"Never Eat With Dirty Hands" Advice I Didn't Follow

 

In the 10th grade at Stoneham High School near Boston our biology teacher, Sonia Jones, told us "Never eat with dirty hands!" She explained all of the germs we were learning about would sicken and kill if we ate with dirty hands.  She was six feet tall and had a regal way of speaking. Her advice was memorable.

That class was in the 1968-69 school year.  Nine years later in the fall of 1977, my tank blew its engine in the early morning in the woods near the east-west border in Germany.  My crew and I got down in a hull full of oil and readied the tank to get a new engine. Then we waited for the M88 tank recovery vehicle to show up with our new 1750 cubic-inch, twin turbo, V12 power plant. 

We also had no food except our emergency rations. We had been in the woods for more than a month and had eaten most of the extra food we brought with us.  

Several hours later the M88 showed up and we got a new engine.  We were covered in grease and oil from the broken V12 diesel engine.  Just before dark, the first sergeant showed up in a Jeep with the last remnants of breakfast in a Mermite can.

He had bacon and eggs and white bread.  We all grabbed bread, scooped eggs and bacon onto one slice bread, made a sandwich with the other slice and started eating.  I looked at the black fingerprints on my white bread slices and thought of our tall, stern biology teacher and how horrified she would be at our sandwiches.   

I kept eating.  

NB: I asked my classmates about the name of the biology teacher. I got five suggestions before Steve Burke identified her as Sonia Jones.  We were sure of the ID because she had a unique way of sneezing: she sneezed ten times ina row with a sound like "wheeeeeeetz!" Thansk Stoneham High SchoolClass of 1971.

 

Two Weeks of Fog Watch: There's No Boredom Like Army Boredom

In the spring of 1977, my tank unit, 1st Battalion, 70th Armor, went to Grafenwohr, West Germany, for annual gunnery training.  

Tens of thousands of tanks fired their guns every year on the huge range at Grafenwohr.  Wehrmacht tank crews trained there during World War II.  NATO crews from many nations trained there during the Cold War. 

The schedule of firing was full from January 2 until the end of the year. Tanks fire cannon and machine guns every day, year round, until German weather throws a wrench in the huge scheduling machine.  

My crew and the rest of Bravo Company had zeroed our guns, fired on a stationary range and were ready for Table VIII--the annual test of individual crews firing at multiple targets while moving down range.  

We rolled to the start area, loaded our ammo and waited.  

And waited.

And waited.

For two weeks we ate breakfast, climbed aboard tank Bravo 1-3 and waited.  Fog shrouded eastern Germany near the Czech border.  We could fire in rain or snow, heat or cold, but not fog. 

So we sat in the tank.  

And sat. 

We joked about being on Fog Watch. 

We could not leave the tank--what if the fog suddenly cleared? We had to be ready. 

The fog did not move.

I am reading a book called The Comfort Crisis which talks about the many virtues of boredom as well as cold, heat, hunger, exhaustion and other stresses in life. Day after day of thick fog gave me boredom at a level I have experienced few other times in life.    

In the 20-man tent where we slept there was a green Bible. I thought it was some kind of Army Bible with its green cover.  

But it was a Living Bible, and on Amazon right now, it is still sold in green. It was not a special Army Bible.  I had never read the Bible cover to cover so I decided to relieve the days of boredom with reading the entire Bible--from Genesis to Revelation. 

It turns out, the Living Bible is a translation by Kenneth Taylor in 1971. It is labeled a "paraphrase" rather than a translation and was supposed to be more readable.  It gets a lot of criticism from people who prefer a more direct translation, but every translation of every book, not just the Bible, is an interpretation. Looking down at a paraphrase by people who can't read the original languages is sadly funny. 

And no one could ever make the insane collection of rules and tent-making instructions in Torah readable in any paraphrase, translation or interpretation. 

I plowed through it day after day. Twelve days and 1,184 pages later there was a new heaven and a new earth at the end of the book, but there was still fog at Grafenwohr. The day after that, the fog finally cleared.  I stopped thinking about scallops as an abomination and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and got ready to fire.  

Boredom, according to Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis is a spark of creativity. Boredom can leave our minds open to creative thinking. Within a year after that boring two weeks, I left the tank company and worked as a writer on the base newspaper.  Maybe boredom can lead to creativity. 

Russian Embassy in my Panama Neighborhood

 The day after I returned to Panama we moved to a different AirBnB closer to Panama City in the Albrook area.  Less than a mile away on the road is the Russian Embassy.  It's a seven-story yellow building which our host says has seven stories underground. 

Today  I was riding in my Ukraine bike clothes, so I rode back and forth in front of the Russian Embassy then stopped to take some pictures and a selfie.

I'm sure they have plenty of security, but I saw no guards, guns, dogs or drones as I rode.  Across the road is a stream that runs past where I live.  Crocodiles live on the banks of the stream. Maybe part of the security team?

Down the hill from the embassy is a little Russian Orthodox Church. 

I'll be riding this way a lot in the next six months.  

Прибет Товариши!  

(Hello Comrades!) 

Back in Panama: Finding Better Roads

 

Today is the seventh day since I arrived in Panama.  After some very difficult rides back in August, I have found better roads and hope to find more.

Today I rode the Amador Causeway, a long straight smooth three-mile road that runs to an island in the Panama City harbor. The Panama City skyline is off to the east of the long roadway and bicycle path.  A beautiful ride on a sunny day.  

  I'm meeting new neighbors also.  A coati on the balcony.

An agouti who lives across the street.  

Ships in the harbor beyond the causeway.

On Sunday I rode about a third of the way across the country to the town of Chililibre.  Since I was last here, ten kilometers of the road between State Highways 4 and 9 were completely repaved.  The rolling mostly uphill stretch of road two of very smooth pavement. Still no shoulder, but the traffic is not as bad on Sunday.I had a delightful 50km ride up to Chililibre  and back down again.  

It's better, but still a place where I am always alert. 

 

Peace is Easy to Break, Hard to Restore

 

If, on November 6, 2024, at 1 a.m Easter Standard Time Donald Trump had not won the election, our country would have been sliding toward civil war.  

The best predictor of a successful coup d'etat is a failed coup attempt.  If he had lost, Trump would have thrown the country into chaos. This time he would not make the mistakes he did the last time. He would be assured that the Republican-majority government in most of the swing states would sow enough doubt to throw the election into the House where, by the Constitutional rules, Trump has the advantage.  

Instead we have peace.  Trump won so he has no reason to lie about the results.  More importantly, he is effectively endorsing the election system--because it elected him.  

On the one hand, we will be governed by an old authoritarian wannabe on January 20, 2025.  

On the other hand, we did not fall into civil strife that could easily have led to violence beyond the control of any government.  

Once broken, peace is hard to restore, so I am glad we have peace.

I am also hopeful. Once Trump is gone--he is almost 80--his successor will not have flag-waving worshippers.  His successor will be just another politician to be criticized, doubted, and attacked. The Trump phenomena will not be repeated by JD Vance or Trump Jr. or Tucker Carlson.  Nobody will wave Tucker flags. 

It may not be for long.  But for now we have peace. I am thankful.

No Canvassers for Trump

 

At all the houses I canvassed, I saw one piece of Trump literature

Several times when I canvassed on weekends, I ran into other canvassers.  They were always Democrats.  Usually, I was canvassing for a Congressional or State candidate and the other canvasser was out for Harris-Walz.  We made sure to avoid overlap so as not to knock on the same door twice in five minutes.  

But I never ran into a Trump canvasser.  In fact, I saw only one piece of Trump literature on a porch the whole time I canvassed.  In some neighborhoods, I would see several pieces of literature left under a mat or near a door I was canvassing.  The literature could be for Harris-Walz or other candidates, but it was there.  

I listened to Holly Otterbein, a Pennsylvania political reporter talk about strife within the PA Republican Party over canvassing.  She said the party traditional organized canvassing, but the national party had hired Elon Musk to control the canvassing and it was not getting done.  That certainly agreed with what I saw. No literature. No canvassers.  

If Harris-Walz win Pennsylvania that lack of canvassing may be a factor.  I can only hope.

Who is the Antichrist? A 2,000-Year Fantasy Journey

 

Meet the Antichrist: 

In the Bad-Theology (Burn-at-the-stake Heresy) Novel Series Titled Left Behind 

the Antichrist is the Secretary General of the United Nations. Currently Antonio Gutierrez. 

When Trump held his Nazi-revival meeting at Madison Square Garden last week, one of the vile warm-up acts called Vice President Kamala Harris the Antichrist.  

Unlike Trump and the majority of his followers I have actually read the Christian Scriptures--in the language they were written in. If you haven't you may not know that the Antichrist is mentioned just twice in the entire 27 books that comprise the Christian Scriptures.  Both mentions are the letters the Apostle John sent to new Churches during his lifetime.  In another letter (2 Thessalonians) there is a reference to a "man of lawlessness" and the "beast" of Revelation that are taken to be the Antichrist, but the references are ambiguous.  

More importantly, the prefix anti in Greek has multiple meanings.  In can mean against or in opposition it can also mean equality or correspondence as in antitype.

But if we take Antichrist as in opposition to Christ, the context of both letters is to men acting against the Church at the time the letters were written. 

But for those besotted with prophecy, identifying the Antichrist has been a source of endless vain speculation for two millennia. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins wrote the bestselling Christian-market novel series in history in the 1990s turning a very bad interpretation of Bible prophecy into the Left Behind novels.  

In the first of the seven novels the Antichrist is identified as the Secretary General of United Nations.  Maybe the LaHaye and Jenkins had Kofi Annan in mind or Boutros Boutros Ghali.  They did not get their supervillain from the actual citations in 1 John or 2 John.  They were using the Beast of Revelation.  

Novelists can and do "make shit up" but their readers took as "gospel" their wacky reading of Christian Scripture.  If you wonder how Donald Trump became King Cyrus of Persia in the minds of prophecy obsessed Christians, the sales of Left Behind (upwards of 50 million copies) shows a very plausible path.

Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor the Secretary General of the United Nations is anything like the actual references to the Antichrist in the letters of  John. The best candidate for that office in modern America is the proud commandment breaker Donald Trump.   

Canvassing in Monoculture Neighborhoods

 

Multifamily homes I canvassed were multicultural.  Every sort of American lives there. 

But when I canvassed neighborhoods with single-family homes with two-car garages, the demographics were very different. As I mentioned in other posts I get the name, age and party affiliation of the voter.  In multifamily homes I often had the names of both members of a couple, or even a couple plus an older parent or adult child.  

But in single-family suburban homes, I often had just one name, almost always a women.  And if someone answered the door, it was often a man of about the same age. Which means that man was not a Democrat.  Assuming he was a voter, he was Republican or a Republican-leaning Independent.  

I asked for the voter by name. She was "not available." I would say I was asking her to vote for the candidate.  The guy said he would tell her, or say "We're not interested."  Door shuts.

The age of the voter and the couple was often 40s to 50s.  Kids were often hovering around the parent who answered the door.  While the couples in these houses were mostly white, there was one interesting exception.

It was a neighborhood of single-family houses, all built since 2021 on two parallel streets named for Ivy League colleges. All of the families on the first street were South Asian.  All of them.  The voter lists had three or four generations of voters. On the porch were shoes of kids and adults.  

I skipped three houses, which means they were probably Republicans--the entire family. But the shoes and the Hindu blessings on the doors said they were South Asian also.

On the second street it was mostly South Asian families plus a few Black and East Asian families. 

Canvassing is fascinating just for the demographics. 

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger: The story of a terrible storm and tragedy at sea.

 

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger is a real page-turner story about a Gloucester-based fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, that disappeared in a historic storm in late October in 1991. There were no survivors. There was no wreckage except a few fuel drums found on the sea long after the Andrea Gail disappeared.  

Junger tells the story of the disaster from the recollections of the crew members of ships that survived the storm, from viewpoint the survivors of an ill-fated rescue attempt of another boat in the same storm, and from the perspective of the families of the survivors.  

The book opens introducing the members of the crew of the Andrea Gail and their families and friends.  Junger shows us the life of a fisherman. Swordfish boats like the Andrea Gail could make a lot of money for their crews and money was the reason most of the men took the risk of fishing.  

We learn how dangerous fishing for swordfish can be. The line used to catch the fish goes out with thousands of hooks, baited just before they enter the water.  These hooks can snag and drag a fisherman right off the boat and into the sea when the line run over the side, and is equally dangerous when the line is pulled back on board--with or without many big, angry swordfish on the line.

Junger explains the physics of flipping and sinking a boat in a storm. He also explains how differences in the placement of pilot house and other factors could affect the way the ship weathers storms.  In addition to the physics of boats, we learn about the formation of waves and the storms that toss the waves higher and higher.

As the Perfect Storm develops in the area where the Andrea Gail is lost, Junger shows how search and rescue works along the US and Canadian coasts.  The US Guard works with Air National Guard and Navy units to rescue crew members of boats in distress.  I learned a lot about how the services coordinate their different capabilities depending on the distance and scale of the disaster.  The US and Canada coordinate with each other in the disasters that involve the international waters of both countries.

In the aftermath of the storm, the families grieve and struggle with the loss of the crew of the Andrea Gail as well as the Air Force pararescue swimmer lost when a rescue helicopter went down.  

Although I've never been out to sea further than a fishing boat near Boston harbor, I am fascinated with sailing ships.  I've read all of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels and Ian Toll's histories of the war in the Pacific theater of World War II. The Perfect Storm gave me a new perspective on just how dangerous life on the sea can be, even without the ships involved firing cannons at each other.

For anyone interested in the life of the crews of fishing boats, or of fishing towns like Gloucester, Mass., or the physics of waves, ships and the weather, this book has excellent explanations wrapped in a compelling story. 

------

In 2012 Victoria Hislop of The Independent (UK) began her review of the book with the same enthusiasm I felt: 

I learned two things while I was reading this book. First, that true stories can be more exciting and extraordinary than fictional ones. And second, that the best books are the ones where you are glued to your seat. This is how it was with The Perfect Storm.

 -----

A passage on drowning that made my own terror of death in the water vivid, while explaining precisely how our bodies react as death approaches:

"The instinct not to breathe underwater is so strong that it overcomes the agony of running out of air. No matter how desperate the drowning person is, he doesn't inhale until he's on the verge of losing consciousness. At that point there's so much carbon dioxide in the blood, and so little oxygen, that chemical sensors in the brain trigger an involuntary breath whether he's underwater or not. That is called the "break point"; laboratory experiments have shown the break point to come after eighty-seven seconds. It's a sort of neurological optimism, as if the body were saying, Holding our breath is killing us, and breathing in might not kill us, so we might as well breathe in...Until the break point, a drowning person is said to be undergoing "voluntary apnea," choosing not to breathe. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes a sensation of darkness closing in from all sides, as in a camera aperture stopping down. The panic of a drowning person is mixed with an odd incredulity that this is actually happening. Having never done it before, the body--and the mind--do not know how to die gracefully. The process is filled with desperation and awkwardness. 'So this is drowning,' a drowning person might think. 'So this is how my life finally ends.'"

Veterans for Trump: The Death of Honor

Canvassing in York County today I said hello to a veteran wearing a cap with Vietnam service and campaign ribbons.  Since my canvassing list was only democrats, I assumed he was a Republican. I said hello because we were the only two people outside for as far as I could see on the very straight street.

We talked civilly for a few minutes. He told me he enlisted in the Army reserve in 1970, served six years in the United States and left the military.  "I should've stayed," he said.  I told him I enlisted in 1972 and served until 1985, getting out and re-enlisting twice, then re-enlisted once more in 2007 and went to Iraq.  

I told him I never got closer to Vietnam than Utah during the war.  He made clear he was a Vietnam-era veteran.  

Shortly after he asked if I lived in the neighborhood. I said no. I live in Lancaster and was canvassing for Janelle Stelson for Congress. He said, "Don't try to tell me to vote for a democrat! I'll never vote for a democrat."

I told him I was only going to democrats and just said hello because we were both veterans.  He then went from smoldering anger (I assume a usual state given his demeanor.) to lecture mode.  "Stelson doesn't live here. Perry does. I'm voting for Perry. And Harris let in all those migrants. The country is overrun."

I waved and wished him a nice day.  "We won't have a country if Harris wins. Too woke!" he said to my back.  

When I told another veteran about the encounter he knew right away what was wrong.  Both of us served during the Vietnam War but not in the war. We are careful to say that.  The grumpy veteran's hat said something very different. It says Vietnam service.  Of course, inflating one's service record is as common as fisherman talking about "the one that got away." When I was first in the military, lying was stunning.

For me, another effect of Trump was to make draft dodging and this sort of mendacity normal. Fifty years ago, that veteran would have been ashamed to claim war service. Honor would have prevented him.  

Dishonor is the default when a bragging coward like Trump is the head of a party.  

In 2016 I saw draft dodgers become defiant now that they had a coward who bragged about draft dodging as their leader. 

Canvassing Empty Streets and Sidewalks: No One is Outside

 

In six weeks of canvassing, I have knocked on a thousand doors in cities and suburbs across south central Pennsylvania.  I walked empty streets and sidewalks between those houses.  

Empty.

It was not the weather. I canvas in the daytime. Generally the temperature was between high 60s and mid 70s. Wonderful weather.  

No kids. No walkers. No runners. No bicyclists. Just the occasional driver with windows closed of course.  

Is it social media?  I can't tell, but it seems like a good explanation.  I spend two or three hours in neighborhood.  If anyone was going to walk, run, ride, play games, sit on the porch or something else outside the house, I am likely to have seen them.  

Some of the houses I canvas have kids in the family. They peek out of the windows when I ring the bell or cling to mom's leg while she talks to me. But I have not seen kids outside.  

A couple of times as I walked down sunlit empty streets I thought "The Last of Us" and other dystopian stories.  Whole neighborhoods with no sign of life. 

My Exceptional Neighborhood

By contrast, my own neighborhood in Lancaster city has walkers, runners, cyclists, people that sit outside, kids, dog walkers and other signs of live community. If there is a social media plague keeping everyone inside, I'm glad I live in a place with social media antibodies.  

I'll be knocking on doors until the election; I will definitely write if I find a neighborhood besides my own with signs of life. 

Signs of the Times: As I Canvass for Candidates I See the Parties in their Signs

 

Recently, I was canvassing on a lovely day in a suburban Philadelphia district divided very closely between left and right. The houses I visited were all in a township that has a "No Solicitation" law. Violations can result in a fine of $375-$1,000. 

A few of the "No Solicitation" houses had a black box near that door that announced "You are under video surveillance" as I approached. One woman opened the door to ask, "Did you not understand the no solicitation sign?"  I replied that the law does not cover free speech including political speech. She shut the door.

It did not affect my canvassing because political and religious solicitation is exempt. 

I passed many houses with signs for democratic candidates and others with signs for republican candidates.

The only houses I passed with "No Solicitation" signs posted on the door that were identifiable as one party or the other were Republican. 

Last week I walked past two houses in Lancaster side by side on a city street. Both houses had two signs out front. The first house had a "Harris-Walz" sign and another that said "Love Thy Neighbor." The second had a "Trump-Vance” sign and another that said "No Trespassing."

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: Beauty and Deep Irony Unlocked by Hannah Arendt

Irony can be lovely in literature. The current living master of irony in my reading is Kazuo Ishiguro especially in his book The Remains of the Day. Another sad and beautiful master of irony is Walter Miller Jr. in his book A Canticle for Liebowitz. Miller and Ishiguro intend irony.

Leo Tolstoy did not, but there is more irony at the center of War and Peace than in the biggest Soviet-era Russian steel mill.  The deep love stories that swirl through this beautiful book are set in tragedy a time of war. The story begins in the gossip and whirl of upper class city life and ends with country family life.  

At intervals throughout the book, Tolstoy interrupts the narrative to tell us with increasing stridency that great people, and all people, have no real influence on life and history.  The collective spirit of the people, and chance, and fate, and the will of God guide events.  The great people believe they are in charge, but they are merely corks bobbing on a river flowing where God and nature intend.  

While he is telling us great people have no influence, Tolstoy fills hundreds of pages of this 1,500-page book with the actions of Napoleon, Marshall Kutuzov, Emperor Alexander, as well as mayors, generals and other leaders.  To learn how great people have no influence, we learn a lot about what they do.  

My current reading of War and Peace was on a Kindle in the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky.  In the late 80s I read the Constance Garnett standard translation.  In 2000, I read the Almyer and Louise Maude translation.    

Since 2000, I have gone to war and after returning from that war read all of the works of Hannah Arendt.  The year in Iraq showed me how deeply Tolstoy was affected by his service in the War in Crimea and how he turned that experience into art.  Reading Arendt showed me why I disagreed so completely with the philosophy that fills hundreds of pages of Tolstoy's longest novel.  

Central to Hannah Arendt's view of the human condition is natality.  She says that each person when born has the potential to influence the world.  Each new life is a new beginning.  Further, in her book titled The Human Condition Arendt divides human activity into Labor, Work and Action.  Labor is work done that leaves no trace--factory work, cleaning, cooking.  Work is creating things that endure--furniture, works of art, jewelry.  Action is influencing others.  

When we act, we influence others who have wills and ideas of their own, so we never know what will come of our words.  Leaders persuade people to act but the message strikes each individual in a different way. So what seems a mass from the outside is really individuals, each moved in their own way by the message. In fact some may hear the message and become opponents while others follow. 

Natality, in Arendt's description, brings unique possibilities into the world in the life of every individual.  After reading Arendt, reading Tolstoy's philosophy gave me the same feeling I have when reading Sam Harris and other determinists.  I understand why they believe what they do, but cannot agree.  Natality gives me billions of reasons to know that something new could come into the world begin by one person and change the world, for good or ill.   

In the first epilogue of War and Peace Tolstoy says his book is not a novel.  It's his book, so he can say whatever he wants.  But the story itself is wonderful on its own terms.  The philosophy underneath it does not affect the intricate beauty of the story Tolstoy tells.  If I read it again, I will skip the philosophy and enjoy the story.

The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson. The sole author of 

the most influential document in the history of the world.

The Declaration of Independence 

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

When the Invader Intends Only Evil: War is Right

Sam Harris, noted Atheist, Meditation Guru

In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Jewish atheist meditation guru Sam Harris became one of my rabbis.  In the midst of  tragedy, he spoke calmly and sensibly about the situation in Israel and for Jews in the rest of the world.  

The sexual violence and murder of the Hamas attack was followed by worldwide support for the attackers: and complete silence by women's rights groups. The progressive left, especially on college campuses, defended and exalted Hamas.  Black Lives Matter Chicago used a hang glider like those used by Hamas as a symbol of freedom at a rally days after the attack.

In that moment, Sam Harris said the world could choose between Jihad and civilization. We cannot have both.  As long as Hamas, Boko Haram, ISIS, The Iranian regime, the Houthis and Hezbollah exist, civilization is at risk.  

The proper response to Jihadi terror is war.  

In the past few weeks I have spoken to many people who believe war is always wrong. 

I believe they are wrong.  War is the right response implacable evil.  

War against the Nazis and the Death Cult of Imperial Japan was right. War against Jihad until they have no ability to rape and slaughter is right. 

Right now, Israel is the only nation to make the affirmative choice to fight against armies that have vowed in their founding documents to destroy Israel and kill Jews.  If the Jihadis win, the rest of the civilized world is their eventual target.   

Hamas has lost most of its fighters, but refuses to negotiate, preferring death, especially the death of Gazans other than themselves.  The Houthis attack ships to  close the Red Sea to world trade. Iran threatens to build and use a nuclear weapon.  Hezbollah planned another rape and slaughter attack on Israel but was thwarted recently when Israel killed and maimed thousands of Hezbollah leaders in a series of sabotage attacks.   

For those who do not know what real evil sounds like, Sam Harris posted a transcript of a Hamas murderer bragging about the ten Israelis he killed.

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Another war of necessity against an evil foe who intends destruction of their nation is The War in Ukraine.  Russia invaded Ukraine to carry out a program of Imperial expansion by Vladimir Putin.  

The majority of Americans support Ukraine seeing it as the front line of  a fight against Russian expansion in Europe.  I have supported the Ukrainians in every way I can since the beginning of the invasion.  

In the strategic sense, Ukraine is defending America as it defends itself.  Russia has lost a million soldiers killed and wounded since the war began.  We have sent only weapons to Ukraine. No American soldiers are fighting and dying in Ukraine, only Ukrainians defend their homeland.

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In both wars, if the invaders stop fighting, the wars will end.  If either Israel or Ukraine stops fighting, their nations will cease to exist and their people will be enslaved or killed. 

Every person I spoke to who is against these wars and against all wars said, "Why don't they negotiate?'

Which only makes clear they know nothing of negotiation.  To make a deal, both sides have to have something they will compromise on.

Jihadi terrorists want the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews.  

The ground for compromise is?????

Putin believes Ukraine is not a nation and that he, as ruler of Russia, is the rightful ruler of Ukraine.

The ground for compromise is?????

War, in those circumstances, is right. 

John Fetterman--The Gift That Keeps on Giving to Pennsylvania, America and the Free World

The Pennsylvania delegation at the Ukraine Action Summit visiting Senator John Fetterman

On the second morning of the Ukraine Action Summit in Washington DC, the Pennsylvania delegation visited the office of Senator John Fetterman.  He is unequivocal in his support of Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion and aggression.  

In two days we visited most of the 19 members of the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation.  Fetterman was the most clear and emphatic in his support, as he has been from the first day of the invasion on February 24, 2022.  

This is the fourth summit I have participated in since October of last year. Each time we visit Fetterman's office, I am revitalized in my work as a political activist.  

Much of the work of political activism shows no obvious results. I have been to many protests and marches where I can see no difference before and after.  But the longest protest I was involved in had the wonderful result of opening the door to Fetterman's election to the Senate.  

From November of 2016 to January of 2023, I was part of an intrepid group who showed up in front of the Philadelphia office of Senator Pat Toomey of Pa., year round in all weather.  In 2016, Toomey promised if elected he would have open town hall meetings in Philadelphia.  We started "Tuesdays with Toomey" to hold him to that promise. In our primary goal, we failed.  Toomey never held an open town hall, anywhere.  

But our protests, at every Toomey office across the state, eventually led Toomey to not seek reelection, nor to seek the governorship.  Will Bunch, the politics correspondent at the Philadelphia Inquirer said "implacable opposition" in part led Toomey to decide not to run.  

In a 50-50 state like Pa., incumbency is a real advantage.  Because Toomey decided not to run, Fetterman did not have to run against an incumbent.  And then (thank you Trump) Fetterman did not have to run against a viable candidate.  Trump's pick, Dr. Oz, was the Republican candidate. Fetterman won!  

Fetterman spoke twice at Tuesdays with Toomey in Philadelphia while he was serving as Lieutenant Governor of Pa.  We were delighted when he ran for the Senate, more delighted that we could in some small way contribute to his victory.  

And our reward is all the Senator John Fetterman has done to support Ukraine.

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth

 

I just finished Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby. 

The title is a promise fulfilled.  I have read a lot of Jewish history and listened to more in the dozens of episodes of "The Jewish Story" by the Rav Mike Feuer. 

Every history is selective, Tishby, by design, has to cram decades into sentences and eras into paragraph.  I like what she chose. Particularly, her description of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 showed how complex that disaster was.  When she describes everything the Jews did inside the walls to provoke the Romans and lose the conflict, the disaster seems inevitable.  

On the rise of Ultra Orthodox culture in Israel, she notes that their tradition and weird black hat uniform dress is a product of a 17th Century Eastern European subculture, nothing to do with Torah.  

The book was published before October 7, 2023, so it does not include the slaughter of innocents by Hamas terrorists. In a speech six months after the tragic events, Tishby was very clear in her views.

The speech us below.  I recommend this book as a brief, lucid history of Israel.  

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This is the most challenging speech I’ve ever delivered, but it’s time the world wakes up to what the Jewish community has been saying all along. What we experienced on and since October 7 was sadly, predictable. We’ve warned of the danger of radical Islam or, more accurately, the radical Islamic Nazism that is constantly lurking at Israel’s borders. And we’ve warned of the ongoing grooming of Western civilization – through universities, the media, and social media. We warned what the phrase “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” really looks like. It means “itbach al Yahud” – “slaughter the Jews.” This demonization of Israel is not “progressive”, it’s not peaceful and it absolutely won’t Free Palestine. It is a modern-day blood libel calculated to incite, pave the way for, and then justify - a genocide. We’ve seen it for over three and a half thousand years of Jewish “lived experience”. It’s the generational trauma that is in our bones. We understand it. That, is our “Jewish privilege.” We knew where it would lead, and we are devastated to be proven right. Israel is one of the greatest stories ever told and its vilification is one of the greatest smear campaigns in the history of the world. But we have news for you: when we say Never Again, we mean it. When you tell us you want to kill us, we believe you. And when you set out to do it in the most horrific of ways, we will defeat you. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the families of Israelis and Americans held hostage by the Hamas terrorists and demand they return the hostages now! Bring them home! Above all I am grateful that for the generations to come, the Jewish people will still live, love, and thrive and reach out a hand to the world. And Hamas will be nothing but a footnote in history, just like those who tried to exterminate us before. Am Yisrael Chai

Quoting Hannah Arendt: Not Easy, but No Excuse for Fake Quotes

On Friday, 6 September, the Virtual Reading Group of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, will begin the discussion of "Between Past and Future" first published in 1961. 

Recently, Roger Berkowitz, founder and academic direct of the HAC, wrote an excellent essay about the problem of made up quotes of Hannah Arendt and by extension all authors.  He is right. Read it here. 

Last month an insightful essay on this book was published on the HAC site.  It begins with a quote from Arendt's preface to the work that I marked as "theme" in the margin.  Here is the essay by Mark Aloysius, S.J.

The opening quote on the essay shows why quoting Arendt can be so difficult.  The 70-word sentence has three independent clauses, with three dependent clauses. Reading this sentence made me glad I am old enough to have diagrammed sentences in elementary school. The quote is an entirely appropriate opening for an essay on the HAC web site, but not the kind of thing that would get likes on TikTok or Snapchat. 

Here is the quote:

Seen from the viewpoint of man, who always lives in the interval between past and future, time is not a continuum, a flow of uninterrupted succession; it is broken in the middle, at the point where ‘he’ stands; and ‘his’ standpoint is not the present as we usually understand it but rather a gap in time which ‘his’ constant fighting, ‘his’ making a stand against past and future, keeps in existence.”
(Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. Edited by Jerome Kohn. New York: Penguin Books, 10).

One of my many reasons for being a member of the HAC is the discussions that guide the reading of Arendt's complex thought.  After reading Arendt's preface, I transcribed the paragraph that the above quote is in. The 263-word paragraph has just five sentences. One is a simple16-word sentence quoting William Faulkner.  The other four have 60, 36, 70 and 81 words.  

The relatively snappy 36-word sentence has two dependent clauses.  The closing 81-word sentence has two independent clauses and four dependent clauses.  Arendt was not writing for social media.  

In a decade and a half of reading Arendt, the former ad writer in me has never found her quotable, but I have been able to discuss with enthusiasm what she has said with people who care about the human condition (to make a pun) in all of its complexity.

Here is the paragraph I transcribed:

"The first thing to be noticed is that not only the future—“the wave of the future”—but also the past is seen as a force, and not, as in nearly all our metaphors, as a burden man has to shoulder of whose dead weight the living can or even must get rid of in their march into the future. In the words of Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It is not even the past.” This past, moreover, reaching all the way back into the origin, does not pull back but presses forward, and it is, contrary to what one would expect, the future which drives us back into the past.  Seen from the viewpoint of man, who always lives in the interval between past and future, time is not a  continuum, a flow of uninterrupted succession; it's broken in the middle, at the point where “he” stands; and “his” standpoint is not the present as we usually understand it but rather a gap in time which “his” constant fighting, “his” making a stand against past and future, keeps in existence.  Only because man is inserted into time, and only to the extent that he stands his ground does the flow of indifferent time break up into tenses; it is this insertion—the beginning of a beginning, to put it in Augustinian terms—which splits up the time continuum into forces which then, because they are focused on the particle of the body which gives them their direction, begin fighting with each other and acting upon man in the way Kafka describes."

The (Pot)Hole Story -- Panama is a tough place to ride

 

First Week in Panama--The Daily Downpour

I bought a bike the first full day I was in Panama.  The bike is great. I wrote about it here.    

I quickly got good at dodging the rain. The weather app in my phone that is so reliable in America, is rubbish here. It says it will rain when the sun is shining and it will be cloudy when rain is falling in sheets.   

Rain I could handle.  But the farther I ride, the more I have to contend with potholes.  On a descent a few miles from the city, I hit a hole so deep it flatted the tire and tore a hole in it.  I wrote about that here.  

And the holes deep enough to flatten a tire are everywhere.  It's not so bad riding uphill, but downhill, I have to scan for holes the whole way! I'm riding the brakes and very focused--not having fun feeling the wind.  It's surely safer to roll down hills on high alert hands on the brake hoods, but it's not fun. 

On the way up the hills, the holes are no problem, but even riding the white stripe at the edge of the tarmac, buses and trucks have to move around me.  One the main roads in and out of the city, there are no shoulders.  

When there are shoulders, another hazard appears at random--sewers without covers.  Some of these uncovered drains are big enough to swallow a whole wheel, not just flat a tire.  I told a local guy about this. He shrugged and said people steal the covers and sell them for the metal.  When there is a shoulder, I ride just off the roadway and scan for the uncovered drain.  

I've been riding every day here, but my rides are getting shorter and are on roads where I have memorized the holes and know the hazards.  On Labor Day I will return to the US until mid November.  

When I return, I will have Gatorskin tires and be looking for weekend groups to ride with.  Right now, I'm feeling like the cocodrillo in the photo below is waiting in holes on every road here.

 

Why the West Rules — For Now: A Review by The New York Times

Why the West Rules — For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

by Ian Morris 

A friend recommended I read "Why the West Rules--For Now" and I was delighted with this long history of the entire world.  This is my kind of book, so I was predisposed to like it. Other books in this genre I love:

• Sapiens, Yuval Harari
• Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
• Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson
• These Truths,  Jill Lepore
• Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall

A one-volume history of all or part of the history of the world is ambition incarnate. When a historian can assert: Here is the history of the world (or a large slice of it) and make a good case, it is both interesting and opens a hundred interesting questions.  

Ian Morris writes about the history of the East and the West in parallel. At the time the book was published they looked to be converging. A decade and a half later the West retained economic leadership, but the world is much more fragmented and dangerous than in 2010.  

I am going to read more of Morris starting with "Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels" published in 2015.  I have read at least one other book by all the other authors in my  list above, but the one in the list is my favorite, so far.   

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"The Final Conflict" a review by Orville Schell

Dec. 10, 2010

This is a big “big book.” To accomplish his ambitious goal of both understanding the evolution of mankind’s past development and prognosticating the future of the continuing East-West horse race, Ian Morris starts around 15 millenniums ago. That’s a lot of history.

With such a grand design, “Why the West Rules — For Now” suggests the pretension of those Imperial Chinese encyclopedists who produced works like the Qing dynasty’s “Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings From the Earliest to Current Times,” which sought to document “everything under heaven” in its 800,000 pages. It is hardly surprising that China, which has recently stolen up behind the “developed world” to threaten its supremacy (and all its common wisdom about development models), sits at the center of Morris’s book.

A British-born archaeologist, classicist and historian now at Stanford University, Morris is the historians’ equivalent of those physicists who search for a still elusive unified field theory. In his new book, he sets out to discover broad patterns, “the overall ‘shape’ of history,” by sifting through the world’s long development process. Following the oscillating forces from prehistory to the present, he shows how both the East and West managed to catalyze themselves at different times and in different ways to progressively new heights of development. But his ultimate challenge is to make sense of all these cycles of rise and fall, the better to judge whether either side was in possession of any innate superiority. His answer to that question is an emphatic no. East and West, he tells us, are just “geographical labels, not value judgments.”

If neither East nor West has had any innate developmental advantage, what then allowed the West to propel itself forward so successfully in the 18th century (answer: the discovery of fossil fuels), and what does that dominance portend for the future? “One of the reasons people care about why the West rules,” Morris explains, “is that they want to know whether, how long and in what ways this will continue — that is, what will happen next. . . . How long the West will stay on top is a burning question.”

But before you get to the answer, you must be ready to steel yourself for Morris’s early chapters, which nonspecialists will no doubt find arcane. His discussions of primitive man’s common African gene pool; of how the “Hilly Flanks” in the Middle East developed after the Ice Age; and of China’s ancient Zhou dynasty can seem awfully remote. And as he visits ancient places like Urartu, Erlitou, Tenochtitlán, Uluburun and Yue; introduces us to individuals like Hoshea, Tiglath-Pileser III, Khusrau II, Merneptah and Zhu Xi; or sets us down among the Ahhiyawans, Xiongnu, Kizzuwatnans, Hurrians and Jur­chens, your head may begin to spin.

However, just as you begin to wobble beneath the breadth of such impressive research, Morris will pull back and give a brief coda of down-to-earth clarification, rescuing those readers with the will to soldier on through a few more millenniums. Or he will drop in a welcome wry aside to goad you down the trail of history. Commenting on the Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He, he notes that Zheng “was enlisted in the emperor’s service and castrated,” but nonetheless “seems to have taken all this in his enormous stride.” Or, on the discovery of the Americas, he observes, “Europe got a new continent and Native Americans got smallpox.”

Fortunately, Morris is a lucid thinker and a fine writer. He uses a minimum of academic jargon and is possessed of a welcome sense of humor that helps him guide us through this grand game of history as if he were an erudite sportscaster. He shows us how different empires were boosted by periods of “axial thought” to surge up the development ladder, only to crumble upon hitting a “hard ceiling,” usually inflicted by what he calls the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse: climate change, migration, famine, epidemic and state failure.

But failure of one civilization only allowed another to arise somewhere else. The Roman Empire, Song dynasty China, Renaissance Europe and the Britain of the Industrial Revolution came along, got lift under their wings from new technology, social innovation or a creative organizing principle and pushed the whole process of development forward another notch.

According to Morris’s scorecard, since this age-old process began, the world index of social development has risen to 900 points. And, he predicts, in the next 100 years this index will rise an additional 4,000 points. He calls such progress “staggering.”

But with the West’s power and confidence now declining, and China’s authoritarian form of capitalism ripsawing its way toward an ever more dominant position in the world, a reader may be forgiven for becoming somewhat impatient. Is Morris ever going to answer the “burning question”? Who will win the next phase of our East-West horse race, the United States or China?

Finally, Morris surprises us. He duly acknowledges that “patterns established in the past suggest that the shift of wealth and power from West to East is inexorable” and that we may even be moving from “bankrupt America to thriving China.” But what really concerns him, it turns out, is not whether the West may be bested by the East, but whether mankind’s Promethean collective developmental abilities may not end up being our common undoing.

The competition that East and West have been pursuing for so long, Morris warns, is about to be disrupted by some powerful forces. Nuclear proliferation, population growth, global epidemics and climate change are in the process of radically altering old historical patterns. “We are approaching the greatest discontinuity in history,” he says.

Sounding suddenly more like an admonishing preacher than the amiable sportscaster to whom we have grown accustomed, Morris counsels that we now need to concentrate not on the old competition between East and West, but on a choice. We must decide between what Morris, borrowing from the writer Ray Kurzweil, terms “the Singularity,” salvation through the expansion of our collective technological abilities, and “Nightfall,” an apocalypse from the old Five Horsemen aided by their new accomplices. He warns that this choice offers “no silver medal.” One alternative “will win and one will lose.” We are, he insists, “approaching a new hard ceiling” and are facing a completely new kind of collective historical turning point.

For the Singularity to win out, “everything has to go right,” Morris says. “For Nightfall to win only one thing needs to go wrong. The odds look bad.”

Because distinctions of geography are becoming increasingly irrelevant, Morris views the old saw that “East is East and West is West” as a catastrophic way of looking at our present situation. Like it or not, East and West are now in a common mess, and “the next 40 years will be the most important in history.”

Although he implies it everywhere, Morris does not explicitly call for the United States and China to find new ways to collaborate. There may be no other solution. But will the leaders of these two unpredictable countries be able to rise to the unprecedented challenge they face? Not even Morris’s polymathic research abilities and pathbreaking analytic skills can help us answer that . . . for now.

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Illustrated. 750 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $35

Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, is writing a historical interpretation of China’s economic boom.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 12, 2010, Page 19 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: The Final Conflict.