In Praise of Women

 

I do not agree with him not letting his boy play with dolls, but I think he's using it  to explain how to raise a future man.  He's @demetrimanabat on tik tok 

Monday Morning Smile

 

Tom on Palestinian's History

 

Allegations against the United Nations Relief and Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees, (UNRWA), have been accused of participating in the Hamas attack on southern Israeli towns in the early morning hours of this past Oct. 7.  

Whatever evidence was put before the UN must have been quite persuasive, because the UNRWA fired all 12 employees accused of involvement. 

The UNRWA is 75 years old, and has always been rumored to be sympathetic to the different Palestinian militant groups.  The group runs clinics, schools, and many of the services usually provided by municipalities.  Gaza in particular, and the larger Palestinian population centers, (primarily on the West Bank), have been largely transformed into a welfare state. 

The UNRWA plays the role of the benevolent father figure, and those 'poor' Palestinians are reduced to the role of mendicant; subsisting on alms and cash from the good offices of the UN.  Henceforth, there will be less cash dedicated to supporting the Palestinians. 

The US, along with Britain, Australie, Canada, and Finland, Iceland, and Germany,  have suspended their contributions to UNRWA, at least for the moment  

Perhaps the most significant difference is that the Israelis are smart and ambitious and believe in the value of education.  They have "..made the desert bloom...", as the old cliche goes. 

The Palestinians, by contrast, have languished in the ghettos and refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, plotting to take their revenge on the Jews, rather than rolling up their sleeves and making a nation for themselves. 

Much of the blame for their plight can be laid at the feet of the larger Arab world, which has used the Palestinian diaspora as something to make the State of Israel look bad. 

No Arab country has any intention of allowing Palestinians to settle in their respective countries, because

The UNRWA operates 68 refugee camps, located in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as Gaza and the West Bank.  Most were established in the wake of the Israeli War for Independence, (1948 et. seq.), and 10 or so were established in the wake of the 'Six Day War', (1967). In the wake of Israel's War of Independence both the Palestiniaqns and the Israelis were faced with urgent refugee problems.

Israel faced the problem of some 700,000 Jews expelled from various Middle Eastern countries.   She dealt with the problem by welcoming the refugees,  and working to integrate them into the. larger Israeli society.

There are not, and to my knowledge,never have been, Israeli refugee camps.  At the same time, there was a similar refugee problem with refugees on the Palestinian side of the equation.  Their refugee problems were due to displacement caused by the  Nakba.  (The Nakba is an Arabic word that means "catastrophe". It refers to the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and homeland during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Nakba also includes the destruction of Palestinian culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.) 

Palestinians who had fled in anticipation of an Arab pogrom that would drive the Jews into the sea, found themselves stateless when their militarily incompetent champions got their hats handed to them.  There were about 700,000 displaced Palestinians in the wind, and the solution proposed and implemented by the UN was to put them in camps.  What was a large but manageable problem of dealing with a displaced population has, over the ensuing 75 years, become an intractable problem involving over 5 million souls.  That's the difference between a civilized society and a primative one.  The Palestinian people suffer for the sins of their supposed leaders.    

The camps in question have alway featured gunplay and intrigue.  Over the past few months, there has been fighting in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, adjacent to the Lebanese port city of Sidon, located between Beirut to the north and Tyre to the south.

  No one has been successful in controlling the violence, but things have moderated to the point where it's been reduced to a smolder. Perhaps the most notorious case of camp violence occurred in the Sabra refugee camp, (Lebanon),  and the adjacent Shatilla neighborhood which was reported to have cost between 3,500 and 5,000 Palestinians their lives in 1982.  Even as Gaza burns, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to provide sanctuary to the displaced Palestinians.  Wherever they go, chaos follows...

Cuban Coffee

 

Tom on Migrant History in the U.S.

 Now that the first wave of primary elections are over, national attention is being directed at the flow of migrants crossing the southern border. 

 House Republicans to tout the HB2 bill, which is a draconian set of regulations that would be dead on arrival in the Senate.  But Senate negotiators were nearing a bipartisan compromise that offered some, but not all, of what  each side wanted. 

Until today.  It seems that Donald Trump has forbidden any compromise because he wants nothing more than to use the migrant flows as a cudgel with which to beat Joe Biden about the head.  Remember that this is the same Donald Trump who promised a wall between the US and Mexico that would prevent illegals from attempting to cross the border; a wall that would be paid for by the Mexican government.  How much have they paid so far?  Nothing.   Mr. Trump is cynical in such a profound way that he puts almost all politicians to shame. 

The nature of the movement north from Mexico and Central America has gotten more global over the past quarter century.  It used to be that the migrants were from Mexico and some of the more. unstable and violent Central American countries,  such as El Salvador and Guatemala.  Some were seeking asylum, but most were men seeking work. They would sneak into the country,  work in agriculture and construction, and then go back home for the winter.  A notable success was the 'Bracero' program that ran from 1942 until 1964.  It admitted temporary workers to the US, initially to mitigate a labor shortage that resulted from the manpower demands resulting from WWII,and were extended for the next couple of decades, because the program served everybody's purposes.  One of the criticisms of the program was that it had the effect of lowering wages earned by Americans, but there have been studies that examined data sets from the period in question and determined that there were no adverse effects on wages earned by native workers. 

Over the years the composition of the migrant flow has changed appreciably.  While it used to be the case that migrants were from Mexico and Central America, an increasing number are from such exotic locales as Russia, China, and Venezuela, to name just a few.  Everybody wants to go to a western country for any number of reasons.  Some are in search of opportunity, others are fleeing ethnic strife, (this is especially true for many African migrants), and others are fleeing the effects of climate change.  Instead of viewing migrants as a lower form of life, looking to displace White Americans, we should look at them as a sort of crop.  America is a nation with a demographic problem: American women are not having enough children.  Our population is getting older, and this is a problem facing all rich countries.  There is opportunity to breathe new vigor inti the American economy here, and we would be foolish to cut off our collective noses in order to spite our faces. 

Mr. Trump reminds me of Phineas T. Bluster, the mayor of Doodyville on the old Howdy Doody show that was a staple of TV whenI was a kid.  The show always kind of creeped me out, because marionettes, like clowns, are intrinsically creepy.  Too many freckles.  Too cheerful.  They all have the jerky movements of someone affected by spasticity.  You get the feeling that if you fall asleep in the marionette's presence, you'll never wake up. 

A Wonderful Sight

 

Whatever Happened to......

 You remember Mike Lindell.  He's the mustachioed dude who used to be a crack addict living rough on the street of St. Paul, MN, (which just this past week inaugurated an all female city council.  It made me think of the MD who did my second amputation.  He had an all female staff of residents and one med student.  They'd swan into my room around 0700, and I'd greet them as the 'Dreamgirls'.  It annoyed the Doc, but made them giggle.  Which is why I did it).  But I was talking about Mike Lindell.  You may not remember him, but I bet you remember his ubiquitous TV commercials for "My Pillow". Diane actually bought a couple of the things, and I have them still.  But Lindell, who turned out to be a marketing savant, also turned out to be a Trump-loving conspiracy nut.  He was a regular guest at Mar-a-Lago and the White House. He believed that the 2020 election. was stolen by crooked manufacturers of voting machines, (Dominion and Smartmatic), an assertion for which he's now being sued by botc companies.  He was ordered by an arbitrator to pay a software engineer 5 million dollars for debunking some cockamamie theory that Lindell had been offering to anyone who cared to listen. The tinfoil hat brigade had him funding all kinds of dubious 'research' into the validity of their favored  conspiracy. theories.  Today, Fox refused to accept his ad buys.  Lindell claims that he was 'canceled' by Fox, but the truth was that Lindell hasn't paid his bills.  He's broke.  Due to his foolishness, he managed to make his personal fortune, once estimated to be 60 million dollars, disappear.

Tom on the "Double Big Mac".

 It seem that McDonald's is introducing a gargantuan monstrosity called a "Double Big Mac".  I'm all for wretched excess, but I'm not sure that I could  open my mouth wide enough to get the thing inside.  Maybe I could learn to unhinge my jaw, like a carnivorous snake.  Those guys can swallow a goat or a large dog whole.  The "Double Big Mac"  contains four hamburger buns, 3 slices of bun, A sesame seed bun on the top, a bun for the middle that; bread on both sides, and a bottom bun), at least 2 pieces of cheese, pickles, lettuce and that cloyingly sweet sauce.

The current obesity rate for adults is 41.6%  and the rate among Blacks and Latinos is higher still, at 49.9% and 45.5%, respectively.  That's not even accounting for the many comorbidities  that are associated with obesity.  The Double Big Mac has 45g of carbs, 46g of Protein, and 43 g of fat.  Yow!   Total calories? 767.  And people who enjoy these gut bombs will probably get a couple of large orders of fries and a 'supersized' vat of some poisonous soft drink.  And this is how we deal with the obesity epidemic?    That made me think about one of those grotesque reality shows that was about a family who were all tremendously fat.  The premise of the show was that this family was going to henceforth lose weight and eat sensibly.  In the first episode , mom, (a nurse and the only person in the family to actually hold a job), brought home supper, which consisted of one of those foil serving pans that you see at church dinners, Bags of rotisserie chickens and styrofoam containers of ribs.  And don't forget the potato salad.  Everyone had their own 2 litre bottle of soda.  The next episode marked the beginning of the new diet.  Mom shows up with a foil pan of green salad.  Everybody looked puzzled,and the daughter began screeching like a rabid fishwife, shouting:  "What is this?  What do I look like, a damned cow?"  Well, now that you mention it.... 

James Carville is a Treasure

 

Dictator Video from Lincoln Project

 

Tom on Elections (Iowa Caucus Night)

 Elections often have the same inevitability that those old standbys, death and taxes, have long offered.  It's interesting because death and taxes are playing a role in today's festivities.  Taxes are pertinent because Republicans reflexively loathe anything that even hints at being a tax, even as they claim.to be the voice of reason when it comes to fiscal discipline.  I'm dubious about that assertion, because they continue to propose tax cuts for their very favorite cohort of Americans: The Hard working Billionaire plutocrats.  Many of them are too stupid to understand that fiscal salvation stands on a 3 legged stool of: time, (it took decades for us to get into the current mess we face, and it will take just as long to dig our way out of it), a rethinking of our spending priorities, (do we really need to spend a trillion dollars a year on the military? Do we need to lavish large sums of taxpayer dollars on agricultural subsidies, including the ludicrous ethanol subsidies that benefit only Iowa farmers who don't see it as the public welfare scheme  that it really is?),  and increased revenues, (If you want to pay down the national debt, you have to raise the money to do so in an orderly manner.  That means tax hikes.  To think otherwise is nothing more than a case of Magical Thinking).   And Death is creeping around the edges of the DeSantis campaign; licking the place where his lips would be, were he not a skeletal apparition.  

But before any votes are cast, I'll confess that I'm already sick and tired of the campaign. The candidates, have conscripted armies of motivated volunteers, and import  legions of paid staffers who infest every corner of the state, like medieval mendicants beseeching passersby,: crying "Alms for the poor ", and Iowa merchants grow fat on the expenditures of the various campaigns.  They rent cars, buy advertising, and consume meals and liquor as if money were no object.  These folks work hard and play harder, and prostitutes often flock to where the 'action' is, because that's where the money is.  The members of the Fourth Estate: blow-dried avatars of physical beauty and intellectual vacuity who repeatedly state the obvious to an audience of the uncomprehending.  For most of them, campaign coverage is a great adventure, much like those 8th grade field trips to the nation's capital that many of us remember, except that they were children back then and now they're adults with expense accounts and rented rooms. Their spouses are back in DC,  New York, or Atlanta, taking care of the kids and keeping the home fires burning.  You do the math:)

Speaking of expense accounts, some members of the media become legendary for their ability to manipulate their expense accounts to their financial advantage. One such was the legendary Johnny Apple of the NY Times.  He would come up with an outrageous excuse for an eye-popping charge on his expense account.  I recall reading about how he expensed a cashmere overcoat to The Times, claiming that his previous coat had been stolen by ":person or persons unknown", and that since he was at the airport in hot pursuit of a breaking story, the only place that he could find a suitable replacement was at the duty free shop at the airport.  The meals that Mr  Apple consumed on the Times' dime were of the pricey gourmet variety, and those don't come cheap.  

But Apple was probably the best reporter of the second half of the 20th century..There wasn't a big story that he didn't cover, and those he covered, he covered well.  He was most responsible for making the Iowa Caucuses the kickoff to the quadrennial spectacle that the presidential elections that it is today, when he relentlessly covered Jimmy Carter's 1976 trek through Iowa, making him a legitimate contender in the national consciousness.  In a sense, Jimmy Carter owes his presidency to Johnny Apple and The Allman Brothers Band, who pioneered the use of benefit concerts as a fundraising machine. 

After tonight, the circus folds its tent and moves on to New Hampshire.  The merchants and vendors will count their money, the volunteers will resume their mundane lives, and a couple of them will mout campaigns for seats on their local school boards and town councils because, once bitten by the political bug, nothing else will do.  It's showtime and I, for one, plan to watch some football and dine on fishsticks.  Have a pleasant evening...