Walter's voice?

A: His is the voice of the old southern gentleman coupled with the awareness of a modern man who died on the cusp of the 21st century. Humor and wit were constants in his writing.

Q: I was struck by how contemporary Walter's approach to cooking seems. Was he ahead of his time?

A: Eugene's view of cooking might be called "what's old is new again." In the South of his generation and before, everyone had a garden whether it was formal or a patch of rich soil behind the house. Eugene was accustomed to fresh food from the home garden along with seafood just brought in from the Gulf. Many people kept a chicken coop so that eggs were always fresh along with meat available for frying and baking. Grocers and vendors supplied other meats along with freshly churned butter. Most people had ice boxes but not freezers so foods couldn't be kept indefinitely. Before canned foods became ubiquitous, most southerners "put up" their foods by home canning which meant sealing the food in sterilized jars. Many still do. Eugene never forgot the taste of fresh and encouraged using it whenever possible. He had a vast knowledge of herbs and picked those he needed in recipes from his herb garden. Today's use of "fresh" and "free range" reflects earlier southern generations' method of cooking.

Q: And yet he was not above using some convenience foods. Can you give an example?

A: Canned broths, stocks, and consommé were some of the ingredients Eugene recommended for their ease of preparation and use. If time is limited then use canned instead of spending a day preparing a stock. Corn, okra and tomatoes were vegetables Eugene found acceptable when canned mainly due to ease of use versus time spent preparing. Jell-O brand gelatins and instant puddings work as well if not better in specific recipes than their time-consuming relatives.

Q: Which five recipes from the book seem most interesting, and why?

A: Green Gumbo is a departure from what is usually thought of as gumbo. The mix of greens provides a base for the addition of ingredients of the cook's choosing.
Prima Donna Chicken has a variation of a bread sauce made with nuts. It's a southern version of a Middle Eastern dish.
Cold Turkey Pâté is a creative way to deal with leftover turkey from a Thanksgiving meal.
Not Quite Tartar Sauce provides the cook with a variety of uses for the sauce.
Demopolis Caramel Cake is a look back at an old southern favorite.

Q: Do you have any favorite cocktails as presented by Eugene Walter?

A: The Milton Makeover, La Mechante, and Merry Mabel (punch)

Q: Eugene Walter was clearly one of a kind. Does he have any contemporary counterparts?

A: In the 19th century Edward Lear was an author, artist, and poet who was devoted to his cat and chef; Jean Cocteau in the 20th century was an artist, poet, designer, author, playwright, and filmmaker; Steve Martin in the 21st century is an actor, writer, musician, art collector, comedian, playwright, and humorist.

Q: What might a guest in Eugene Walter's home be served? Or, what made his table a happy one?

A: Eugene served wine with an assortment of olives, cheeses, and nuts an hour or so before the meal. There was an enlightening and entertaining discussion on the history of the wine and the assorted appetizers or nibbles as Eugene called them. I never left a meal without learning something interesting about the food. A dish Eugene enjoyed serving was his Patent Leather Pie. This was a savory pie which got its name from the darkened flesh of the baked eggplant which glistened with a coat of olive oil. Dessert was usually fresh fruit, sometimes with cream. After the meal guests were invited into the sitting room and served a digest if along with a bit of crystallized ginger. During this time Eugene solicited information and stories while telling humorous ones of his own. It was a time of enchantment.

Q: Who are some of the luminaries who were part of Eugene Walter's world?

A: Pat Conroy, Federico Fellini, Patricia Highsmith, Anais Nin, George Plimpton, Ned Rorem, Muriel Spark, Alice B. Toklas, Andy Warhol

Q: The photos and illustrations included in the book are quite charming. How were they collected and selected?

A: Eugene left hundreds of photographs and sketches in his estate. Those drawings related to food were selected along with photos from different times in his life.

Q: Do you have a favorite anecdote about Eugene Walter?

A: More than an anecdote is a favorite memory. Eugene was to receive an award in Tuscaloosa for his distinguished career in the Arts in which he represented southern culture and Alabama history. Eugene asked me to drive him to Tuscaloosa and attend the event. Eugene prepared a picnic basket and we set off for the four-hour drive to Tuscaloosa from Mobile. An hour or so out from Mobile we spotted a green field shaded by large oak trees and decided to stop for lunch. We spread out a blanket under a tree and Eugene brought forth our lunch from his large picnic basket. Laid out before us was fried chicken, biscuits, beans, corn on the cob, a fruit cobbler, a bottle of wine, as well as chicken salad sandwiches, nuts, and olives. The weather was agreeable and everything was delicious. While we were eating a small terrier approached out of nowhere which I feared would disrupt the meal. Instead, Eugene spoke calmly to the dog and told him to wait until we finished and he would be rewarded with the leftovers. To my amazement the dog sat at the edge of the blanket and waited for his treat.

Q: What are your favorite Eugene Walter quotes from The Happy Table?

A: "The best advice to cooks is, I feel, seek fresh, avoid chemicals, keep a light hand, rise to the occasion, try what you don't know, have fun . . . and good eating, you-all!"

"Do not under any circumstances, other than a case of lockjaw, use a straw when drinking [a julep], but drink from a tankard."

"Iced tea is never taken with food in most households. It's a midmorning or midafternoon refreshment during warm weather."

"Avoid like the plague those dire synthetic cheeses that become ropey when heated and plug up both children and adults."

"Do your own thing: invent!"

"Miss Ruth and Miss Meta Huger never tired of telling folks to whom they gave copies of their famous shrimp dish, 'If you overcook the shrimp,' they'd say, 'you are offering your guests bits of pink and white rubber, not shrimp.'

"A table without a good pepper mill is a family without a spiritual leader."

###
This interview may be reprinted in its entirety with the following credit: A conversation with Donald Goodman, co-editor of The Happy Table of Eugene Walter: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink (University of North Carolina Press, Fall 2011). The text of this interview is available at http://www.ibiblio.org/uncp/media/walter/.

Agustin Blazquez Speaks!

About the plight of Cuban-American artists:

LUISA MARIA GÜELL my decision / mi decisión
En español con subtitulos en ingles / Spanish with English subtitles
 
Synopsis
 
Luisa María Güell was a singer and a child actress before and a popular rising star after the Castro Revolution.  The political aftermath of a society fundamentally transformed by a new ideology had a profound effect on the life and career of the young performer.  The radical changes and intolerance of the communist system presented her, unprepared, with new and dire consequences that could not be ignored.  Stripped of liberty and suddenly unable to allow her creativity to guide her, she found her creativity replaced with fear inside the closed, oppressive new society. Finding no other outlet, she made the devastating decision to leave her country, her family and her singing career at its peak as a teen idol.  Her plan to escape culminated with one year of forced labor before she was allowed to leave Cuba.  Her story continues with her creativity freed to triumph once again as a free human being until she was confronted once again by the ghost of another Marxist experience in Spain, which brought back her Cuban nightmare, forcing her to make the decision yet again to leave everything behind to seek refuge in the U.S.  However, in the U.S., art and politics are as intermingled as in communist countries and while she attained success in her community, the doors remained closed in the American show business field in spite of her great, one-of-a-kind privileged voice and ability to sing not only in English but in other languages. Out of necessity, she also developed her abilities to manage her own career including all phases of arranging complex concerts.  Being a Cuban American exile artist in the U.S. is an extremely difficult handicap to overcome.  my decision presented her with the opportunity to tell her story and for viewers to learn what's behind the hauntingly beautiful music created by Luisa Maria Güell.
 
Luisa María Güell fué una cantante y actriz infantil antes y una popular estrella después de la revolución de Castro. La secuela política de una sociedad fundamentalmente transformada por una nueva ideología tuvo un profundo efecto sobre la vida y carrera de la joven artista. Los cambios radicales e intolerancia del sistema comunista que se le presentaron, sin preparación, con nuevas y horribles concecuencias que no podían ser ignoradas. Despojada subitamente de libertad creativa, esta fué replazada por el miedo dentro del enclaustramiento de la opresiva nueva sociedad. Sin encontrar otra salida, ella tomó la devastadora decisión de marcharse del país, dejando su familia y su carrera en el cenit como ídolo juvenil. Su plan de escape culminó en un año de trabajo forzado antes de que le permitieran marcharse de Cuba. Su historia continua con la liberación de su creatividad y su rotundo triunfo nuevamente como ser humano libre hasta que confrontó nuevamente el fantasma de otra experiencia con el Marxismo en España. Esto le hizo revivir su pesadilla en Cuba, forzandola a tomar nuevamente la misma decisión y abandonandolo todo refugiandose en los EE.UU. Sin embargo, en los EE.UU., el arte y la política estan tan entrelazados como en los paises comunistas y mientras ella obtuvo el éxito en su comunidad, las puertas se mantuvieron cerradas en el mundo del espectáculo norteamericano a pesar de su privilegiada gran voz fuera de serie y no solo su abilidad de cantar en ingles, sino que en otros idiomas. Por necesidad en este país ella desarrolló sus abilidades de administrar su propia carrera, incluyendo todas las faces organizativas de sus conciertos. El ser un artista cubanoamericano exiliado en los EE.UU. es un problema extremadamente dificil de sobreponer. mi decisión le presentó la oportunidad de contar su historia y a los espectadores la oportunidad de aprender lo que hay detras de la encantadora música creada por Luisa María Güell.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Christopher Hitchens, R.I.P.

Sad to learn that Christopher Hitchens has died.

I met him twice. The first time, in the last century, in the offices of The Nation magazine in New York City. The last, on February 24, 2006, at the "Stand Up for Denmark!" rally outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC, which he had organized. Here's a transcript of his remarks at the event, as posted on The Adventures of Chester blog at the time:

Brothers and sisters, I just thought I would thank everyone for coming and say how touching it is that people will take a minute from a working day to do something that our government won't do for us, which is quite simply to say that we know who our friends and our allies are, and they should know that we know it. And that we take a stand of democracy against dictatorship. And when the embassies of democracies are burned in the capital cities of dictatorships, we think the State Department should denounce that, and not denounce the cartoons.

[Cheers of support and applause]

And that we're fed up with the invertebrate nature of our State Department.

[Laughter, cheers, applause]

If we had more time, brothers and sisters, I think that we should have gone from here to the embassy of Iraq, to express our support for another country that is facing a campaign of lies and hatred and violence. And we would -- if we did that we would say that we knew blasphemy when we saw it, we knew sacrilege when we saw it: it is sacrilegious to blow up beautiful houses of worship in Samarra. That would be worth filling the streets of the world to protest about.

[Cheers and applause]

We are not for profanity nor for disrespect, though we are, and without any conditions, or any ifs or any buts, for free expression in all times and in all places

[applause]

and our solidarity . . . [inaudible]

[applause]

So, we said we would, I told the Danish embassy that we would disperse at one o'clock. I hope and believe we've made our point, I hope and believe that today's tv will have some more agreeable features, such as your own, to show, instead of the faces of violence and hatred, and fascism, and I think I can just close by saying, solidarity with Denmark, death to fascism.

Hitchens wasn't afraid to take a stand, and his intellectual courage set an example for us all. He was a mensch.

Here's a link to my first account of Hitchens' pro-Denmark rally, and to another article on Stand Up for Denmark!.

Finally, a link to a review of Hitchens' autobiography, HITCH-22.

ADL Condemns Thomas Friedman's Defamation of Jews

In an unpublished letter to the editor of the New York Times, dated December 14th:

In leveling his criticism of Israel on its domestic agenda, Mr. Friedman ventures into absurd territory when he "illuminates" the reason Mr. Netanyahu was received with a standing ovation when he spoke before the U.S. Congress. His claim that "the ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby" is insulting to the American people and reads like a page out of "The Israel Lobby," the biased treatise by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

Poll after poll, including a recent one by ADL, shows overwhelming support for Israel by the American public. Congressional support reflects that reality.

Mr. Friedman's allegation is not merely wrong and offensive. It's dangerous. It plays into the most insidious conspiratorial notions about Jewish control of American institutions.

From My Email Inbox (Believe it or not...)

Subject: [ChevyChase] Cultural Revolution Cookbook Monday night, Tenley Library

Foodies, Sinologists, and Politicos unite! Come to Monday's author talk at the Tenley-Friendship Library to celebrate the publication of The Cultural Revolution Cookbook. Authors Sasha Gong and Scott Seligman will discuss the stories behind the recipes and their process of collaboration. The book is beautifully illustrated and the recipes include lots of vegetarian dishes. http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Revolution-Cookbook-Sasha-Gong/dp/9881998468/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323631930&sr=8-1 Copies will be for available for sale before and after the talk (sorry, we can't handle credit cards).

The Tenley-Friendship Library is located at 4450 Wisconsin (at Albemarle Street, across from the Metrorail station). The talk starts at 7pm and will take place in the large conference room on the second floor. Coffee and light refreshments will be served.

Hope to see you there!

Sue Hemberger
for Friends of the Tenley-Friendship Library

NOTE: According to the Necrometrics website, between 2-7 million Chinese were killed in the Cultural Revolution. Other estimates range as high as 30 million. Personally, I'd prefer that the DC Public Library System promoted authors like Sheng Mei-Ma, who wrote CONTRASTING TWO SURVIVAL LITERATURES: ON THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST AND THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, instead.

New Film About My Old Film Premieres in NYC...

Coincidentally, my old film now available online in streaming video from EPIX:

http://www.epixhd.com/who-shall-live-and-who-shall-die/

Meet the 1%

(ht cranky professor)

Free Alan Gross!

Spent lunch hour today in front of the Cuban Interests Section on 16th Street, NW at a protest with Judy (with megaphone) the wife of hostage American Alan Gross, a USAID contractor reportedly arrested for giving computers to members of the Cuban Jewish community so they could surf the internet. He's been in jail two years, serving a 15-year sentence, and is apparently a pawn in some international intrigue. His wife is a member of my congregation at Adas Israel, which had a delegation at today's protest, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, that included our former cantor.

Free Alan Gross Vigil Monday, Dec. 5th, Washington, DC

Free Alan Gross Vigil
Monday, December 5

From 12–1 pm, Adas Israel will lead a vigil in front of the Cuban Interests Section, 2360 16th Street, NW. These weekly vigils are coordinated by the JCRC, with many area synagogues participating. Alan Gross is in a maximum security prison in Cuba since 2009 serving a 15 year sentence for undermining "the independence of Cuba." He was in Cuba on behalf of USAID performing humanitarian work for the peaceful non-dissident Jewish community. Alan's health is failing and both his mother and daughter have serious health issues. Come show your support for Alan and his wife Judy who is a member of our congregation....

Happy Thanksgiving!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

Scenes from Occupy DC, McPherson Square, November 9, 2011

They're certainly not bothering President Obama, since there were no protesters at all to be seen in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House...and not many in McPherson Square, either. However, there was a more genuine sign of protest on display at a nearby bus stop:

IT’S 1776 IN PALESTINE: ON JEWS AND ISRAELIS TOWARD AN ISRAELI REPUBLIC WITH A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION An Interview with Hillel Kook a.k.a. Peter Bergson by Eliyho Matz

(Following is a monologue which Hillel Kook recorded at the bequest of one whose name Kook could not remember when he gave me the tape some years later, concerning the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation.)

Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson): There is something unique, if I have to say it myself, about what we did some 30 or so years ago now. And it isn’t so much what we did, it is what we didn’t do. This is one historical claim I’m very proud of; unfortunately it’s quite unique, and this is that shortly after May the 14th, 1948, we liquidated, we disbanded to my knowledge for the first time, as they say, in 2000 years, a thriving, large mass movement which had on its list – it wasn’t a card-carrying membership organization, but at that point we had close to half-a-million Americans, Jews and non-Jews, but largely Jews. As a matter of principle we were not a Jewish organization (which I will explain in a little while).

We had at that point close to half-a-million people roaring to go. Furthermore, we had half-a-million dollars in the treasury, which was also a unique situation. And we disbanded, liquidated voluntarily, the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation, which was sort of a government-in-exile before Israel was established, which consisted only of what are now Israeli citizens but at that time were Palestinians-in-exile, and the American League for a Free Palestine, which was an American organization supporting them. There was also a Canadian League for a Free Palestine, a French League for a Free Palestine, and even a Latin American one, and these groups between them had about six newspapers and magazines. And all this was shut down and liquidated, true to a promise, and true to the inner purposes of the movement, which was a revolutionary movement, and this is that we were fighting for the independence of our country, that we were not a party, and that once the country is independent it will elect, we hoped in a duly democratic process, its government, and anyone of us who will be a citizen of that country will be free to do as he pleased, or not do as he pleased, at that time. And even though in 1948 only a part of Palestine was liberated and there was partition and there was fighting and God knows there were a million excuses, and I must say that the majority of our leadership here was for continuing the work. And if you think that today in the 1980’s the Jewish National Fund that was founded 100 years ago to buy land from the Turks is still existing and somehow always manages to adapt its existence to the needs -- so it stopped buying land from the Turks, it started buying land from the Arabs, now it’s buying land from the government of Israel, it’s doing something else – it exists. On a theater ticket to a movie in Tel Aviv, if you went there today, you’ll still pay two cents, or Israeli cents, Mas Keren Kayemet, “Keren Kayemet” tax, and nobody knows why it’s there or what’s being done with the money exactly, but it’s there – like many things in our life we are an ancient people and we tend to be anachronistic.

But let me tell you a little bit of what we have done, having told you what we have not done, and this is that we did not continue a reasoned, justified existence, but rather we knew when to quit. Let me tell you what we did when I believe that we knew what should be done. What really happened is like many things in life and in history, accidental to a large degree. I was head of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, which was one of the two then major underground organizations, there was the Haganah and the Irgun, and after a series of splits and all sorts of internal problems I became a member of the high command of the Irgun in 1937, at the ripe age of 21, or going on 22, and found myself at the end of that year for the first time as an adult, more-or-less, in Poland and introduced to the Jewish ghetto and remained in charge of, in command of Irgun operations abroad, which were rather expanded, including the so-called illegal immigration in those years which brought to Palestine some thirty-thousand people until the beginning of World War [II]. And in 1940 I found myself in this country [the USA] as part of these activities of the Irgun, except that when the War broke out there was hardly an Irgun left to speak of. And we were a group of five people here, at the time a “cut-off battalion” as the late great Jabotinsky called us. And we did what we thought was right under the circumstances to serve our country. We were Zionists of course, born or brought up in Palestine, and what we were doing at the time was promoting a Jewish Army to fight alongside the Allies in the war against the Germans. The United States was still neutral in that war at the time. And I remember a man, Mr. Alfred Strelsin, who is now a very important educational business executive (he is the president of a company called C__). He was then a young man, certainly much younger than I am today, and a simple American businessman, not a great intellectual heavyweight, and he said, “Why a Jewish Army? Why not a Palestinian Army?” And I gave him the usual Zionist answer, you know, “We are Jews, and we suffered as Jews, and our nation is Jews, etc., etc; and not a Palestinian army, we are not Palestinians, we are not Philistines, you know, we are Jews! We want a Jewish Army.” And while we were working on a Committee for a Jewish Army, Mr. Strelsin gave in, and my colleagues and I paid no attention to him. The United States got kicked in its south side and into the War through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the Jewish boys, like all other Americans in the United States, started flocking into Army recruitment centers. And Mr. Strelsin came into an Executive Committee meeting [Committee for a Jewish Army] and said, “Well, what kind of a Jewish Army do you want now? Do you want American boys who are Jews to go to the American Army, or to your Jewish Army?” And suddenly we realized that Mr. Strelsin may have been a businessman, but maybe he was thinking better than we were, and we started scratching our heads. And we came up with an answer like good Jews, a little bit “to the thumb,” and we changed the name to “Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews.” We said, “Aha! That is the difference! You American Jews have a country, it’s called America. You want it and it wants you, you are free and equal, you are here of your choice. But we don’t have a country – our country is Palestine, ‘Eretz Yisrael.’ All the Jews of Rumania, the Jews of Poland, and the Jews of Russia who are wandering throughout Europe, they are stateless Jews: they don’t have a country, they don’t belong to the countries in which they live or have lived; they don’t want them and they’re not wanted there, and this is the difference.” Mr. Strelsin was happy, we were happy. The name was clumsy, but it set in motion some thinking. And, as all young people who read a little, who study a little, and I went to the Hebrew University and studied philosophy, and before that I studied the Talmud in the Yeshiva in Jerusalem. I have in a sense, not in an historical or not in a scientific sense, but in a pragmatic practical sense sort of “discovered America” as one says; I started looking around and I came to the conclusion that there is a big difference between the position of the Jews in Poland, where when I came for the first time as an adult (I came to Palestine at the age of eight, so for all intents and purposes I was Palestinian raised if not born), but when I came to Poland and discovered the masses of four-million Jews there, it suddenly struck me in that year 1941 in New York, ’42, that there’s a basic difference between a Polish Jew and an American Jew. And that the Zionist Movement refuses to recognize this difference, and this difference was never explained to me. And the difference was: a free choice, that the Polish Jew was a Polish citizen and a Pole, so to say, because he couldn’t get out, because his country, Palestine, today Israel, then as we called it in Hebrew Eretz Yisrael, was occupied by the British, who by force refused to let them go there. And the Poles did not regard him as a real equal citizen, nor did he really regard himself as a Pole. Because in Poland when the War broke out certain parts of Poland called “Silesia” where they lived, the Poles of German origin who lived there for 900 years in one day became German again. So they became German overnight, in their feelings, and in the feelings of the Poles towards them and in the feelings of the Germans towards them. In the United States, of course, Mr. Kennedy was the most popular President of the United States after one generation; in Germany Mr. Eisenhower would be regarded German or Swiss or whatever he was, and so I think Mr. Kennedy would be regarded as an Irishman. So this melting pot of the United States is a unique historical thing actually, and totally alien to the European way of thinking, of “ossified” nationalism, and we started talking and discussing and debating and what we came up with is a philosophy, a theory and a program which in my opinion played a very important part, unrecognized – totally – in the establishment of the Republic of Israel – I like the word “republic” better than “state” by the way, which is a limited word – and which still today is probably the only answer to many of the ills that beset Israel, the main one being, of course, the achievement of peace, peace with its non-Jewish populations (so-called Arab population) and peace with its surrounding non-Jewish neighbors (so-called Arab states).

But coming back to the years 1942, -‘3, in Washington and in New York, with the World War raging, with 5- to 10-thousand Jews a day being massacred by the Germans, with our little cut-off group at that time working on a committee called “The Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe,” we came to a realization that what we were doing in effect in Palestine when the Irgun was reorganized by Mr. Ben-Eliezar, one of our group whom we sent there for that purpose and who made Mr. Begin commander, I mean I appointed Mr. Begin as commander of the Irgun at Mr. Ben-Eliezar’s suggestion, as suggestion of the group of senior officers of the Irgun at the time, I being at that time the only member of the high command of the Irgun who was neither dead nor in jail; David Raziel being commander was killed in Iraq in 1941, Abraham Stern split away and formed the Lechi and he was killed by the British, and the other members of the high command were in jail in Eritrea or in the Sudan, wherever they were kept at the time. And I by seniority was at the age of twenty-something the elder statesman of the Irgun, so to say. And also because we were the only organized group here doing things which were of importance and of service, and word of which got to Palestine and gave great cheer and courage to the people there. We came to a conclusion that what we were doing was fighting what today is so easily described as a war of national independence, of national liberation. The war of independence is fought by people on the right of self-determination; a right of self-determination is the right of a person to choose his own identity and to determine his own life. We said we were Jews, Palestine was our country, and we want to have a Jewish government, and not a British government, and we want the British to get out.

And then came the questions. In Palestine there lived some people who were Arabs, who were Moslems, who were Christians, and between this problem and the problem that Mr. Strelsin raised about the role of the American Jews in the Jewish Army, we started then giving some very serious attention, in the year 1941, -‘2, to the character of the Jewish State when it attained its independence. And we were practical young people to whom a Jewish State was not a dream, was not a religious hope, was not “L’shana Haba-ah B’Yrushalayim,” which some of us prayed and all of us said at the [Passover] seder, but which was a practical, pragmatic program which we believed, and God knows there are tens of thousands of people living today in this country who heard me in those years at hundreds of meetings in this country proclaim, that at a maximum within five years after the end of the War Palestine will be a sovereign, independent Hebrew Republic, as we called it, and I’ll come in a minute to why. We started being bothered with the practical questions of sovereign life. And we came to a strange realization, and this is that the long history, the very unique and miraculous history of the Jewish people and our survival of almost nineteen-hundred years, two-thousand years the saying goes, of exile, abnormal, hostile-environment existence, this great historical feat also had some liabilities; like all assets there’s another side of the balance, that if we wanted to achieve independence, if we wanted to have a government of our own and an army of our own and a country of our own, and be a part of a modern family of nations in the twentieth century, that we could not remain, we could not turn the clock back, to the Jerusalem of before Christ, or the first century of Christ, and remain the same kind of a theocratic, unified state-church that we were; the whole world was theocratic at the time, so were we naturally. We said that one has to bring up-to-date the history of the Jewish people, that the existence of the Jews as a combination religion-nation or nation-religion, or people, or “peoplehood” as the late Rabbi Wise used to call it, that all these were palliatives, all these were shallow, superficial answers to deep questions which would work only as long as the anomaly of Jewish existence continues, as long as a Jewish nation normally – a government, a country, a sovereign country – doesn’t exist, then anything goes. That once such a country – and I remember a meeting with both Rabbi Wise and Rabbi Silver trying to convince them of what we were trying to do, and we were maligned and attacked and besmirched and called “defamers of the Jewish people” and God knows what, and I said if President Roosevelt were to call you in and tell you, “All right, you have your Jewish State – go ahead, make it, proclaim it,” I said you won’t call it a Jewish State, you’ll give it a name, I said, because you, Rabbi Silver, are a Jew, you’re a clergyman, you’re an American clergyman, you know, and you couldn’t call Palestine a Jewish State, and its Prime Minister will not be called “the Prime Minister of the Jewish State,” he’ll be called “the Prime Minister of something – Judea….” I didn’t think of “Israel,” I must say, and I don’t like the name by the way; there are too many synagogues called “Israel,” and I respect and love synagogues and I don’t think that a synagogue and a country should have the same name, and I don’t think that a synagogue and a tank, and an army should have the same name, and I don’t think that a synagogue and an air force should have the same name; and the air force of Israel and the prayers of Israel belong to two different worlds, to two different souls; and this is not said in any disrespect, God forbid, neither to the prayers of Israel nor to the air force of Israel, but rather of deep recognition of the paramount importance of either one of them, but separate. We came to the decision then, therefore, that we have to update the meaning, the structure, the political structure of the Jewish people; we didn’t touch the religious part. Religion then, as today I believe, is a matter between a man and his God, it’s a matter of the soul of every one of us, especially in Judaism where no hierarchy was ever recognized. Still today Judaism leads the world in the advancement of its religious basic principles, and the relationship between man and his God – no intermediaries, no hierarchies. “Rabbi,” as you well know, means “a teacher.” A simple, humble Jewish carpenter has as much religious authority as the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and my uncle was the Chief Rabbi of Israel and he was a great man, but he claimed no authority. When an older man than himself walked into his room, he used to rise and get up from his chair, because he said it says in the Bible you should honor older people. And when my father, who was his younger brother, used to walk into his room, he used to get up from his chair in his honor because he said he’s a learned man and it says in the Bible you should honor learned people. And he was the Chief Rabbi! – but he was not a Pope, and didn’t behave like a Pope.

So Judaism as a religion, we did not touch, and we could not touch. But, the Jewish people as a political force – we touched, very much. And we said that the time has come to define the political term and the meaning of the word “Jew” – Who is a Jew? which as you know is still being debated in Israel, and there is a famous Supreme Court decision that says, “A Jew is a Jew.” Period. Something like Gertrude Stein, who said, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” we say for the time being “a Jew is a Jew.” I say that in political terms, a Jew is a person who defines himself as being a member of the Jewish nation and no other nation. And the deciding is to each person and his own choice. And in the case of the identity between a Jew and Israel it is between each person and the laws of the Republic of Israel. And therefore back in the early 1940’s we suggested a distinction to simplify matters a little. We took the term “Hebrew” and said that “Hebrew” denotes the political aspect of the Jew, and “Jew, Jewish” denotes the religious aspect; we could have just as easily done it backwards, it makes no difference. Or it makes no difference whether you use today the word “Israeli,” as they were forced to do finally in 1948. “Israeli” denotes the political aspect of the Jew, “Jewish” denotes the religious. We said then, in establishing The Hebrew Committee of National Liberation as a sort of government-in-exile, we purchased the Iranian Embassy on Embassy Row in Washington (that’s Massachusetts Avenue) in 1944, April, in the middle of the Holocaust, in the middle of the murder, we proclaimed the independence of the Hebrew Republic of Palestine as a free and independent state, republic, and asked the world nations to recognize it. A year later I spent six hours with David Ben Gurion in the home of Dr. Emanuel Neumann, who got us together, who was then President of the Zionist Organization of America, and who was appreciative of the efforts we were doing here, while not exactly agreeing with them. He said, “You must work something out!” That these boys (as we were called) had to be brought into the framework of Jewish life here. And for six hours Ben Gurion and I talked alone (Neumann left), and I told him that the thing to do is not to debate whether or not there should be a Jewish State, which was what the Zionist Organization was doing, and that the debate with Jabotinsky that said that the aim of Zionism is the establishment of the Jewish State, I said that this was passé, that this was “old hat” as you would say today. That the issue was not to call for the creation of a Jewish State, but to establish one and to ask for recognition: the things that people and nations have to do for themselves and can’t ask others to do for them – which is what eventually happened in ’48. We [the Bergson Group] formulated, therefore, then, in the ‘40’s, a simple thing which an American child, Jewish or not (maybe non-Jews easier than the Jews, who were not as confused about the subject), of ten or twelve years could understand; I remember we had a simple slogan. It said, “It is 1776 in Palestine.” Every American knows what is 1776, and the Irgun and we saw to it that the headlines would make everybody know what is Palestine, and we put the two together and it was very simple: we were a nation fighting for our freedom just as the Americans did in 1776, and it so happened we were doing it against the same oppressor. We wanted the British army and the British king out of Palestine just as the Americans wanted the British king and the British army out of the American Colonies in 1776. And just as the Americans, we won.

Blogging v Tweeting...

I haven't posted anything in a while, yet have been tweeting quite a bit...I wonder if Twitter has somehow blocked the blogger in me? I now look at Althouse, Instapundit, CrankyProfessor and others...yet don't post, myself. Too much trouble to come up with more than 144 characters, I guess. We'll see if this changes anytime soon. Meanwhile, I guess Twitter has it. (Also, I don't really like the new template for Blogger all that much, it is a little confusing, somehow.)

An Amazing Citation from a Korean Database

Featured Articles : Representing Islam, Terrorism, and Violence ; An American Reflection: Steven Spielberg, The Jewish Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ( Shai Ginsburg ) "This paper examines Steven Spielberg`s vision of the State of Israel and, to a lesser extend of the U.S., as presented in Munich (2005). The paper argues that Spielberg mounts a critique of the two states and their security apparatuses. The willingness of the two to resort to violence either in the name of their own protection or under the guise of protecting their citizens, Munich suggests, does not merely undercut their claim as democracies to embody the universal values of liberty and justice, but also the very well-being of their citizens. Spielberg`s mistrust of the state (and of the State of Israel in particular) is already hesitantly suggested more than a decade earlier in his treatment of the Jewish Holocaust in Schindler`s List (1993). I trace this mistrust to two cinematic sources: Otto Preminger`s Exodus (1960) and Laurence Jarvik`s Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die (1982). Whereas the former Hollywood epic sought to align American audiences with the State of Israel and its military campaigns, the latter documentary exposed the inaction of both the Roosevelt administration and the Zionist leadership in the face of the mass murder of European Jews during World War II. Spielberg`s films could thus be seen as a revision－both in plot and in form－of Preminger`s spectacular celebration of the State of Israel in light of Jarvik`s damning revelations. Exodus turns the story of the rise of Israel out of the plight of Holocaust survivors into "spectacular cinema." Spielberg`s films, on the other hand, and Munich in particular, suggest that spectacular cinema conceals the incommensurability between the plight of individuals and the logic that guides the action of the state and its apparatuses. In that respect, Spielberg`s films－considered prime examples of the latest incarnation of spectacular cinema－undercut their own logic of representation. " SOURCE: PaperSearch.net Article: An American Reflection: Steven Spielberg, The Jewish Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Old-Fashioned Teaching Works

Even in Silicon Valley... According to today's NY Times.

Occupy Wall Street is Two Minutes Hate, v.2011

George Orwell described Two Minutes Hate, a daily ritual designed to brainwash the population into hating Emmanuel Goldstein and the current enemy of Big Brother in 1984. As Oscar Wilde famously quipped, life imitates art, so now we have Occupy Wall Street, a daily ritual of two-minute clips shown on television news designed to brainwash the population into hating the current enemy of the Obama Administration, intended to bully Wall Street and Republicans into submission much in the way anti-Globalization protestors extracted NGO payoffs from the World Bank and IMF and Starbucks (anyone remember those "broken windows" of a few years back?). As if on cue, Andrew Breitbart has published emails showing coordination between major media and Occupy DC demonstrators, and the "Occupation" has been publicly endorsed by leading Democrats, celebrities, academics, and President Obama himself. The purpose of Two Minutes Hate v.2011 is clearly twofold: 1. To generate hatred against political opponents, most notably Wall Street veteran Mitt Romney and the GOP (despite Obama's own Wall Street support); and 2. To distract public attention from the Obama administration's unsolved political problems, such as wars actual (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Uganda) and potential (Syria, Iran); economic collapse; the Obamacare fiasco, as well as general political stagnation. As George Orwell would no doubt have said more eloquently: You can't make this stuff up.

James Taranto on "Occupy Wall Street"

James Taranto skewers Jesse LaGreca in Best of the Web:

Behold Jesse LaGreca, who boasts of his working-class street cred while speaking the elitist jargon of the professor-cum-president's failing administration. And he does so on ABC, owned by the Walt Disney Co. He's an Audio-Animatronic revolutionary.

All that said, there is some truth to his statement that "we have succeeded tremendously in pushing the narrative." But the truth of it makes his posturing all the more ridiculous.

"Occupy Wall Street" began as a left-wing protest, something about as exceptional as a pigeon in New York. It didn't become a "narrative" until the narrators made it into one. Who are those narrators? They work for companies like Disney, CBS Corp., Comcast Corp. and General Electric Co. (co-owners of NBC), Time Warner, News Corp. (our employer), the New York Times Co., the Washington Post Co., the Tribune Co., Thomson Reuters Corp. and Bloomberg LP.

These corporations make their profits (or attempt to) by pushing narratives--by selling stories. Sometimes their narratives are as preposterous as Jesse LaGreca's. An example is yesterday's New York Times editorial that begins: "As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions."

The disdainful reference to "the chattering classes" is just priceless. To which class, pray tell, do New York Times editorialists belong? Though come to think of it, at least the anonymous hack who wrote that editorial got paid for his effort. That makes his claim to working-class status stronger than LaGreca's.

Not Red Square, Moscow--Pennsylvania Ave, Washington...

When I was at Swarthmore, Robert Zoellick was a redneck.

Remember Alan Gross...

An American Jew being held prisoner in Fidel Castro's Cuba, story here.

Happy New Year!

Shana Tovah 5772 to all our Jewish readers!

Agustin Blazquez's YouTube Preview

Agustin Blazquez writes: This is the first preview of my new documentary series ARTS & POLITICS. The Castro regime's official artists are given venues, press coverage and glowing reviews to make an impact on the American public. Cuban American artists, with few exceptions, are ignored. The current Cuban regime continues to advance its agenda using the arts. This series will give Cuban American "politically incorrect" artists the opportunity to break the barrier of silence. My plan is to not disclose the name of the star of this production until about two weeks before the premiere. There will be other previews coming. Feel free to forward this information. In Spanish with English subtitles. Stunning! Emotional! Rivetting! A musical, artistic portrait of a great international singer! 63 songs! Distributed by Cubacollectibles.com. The preview will be the first thing that opens in the YouTube channel.
http://www.youtube.com/JAUMS

My best, Agustin Blazquez, producer/director AB INDEPENDENT PRODUCTIONS

Eliyo Matz on Birds & Jewish History

BIRD POLITICS AND JEWISH HISTORY
​
​By:  Eliyho Matz
 
O Soul, come back to watch birds in flight!
​Ch’u Yuan
 
Dedicated to the courageous Duchifat* soldiers who paid dearly for their commitment to the ideals of the young Israeli Nation: ideals of democracy, law and freedom.  Unfortunately, these ideals are today being eroded and replaced by Biblical laws (right-wing religious fanatic orthodox Jewish laws) that are totally dismantling and destroying the possibility for Israel to become a modern nation.  If the Duchifat soldiers only knew what they were fighting for….
And for Hadas….
(In this military unit of courageous Paratroopers, I served as the most unimportant soldier.)
 
* Hoopoe bird, in Arabic Hud-hud.
 
​Birds are not big time complainers.  They keep themselves busy flying and do not usually need bird psychiatrists to help them resolve personal or communal issues of territory or flying zones.  The sky and the earth are their sovereign territory.  Recently, however, they have acted spontaneously, in unison, to a changed political situation in the Israeli Nation.  To explain that decision, we need to trace back a bit, to fly backwards, like only the hummingbird can do.  
On July 12, 2011, the acclaimed New York Times published on page A8, bottom left, a news article by Isabel Kershner titled, “Israel Bans Boycott Against the State” in which Kershner described the new Israeli Parliamentary law illegalizing any public boycotting of the Israeli Nation or West Bank settlements, thus making the act of calling for a boycott punishable by a compulsory fine.  A few days later, on July 18, 2011, the NYT again touched upon the situation, this time attacking the Israeli boycott law in an editorial dedicated to this issue titled, “Not Befitting a Democracy.”  However, with all due respect to this publication, which I personally have been reading consistently over the past 36 years, I believe that the NYT is totally mistaken and unclear.  I do not take issue with the fact that the NYT is worried that the law will “…chip away at free speech and political rights,” but rather that even in the title itself of this article the NYT does not recognize, or is not interested in recognizing, that the Israeli Nation, since its inception in 1948, has never written a constitution and therefore cannot be a true democracy; therefore citing this action as “not befitting a democracy” is totally misleading, and does not suit the reporting and analysis qualities of the NYT.  Furthermore, the NYT in its reporting often refers to the Israeli Nation as the “Jewish State,” and thus fails to call it by its true name, the Israeli Nation.  Ironically, the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also wants the Palestinian people to recognize Israel as a “Jewish State” -- when no one can even figure out how politically to define a Jew.  This type of convoluted political thought prevents the Israeli Nation from progressing to become a nation-state of the Israelis, or better, an Israeli Republic with a written constitution, that could serve to modernize its political engagement and its ability to be absorbed into the Middle East.
​Birds, which are frequent fliers between Northern Europe and Africa, have throughout time been flying through the Israeli sovereign territory twice a year: in spring they flock to Europe, in autumn to Africa.  But they have their sensitivities, too.  Apparently they are extremely aware of the nature of people, and thus, because of their sense of justice and humanity, and having followed the widespread news and protest about the Israeli boycott law via their “Bird News Services” (BNS), not controlled by the corrupt Rupert Murdoch, decided quietly, without too much twittering, to form the first “Bird Congress” on the north shore of the Black Sea, where it was decided by the birds’ top democratic leadership, to avoid, if possible, flying over Israel or any other non-democratic country that does not have a democratically written constitution.  It seems like a harsh decision to me by the birds considering the long lasting relationship that they have formed with the ancient and modern Israelis, and it is a bit out-of-place with the history of birds and Jews.  
​The Hebrew Bible quite frequently deals with the interactive relationship between humans and birds.  The familiar story of Noah is one of the first to demonstrate this relationship.  The domesticated pigeon brings back to the ark an olive leaf, thus symbolizing the end of the flood and the return to normalcy.  Then we have a more overlooked Biblical detail that Hebrew Bible researchers and Orthodox Jewish believers probably pay little attention to.  It is in the story of Moses: Moses, who is running away from Egypt, perhaps carries out his destiny in marrying Zippora (Shemot 2:21).  Although in the Hebrew Bible we do not have as much mythology as is seen in the Greek writings, Moses, as the father and lawgiver of the Hebrews, should have been aware of the connotation of the name “Zippora” -- a bird.  He marries Zippora and thus the Jewish mazel (luck) gets its start with wandering, as a matter of fact, quite a bit of it, and forever not just for the forty years in the desert.  As Adeline Yen Mah, a prominent American Chinese writer, informs us, “Jia Ji Shui Ji” -- “Marry a Chicken, Follow a Chicken” [Adeline Yen Mah, Falling Leaves (New York: Broadway Books, 1997) p. 157].  The Hebrews, while wandering in the desert, feed upon shlav, or quail, which appear every evening and provide sustenance to the Hebrews while on the move in the desert.  Then for a while in the Hebrew Bible we do not hear about birds, when suddenly further on another bird story appears.  This time it involves the legendary King Solomon, who, as the Bible tells us in the First Book of Kings (5:13), was wise and “…spoke of beasts and of birds….”  Later on, being a wealthy and very virile king (he married 1000 women), he interacted with the legendary Yemenite Queen of Sheba.  Our bird, the duchifat, was the go-between for Solomon and Sheba.  “According to the legend he [the duchifat, or hoopoe] is said to be the son of Solomon, hence he had a golden crown.  So the people in greed for gold used to kill him.  One day he referred the matter to his father, so he [Solomon] changed the golden crown into flesh and the persecution then ceased” [Samsar Chand Koul, Birds of Kashmir (p.65)].  Another bird connected to King Solomon was the white-cheeked Bulbul, which the legend says “…are reputed to have given to Solomon the power to differentiate between an artificial and a natural nosegay, and to be ready to offer advice if one has the ear willing to listen” (Koul, p. 13).  Paradoxically, in Israeli popular culture the word “Bulbul” has become a derogatory expression for a person who is totally confused.  The Hebrew Bible continues to amaze us with stories of birds.  Another very interesting one is about the prophet Elijah, who ran away to Mt. Sinai and was fed by ravens.  “I saw a small chapel commemorating the spot where the ravens fed Elijah.  It is supposedly built over the cave where the prophet hid from Jezebel” [Wendell Phillips, Qataban and Sheba (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1955), p. 134].  A captivating legend from Chinese history documented by Thanh and Benjamin Cherry in their book Of Pandas and Wandering Geese (London: Minerva Press, 1999; p. 251) tells a story about the building of the Great Wall of China and the loss of many lives, especially of one person whose wife “…lamented his disappearance so vigorously that some ravens showed her where his body was buried; whereupon the wall split apart revealing the bones.”  
​From Biblical times to modern times, we do not hear much about birds and Jews, even though Jews continued to wander, ultimately becoming known as the “Wandering Jews.”  Aside from the commonly known explanations for their wandering, one should consider the business opportunities Jews have undertaken since time immemorial by traveling, on the Silk Road doing business with the Chinese, or on the high seas to India, and the consequences of such activities.  For example, I truly believe that the religious laws defining who is a Jew, by making the mother the sole determinant, and the laws prohibiting Jews from marrying more than one wife developed between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE and in the 10th century, are all related to the business occupation of Jews traveling between East and West, North and South, like birds.  
Thus we have moved to modern times.  The poet Chaim N. Bialik speaks to an imaginary bird that just arrived at his window from the Land of Zion.  The poem, which is the ultimate instrument to explain the Jewish Zionist activities in Palestine to rebuild the nation, is still considered a masterpiece of poetry.  Of course the political and social reality has changed, from the early days of the Zionist naiveté, to the modern Israelis’ convoluted political thoughts.  The poet Saul Tchernichovsky, who was a contemporary of Bialik, also deals with birds.  In his case he introduces a more aggressive bird of prey, the eagle, in his poem “Eagle, eagle over your mountains.”  Well, this poem definitely will later usher the Israelis into the modern age when their airplanes will eventually control the skies of the Middle East, thus making Tchernichovsky sort of a poet-prophet.  One of the most interesting writers and translators of modern times is Zev Zahbotinsky, who, extremely talented as a translator into Hebrew, takes the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” and transforms it into one of the most celebrated poems in modern Hebrew, so much transformed that he made it more interesting than the original version.  The singer Ester Offarim, one of the most unique Israeli voices, has spilled her soul while singing “Mi Itneni Auf Tzipor Kanaf Ketanah” (“Who will give me the power to fly,/A small little winged bird wandering forever”) – boy, has this singer been wandering!  The Israeli singer-songwriter Igal Bashan has contributed to the bird image through the lyrics of his song “Yesh Li Tzipor Ketanah Balev” (“I Have a Tiny Bird in My Heart”).  Moving from the heart to the head is another Israeli singer and songwriter Matti Kaspi, who contributed, “Yesh Li Tziporrim Barosh” (“I Have Birds in My Head”).  We do not yet have any poet or singer who writes about Israeli legs and compares them to birds’ legs to complete our body picture in allegorizing the Wandering Israelis, who travel today as Tarmilaim  (backpackers) from Thailand to Argentina.
In the early days of the Israeli Nation, shortages of essential foods were common and rationing was imposed on the Israeli public.  One of the products that was rationed was coffee beans.  Here is a story about birds first developed by Abram Sorramello, the legendary Jerusalemite (dubbed by journalist and writer Baruch Nadel as “Mr. Tzipporovich”).  Sorramello told of a man arriving at the airport coming from abroad carrying a sack of coffee beans.  The custom agent asked him what he had in the sack, and the traveler answered “birdfood.”  “Birdfood?” questioned the agent, who smelled coffee in the sack.  “Well,” answered the fellow, “if the birds want it, they eat it, if not, not!”  
Certainly the motif of birds has contributed forcefully to Israeli culture.  However, most serious and critical of Israeli culture and politics is Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, although I think that he himself is not really aware of the implications of what he is describing in his poem “Dangerous Country [Benjamin and Barbara Harshav, Translators, Yehuda Amichai: A Life of Poetry 1948-1994 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), p. 393].  To me, this poem represents the ultimate analysis of birds and politics: “Even the migrating birds know it,/They come in spring or in autumn and do not stay,…”  So the terrible conclusion: the Israeli land, Zion, is where people and birds come and go.  Not so good a reality if Israelis want a future Israeli Nation to exist.
 

Eliyho Matz: The Unknown Story of the Altalena

The Ship Altalena
Tel Aviv Beach, 1948
 
​By: Eliyho Matz
 
 
PROLOGUE
​
The story of the ship the Altalena is one of the most complex dramas in the creation of the Israeli nation.  My intent with this piece is not to solve  the puzzle of the Altalena story, but rather to bring to light some interesting details relating to the story.
In the early 1940’s, a small group of people, members of the Etzel (Jewish-Palestinian underground), better known as the Irgun, arrived in New York City from Europe and Palestine.  The commander of the group was Hillel Kook, who later took the name Peter Bergson, and his group became known as the Bergson Group, or the Bergson Boys.  The work of the Bergson Group in the USA can be summarized in three parts: the first was their attempts to create a Jewish army that would fight alongside the Allies in WWII; later on they shifted focus to become a political pressure group targeted in their attempts to save European Jewry; and finally following the end of WWII they reincarnated themselves as the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation, a political lobby to support a Hebrew Republic in Palestine.  
The Bergson Group’s narrative in the United States during the Holocaust and in its aftermath is not part of the historical curriculum that is currently taught in Israel.  During his eight years of work between 1940 to 1948, whether in New York City or in Washington, DC, Peter Bergson gained the respect of American Congressmen and Senators.  However, during that same period, most Jewish organizations in the United States rejected, criticized and protested against his activities.  But the record is clear: it is beyond a doubt that the Bergson Group’s activities in the United States influenced the American people and its President Harry Truman to recognize the emerging Israeli nation in 1948.
One of Bergson’s chief lieutenants was Samuel Merlin, who was closely involved with the New Zionist Organization and its leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky.  Merlin, who lived in Paris and Warsaw prior to WWII, had developed a deep and complicated relationship with the French Intelligence authorities.  He arrived in New York City as a refugee with their help and connections.  
In 1946, Ben Hecht, the prominent screenwriter and playwright, collaborated with the Bergson Group and produced a play that appeared that year on Broadway. The play, “A Flag is Born,” with the young Marlon Brando in its starring role, envisioned the emergence of an Israeli state.  The play became a commercial success and made the Bergson Group quite a bit of money.  Thus it was with these proceeds supplemented by some other financial resources that they were able to purchase the ship the Altalena.  Next the ammunition was provided free-of-charge by the French, thanks to the special connection between Merlin and the French government authorities; it was loaded on to the Altalena in France before the ship embarked for Tel Aviv.
The superficial details of what happened to the Altalena on the beach of Tel Aviv are well known to most Israelis: there was a confrontation between the Etzel and the emerging Israeli government led by David Ben Gurion.  What is not so well known is the story behind the story.  
Two small details that might elaborate that story are necessary here.  One revolves around Aryeh Ben-Eliezar’s return to Palestine, at Bergson’s instructions, to establish  Menachem Begin as the new leader of the Irgun (this, according to Bergson himself, was probably the worst decision he ever made).  This was an exercise that started in New York City.  As a result of the Bergson Group’s activities in the US Congress to support a resolution to save the Jews of Europe, Bergson had built up various connections that eventually helped enabled Ben-Eliezar’s departure to Palestine in 1943.  Ben-Eliezar helped in Palestine to reestablish anew the Irgun, with the agreement of Bergson in NYC.
The second detail involved David Ben Gurion.  As the political leader of the Jewish Palestinian Workers Party, and a central figure in Zionism, Ben Gurion was very well aware of the Irgun’s activities.  The Zionist Movement leadership in the United States, along with various other American Jewish leaders, supplied the FBI with plenty of information about the Bergson Group and funneled the same information to Ben Gurion in Palestine.
The efforts carried out by Zionist and other Jewish leaders to deport Bergson from the United States, failed.  Ben Gurion was well informed of the political power and influence Bergson had built up in the US; along with his Zionist cronies, Ben Gurion did whatever he could to stop the Bergson Group’s activities.  It is possible that Ben Gurion’s reaction to the arrival of the Altalena was an attempt to crush Bergson.  Only history will judge.
 
 
HILLEL KOOK (PETER BERGSON): A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE SHIP THE ALTALENA, NEW YORK CITY, 1983, AS RECORDED BY ELIYHO MATZ
 
​The following is a transcribed and translated transcript
of a taped conversation I had with Hillel Kook in which at a rare moment he spoke in detail about the Altalena incident and its surrounding circumstances.
 
 
Hillel Kook:  “…If on the 15th of May, 1947, one year before the creation of the Israeli nation, a messenger of “Ribbon HaOlamim,” better known as “God,” would ask one-thousand people, the most important and respected people in the Land of Israel [Palestine], the question, “Do you believe that in one year from now there will be an Israeli [Hebrew] nation, a new nation on planet earth?” – from the thousand not a single one would have said, “Yes!”
​The expression “Partza HaMedina,” “a nation has erupted,” is the biggest “truth” about Zionism.  All the proceedings that led to the creation of “the State” were one thing, and all the people that took it over were another.  Begin, apropos, the leader of the Irgun, did not believe in the coming of the new nation Israel.  Begin, by the way, was a serious problem.  At the first celebration of the Israeli Independence Day in 1949, Ben Gurion invited the public for a party in the Kiryah in Tel Aviv.  Begin, the head of the Herut party, called for [his own] ceremonial meeting for independence at the Herut headquarters in Tel Aviv.  He raised a glass of wine and proclaimed, “By the way, we in the Herut Party received an invitation for the party at the Kiryah by Ben Gurion, but all of us are not going to go.”  
​I had met Ben Gurion in 1942 in the home of Rabbi [Emanuel] Newman in New York.  Dr. Newman was a very important Zionist leader, and he was aware of the Irgun’s work in the US.  In his report to the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, Ben Gurion, who was a very cunning politician and a perpetual liar, purposely did not mention that he met me.  I was in New York during the War years as the commander of the Irgun there.  Then, I met Ben Gurion in the Knesset, and I did not say hello to him because of the ship Atalena incident and the “Holy Cannon.”
​At [this 1949] meeting in the Herut Party headquarters, I said to Begin that this is not a personal invitation from Ben Gurion, but rather an invitation from the Israeli Prime Minister; I personally disagree with the fact that we should not go to that party.  My reasoning was that if Ben Gurion would invite me to his home I would not go; but because we all received an official invitation to celebrate the first Independence Day, I will go.  Eri Jabotinsky agreed with me. Others present did not.  In any case, I went to the Kiryah.  It was a very interesting and exciting event.  Ben Gurion stood there with his wife, and I shook their hands.  
​On the issue of the ship the Altalena, about a dozen books have been written.  None gets close to telling the truth.  It is very difficult to understand the Altalena incident without understanding Begin, and to understand Begin is a very difficult task.  Begin lied to the Irgun people, because he kept the Irgun after the creation of the Israeli state.  At the end of 1947, Begin was already an askan [a low-level politician].  The British did not run after him.  At the middle of 1947, the British brought the issue of the Palestinian Mandate before the United Nations.  Begin was a totally confused and frustrating person.  A week before the arrival of the ship the Altalena [June 18, 1948], I arrived in Israel.  On the eve of the Altalena’s arrival, there was a meeting.  Begin sat there, Ever Hadani, and others.  I asked Begin, “A few hours ago you raised a glass of Carmel red wine for the State of Israel, and you blessed everybody in the name of Malchoot, the nation of Israel.”  What will be with the Etzel [Irgun]?  Begin answered that the Etzel will continue to fight till they will free Jerusalem.  I then asked again, “You just recognized the Israeli government; how will you fight in Jerusalem?”  Begin’s answer was that the Israeli government headed by Ben Gurion does not claim Jerusalem.  I asked again, “Do you really think that Ben Gurion will really give up Jerusalem?”  Begin was not a statesman.  He was, as mentioned before, an askan, or a low-level politician, this I did not understand immediately.
​With the ship the Altalena he did the same tricks. He spoke to them [Ben Gurion’s people] and he didn’t speak to them.  My life was destroyed because of the Altalena.  Begin was sitting in the other room speaking to Galili [the negotiator for Ben Gurion] on the phone.  I heard him summarizing that 20% of the ammunition from the Altalena will go to a warehouse in Jerusalem and will be watched together by the Israeli military and the Etzel.  Then it will be given to the Etzel.  Galili did not agree.  I became hysterical and I began yelling at Begin, “You are crazy!  This is the first and the last ship; the ship was purchased by the US Etzel group.  You [Begin] should worry that there shall not be any discrimination against the Etzel fighters in the army.  We have to dissolve the Etzel.  Call Galili and tell him that you will give him all the ammunition.”  Begin asked Yaakov Meridor what to do, and Meridor said that I was right.  Begin called back Galili and claimed to have made a mistake.  Let the chief of the Israeli army decide where the ammunition should go.  Begin asked only for one thing: he wanted the representative of the Etzel to make a speech and inform [the soldiers] that the ammunition was brought to Israel by the Etzel.
​And then, something strange happened, which I cannot understand.  Either that Galili cheated Ben Gurion or vice versa.  Galili does not talk about it, and Begin doesn’t talk about it either.  There must have been some sort of misunderstanding between Ben Gurion and Galili.  Or it is possible that Ben Gurion decided to use the Altalena incident to create a crisis.  I doubt that.  The fact that Galili was a liar I am sure.  Galili claimed that Begin wanted to give part of the ammunition to the Etzel group, and that was not true.  
​You have to understand the Begin mentality of duality.  On one hand the Etzel is dissolved, and on the other hand it continues on.  
​By the way, do not forget that Begin was not arrested.  They [Ben Gurion’s people] arrested me and wanted to kill me as the result of the Altalena incident.  Luckily, as you can see, I am still here.
 
 
Great Barrington, MA
August 13, 2011
(413) 528-4073
(212) 620-0440
 
 
 
 
​
 

Gone Fishin'...

I'm taking off the month of August, to think of something to say come September. I'll be tweeting in the meantime.

Until then, to all our readers, have a good summer!

Deal or No Deal?

Haven't blogged in a while...news has been too awful to contemplate.

The Norwegian massacre is just too horrible to write about.

The current debt deal has been preceded by weeks of irresponsible and dishonest Chicken Little hysteria and posturing in the media that bummed out the country, if not the world. The final agreement is disgraceful. Better an honest bankruptcy, IMHO. This affair has been demoralizing.

Finally, Washington has been very hot, 104 degrees Farenheit the other day, 99 today--too hot to think, or write at any length.

So, better to follow me on Twitter--at least until it cools down.

Europe Shall Bleed Once Again by Amil Imani

Europe Shall Bleed Once Again

Too hot & humid to blog today...

Maybe next week?

Ron Paul Blasts Debt Ceiling Charade on YouTube

In a video called Conviction, Not Compromise!

The Debt Ceiling Charade

Sen. Mitch McConnell's proposal has exposed the Republican postion on the debt ceiling as a fraud. Indeed, it would cede the congressional power of the purse to the White House. Cowardice and stupidity are necessary but insufficient explanations. Clearly, with the exception of Michelle Bachmann and the Tea Party folks, the GOP is on the take, ready to take a dive in 2012 to re-elect President Obama. The only good news so far is that Ron Paul has announced his intention to resign from Congress to run for President. Like Ross Perot or Ralph Nader, the spoiler could end up kingmaker in 2012. Which at least gives us something to look forward to--an unpredictable election. If Sarah Palin runs, all bets are off, IMHO.

Something has got to give...

Document of the Week: A Letter to Mark Steyn

From Mark Steyn's mailbox:

Re "The Credentialed Society":

In days of yore, you would not be considered "uneducated", Mark, because you went to a good public school. And of course you do know a lot; in particular about Middle Eastern history and things which are not widely known in North America. I would assume that your teachers suggested readings, you found others on your own, and that you then rubbed shoulders with people who also knew such things. (But no credentials!)

If any single idea marked Obama as a stupid and reckless incompetent, it is the idea that every American should go to college. An advanced society needs— absolutely needs— electricians and plumbers, various other specialized mechanics, computer technicians, truck drivers, aircraft pilots, etc. Indeed, it is only a nasty snob who will look down on supermarket checkout clerks, who are also essential.

Also, most of the skills needed for oilfield work are not taught in any university; offshore oil adds further skills necessary for the marine environment, and these skills are uncommon and justly very well remunerated. Some of the most intelligent and capable men I have ever met work in the offshore oil patch.

Nor can we overlook the military trades.

My enumeration is so incomplete that it is almost ridiculous; I would suggest that Obama might watch such TV programs as "Ice Road Truckers" and "The Most Dangerous Catch" to get some idea of what is necessary in today's world.

You will notice that I have not included "theoretical physicist" in the above list. Try as I might, I cannot get my own profession into the list of essential trades, crafts, and professions.

John Lewis
St John's, Newfoundland

Happy Independence Day!

What has Google done to its iGoogle layout?

This morning I saw an ugly black bar across the top...it looked like Twitter, or something from Microsoft. Horrible, dark, and scary. Corporate and icky--someone I know pointed out the red indicator makes the colors on the bar red, black, and white...Verizon colors. YUCK!

I don't know how to get the old friendly, calm, sooting blue and white version of iGoogle back. It was relaxing to look at.

Not this new page. I hate it.

Is this the beginning of the end of Google?

If I had stock in the company, which I don't, I'd start selling...unless they fix it, as Coca-Cola did with New Coke.

Ronald Kleijer's "Impressions of Uzbekistan"

I attended the opening of Dutch painter Ronald Kleijer's art show at the Studio H Gallery in Washington, DC last Friday, after someone I know saw a listing in the Washington Post Weekend section. He must be the only Dutch artist currently painting in Uzbekistan. And the show was very good! The Vermeer of Central Asia, perhaps? In any case, here's some video I took at the event, which gives sense of Kleijer's still-life, landscape, and portrait paintings:











There's an interview with Kleijer on the East City Art website, here.

Studio H Gallery is located at 408 H Street NE second floor Washington, DC 20002, phone: (202.468.5277). Hours by appointment. Website: http://www.studiohdc.com/.

Sheldon Kimmel: Everything You Think You Know About US Agriculture Policy is Wrong

My buddy, Dr. Sheldon Kimmel, has just published an economic analysis of US Agriculture policy on SSRN. He says it is based on a false premise. The article is titled "The Illusion of Anticompetitive Behavior Created by 100 Years of Misleading Farm Statistics".

Abstract:
The share of U.S. consumer food-spending that farmers received (the “farm-share”) fell steadily from 48% in 1913 to only 20% by 2000, prompting repeated investigations into who might be to blame for that decline. Similar alarms come from the other standard measure of how markets treat farmers, the farm-retail, “price spread.” However, this paper explains the biases built into these measures: Both of these measures are distorted by purely nominal changes. This paper introduces a better measure of how markets have treated farmers, and shows that, if measured properly, the farm-share of total consumer food costs has been stable.