Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The Amalfi Coat is a Beautiful Place

Its hills are as high as ever, I am sure. But the Amalfi Restaurant in Rockville has gone downhill, it would seem. Years ago, we had consistently good food there, but Sunday night, the most descriptively accurate word would be 'mediocre'. Is this typical? Was the kitchen staff having a bad day, or celebrating an August vacation? Have our expectations changed, or our taste buds?

We may never find out.

Graham Hancock (45 cents)

The only thing that is not top rate about www.grahamhancock.com is that sometimes you want to print out an article and you get a blank page. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe everyone else can print everything out.

I decided to make this website my homepage on Explorer (I use www.drudgereport.com on Firefox). Every day, they pull together interesting articles about archeology or ancient history. Just today, for example, they have articles (full articles, or at least links to full articles) on studies showing that prehistoric birds might have attacked early humans for food (a study done at Ohio State University); a study posted in Neuroscience Letters that concludes that there is no single part of the brain designed for communication with God (I had never even considered that possibility)(a University of Montreal study); a 2700 year old Saxon belt buckle, very rare, found by a treasure hunter with a metal detector outside of London and given to the Museum of London; a story of 10,000 year old sandals found in Oregon and to be shown in an upcoming National Geographic story on footwear; an article from Australia talking about the discovery of a fossil of a fish with lung capacity which appears to be about 400 million years old, suggesting that fish started to come onto land a long time ago; findings by a Spanish university that suggests that Mayan civilization began to decline when they discovered that there kings were not gods; 3000 year old tombs have been found in Jilin Province in China; the Vatican is not satisfied that the new form of developing stem cells, without killing embryos, is ethical; an article on the continuing debate about whether small skeletons found in Indonesia denote a different form of homenoid, a kind of hobbit; Japanese research that shows bacteria and microbes can be used to power very small machines; Neanderthals had aspects of creativity; and the ruins of Lebanon did not seem to be harmed by the recent war. And it is like that every day!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Cosi's (ten cents)

Heard yesterday at Cosi's Dupont Circle. A young man walks up to the sandwich counter, and says, with no trace of emotion or irony, "A tuna cheddar please. But with no cheese."

Sunday, August 27, 2006

this is a test.

Forward! Wait a Moment! (14 cents)

It has been a while, since I reported either on the weekly "Forward" or the bimonthly "Moment", so I thought I would set this down so you can see what you have been missing.

The Forward edition (August 25) was a very interesting one. Look at this.

1. Senator George Allen of VA is Jewish? (His mother, French-Tunisian, was undoubtedly Jewish by birth? She came from a long Portuguese Sephardic family. She could not be married in the Catholic Church (Allen's parents were married by a Justice of the Peace at a Jewish friend's house).

2. Should Israel (and the U.S.) start conversations with Syria? Pro: the Syrians are the gateway for Hezbollah arms into Lebanon. Pro: Hamas' home office is in Damascus. Con: there go the Golan Heights.

3. Are Israeli and American policies too much in lockstep, to the detriment of both?

4. What about Gunter Grass and his revelation that he was an SS member as a very young boy? Has he atoned through his writing (and in fact without this experience, would he have become the novelist he is, and concentrating on morals and ethics, as he has)? Or should the Nobel, or other prizes, be taken from him? Is he the prime example, and one of the last, of Germany coming to terms with its Nazi past?

5. Why is Chabad the first Jewish movement to open synagogues in fast growing, newer suburbs?

6. How about all the scandals hitting Israeli political and religious leaders? Mostly, they are personal (claims of sexual harrassment, etc, and include the president and the two chief rabbis)? Only one involves governmental activity, a claim of improper activity by Knesset member when he was in charge of the environmental policy of the country.

7. Dedication of Al Jolson Way on W 51st St in NYC.

8. Shaun Green, Jewish ball player, now a Met.

9. Is the push for inquiry of failures of the recent war in Lebanon too political to be counted on for reliable answers?

10. The Rabbinic Assembly (modern Orthodox rabbis in USA) put out a statement saying that Israel should not be so protective of civilians during war; clearly Hezbollah was not, and war is war, and Jewish law and tradition does not demand this care or concern. Yuck.

11. The Republican Jewish contender for senator in Connecticut, running now against both Lieberman and Lamont, has only 5% of the vote. Why?

12. The market recently bombed in Moscow is owned by Azerbaijani Jews. Was it an underworld bombing?

13. The two AIPAC officials accused of giving Israel confidential information. A recent court ruling has said that it must be shown that release of the information was against US interests (may not be able to be shown). The information was of the dangerous situation developing in Iran. Michael Berenbaum, in an op-ed piece, asks if their problem wasn't really that they were right, but too early, as the US government was still then in the mode of showing that Iraq, not Iran, was the bigger concern?

14. Reviews of two new books on the former Jewish community of Salonika, Greece, a major center of Jewish life for 400 years.

15. A fascinating new book on the history of various Hasidic leaders who broke away from the movement, committed suicide, converted, etc. The book is in Hebrew, written by the head of the Jewish history department at Tel Aviv University, and attempts to bring to light repressed information that has been distorted by both Hasidic historians and their non-Hasidic opponents. The book is being sold here only under the counter, and has created a firestorm of comment.

16. A list of 28 fiction books, set in Israel. Recommended reading. The books have been published over the past 30 years or so.

17. An article about Lorenzo da Ponte, librettisist for Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, and Don Giovanni. A fascinating story. Da Ponte is now the subject of an exhibit at Vienna's Jewish Museum.

And now Moment:

1. The War in Iraq. Good or bad for the Jews. (not very enlightening)

2. Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager. His story.

3. Conversos in Mexico. Fascinating.

4. Interesting article by Menachem Rosensaft, who learned of his mother's exploits during the Holocaust, after her death.

and more.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

A Rare Gift from CVS (7 cents)

I stopped at the Van Ness CVS store on the way to the office to pick up a small notebook, which was marked 89 cents. I took it to the register, the clerk (the sales associate? the partner?) put in a number and out popped 99 cents.

Obviously not a big difference, but I mentioned it and we went back to the shelf to see if I had read it correctly. 89 cents.

The store manager happened to be in the same aisle; she asked how she should handle this, since she had already rung up the sale (and I had already paid the 99 cents, along with 6 cents for the District), and he said: "Just give him back a quarter."

I said that the difference is only 10 cents, but the clerk said, "that's ok, take the quarter".

A rare gift from CVS.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Don't lose your focus

Several years ago, during another D.C. mayoral primary campaign,, one of the second string candidates, who lived not far from us, was himself putting up posters on telephone poles. He came to the pole at our corner and I happened to be in the yard, and he came up to me and introduced himself and told me he was running for mayor. Of what city?, I asked. D.C., he said, looking at me as if I were a little dense. Then, pardon me, I said, why are you wearing that T-shirt that says "I Love Boston"?

Well tonight, at the forum for D.C. mayoral candidates at the DC JCC, we lingered a bit talking to friends. When we left, there was someone at the front door handing out brochures for Michael Brown. But in his other hand, he held a bag of two oranges, the gift (and campaign symbol) of candidate Vincent Orange.

We went to see the five primary candidates, because we did not know who to vote for. We still don't.

Adrian Fenty arrived an hour late and left an hour early. Council chair Linda Cropp left early, and arrived almost on time. Orange, Brown and Marie Johns stuck it out the hwole time, with Johns coming early enough to shmooze at the reception, Brown sticking around long enough to shake the hands of the lingerers, and Orange sticking around outside even longer, giving out oranges. "Please take them so they don't go to waste."

Who won the forum? Hard to say. Who lost it? Fenty. I think I am going to vote for Orange. Sure, sometimes he says a little too much, but I think he is bright, and appears dedicated, and I believe he understands the city's finances. My wife thinks I am nuts. But Oranges and nuts don't make a bad combination.

Of course, one of the winners will undoubtedly be Fenty or Cropp. Sorry, cannot vote for either one. Cropp has had too many high level positions (council chair, school board president) not to be part of the problem. Fenty is the Al D'Amato (Senator Pothole from New York) of Washington; he is apparently great on constituent service. But that does not translate, for a 35 year old, to being able to administer a city.

Or perhaps it is just that I cannot vote for a candidate who might win.

Mah Nishtanah ha-election hazeh mi-kol ha-elections?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

fhgurytogjhwhtughks[-htf ee=a (90 cents)

You probably have already figured this out, but we spent yesterday at the National Cryptography Museum.

You find it off Maryland Rte 32, just before you get to Ft. Meade. It is on the grounds of NSA, the National Security Agency, which has quite a large set up, with glass office buildings (people who work in glass office buildings shouldn't throw stones) and parking lots and everything. With all that is there, you would think that they could accomplish a lot more than they seem to.

You know that you are in dangerous territory when you see three unmarked cars splayed across the road with uniformed be-rifled men staring at your and waving you to stop. He looked at me, and I at him. I blinked first and said: "We are going to the museum". He asked if we knew how to get there, and when we didn't he told us. Then he said, "let me see your driver's license". I got it out, held it to him, but not closely enough so he could possibly see it, he didn't write anything down, he just said OK, go on.

Now, I ask you, what was that about?

The museum has several rooms, and enough stuff in it for many more. It is crammed, walls floor to ceiling, cubicles, everywhere. It has some very interesting stuff, like an entire collection of German Enigma machines, and stuff about satellite spying, and encryptions done by Pitney Bowes on its postage machines, and how Japanese spies worked, and how they found out Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White and David Greenglass (and his sister, Ethel R.). Pictures of cryptographers (all very smart), Cray computers that took up rooms, Kremlin-White House hotline telephones. Everything. And a lot of words to explain it.

We had a docent tour. Our docent was formerly with SpecOps. He must have been about 80. (As we left, a friend of his came in the building and seemed very surprised to see him there. "I thought you only work Mondays", he said. Our guide was nonplussed, thinking that he was getting old and made a terrible mistake. It took them both some time to realize that it was Monday. I was not fooled; I knew all along.)

It's hard to explain our docent. It was like his speech was encrypted. The words were English, but I couldn't understand what he was saying half the time. Sentences seem to abruptly stop, many phrases to early. He would go from topic to topic, but appeared to think that he was staying right on point.

In fact, he was very much like a comic book character. "And the Japanese encryption was easy to break, and what then? WHAM!!" or "And you know what happened when they figured out where we were? WHOOSH! BAM! BLONG!" That sort of thing.

But how much of what we learned was true? These guys are taught to lie, right? For the sake of our country? Give out false information. That sort of thing.

Maybe nothing in the museum was accurate. Maybe those machines weren't Enigmas. Maybe "WHOOSH! BAM! BLONG!" really only means: read Arthurthinks.blogspot.com.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Indian Food

Recently, I wrote about the excellent meal we had at Jyota in Adams Morgan. This evening, we found ourselves in Laurel MD at supper time, and stopped at India Gate, a restaurant in a small shopping center on Route 1. We knew nothing about the restaurant, but had a good feeling looking at its salmon and aqua interior.

We ordered fairly simply. Onion pakora and a Kingfisher to start. An okra dish and a mushroom dish, along with Roti to finish. The food was absolutely, just right. we would go back and, if it is as good the second time, keep going back.

The chef is from Punjab. The sign says that all the meet is hallal, although the restaurant seems Hindu, not Moslem. But they must know their target market.
Our waiter was from Nepal. He told us that everything in Nepal is OK, although some people don't like living in an absolute kingdom. But he says that the riots and occasional Maoist uprisings don't really affect normal life. I asked him when he was in Nepal last; he told me it has been about five years. He may go back soon for a visit he said, but (perhaps forgetting his conversation three minutes earlier) said that he hestitated to go now, with all the political problems. Why should he put himself in harm's way?

Go figure.

More on Figaro

The Washington Times also gave the voices (and especially Susanna and the Countess) a good review, and I thought the reviewer had it right, when he said that the whole was less than the sum of its parts, and that he thought that the conductor did not have good control of the musicians or the stage. He thought more rehearsal would have helped. Perhaps

This past weekend.....

1. We had hoped to go away, but the weather report was unsettled, so we stayed put. The weather was beautiful.

2. We were at home most of Saturday as we were having our yard and garden cleaned and totally deweeded, ivy pulled from over our fences, and all sorts of other stuff in preparation for an outdoor re-do. It actually took 2 full days for a crew to do this and mulch and clean up. They did a terrific job.

3. Saturday night we had a light meal sitting outside at the Tavern on the Lake on Reston's Lake Anne. Very pleasant. Nice food.

4. Then we went to see 'The Marriage of Figaro' at Wolf Trap with friends, and we saw several others at the opera. It was the Wolf Trap Company. The voices were very good, but I felt there lacked the oomph and excitement the opera needed. I thought that might be because of where we were sitting (balcony, center, 9 rows back), or because the orchestra was not quite up to par (tempo was good, but it lacked something), or because the stage was too big for the opera, or the sets too weak. Today's Post review was very positive, agreeing with me that the two female leads, playing Susanna (Maureen McKay) and the Countess (Ailyn Perez) were the best. I thought Perez had the better sound, but McKay's voice was augmented by her superior acting and charisma. But I would not have rated the performance as highly as Stephen Brookes did. Although he agreed with me about the set: "looked like it was banged together from old building scraps, given a fresh coat of dirt, and...littered with department store closeout furniture."

5. Sunday was also pretty quiet. At 4:30 we left for Baltimore, where we took our 80+ year old friends to supper. They keep kosher, but said that they would order fish or vegetarian anywhere. They are getting a little slow, and I wanted to find a place that looked to be elderly-friendly, and I chose (from a drive by only) the Olive Branch, the restaurant of the Ramada Inn on Reisterstown Road, near the Beltway. It is very big, and very crowded (not just overnighters by far), but the menu turned out, for us, to be very limited as most things are served with shrimp. Like the salmon special: "it comes with linguini and shrimp. we can't do it any other way. it's a special". That kind of thing. As to the quality of what we ate. Not too high. I'd give it a C-.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

What happened at the Trover Shop?

No one, absolutely no one, asked! (Maybe you are all on vacation?)

Well here goes -

I walk into the Trover Shop on Capital Hill, something I have done maybe two times before in my life. It is a Tuesday and it is lunch time.

I look at the books on the shelf, and try to decide whether to by an autographed copy of Senator Ted Kennedy's new book. I decide against it.

A woman comes in the shop. She is dressed very well. I would guess her to be about 70. She walks with erect posture.

She goes to the counter and asks the salesman if he has a copy of A.A. Milne's 'Now We Are Six". He looks it up in his catalog and says that he does not, but could order it quickly. She says that would be fine.

He goes into his computer and asks whether she would want a soft cover copy or a hard cover copy. She asks the price difference. The hardcover is more than three times as expensive. She says: let's take the hardcover. My grandson will only be six one time.

You note that so far, everything is fine. Nothing annoying has happened.

The salesman goes back to the computer to start the order process. She looks straight ahead and without missing a beat starts reciting the book. From cover to (I assume) cover.

Like Homer reciting the Iliad, or a Moslem the Koran, she goes on and on and on. And the book is such nonsense, especially to hear on a Tuesday lunchtime at the Capitol Hill Trover Shop.

Now, aren't you sorry, you didn't ask?

Friday, August 18, 2006

Most Annoying (11 cents0

1. Mosquitos

2. The lady at the Trover Shop

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Little Miss Sunshine is a loser.

A Chevy Chase-like comedy about a little girl who wins a statewide and enters a national beauty/talent contest, and her talent (taught by her recently deceased raunchy grandfather) is strip tease.

It starts out very, very cute and funny and, after about twenty minutes, heads downhill very rapidly for the next hour and a half or so.

It is not at all worth seeing, EXCEPT FOR one extraordinary thing:

Uncle Frank, the suicidal Proust scholar, who joins our heroine's family to recover from his unsuccessful romance, is played by the same actor who played President Ahmadinajad on the Mike Wallace 60 Minutes interview!!!

No wonder, Iran is doing such a good media-relations job. Their president is a Hollywood supporting actor.

We win, you lose

Back when the Vietnam war was going very badly, Senator Aiken of Vt. said "let's just call it a victory and pull our troops out." A good idea but it didn't work.

Hezbollah and Iran are rejoicing in the Hezbollah victory (so-called) in Lebanon, but unlike Senator Aiken, they appear to be unwilling to pull their troops out.

They in fact make much more sense. How do you celebrate a victory, and then retreat?

This war is not yet over.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Ahmadinajad. By George, I got it (maybe) (10 cents)

Last night's TV was surreal. C-Span showed a rebroadcast of Sunday Night's 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace interviewing Ahmadinajad. The interview was about 30 minutes. Then, they showed the full interview (without cuts), which ran about 60 minutes. Then, they had a call in show, but only for a few minutes, where almost everyone seemed to think that Ahmadinajad seemed like an OK kind of guy ("even if I don't agree with what he says all the time'), but Mike Wallace was a boob. If this is not surreal, what is?

In the first place, Ahmadinajad is America's sworn enemy. But here is he having a almost friendly interview with Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace is 88 years old. Ok, so he looks 70, and is willing to fly to Tehran of all places to interview Ahmanijad. And they both sit there, and smile at each other. It doesn't make any difference what they were saying; the important thing is that they were smiling, and no one raised their voice (or even their eyebrows) and it looked like they were old buddies sitting around having a beer.

Now, when you are 88 years old, and have a yellow pad in front of you, and are in Iran, you don't need to be a brilliant questioner to get the red badge of courage. And, truth be told, Wallace's questions were not always on point, and his follow up, where it existed, was weak. I mean real weak, things like "are you being serious?". That is not good follow up.

And his interrogatoree was well prepared. He knew how many Americans were in prison and who lacked health insurance. He knew exactly how to sound like an American liberal.

Not where Israel is concerned of course. There he was adamant, but he had no solution. And the Israeli's? He likes them well enough, just not their government or their country. They can go somewhere else - like Europe or the USA. Just not on 'other peoples' land'.

He was good at finessing the embarassing questions, and the follow-ups let him escape with his finessing. It was a coup for the Iranian.

The C-Span callers also focused on Wallace's sometime petulance, and his treating Ahmadinajad rather informally. "I think he needs to be shown more respect; he is the president of their country." Come on, callers!! Show him respect? Surreal.

A lot will be written about this. The Wall Street Journal had a couple of good, and contrasting articles today, one concluding that Wallace did a good job, but that Ahmadinajad is just a media master. I think that is going too far. The other saying that Wallace did not ask the hard questions, and giving a list of them, mostly very specific ones about horrific happenings in the country.

That may be accurate, but it misses the point. This was not about substance. This was about 'getting the interview' (to paraphrase McLuan, the interview was the message) and secondly to entertain (both Wallace, a/k/a CBS, and the Iranian president wanted entertainment value, for their own purposes).

Ahmadinajad is a horrible person. Unfortunately, we will find that out more and more as time goes on. Hopefully, we will be able to do something about it. But it seems like many Americans won't believe that. Like Uncle Joe Stalin, and the early Adolph Hitler, too many of us will conclude that he can't be all bad, he even spends "quality time" with his three children.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

It's Sunday night again

It just doesn't seem right that I have to go to work on Mondays, does it?

Saturday started off with a venture to the Aquatic Gardens on Kenilworth Avenue. In this unlikely spot exists perhaps the prettiest sight (site?) in the District of Columbia, the view of the Anacostia Marsh and River from the end of the Acquatic Gardens boardwalk. Saturday did not disappoint, and the two egrets sitting out on an island were a nice plus. Of course, before you get to the boardwalk, you must stroll through the lilly pads and lotus swamps. This is a good time of the year to see them in pretty full bloom; a few weeks ago might have been better. And, because the day was so nice, a third species was prevalent: the tripods, each with a camera on top, and a patient, laden down photographer in close contact. We went with our pocket digitals, and liked our pictures. Would they be that much better if we had all that equipment?

We then went to the memorial to those men who lost their lives on the Titanic in 1912, saving the lives of women and children. The Christ like figure on a pedestal was sponsored by the 'women of America'. It is located in Washington. Anyone know where?

We had lunch at W Domku. No, we did not take a commuter flight to Warsaw. W Domku is, of all places, on Upshur between 8th and 9th. An eclectic mixture of eastern European menu items, served in a modern, light filled, informal setting. We did not over order; everything was good. We would especially recomment the carrot/ginger soup (with a good tang of ginger) and the three kinds of herring, each one smoother than the other (that probably is a logical impossibility).

Supper was at RFK, where we went with our New York houseguests to see the Mets beat the Nats. The score was 6-4; could have just as easily been the other way.

Today started off with a nice walk (with a bagel and good cup of coffee at its northernmost end), and a romp in the garden (if you can call it that), where I pulled enough weeds to fill at least one Dempsey Dumpster. Then for the most part a quet day at home, where I got to work on some of my many projects, followed by a trip to the gym where, while on the cross trainer, I read the finals parts (well, OK, I finished it at home) of Erik Larson's "Isaac's Storm", a book that came out in 1999, and dealt with the hurricane/flood that hit Galveston Texas and killed over 3000 in 1900. It is a very well written book, and a very quick read, and tells you not only about the Galveston storm, but about others over the centuries that have created havoc around the world, and about the vagaries of weather forecasting and weather forecasting politics. Yes, there is such a thing, most notably that the United States, when it took Cuba from Spain, set up its own weather station in Havana, not wanting to rely on the much more proficient Cuba forecasters and, to show its superiority, forbade the Cubans from transmitting any forecasts to the states. American arrogance hasn't changed much, has it?

Friday, August 11, 2006

The Appearance of Janey Jones (ten cents)

Well, the name of the play is "The Disappearance of Janey Jones", but for us, since we had not seen it previously, it was more an appearance, than the opposite. Hannah was the dramaturg on this new play by young playwright Jennifer Fawcett, a graduate playwriting student at the University of Iowa. It is being performed 6 times at the Hatchery Festival (hatching new playwrights) at the D.C. Arts Center in Adams Morgan. It opened last night.

I did not know what to expect, since this is clearly a low budget operation, and not one that is very well known. The small black box theater was sold out (which surprised me) but it was the one act, 90 minute play that surprised me more. A grandmother who struggles with bipolarity for most of her life, a granddaughter with the same "disease" or "problem" (depending on which character is describing it) and a mother in the middle, who is just fed up. The granddaughter is 28, but her 8 year old self is also a character in the play, and they come in contact with each other (sharing the same room as they do, as well as the same mother and grandmother). "I don't want to grow up like you" says that 8 year old; "but you will" says her 28 year old self.

Moving back and forth generation to generation, sometimes with two time periods existing not parallel to each other but in synchronicity with each other.

Very well acted, especially the grandmother (who in real life is probably 28) and the 8 year old (who is also about the same age). In fact, the entire cast seemed to be about 28. And the entire audience.

Before the show, we had supper at Jyota, the Indian restaurant in Adams Morgan, which I have used quite often as a carry out restaurant. The owner/my friend was not there (perhaps on vacation), and the food (tanduri salmon, lamb something, black lentil dal, and eggplant (made from peeled eggplants and much milder than most Indian eggplant dishes). It was very, very good. Each and every dish.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I Quit (1 cent)

I quit reading Anita Desai's "Journey to Ithaca" and I quit reading Virginia Dawson and Betty Wilson's "The Shape of Sunday".

So what are you gonna do about it?

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Blackie/Black's (five cents)

It used to be Blackie Auger who had a group of restaurants around town, the most significant being Blackie's on 22nd Street NW. Blackies closed last year.

Now it is Blacks. (I am not sure if there is a Mr. or Ms. Black). They have a restaurant in Rockville, one in Garrett Park, one on McArthur in NW DC, and now a recently remodeled Blacks in Bethesda, where we ate last night.

Absolutely first class.

And, although I don't usually say this: don't skip the deserts. (I had a cherry dessert, which had fresh cherries, cherry sorbet, a cherry cake, a cherry flan, and some sugary wafers; and it was not too much).

It was a birthday dinner for Michelle.

The Seminole Negro

By chance, I picked up a copy of Jeff Guinn's "Our Land Before We Die", the story of the Seminole Negro, and learned a lot about a small group of people with a unique story.

Basically, there were runaway slaves who escaped to Spanish Florida in the early 1800s and would up living near and working with the Seminole Indians there. Their status became precarious when Florida became part of the United States (for obvious reasons), and when the Seminoles, or the majority of them, were moved to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), the Seminole Negroes went with them as part of the tribe. In Indian Territory, the Seminole were forced to live in close proximity to their near relatives, the Creeks, with whom they got along not at all, and everyone was at risk of attack by the warrior Commanche and Apaches. And the Seminole Negroes were also at risk from slavers, who viewed them simply as runaways.

The Seminole Negroes were given the unique opportunity to resettle in Mexico (this was shortly after the U.S. Mexican War, Texas had just become a state, and there was still conflict on the Texas/Mexico border, if they would assist the Mexicans in guarding the border. They went on foot on the 700 mile journey, a story itself filled with danger and hardship, and lived for a period of time outside of this country.

Following the Civil War, the majority of them returned to the United States, being promised their own land in Indian Territory if they would first work as Indian scouts for the Army in Texas. They were settled in Texas and apparently were very successful scouts and fighters for the Americans, but wanted to return north. In the meantime, the Seminoles (whose relationship with the Seminole Negro was, to put it mildly, always troubled) had signed a treaty with the U.S. government to obtain land in what is now Oklahoma, identifying as Seminole those who were members of the tribe, or descendants of members, in 1823, before the Negroes were given tribal membership in Florida.

The Negroes were then stuck in Texas, their services as scouts no longer needed (the Commanches being no longer a danger), and they were evicted from their military base housing and left to fend for themselves.

Descendants of the Seminole Negroes still live in and around Bracketville Texas, and when Guinn, a Ft. Worth journalist, started to write this story almost ten years ago, he had two community elders and one South Texas historian to rely on. By the time he finished, the historian had died, and the 90+ year old matriarch and former school teacher, Miss Charles, had Alzheimers (she died in July of this year). His book, which won a Texas history book prize, is story of the Seminole Negroes to be sure, but also the story of how he got the story.

A very interesting book to read.

Lack of Critical Thinking (1 cent)

The morning call-in show on CSPAN today was on attitudes towards the United States as experienced by Americans traveling abroad this summer. Most of the callers were quite interesting. One, who had spent time in Cairo, said, among other things that Egyptians wonder why "there is not more critical thinking done by Americans". What an interesting question.

That brought me to critical thinking about George Bush and his war on terror, and spefically about Iraq. So far, what has happened is that Saddam Hussein has been deposed, and the entire country (if you can call it that) has been put at great risk of civil war between Sunnis (minority Muslims formerly on top of the heap in Saddam days), Kurds (who would love nothing better than their own country), and Shiite Arabs (who share hatred of the Sunnis with the Kurds, and who are religiously allied with Shiite, non-Arab Iran).

In Saddam days, after the Iran-Iraq War (Sunni led vs. Shiite), and the Gulf War, the Kurds and the Shiites were protected by a no-fly zone controlled by the United States. Now, they will be subject to a government which is Shiite led (if there will ever be a truly functioning government), and which will clearly be under Iranian influence.

So, the major effect of George Bush's war on terror in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran and the Shiites, so that they will control Iran, Iraq and (through Hezbollah) Lebanon, at least. George Bush has done more for Iran than any Iranian leader could ever have done by himself.

Therefore, those who are pleased with Bush's war on terror in Iraq, and who believe that we are just going over some inevitable bumps in the road, have not engaged, in my opinion, in sufficient critical thinking. The war on terror has made things worse.

Not only for this country, but for geographically perilous Israel, of course, whose leaders and populace may also have lacked in the critical thinking department. For Ahmedjihad (or whatever his name may be; I like the one I use)is cleverly posing himself as a friend of the Arabs (of course, using Shiite brotherhood), and doing so by being more more anti-Israel than even the Palestinians, again in order to increase Iranian hegemony over the entire area.

This is bad, bad, bad.

Monday, August 07, 2006

You look familiar, but who are you? (2 cents)

Remember when the U.S. refused to recognize Red China? Herblock (or maybe it was Bill Mauldin) had a cartoon in the Washington or St. Louis Post, showing State Department official Chester Bowles (one of my favorites)giving Congressional testimony to a Congressman, who was standing with a pointer in front of a wall map of the world. Well, almost the world, because while Russia and India ended the map to the East, Japan ended it to the West. The Congressman was pointing to the wall to the West of Japan, and saying: "Now tell me again, Mr. Bowles. What do you think is here at the end of the world?"

One of the first things that was done to end our stalemate with the mainland Chinese was, of course, to recongize the country. Had this not been done, what a mess we would be in today.

So, let's go to the middle east.

It seems obvious to me (only me?) that as long as middle eastern countries do not recognize Israel, the problems will continue. As long as the Arab boycott of Israeli goods (and secondary boycott of those who trade with Israel) continues, the problems won't get better.

So, in addition to everything else that is being bandied about by the U.N., by NATO, by the G-8 and who knows who else, shouldn't one requirement be that all of the countries in the regions recognize each other? If its middle east neighbors are forced to recognize Israel, and exchange ambassadors and do all those other things that countries do, things have to get better, not worse. Isn't this something that the U.N. should be able to require of its member nations???? Seems obvious to me.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Seven Hours (25 cents)

We spent seven hours at the National Gallery of Art today, from 11 until 6. Time passed quickly.

1. The Henri Rousseau Exhibit. Rousseau's paintings, in person, look very naive and primitive, without detailed attention paid to perspective or sizing. Yet, they are not unpleasant and, particularly the jungle paintings, are fanciful enough to overcome their other shortcomings. Rousseau himself seems to have been a sad character. Born in France in the mid-1800s, he was married twice, and saw five of his seven children die before adulthood, as well as his two wives (one at 37, the other at 51). His working career was spent as a customs agent, a job from which he retired at 49 with an insufficient pension, to enable himself to spend his time painting. He was an untrained painter, and for most of his life ignored. Yet some artists (like Picasso) thought highly of him, and one of the highlights of his life was the party Picasso threw for him, inviting other well known artists of Paris and such as Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Low lights were his arrests for stealing stamps from a lawyer for whom he worked as a youth, and his arrest and sentencing for attempted bank fraud, when he fraudently opened a bank account and was going to withdraw a significant amount of funds on credit. He died of a gangrenous leg at 66.

The exhibit is large, and is accompanied by a well made movie, narrated by Kevin Klose (Kevin Kline?).

2. The work of Charles Sheeler. This is the other special exhibit at the East building, and it is an exhibit of an American painter/photographer of the first half of the twentieth century, who specialized in urban and industrial paintings (such as his series on the GM River Rouge MI plant, or on mills in New England). Quite a contrast with Rousseau.

3. The West building has two exhibits on Venice, one of old masters and the other of drawings. We had previously seen the first and skipped the second today. You can't do everything in just 7 hours.

4. We opted for the buffet lunch in the West building courtyard that apparently has something to do with Venice. The food was all right, and the variety interesting, but it was probably too expensive for what there was. The meat dishes included a guinea hen in a black pepper sauce and a liver pate on toast, neither of which looked very appetizing. There was a delicious radiccio salad, calamri, eggs, a zucchini fritata, an arugula salad, carrots and raison salad, polenta, breads, strawberries, fig and nut loaf, and more.

5. We saw two movies. We did not expect much of the first, a 1927 American silent movie called "A Boy of the Streets", which had been lost and then found in a movie conservation library in Toulouse, where it was fixed up and interlineated in French. The boy's older brother is mixed up with the wrong guys in San Francisco, and they are paid by an opposition politician to pull a Watergate on the incumbent. In the meantime, the boy is hit by a car driven by a beautiful young woman, whose father is the incumbant and taken to their house to recover. Meanwhile the brother and two other men break into the house and are caught, but the girl saves the brother by saying that she had asked him to come and get his younger sibling. You can see what is going to happen. Yes the older brother and the girl live happily ever after and "have many children", but not before a numbers of plot twists and turns, and fights, and jails, and fancy parties. All in all, a lot better than anticipated.

6. After the movie, and a short time in the museum book shop, we went to see an exhibit of drawings from the Woodner collection, which were quite enjoyable. All European, they were as old as the 1400s and as new as the twentieth century.

7. Back to the theater for "Senso", a 1954 Italian movie starring Farley Granger, set in Venice (you see the pattern) at the time the Italians were unifying and about to kick out the Austrians. It starts with terrific scenes of performance of Tosca and becomes itself an opera without words - where the Italian contessa falls in love with the insincere Austrian officer, and sells out her countrymen only to find out that all he wanted was her money. Operatic plots are often quite silly but saved by the music. Here, there was no music.

After we left the gallery, we headed to the AV for dinner, to find it closed for its August holiday. We wound up at the Islander on 12th and U, a Trinidadian restaurant with live jazz. A very interesting Caribbean menu with curry flavor (that's Trinidad for you), and the food was not bad (some quite good flavors), but everything in the kitchen got mixed up. For instance, you are asked if you want A or B. You say A, and then they give you C. That sort of thing. Plus, they don't serve coffee. Whoever heard of that? No tea either. The waitress said "because we don't serve anything that is packaged". The meal was too expensive for what we got. The saxophone led jazz (we stayed for three pieces) was "easy listening jazz", and the listening was a little too easy. A few years ago we sat on the banks of the Snake River in Idaho Falls and heard an easy listening sax player. They could have gone to school together.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Civil War in Iraq? (21 cents)

The headlines say that Iraq is nearer than ever to civil war.

Where is the surprise?

I have just finished reading Paul Bremer's engaging memoir, "My Year in Iraq". Putting aside the arrogance that Bremer had, seeming to believe that, like Alexander Haig, "I am in charge", and that his direction had the best chance of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is perfectly clear that there was no plan to get from here to there.

But how could there be?

I don't think anything is different now than it was four years ago. You cannot take away the government of a country (whatever it may be) and expect another, to your liking, to rise in its place.

And this is particularly the case in Arab Moslem countries, or so it seems.

The essence of American democracy is that, first, the parties are built to encompass a number of views with no internal party discipline (such as you find in the U.K.), and second that if you use an election, you go on living and wait for the nex time.

Well, Iraq does not have parties, does not have large organizations where various views get heard, and certainly does not have the concept of giving up if you lose and waiting until next time.

Whether it is the religion, the heritage, or whatever, it appers to be the fact. If you are not on top, you believe that you will be shamed, belittled, and perhaps much worse. So you MUST wind up on top. If you don't get there, you must subvert those on top, in showings of strength and numbers.

This is just the way it is.

Divide the country up. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. I don't think you need to worry about the Sunnis and the Kurds; but the Shiites are danger, as every Sunni knows all too well.

So, Iran (non-Arab) and Hezbollah are enormous threats and, at this time, are probably not good partners for compromise. The war has begun. Perhaps it is World War III; perhaps it is a clash of civilizations.

East is east, and west is west.....

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

We missed the cricket demonstration

that was held on Sunday after the matinee of Wonderous Oblivion, but saw the movie tonight. Simple plot. London, 1960, working class, brick row house neighborhood. Holocaust survivors live amongst very English neighbors and are the object of prejudice until the black Jamaican family moves in next door. Twelve year old Jewish boy only wants to play cricket, but is not good enough to make the team. The Jamaicans put a cricket net in the backyard and the Jamaican father plays every evening with his two daughters. Jewish boy becomes part of the family (his parents' displeasure not withstanding) and becomes adept at the game and makes the team at his school. The former school outcast is now a big man on campus and invites his friends to a birthday party. They come, and when the Jamaican girl next door knocks on the door he sends her home. End of friendship between the boy and his neighbors. Also, end of budding romance ("We shouldn't be doing this") between Jewish mother and Jamaican father. In the meantime, Jamaican house is fire bombed, Jewish man rescues Jamaincan father from the smoke, everyone makes up, Jamaicans invite them to a Jamaican picnic with cricket, Jewish boy accepts invitation even though it means missing big school game, Jewish parents decide to move to Hendin, Jewish boy rebels, but Jamaican father tells him he must go with his family. Good feelings all around. End of film.

Very moving. Very well done. Very anxiety provoking. At the Avalon (our membership non profit theater).

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

A Lesson in Journalism (1 cent)

Last Saturday, the Washington Post, on page 2 of its business section had two small articles on Walmart. The first said that Walmart was selling its 85 stores in Germany and pulling out of the country. Too bad, you say, that Walmart failed; must be tough on them. The second article said that Walmart's stock rose 93 cents on the announcement of its decision to close 85 stores in Germany. So, the stores were a drain and the company is better off without them. Congratulations to Walmart. Depends which article you read. Spin, spin, spin.

Believe it or not, the same page of the same paper on the same day had two small articles on Chevron. The first article said that Chevron's profit rose 18% in the second quarter based on results a year earlier and that this was their largest profit in 127 years of business. Way to go, Chevron. The second article said that Chevron stock went down $1.68 a share, because the 18% rise was below industry expectations.

I don't know if it was an accident that these articles appeared the way they did, or if it was deliberate. But it certainly teaches a lesson.