Explorations

The Fire Next Time: Let No One Say that the Next Holocaust Came Without Warning

2012-01-20T00:34:00.001-05:00

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign/No more water, the fire next time"--lyric from the old Negro spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep" and epigraph to James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time

After the Holocaust, many people pleaded a variety of forms of ignorance ranging from "How could anyone have predicted this could happen" to "How could anyone have known this was happening?"--but the truth is that Adolf Hitler plainly stated his ideology and his goals on many occasions prior to the Holocaust and it is inconceivable that the millions of Europeans of various nationalities living next to teeming ghettoes, smoke gushing crematoria and/or pits filled with gunshot-riddled bodies (the victims of Hitler's mobile killing squads, the preferred method of extermination before the Nazis perfected the more efficient method involving gas chambers) did not know the fates of their Jewish neighbors.

Iran intends to build and/or acquire nuclear weapons and then to use those weapons first to destroy the State of Israel and then to terrorize the United States, Europe and any other "infidel" entities who the Iranian mullahs perceive to be their enemies. Much like Hitler made no secret about his plans, Iranian leaders have publicly stated on numerous occasions that Israel is a "cancer" that must be "wiped off of the map" and that even if a million Israeli Arabs are killed in the process that is an acceptable loss to achieve Israel's destruction. Iran has been similarly blunt about its feelings regarding the United States. The Europeans have been useful idiots (to borrow a phrase often attributed to Lenin) for Iran for decades but they should not be under any illusions regarding Iran's ultimate plans for them if Iran succeeds in destroying Israel and weakening the United States.

Everyone should read the following two essays so that (1) no one can truthfully say that there was no way to know Iran's plans and (2) maybe someone will figure out how to embolden the U.S. government to take the necessary actions to prevent Iran from achieving its genocidal aims:

This Holocaust will be different by Benny Morris.

Morris concludes:

BUT THE Iranians are driven by a higher logic. And they will launch their rockets. And, as with the first Holocaust, the international community will do nothing. It will all be over, for Israel, in a few minutes--not like in the 1940s, when the world had five long years in which to wring its hands and do nothing. After the Shihabs fall, the world will send rescue ships and medical aid for the lightly charred. It will not nuke Iran. For what purpose and at what cost? An American nuclear response would lastingly alienate the whole Muslim world, deepening and universalizing the ongoing clash of civilizations. And, of course, it would not bring Israel back. (Would hanging a serial murderer bring back his victims?)

So what would be the point?

Still, the second holocaust will be different in the sense that Ahmadinejad will not actually see and touch those he so wishes dead (and, one may speculate, this might cause him disappointment as, in his years of service in Iranian death squads in Europe, he may have acquired a taste for actual blood). And, indeed, there will be no scenes like the following, quoted in Daniel Mendelsohn's recent The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million, in which is described the second Nazi action in Bolechow, Poland, in September 1942:

A terrible episode happened with Mrs. Grynberg. The Ukrainians and Germans, who had broken into her house, found her giving birth. The weeping and entreaties of bystanders didn't help and she was taken from her home in a nightshirt and dragged into the square in front of the town hall.

There... she was dragged onto a dumpster in the yard of the town hall with a crowd of Ukrainians present, who cracked jokes and jeered and watched the pain of childbirth and she gave birth to a child. The child was immediately torn from her arms along with its umbilical cord and thrown--It was trampled by the crowd and she was stood on her feet as blood poured out of her with bleeding bits hanging and she stood that way for a few hours by the wall of the town hall, afterwards she went with all the others to the train station where they loaded her into a carriage in a train to Belzec.

In the next holocaust there will be no such heart-rending scenes, of perpetrators and victims mired in blood (though, to judge from pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the physical effects of nuclear explosions can be fairly unpleasant).

But it will be a holocaust nonetheless.

The Mortal Threat From Iran by Mark Helprin.

Helprin explains the only course of action that can prevent the doomsday scenario described by Morris:

Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.

Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.

It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.

Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.

Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.

Let no one who fails to act now dare to offer poignant eulogies after an Iranian-created mushroom cloud floats over the charred remains of a major American city or over a large portion of the tiny state of Israel!

Helen DeWitt's Scathing Critique of the Publishing Business

2011-12-30T05:26:00.004-05:00

In the preface to Dan Visel's interview with Helen DeWitt, DeWitt offers a raw and heartfelt lamentation about the cruel, inefficient structure of the book publishing business:

"So we really have no chance of being contemporaries of our own contemporaries, even if we want to--if we stick with the conventional publishing model. Books I wrote or started last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, might get into the public domain in 2012, 2022, or never. The determining factor is not the quality of the books; it's the extent to which Helen DeWitt can marshal the social skills, the obstinacy, the willingness to suspend writing indefinitely to wheel and deal, to get the f------ into print."

I've only had one brief foray in the book publishing business so far--I wrote a chapter for the anthology Basketball in America and then had to fight tooth and nail for years so that I and the other chapter contributors could receive the (small) royalties that the book's editor had promised to share with us; the issue was not the money (regardless of whether it had been a small amount or a small fortune) but the principle: not everyone can be smart or talented but everyone has the ability to be loyal and to keep one's word--and there is nothing worse than a betrayer, someone whose deeds do not match his words or who is, as I like to put it, with you win or tie. The anthology editor promised that the other contributors would receive an equal share of the royalties and I would have pursued him to the ends of the Earth (and the end of time) whether the amount in question was two cents or $2 million.

Though DeWitt has had much more interaction with book publishers than I have, her frustrating experiences with editors--and with the general nonsense pervading the writing business--mirror many of the experiences I have had with magazine editors and website editors. One of my ideas was stolen without attribution or compensation, I have had a strange, nonsensical and offensive title attached to one of my articles, I have had a strong lead sentence butchered beyond recognition for no conceivable reason and I have submitted accurate copy only to have inaccurate information included in the text (I have also been berated, in vulgar and threatening tones, for simply telling the truth about such matters--not that empty words from cowards could for one second stop me from telling the truth).

Like DeWitt, I have had editors enthusiastically praise my work and make promises of future assignments only to inexplicably fail to follow through on those commitments. Those situations are even more baffling when one considers the commercial success enjoyed by people who simply do not possess the most basic writing skills and people whose work is the very definition of "hack job." This is not a new problem--more than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe declared, "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--but it is frustrating as both a writer and a reader to have one's senses assaulted by garbage and to know that a lot of people are being well compensated to produce that garbage.

In the Visel interview, DeWitt explains why the current publishing model makes it difficult for quality writers to be fairly compensated for their work:

"A painter is not expected to hand in a painting and then set aside a year or so to a) changing it in light of comments from the gallerist and b) waiting for the gallerist's staff to touch it up before deciding whether all the alterations can be allowed to stand. (The painting is not thought deficient in value if untouched-up by the gallerist, the receptionist, the gallerist's girlfriend.) A painter can paint. Do we think that any painter, regardless of ability, is automatically superior to any writer? I don't think so, but we have a system of production that presupposes that position, and the result is one with crippling financial consequences for writers."

Painters and other visual artists often face daunting obstacles, too; as I noted nearly two years ago, pottery maker extraordinaire George Ohr had boundless confidence--he declared "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--but when he died he was considered an eccentric and his contributions to the art world were not recognized for quite some time. The 37 year old Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas prior to committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts are a frequent companion for writers and artists during their lonely journeys through this deeply flawed world (at the height of her despair, DeWitt sent an email dispassionately describing how her body should be disposed of after her suicide but her Jerzy Kosinski-style attempt to end her life with a sedative-aided asphyxiation failed).

What does all of this mean? An old episode of the "Simpsons" springs to mind: I don't remember the dialogue verbatim but, after a typical half hour of mayhem, Homer Simpson tried in vain to articulate some explanation or meaning for what had just happened but his precocious daughter Lisa mused that perhaps everything just happened randomly with no underlying cause and no deeper meaning. Lisa's answer seems to describe not just the bizarre business model of the publishing world but also the bizarre and tragic state of the world in general, a place where one billion people are starving at the same time that a small group of people enjoy unimaginable material wealth.

Caroline Glick Declares that Netanyahu's Deal is "A Pact Signed in Jewish Blood"

2011-10-16T01:04:00.002-04:00

The title of Caroline Glick's newest Op-Ed piece for the Jerusalem Post--A Pact Signed in Jewish Blood--speaks for itself. Glick rightly declares that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's deal to release over 1000 terrorists to obtain the freedom of illegally abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit speaks volumes about Netanyahu:

At best, Netanyahu comes out of this deal looking like a weak leader who is manipulated by and beholden to Israel’s radical, surrender-crazed media. To their eternal shame, the media have been waging a five-year campaign to force Israel’s leaders to capitulate to Hamas.

At worst, this deal exposes Netanyahu as a morally challenged, strategically irresponsible and foolish, opportunistic politician.

Those are harsh--but quite correct--words from someone who used to work for Netanyahu and who defended Netanyahu publicly long after I came to the conclusion that the smooth-speaking Netanyahu can serve Israel well as a representative to the U.N. but is completely ill-suited for the task of being Prime Minister. Glick concludes:

What Israel needs is a leader with the courage of one writer’s convictions. Back in 1995, that writer wrote: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmail situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best.

Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."

The writer of those lines was then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu wrote those lines in his book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.

Israel needs that Netanyahu to lead it. But in the face of the current Netanyahu’s abject surrender to terrorism, apparently he is gone.

I don't know what happened to the Netanyahu who wrote those words or the Netanyahu who once brilliantly presented Israel's case to the U.N. and to biased media members across the globe but Israel will rue--and might not survive--the day that it elected Netanyahu to the country's highest office.

Only Three Israeli Cabinet Members Dissented from Netanyahu's Prisoner Exchange Deal

2011-10-12T23:31:00.005-04:00

Israel's Cabinet voted 26-3 to approve the disastrous, evil deal that will exchange more than 1000 terrorists for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier illegally abducted by the Hamas terrorist group. The three dissenters were Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon and Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau. Lieberman explained his vote by citing "the grave repercussions the deal will have on Israel." Landau declared, "Let there be no doubt--the public and the government are both praying for Gilad's safe return...But this deal is a triumph for terror and it's detrimental to Israel's security and deterrence."

Neville Chamberlain has become infamous for signing the disastrous Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler and proclaiming that he had assured "peace in our time" when in fact Chamberlain's perfidy had paved the way for World War II and the Holocaust.

The so-called "Oslo II Accords" (also known as the "Taba Agreement" or the "Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip") divided Judea/Samaria and Gaza into three entities: one jurisdiction controlled entirely by Israel, one jurisdiction controlled entirely by the Palestinian Authority and one jurisdiction controlled jointly by Israel and the PA. The PA responded to the Israeli concessions not by building up the infrastructure in the areas under PA control but rather by greatly increasing the frequency and severity of PA-sponsored terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians; that predicable outcome is precisely why most Israelis did not support Oslo II and why the Israelis voted for Knesset members who had publicly indicated that they would never approve such a lopsided deal--but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin "cleverly" found a way to circumvent the will of the Israeli people: Rabin bribed Knesset members Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb with Mitsubishi cars and cabinet posts in exchange for betraying the voters who elected them precisely to halt Rabin's plan to further weaken Israel. Segev and Goldfarb's names should live in infamy, though I doubt that many people outside--or perhaps even inside--Israel know who they are.

Just like Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement and the names of Segev and Goldfarb should have become synonymous with corruption, when the terrorists Israel is about to release resume killing innocent Jewish men, women and children no one should forget the names of those who approved this deal. Here are the names of the 26 Israeli Cabinet members who supported Prime Minister Netanyahu's disastrous deal with Hamas:

Vice Premier, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee and Minister of Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom
Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak
Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Yishai
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Intelligence Dan Meridor
Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon
Communication Minister Moshe Kahlon
Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat
Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar
Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz
Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias
Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver
Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch
Justice Minister Prof. Yaakov Ne'eman
Minister of Government Services to the Public Michael Eitan
Minister of Public Diplomacy and the Diaspora Yuli Edelstein
Minister of Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman
Minister of Religious Affairs Yakov Margi
Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz
Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog
Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz
Minister of Social Affairs and Israel’s Heritage Meshulam Nahari
Minister Benny Begin
Minister Yossi Peled

It is particularly sad and disgraceful that Begin and Edelstein did not dissent. Begin, the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, has long been a beacon of reason who was not afraid to criticize suicidal Israeli governmental policies; Edelstein is a former refusenik who should know from personal experience that no good can come from dealing with bloodthirsty extremists. These 26 Israeli Cabinet Ministers have signed death warrants for countless innocent Jewish men, women and children--and when the Hamas murderers execute those death warrants Benjamin Netanyahu and these 26 Ministers should be held accountable for setting terrorists free.

Netanyahu's Shalit Deal Recklessly Endangers Innocent Israelis

2011-10-11T19:11:00.001-04:00

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly reached an agreement with the Hamas terrorist group to release over 1000 terrorists from Israeli jails in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was illegally abducted on June 25, 2006 by Hamas and who has been denied visitation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The terrorists slated for release by Israel include hundreds who were sentenced to life in prison--in other words, killers who are directly responsible for attacks that killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians. This is a disastrous, evil decision that will have horrifying--and quite predictable--consequences. Israel has made similarly lopsided exchanges several times and on each such occasion the released terrorists have subsequently killed many innocent men, women and children. Perhaps the most infamous exchange happened in May 1985--the so-called Jibril Deal--when Israel released 1150 prisoners to get back three soldiers; one of those 1150 prisoners--Ahmed Yassin--then founded Hamas. Thus, the Jibril Deal led to the Shalit kidnapping--and many other horrors--and the Netanyahu Deal will inevitably lead to future horrors.

In a December 9, 2009 article, Jeff Jacoby declared:

Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges it has entered into with terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO. Time and again, Israel has paid for the freedom of a few POWs--sometimes just the remains of a few POWs--by releasing hundreds of violent detainees, many of them complicit in the deaths of civilians. And time and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off. Yassin is only the most notorious example. According to Israeli journalist Nadav Shragai, "about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason--including those set free in one-sided 'goodwill gestures'--returned to the path of terror, either as a perpetrator, planner, or accomplice." An analysis by the Almagor Terror Victims Association in 2007 found that at least 30 attacks in the preceding five years had been committed by prisoners freed in deals with terrorist groups. More than 175 men, women, and children died in those attacks; many others were severely injured.

Some of the most infamous, heartrending terrorist attacks against Israel--including the March 27, 2002 Passover attack on the Park Hotel that killed 35 and wounded hundreds more--were perpetrated by prisoners who were released by Israel in exchanges or as "goodwill gestures." Nasser Abu Hameid, who had been imprisoned for five murders, was released by Israel in September 1999 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement; he subsequently participated in the mutilation of the corpses of Israeli reserve soldiers Vadim Norzitz and Yossi Avrahami--non-combatants who took a wrong turn into Ramallah on October 12, 2000 and were literally torn apart limb from limb simply because they were Jews--and he murdered several Israelis in various terrorist attacks, including the roadside shooting of Rabbi Binyamin Kahane and Kahane's wife Talia.

Jacoby concluded his article with these prescient words:

But to knowingly risk the lives of civilians in order to protect soldiers is to turn the social contract inside out. The state's first duty to its citizens is to protect their lives and liberties; that is what justifies the creation of a military in the first place. Releasing hundreds of terrorists may mean that Shalit comes home safely, but it almost certainly condemns other Israeli citizens to death. The plight of Shalit and his family is heartbreaking and tragic. Yet it cannot be right to win his freedom by risking the lives of the very civilians he, like every soldier, is sworn to protect.

In 1976, Israeli troops flew 2,000 miles to rescue Jewish hostages being held in Uganda's Entebbe airport, a spectacular feat that electrified the world. Jonathan Netanyahu, the mission commander (and brother of Israel's current prime minister), died in that operation. He made the supreme sacrifice in the service of his nation, as soldiers so often have. Before the Israelis agree to a reckless deal with Hamas, perhaps they should reflect on Entebbe, and pause to ask themselves: What would Jonathan do?

Prime Minister Netanyahu has bodyguards and elite security services to protect him. Who will protect the innocent Jewish children who are going to be slaughtered by the terrorists Netanyahu is releasing? Just as importantly, who will hold Netanyahu responsible for the blood on his hands when such preventable atrocities predictably and inevitably happen? During Netanyahu's earlier term as Prime Minister in the 1990s he agreed to give away 80% of Hebron even though this exposed the city's Jewish residents to sniper attacks from Arab terrorists--and on March 26, 2001 an Arab sniper killed 10 month old Shalhevet Pass by shooting her in the head as she sat in her baby stroller. Netanyahu has yet to be held accountable for recklessly ceding control over most of Hebron and he has no right to set free terrorists who have blood on their hands and who will eagerly seek opportunities to spill even more innocent blood.

Why I Don't Enter Writing Contests

2011-08-22T13:18:00.003-04:00

I have entered a few writing contests--with mixed results--but a while ago I vowed to never enter another one. I could offer a lengthy and elaborate explanation but I think that a few representative quotes taken from the 2011 Chess Journalists of America Awards Committee Final Report vividly illustrate some of the problems associated with such contests; here are the stylings of Ramon A. Hernandez, Awards Committee Chairman and Chief Judge of the CJA Annual Journalism Awards:

Once again the competition bought in several new members and return a few others who had been out the membership for a while. The entire membership should not expect the awards competition to serve as the principal method for recruiting new members nor as the sole means of revenue. To believe so on any case is setting the organization as a whole for complete financial failure.

*****

I ended last year stating, I can with comfort note this year's competition was at minimum well done and a reward of a testament of having conducted it. My core goal of being and keeping the awards competition impartial, ethical and transparent were met and at times excelled. I, I can sleep well, to my fellow awards judges a giant thank you to each and to our president thank you for your communication and outstanding leadership.

*****

I know with a shadow of doubt that the committee and I have done an excellent job and I continue to sleep well. Any negative comment anyone can concoct is in the minority when compared to the enormous amount of praise this committee has received.

What exactly do such awards signify if the Committee Chairman struggles to write coherently? Hernandez' prose is littered with grammatical errors, poor word choices and awkward sentence construction; I am not interested in having my work judged by someone who desperately needs some instruction regarding the most basic writing techniques.

A Heartbreaking Quote From a Staggering Genius

2011-08-16T00:19:00.002-04:00

I have never read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; the title seems very pretentious, though perhaps the author was being intentionally ironic (or perhaps the publisher chose the title for him). However, I recently read a Vincent van Gogh quote that is best described as a heartbreaking quote from a staggering genius:

"I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture."

Explorations readers may recall that George Ohr expressed similar sentiments about his work. A genius knows full well that he is a genius, even if it takes the rest of the world a few decades to figure it out.

It is a terrible indictment of our world that van Gogh died in poverty after scarcely selling a canvas but now other people--people who have but a fraction of the talent he possessed--make fortunes buying and selling the works he suffered so greatly to create. Art historian Ingo Walther says of Van Gogh, "He sought consolation in his art from the world and life which he loved, but whose love was not returned. He suffered in this world and was destroyed by it. With his art he created his own new world, which was full of color and movement and contained everything he knew about existence." Camille Pissarro, van Gogh's contemporary (and fellow genius), declared about van Gogh, "This man will either go insane or leave us all far behind." Van Gogh ultimately fulfilled both aspects of Pissarro's prediction: he produced more than 2000 works of art in a little over a decade (plus hundreds of letters that detailed the workings of a brilliant but quite troubled mind) before killing himself at the age of 37. Van Gogh's brother Theo said that Vincent's last words were, "The sadness will last forever."

Super 8: Movie of the Year

2011-06-19T20:59:00.001-04:00

Super 8 is the movie of the year. I could justify that declaration by raving about the way that J.J. Abrams (writer/director) and Steven Spielberg (producer) crafted a masterpiece from a technical standpoint or by describing how Super 8 deftly evokes nostalgia without being maudlin or mawkish but there is a simpler and more profound way to capture Super 8's impact: in the packed theater where I saw the film, no cell phone displays lit up for two hours and the movie received two standing ovations--one after the main feature ended and the second after the "Easter egg" concluded during the credits.

Go see Super 8; you won't be disappointed--and make sure you don't leave until after the credits end!

Moral Clarity and the Death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-04T23:30:00.013-04:00

"Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."--President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress following the 9/11 Attacks

When I learned that Osama bin Laden had finally been killed I immediately thought of President George W. Bush's clarion call to action; President Bush has become a polarizing figure who is regarded with great esteem in some quarters and with great revulsion in others but he spoke truth to power in the wake of the worst terrorist attack ever committed on American soil: the people who did this attack are evil, they are our enemies and their leaders must either be brought to justice or have justice brought to them.

It is not fashionable to speak of good and evil; those words are considered to be inflexible, hardline and reactionary--but the simple, powerful truth is that good and evil exist, that evil people act with tremendous force and unrelenting cruelty and that evil must be answered with tremendous force.

What the United States should have done in Iraq and Afghanistan--and what the United States should do now in Libya and other countries run by despotic, evil regimes--cannot be simply answered in soundbites and superficial rhetoric; these are questions of both strategy (whether or not to act militarily) and tactics (how to deploy the military most effectively if the decision is made to act militarily). It is certainly possible to question or critique President Bush's strategy and/or tactics--but the most valuable service that President Bush provided is that he strongly framed the 9/11 attacks in the proper moral context: the attacks were committed by evil men who took orders from evil men and those evil men must be brought to justice or have justice brought to them.

**********

President Barack Obama gave the final order to execute the mission that resulted in Osama bin Laden's death but that act of justice would not have been possible without President Bush's clarion call or without the military and intelligence structures that President Bush put into place. It is interesting to speculate about why bin Laden was able to avoid justice for so long only to be taken down suddenly and relatively easily; this is reminiscent of how the Unabomber got away with his crimes until his own brother turned him in to the authorities. I suspect that at least some of the people who were sheltering bin Laden decided that the terror mastermind had become more of a burden than an asset. I am not taking anything away from U.S. intelligence and I certainly am not taking anything away from the brave Special Forces' unit that brought justice to bin Laden but I think that without information from someone close to bin Laden the United States might have spent many more years looking for bin Laden in empty caves in Afghanistan.

Speaking of those caves, if it is true that the United States has given upwards of $10 billion to Pakistan over the past decade to fund anti-terrorism efforts then the United States is due a refund--and more--in light of the obvious fact that the Pakistani government gave aid and comfort to Public Enemy Number One. It is outrageous that bin Laden lived for years in a well-secured mansion in Pakistan while American soldiers fought and died in Afghanistan trying to find bin Laden in the mountains and other rough terrain; Pakistan should issue death and/or disability payments to every U.S. soldier who was killed or injured in Afghanistan.

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In a seemingly unrelated--and yet very related--recent story, CBS reporter Lara Logan was recently brutally assaulted, sexually violated and nearly killed by a mob attack in Egypt; she was in the country to report on the uprising against Hosni Mubarak. Two things struck me about Logan's account of her harrowing ordeal: (1) The crowd attacked her because they thought that she was an Israeli and/or a Jew; (2) Logan said that until this happened to her she never realized how prevalent brutality against women is in Egypt.

What does this have to do with bin Laden? President Bush spoke truth to power about bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban, using "old fashioned" concepts about good and evil; everything is not relative and there are not always two sides to every story: sometimes there is just right and wrong, good and evil. After the 9/11 attacks, a Congressional investigation revealed that bin Laden had contributed $20,000 to the legal defense fund of El Sayed Nosair, the man who murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane on November 5, 1990. Failing to distinguish between good and evil prevented U.S. authorities from fully investigating the Kahane murder and discovering the connections between Nosair, Omar Abdel-Rahman (the "blind Sheikh") and bin Laden's al Qaeda; at the time, Kahane's murder was blithely dismissed by the media and by the U.S. government as a radical Arab killing a prominent Jewish figure but we now know that this crime was the first terrorist act committed on American soil by the group that eventually attacked the World Trade Center in 1993: bin Laden's confederates failed to bring down the Twin Towers that time but the next group that bin Laden sent succeeded eight years later. The idea that Kahane and bin Laden are equally radical and equally dangerous is an example of the pernicious, fallacious thinking that Vladimir Nabokov called "poshlost." There are not two equally valid sides regarding Kahane and bin Laden; Kahane proposed political solutions (with which one is free to agree or disagree), while bin Laden proposed (and delivered) mass murder around the globe; it is impossible to act correctly without making correct distinctions.

The Egyptian crowd nearly killed Logan merely because they thought that she was Israeli and/or Jewish; this is a powerful testimony to how much hatred has been instilled in the Arab/Muslim world against Israelis and against Jews: Arab and Muslim dictators do not have the ability and/or inclination to improve the lot of their people but these dictators have discovered that scapegoating Israelis and Jews is a great way to distract their citizens from the real causes of their countries' economic, scientific and political backwardness. Many Israeli and/or Jewish men, women and children have been killed by people whose minds are poisoned by hate, people who think and act just like the ones who attacked Logan precisely because they assumed that she was Israeli and/or Jewish (to cite just one example, in October 2000 two Israelis took a wrong turn into Ramallah and were literally ripped apart limb from limb). If Logan truly does not know about such attacks or about the virulent nature of this hatred then this is likely because she has bought into a narrative (very popular in the mainstream media) that teaches that there is not good and evil but rather two (or more) equally valid narratives; it is this kind of thinking that reacts to the 9/11 attacks by assuming--or even declaring--that some supposedly legitimate grievances explain and/or justify killing innocent civilians just because they are Americans (or Israelis or Jews). The Western media far too often covers up the racism, antisemitism and misogyny that is prevalent in the Arab and Islamic world because the media's preferred narrative is that Israel is persecuting Arabs, not the other way around--an odd (which is to say false) narrative when one realizes that the Arab/Muslim population of Israel has been steadily increasing for decades while the minority populations of Arab/Muslim countries have been steadily declining and face constant persecution.

**********

It is powerfully symbolic that the U.S. carried out President Bush's vow to bring bin Laden to justice or bring justice to bin Laden but it will require clear thinking and decisive action to ultimately defeat al Qaeda and other groups/nations that are motivated by evil ideologies and that act with tremendous violence and unrelenting cruelty--and clear thinking must start with understanding the distinction between good and evil.

City on the Edge of Forever and The Adjustment Bureau

2011-03-08T05:54:00.002-05:00

City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison's brilliant Star Trek screenplay, is a love story that also examines the themes of destiny, time travel and self sacrifice. After Dr. McCoy experiences an accidental drug overdose, he flees the Starship Enterprise and ends up going through a portal that transports him back in time. As a result of something that happens during his time travel, the Enterprise--and all members of her crew that are not in the immediate presence of the "Guardian of Forever" (the name of the time travel portal)--disappears. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, aided by tricorder readings that Mr. Spock made, jump into the portal to try to reverse whatever Dr. McCoy did. Kirk, Spock and McCoy all arrived at the same time and place (New York City during the Great Depression) but Kirk and Spock are not able to immediately locate McCoy.

Spock's tricorder readings reveal that a woman named Edith Keeler died in the original timeline but survived in the timeline that McCoy altered; the ripple effect of that change--Keeler became a leader of the pacifist movement and delayed the entry of the United States into World War II, enabling the Nazis to win the war--destroyed history as Kirk, Spock and McCoy had known it. The problem is that by the time Spock figures out that Keeler must die Kirk has fallen deeply in love with her (and, unbeknownst to Kirk and Spock, Keeler has befriended McCoy and nursed him back to health as the effects of the drug overdose subsided). The episode culminates with the three shipmates suddenly reuniting on one side of a street and Keeler crossing the street to greet them, not noticing a fast moving truck that is approaching her. McCoy moves to save Keeler but Kirk restrains him; Keeler dies and the original timeline is restored. Though it pains Kirk greatly, he sacrifices Keeler's life for the greater good of the human race.

The Adjustment Bureau deals with some similar thematic issues but the main character ultimately makes a different choice than Kirk did. While Senate candidate David Norris is rehearsing his concession speech in a hotel men's room, he has a chance encounter with a woman named Elise; they form an instant connection but are separated before they can exchange contact information. According to "the plan" written by the mysterious "Chairman," David and Elise were only supposed to meet that one time; she inspired David to go off script in his concession speech and this boosted David's political career: the "Chairman" intends for David to become the President of the United States and ultimately have a powerful (though unspecified) positive impact on history. Instead, one of the "Chairman's" agents literally falls asleep on the job and David encounters Elise again, this time on a bus; they instantly connect again and she gives him her phone number. David then arrives at his office building earlier than he was supposed to and discovers the "Chairman's" Adjustment Bureau agents at work, freezing people in time temporarily in order to "adjust" their thinking. David flees but is captured by the agents and told that he must never speak a word about what he has seen nor ever try to contact Elise; if he disobeys, they will "adjust" his mind accordingly. One of the agents burns the piece of paper on which Elise wrote her phone number so that David cannot contact her (David still does not know her last name, residence or work place).

The rest of the movie revolves around David's determination to get back in touch with Elise no matter the price. David is told by an Adjustment Bureau official that if he and Elise become a couple he will not become President and she will become an ordinary dance teacher instead of the world renowned dancer she had been destined to become; a heartbroken David at first defies the Adjustment Bureau but later abandons Elise after she sprains her ankle during a performance: in an encounter at the hospital, the Adjustment Bureau official tells David that usually when someone comforts another by saying that there was nothing the person could have done it is true but in this instance it really was his fault that she got hurt and that if David stayed with her she would ultimately suffer a career-ending injury.

A few years later, David is well on the road to political success and Elise has become a famous dancer who is engaged to be married to a choreographer (with whom she had broken off a previous engagement after her first chance encounter with David). When David sees the engagement announcement in the newspaper he decides that he will do anything in his power to prevent that marriage so that he can spend the rest of his life with Elise. Aided by a sympathetic Adjustment Bureau official (the same one who fell asleep prior to David and Elise's second meeting), David reunites with Elise, asks her to trust him and--while they are being chased by Adjustment Bureau officials--tries to explain everything that has happened. David and Elise are eventually cornered but instead of having their minds "adjusted" the sympathetic Adjustment Bureau official tells them that the "Chairman" has been so moved by the power of their love that he has rewritten his "plan." Apparently, David and Elise will live together happily ever after, though no indication is given about what this means in terms of David's political career and/or Elise's dancing career.

The Adjustment Bureau is a powerful love story that raises intriguing questions about free will, destiny and self sacrifice. During a key exposition scene, David challenges a high ranking Adjustment Bureau official to explain why David and Elise cannot be together. The official does not answer that question at first; it is strongly implied that the official does not know all of the contents of the "plan" and it is made clear throughout the movie that the "plan" often changes, both because of random actions and also because of various "adjustments." The high ranking Adjustment Bureau official tells David that the "Chairman" gave human beings free will but this led to the Dark Ages; the "Chairman" then provided the Renaissance and the Enlightenment but as soon as he provided free will again the result was two World Wars, the Holocaust and a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation (the Cuban Missile Crisis). Since that time, the "Chairman" tasked the Adjustment Bureau with making sure that the human race does not destroy itself.

David's parents and brother died when he was young and it is later revealed that the deaths of his father and brother were part of the "plan" (his mother's death was random); the loneliness in David's heart is ameliorated by the public adoration he receives as a politician--but if he and Elise get married then she will fill that void in his heart and he will no longer have the drive to continue his political career. Framing this in terms of City on the Edge of Forever, David is being asked by the Adjustment Bureau to sacrifice some of his personal happiness in exchange for playing a role in saving the human race, much like Kirk had to sacrifice his beloved Edith Keeler to prevent the Nazis from conquering the world. Kirk agonized but ultimately decided that he must act on behalf of humanity; David was willing to possibly wreck the "plan" if necessary rather than be separated from Elise. The movie takes the easy way out, in a sense, by not showing what happens to the world after David and Elise get back together: we are told that the "plan" has been changed and are left with the assumption that everything ends well--but what if the "plan" could not have been changed? Would David have been right to pursue Elise even if this would plunge humanity into some kind of Dark Age?

An even bigger issue that the movie skirts is the question of why the world is so messed up now if the "Chairman" and his agents have been adjusting things since the Kennedy Administration; the high ranking Adjustment Bureau official dismisses David's inquiry about that subject by simply declaring that humanity is still here and humanity would not still be here if the "Chairman" had not intervened--but that is a copout: if the "plan" can be changed to accommodate David and Elise's love then why could it not have been changed to prevent the Vietnam War, Pol Pot's massacres, AIDS, world hunger, the 9/11 attacks and so many other tragedies that have afflicted the world?

The Adjustment Bureau is an engaging, heartfelt movie--and a very touching love story--but it ultimately provides no answers to the profound questions it raises about free will and destiny; I fully realize that the movie was not intended to provide such answers and that, indeed, such answers may not even exist: I just find it fascinating to compare the choice made by Captain Kirk with the choice made by David Norris. If there is a "Chairman" whose job is to make sure that everything runs correctly then why would humans even be required to make such heart-wrenching choices? If there is no such "Chairman" then is one obligated to be like Captain Kirk and sacrifice personal happiness for the greater good? What if a person truly wants to make that particular choice but is not presented with a clearly correct way to do so?

There are no easy answers to these questions but I credit the writers, directors and actors involved with both projects for raising these issues in thought provoking, powerful and yet entertaining ways.

Living and Dying in 4/4 Time

2010-10-06T23:47:00.004-04:00

"Some people believe in life after death. I believe in death after life."--Grandmaster Anatoly Lein

"Genius is pain."--John Lennon

"People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing...I'm just watching the wheels go round and round"--John Lennon, "Watching the Wheels"

Somehow, until yesterday it escaped my attention that Matt Dobek--former p.r. director for the Detroit Pistons--committed suicide in late August. Dobek took his life just a few months after the Pistons fired him, had him escorted from team headquarters by security and then informed him that he would not receive his severance package (the Pistons alleged that Dobek had violated a confidentiality agreement). I enjoyed Dobek's book Bad Boys (which detailed the story of Detroit's 1989 championship) but I did not know Dobek; the closest I came to meeting him was being in the same room with him a few times when I covered various Cleveland-Detroit games. I have no idea whether or not he violated the terms of his contract but it does not surprise me that someone who loyally and tirelessly served a franchise for nearly three decades could be summarily fired and then treated like a worthless piece of garbage--that is the way the world works.

Why should the Pistons care about destroying a man's career and pushing him over the brink? All that matters to the Pistons is that they kept their "corporate secrets" safe--and what exactly were those secrets? The only "secret" formula the Pistons have seems to be the one that transforms a championship caliber team into an afterthought.

******

A young man founded a magazine but soon his business went under and he had no money, so his father took out a second mortgage on his house and maxed out his credit cards to help the son start over. Seven years later, the son was a billionaire and he purchased the Washington Redskins. Daniel Snyder did not come from a wealthy family but his father believed in him so much that he literally put everything on the line as a show of faith and an act of support. I wonder what it is like to have someone in your life who believes in you to that extent but I am sure that I will never, ever find out.

There is no such thing as "trying" to help someone; as Yoda said to Luke Skywalker, "Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'" Skywalker subsequently failed to levitate his swamp-bound X-Wing fighter but watched in disbelief as Yoda freed the X-Wing and deposited it gently on dry land. "I don't believe it," Skywalker said. "That is why you fail," replied Yoda.

You either believe in someone and you help that person or you don't. It really is just that simple.

******

I have always been fascinated by the thin line between success and failure. The life stories of talented people like William James Sidis and Earl Manigault are compelling and tragic; Sidis may have been as intellectually gifted as anyone who ever lived, while Manigault was a breathtakingly talented basketball player, but Sidis died in obscurity and Manigault became a streetball legend instead of an NBA superstar. When I was younger I spent a lot of time thinking about Sidis, Manigault and other talented "failures" (I am not calling them "failures" but merely describing how the outside world views the disparity between their talents and their publicly known accomplishments) and I tried to figure out if they fell short because of their own internal weaknesses or because society failed them in some way; at that time I thought that the truth is somewhere between those extremes but I was quite sure that I was smarter, tougher and savvier than they had been in terms of achieving my goals: I certainly am well aware of the irony of my youthful perspective in light of the fact that my career is certainly on the "Sidis track." It is liberating to just "watch the wheels go round" instead of trying to sell articles to idiots but while my failure to connect with idiots does not disturb me in the least my failure to attain the NM title haunts me to the depths of my soul (melodramatic, pathetic--and true). The bitter irony is that even if do I manage to attain the NM title, I will still be haunted by how long it took (there is nothing quite like having a mind that places you in a no win position combined with a competitive spirit that insists you must find a way to win!).

Maybe 40 years after I am dead the next Amy Wallace will emerge to write a sympathetic biography of me--but if GM Lein is right then that really will not do me much good, will it?

Thoughts on Poshlost and the Defining Arrogance of Genius

2010-09-30T03:33:00.004-04:00

In Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40, interviewer Herbert Gold of the Paris Review asked Nabokov, "What is most characteristic of poshlust in contemporary writing? Are there temptations for you in the sin of poshlust? Have you ever fallen?"

Nabokov replied (emphasis added):

“Poshlust,” or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances, and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic, and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing, we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as “America is no better than Russia” or “We all share in Germany's guilt.” The flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as “the moment of truth,” “charisma,” “existential” (used seriously), “dialogue” (as applied to political talks between nations), and “vocabulary” (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name—that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the tools of wreckers, building crankshaft cretins of stainless steel, Zen stereos, polystyrene stinkbirds, objects trouvés in latrines, cannonballs, canned balls. There we admire the gabinetti wall patterns of so-called abstract artists, Freudian surrealism, roric smudges, and Rorschach blots—all of it as corny in its own right as the academic “September Morns” and “Florentine Flowergirls” of half a century ago. The list is long, and, of course, everybody has his bête noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is that airline ad: the snack served by an obsequious wench to a young couple—she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber canapé, he admiring wistfully the hostess. And, of course, Death in Venice. You see the range.

Nabokov's statement foreshadowed/predicted much of what is wrong not only with contemporary journalism but also with the ideological perspectives that have become very fashionable in certain circles (i.e., equating the actions of President George Herbert Walker Bush with the crimes against humanity committed by Saddam Hussein is not merely inaccurate--it is perverse, or, as Nabokov would say, an example of "poshlost").

Here are some other Nabokov gems from that interview:

The purpose of a critique is to say something about a book the critic has or has not read. Criticism can be instructive in the sense that it gives readers, including the author of the book, some information about the critic's intelligence, or honesty, or both.

---

There is only one school: that of talent.

(Nabokov dismissed the idea that certain Russian poets belonged to different "schools").

---

Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own self to copy.

*****

Nabokov clearly not only possessed talent and originality but he had a quite keen awareness of the extent of his talent and originality; this is a characteristic feature of genius: while people of lesser talent are often clueless about how their skills compare to those of other people and people of average/slightly above average talent have understandable doubts about their capacity to compete with the truly gifted, geniuses generally possess extreme self assurance--to the point of sounding megalomaniacal or even delusional if their public accomplishments do not measure up to their seemingly grossly inflated opinions about themselves. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright once declared, "Early in life I had to choose between an honest arrogance and a hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change."

Wright's statement is similar to World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer's reply after being asked who is the greatest chess player: "It's nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. It is Fischer."

Albert Einstein's self confidence went even further than Wright's or Fischer's. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was not confirmed until Sir Arthur Eddington made his famous eclipse observations proving that gravity bends light in the manner that Einstein predicted but Einstein never doubted that his conception of how the universe works is not only correct but also the most elegant way for nature to function. Asked what he would have thought if Eddington's experiment had not confirmed the Theory of Relativity, Einstein replied, "Then I would have felt sorry for the Dear Lord. The theory is correct." Einstein thought that he knew better than God--or at least as much as God--about how the laws of nature should work in terms of mathematical elegance, beauty and simplicity!

There can be a thin line between confidence and self-delusion. The tremendous self confidence possessed by Wright, Fischer and Einstein does not seem delusional to us now because each of those men proved himself to be arguably the greatest practitioner of his craft--but what about George Ohr? Was he a confident genius, a delusional eccentric or some combination of both? Should he be defined by his own descriptions of his abilities, by what his contemporaries thought of him or by the high esteem with which his art is now viewed? Which perspective is true, which perspective is most accurate? If Einstein had lived in an era during which it was not possible to experimentally confirm the Theory of Relativity but he insisted that despite his status as a lowly patent clerk he had glimpsed into the mind of God would it have been correct to view Einstein as a genius or a madman?

I suspect that anyone who ranks well above the 99th percentile in a given endeavor--whether that field is architecture, chess, physics, basketball, writing or anything else--truly believes that he is the best in the world, if not the greatest of all-time. Of course, there can really only be one person who is truly the greatest. Disregarding the difficulty--if not impossibility--of proving who is in fact the greatest, if only one person actually is the greatest are the other nine people who rank in the top 10 delusional for thinking that they are the greatest? Or is that kind of thinking, that perspective about oneself, an essential personality trait for anyone who is trying to scale the very highest of heights?

George Ohr: "The Mad Potter of Biloxi"

2010-01-06T22:48:00.005-05:00

"Mozart died a pauper/Heine lived in dread/Foster died in Bellevue/Homer begged for bread/Genius pays off handsomely--/After you are dead"--Yip Harburg

"When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--George Ohr

Imagine being the very best at what you do, an innovative trendsetter with boundless energy and creativity. That may sound wonderful but often the Faustian "bargain" that comes with such a tremendous gift is that the rest of the world does not recognize your greatness until long after you have died--Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas before he killed himself at the age of 37, yet more than a century after his death one biographer rightly declared that Van Gogh "produced an incredible number of masterpieces that will continue 'living' for the rest of human history."

You have most likely never heard of George Ohr. When he died of throat cancer at the age of 60 in 1918 he was considered--by the few people who even knew who he was--to be a flamboyant eccentric. More than 7000 pieces of pottery that Ohr lovingly created languished in crates stored in the garage of an auto repair shop run by his sons in his native Biloxi, Mississippi. If not for a chance encounter between a New Jersey antiques dealer named James Carpenter and Ohr's son Ojo it is likely that the world would never have known about Ohr's distinctive works.

Although Ohr was mocked during his lifetime and had trouble selling his pottery even to his few admirers, Ohr had boundless confidence. When he set up his wares, Ohr proudly posted a sign that read, "'Greatest' art potter on Earth. 'You' prove it contrary." In a 1901 interview, Ohr acknowledged his lack of commercial success by lamenting "I have a notion...that I am a mistake" but his prescient prediction from that same interview indicates that he knew that the "mistake" was really the lack of insight shown by his contemporaries: "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come." In his shop, Ohr hung a hand-lettered sign with the Latin phrase Magnus opus, nulli secundus/optimus cognito, ergo sum! (A masterpiece, second to none/The best, therefore, I am!).

How thin is the line between being a genius who is celebrated during his lifetime and a genius who is not recognized as such until long after his death? Consider that Albert Einstein--whose name has become synonymous with the word genius--worked six days a week for seven years as a patent clerk because he could not obtain a full time academic position. During his spare time, Einstein wrote five papers that completely revolutionized the way that we perceive the universe--and yet even after the "annus mirabilis" (miracle year) of 1905 in which Einstein composed and published those papers it took until 1908 before Einstein became a full professor. Wouldn't you love to eavesdrop on some of those job interviews? "We're sorry, Herr Einstein, but you just are not quite qualified to teach at our institution." What must Einstein have thought after being rejected numerous times by people who had just a fraction of his intelligence? A quote from a letter that Einstein wrote during this frustrating period provides a glimpse of how he perceived the academics who refused to hire him: "From now on I’ll no longer turn to such people, and will instead attack them mercilessly in the journals, as they deserve. No wonder little by little one becomes a misanthrope."

Although Einstein had to suffer slings and arrows from many fools, he eventually achieved the fame and respect that he deserved, which provided him what he most wanted--the opportunity to work on his theories in solitude, undisturbed by the rest of the world. The huge advantage that Einstein enjoyed over Van Gogh and Ohr is that it became possible to experimentally verify some of the fantastic theoretical predictions that Einstein made in his 1905 papers; when Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse observations confirmed Einstein's assertion that gravity bends light Einstein instantly became a figure of worldwide renown not only in the scientific community but among the general public. Sadly, such instant verification of genius does not exist in the literary or artistic fields.

New Wrinkle in Demjanjuk Case

2009-12-19T05:57:00.003-05:00

There is significant, powerful evidence that John Demjanjuk served as an SS guard who participated in the Nazi genocide against the Jewish people during World War II; I called out Esquire's Scott Raab for ignoring that evidence but Esquire did not publish my letter to the editor. Now it seems that Demjanjuk was not only a cog in the Nazi Death Camp Machine--which is bad enough and should be punishable by execution--but that he also murdered a Jewish Holocaust survivor in cold blood while both men worked for the U.S. army motor pool in post-war Germany.

In his article Raab identifies himself as a Jew, as if his heritage justifies/excuses his sloppy research and tendentious writing. Raab and Esquire must be so proud that they have provided aid and comfort to Demjanjuk while also disregarding my refutation of their irresponsible "journalism."

Arshile Gorky: "A Short Life, but Long Enough to be a Hinge that History Turned on"

2009-11-08T01:28:00.002-05:00

The quality of one's life cannot properly be measured merely in years but rather in the fullness and depth of a person's artistic, creative and/or humanitarian achievement. Arshile Gorky suffered for his art, turned his suffering into art and then, while in his mid-40s (his exact year of birth is not known), decided to permanently end his suffering. Gorky is not remembered for how he died but for what he created while he lived and for the tremendous influence that he exerted over contemporary and future artists.

"Michael Jackson's This is It": Fitting Requiem for an Artistic Genius

2009-11-01T03:24:00.004-05:00

I just saw "Michael Jackson's This is It," an entertaining and poignant look at Michael Jackson's last performances: his rehearsals for what he planned to be his final worldwide tour. If Jackson had not died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 50 just days before the tour would have started then we likely would never have seen the rehearsal footage, because it was originally supposed to go into Jackson's private library; I suspect that the perfectionist in Jackson might have been somewhat self conscious about the world seeing him practice but that the part of him that loved his fans would have understood how much it means to them to see and hear him perform his classic hits one last time.

The footage makes it very clear that Jackson still had his singing and dancing chops and that his final tour would have been an ambitious, bold extravaganza, featuring new audio and visual takes on his greatest hits while preserving the essence that made those songs so popular; in one practice session for "The Way You Make Me Feel," Jackson patiently worked with the musical director and other musicians to literally make sure that every single note sounded exactly right. Jackson said that he wanted each note to sound precisely the way that it did on his albums because that is what the fans expect--yet he also jazzed up (or funked up) certain parts of some songs as well, making them sound familiar and yet new at the same time. You don't have to be a musical expert to quickly notice that Jackson not only had a highly tuned ear that detected the subtlest difference between musical notes but also that he was very good at explaining/demonstrating exactly what he expected the other musicians to do. Jackson made his points softly, with a generous sharing spirit; he involved others in the creative process as opposed to simply dictating to them what to do. On several occasions when a dancer or musician messed up, Jackson quietly offered a correction and said, without any evident frustration, "That is why we have rehearsal."

During one segment, Jackson and others worked out the sequence in which various effects would happen. Jackson wanted to give a hand signal as a cue to start one effect, but the director asked Jackson how Jackson would know the right time to give the signal because Jackson would not be able to see when the preceding effect behind him had finished. Jackson thought for a beat, then said that he would know when to make the cue by "feel." That simple reply is a touchstone of his genius and made me think of how a grandmaster once said that Bobby Fischer could throw a chess piece in the air and it would land on the right square: one aspect of genius is an innate "feel" for how something should be done, indeed how it must be done--and yet it is very important to understand that this innate "feel" must be honed by thousands of hours of practice in order to fully blossom. Fischer arguably had the most talent but it is inarguable that he worked extraordinarily diligently.

While it certainly would have been wonderful to see Jackson successfully complete his concert tour, I find it fascinating to get a glimpse of his behind the scenes work ethic; when I go to NBA games one of my favorite things to do is watch the players warm up--not just the cursory warmup that takes place minutes before tip-off but also the practicing that they do before the doors open to the general public: I will never forget watching Reggie Miller's extensive, highly programmed shooting routine, starting with layups and then moving outward progressively. Miller is one of the greatest long-range shooters ever but he practiced layups before every single game! Miller had a tremendous "feel" for shooting but he honed that "feel" with his diligent attention to detail. I only saw Michael Jordan in person twice--once in a preseason game during his first comeback and once in a regular season game during his second comeback--and what struck me most about those two games was the shots that Jordan practiced beforehand: he concentrated mainly on turnaround jumpers in the post/midpost and free throws; Jordan had obviously shot those shots thousands of times previously but he never stopped working on perfecting his touch from his primary scoring areas. Jordan neither wasted time with shots that he would not shoot in a game nor did he neglect to practice any shot that he likely would take. This summer, Kobe Bryant--who has been the most complete player in the NBA for years--worked out with Hakeem Olajuwon to learn low post moves. Jordan, Bryant and Miller could be described as basketball geniuses but they understand that their "feel" for the game must be constantly honed. Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young expresses a similar sentiment when he speaks of the "craft" of quarterbacking.

Jackson worked hard during the rehearsals and yet he seemed to experience great joy; he talked about preserving his voice for the upcoming tour but he could not resist singing through complete songs at full force, much to the delight of the assembled dancers, musicians and work crew--Jackson lightheartedly chided them for giving him so much love that he felt obligated to sing instead of simply walking through the choreography.

Some of Jackson's collaborators seemed understandably star-struck; on a couple occasions, he had to gesture to a dancer to complete a move instead of simply watching what Jackson did. Jackson encouraged everyone to express their talents fully; he told lead guitarist Orianthi Panagaris that a certain guitar solo was her "time to shine" and that she should hit the highest note that she could muster.

Jackson emphasized that he intended for his concert tour to not only entertain but to also spread the important message that we must love each other and we must tenderly care for our ailing planet before it is too late. Music and dance emanate from a place deep within the human soul and that is why the artistry of great musicians and dancers resonates so powerfully. I have always thought that in Jackson's Egyptian-themed "Remember the Time" video the real power rested not with Eddie Murray's Pharoah character--a leader whose mere gesture of disapproval could lead to someone's execution--but rather with Jackson's character (a sort of court jester), because Jackson had the ability to inspire wonder from all those around him; even if the Pharoah's henchmen had captured and killed the Jackson character anyone who had seen him perform for Pharoah would have never forgotten him, so the Jackson character was truly immortal--much like Jackson himself is. In "My Philosophy," KRS-ONE very poetically expressed that creators have enduring power far superior to the power held by political and business leaders: "Who gets weaker? The king or the teacher?/It's not about a salary, it's all about reality/Teachers teach and do the world good/Kings just rule and most are never understood/If you were to rule or govern a certain industry/All inside this room right now would be in misery/No one would get along nor sing a song/'Cause everyone'd be singing for the king, am I wrong?"

Jackson clearly experienced "flow" during these rehearsal sessions. It is our loss that he is no longer with us to continue to create music--and his sister Janet Jackson made a poignant comment shortly after his death when she said that to the rest of the world Michael Jackson is an icon but to her he is family--but it could also be said that Jackson died while doing what he most liked to do and at a time when he was still able to perform at a high level; unlike the last images of a bloated Elvis Presley, who--though still young--had already seen his best days, "Michael Jackson's This is It" shows an artist who still possessed vibrancy, creativity and energy. Jackson's rehearsal performances are achingly beautiful and at times they moved me to tears--tears of joy from watching a great artist in a "flow" state, tears of sadness that he is gone and even tears of relief in the sense that Jackson has been released from the internal demons and external critics who hounded him.

"Michael Jackson's This is It" will only be in theaters for a two week run starting October 28, so if you want to see it on the big screen then you need to act quickly.

Esquire Magazine Glorifies Accused SS Guard John Demjanjuk

2009-10-21T02:01:00.003-04:00

Scott Raab's November 2009 Esquire article titled "The Last Nazi" paints a sympathetic portrait of John Demjanjuk, the Cleveland autoworker who has been accused of being an SS guard. Demjanjuk was sentenced to death by Israel in 1988 but the Israel Supreme Court overturned that conviction on a technicality in 1993; Demjanjuk had been charged with being Treblinka's infamous "Ivan the Terrible" but evidence released from Soviet archives after Demjanjuk's conviction raised the possibility that Demjanjuk was, as Alan Dershowitz wrote in an August 14, 1993 Jerusalem Post International Edition article, "Ivan the Very Bad of Sobibor." Dershowitz also pointed out that the Israel Supreme Court bent over backwards to be fair to Demjanjuk, because most courts have "unreasonably rigid rules about when newly discovered evidence can be introduced to reverse a guilty verdict, even in a death penalty case." While the Israeli trial may not have proven that Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible," it demonstrated that Demjanjuk had in fact served as an SS guard at the Sobibor death camp--and on that basis alone the Israeli Supreme Court certainly would have been justified in upholding Demjanjuk's death sentence. Indeed, an August 7, 1993 JPIE article by Evelyn Gordon bore the title, "The judges' ruling was a triumph of legal principle but was justice done?" Gordon quoted Mordechai Kremnitzer, dean of the Hebrew University Law School: "The Supreme Court stretched to the maximum these liberal principles of proper defense for criminals." Kremnitzer added that Demjanjunk "got off the hook by a distance that could be measured perhaps in millimeters" and although Kremnitzer refused to explicitly condemn the Supreme Court's ruling he concluded, "But if the court had decided to convict him--at least on the Trawnicki document, which was a major part of the case--I would have been ready to defend the decision."

Raab's article disgusted me so much that I sent this letter to Esquire's editors:

Scott Raab attempted to do justice both to the horrors of the Holocaust and to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" but his attempt to create sympathy for John Demjanjuk is most unfortunate because it is not grounded in the facts of the case. Joshua Muravchik authored the definitive piece about the Demjanjuk case ("Demjanjuk: A Summing Up," published in the April 1997 issue of Commentary).

Raab suggested that it is "funny" that the same evidence that first was used to accuse Demjanjuk of being an SS guard at Treblinka is now being used to accuse Demjanjuk of being an SS guard at Sobibor--but Demjanjuk's posting to Sobibor is dated March 27, 1943 and Muravchik noted "Since the vast bulk of the killing at Treblinka was accomplished between July 1942 and January 1943, Demjanjuk could have earned his notoriety as Ivan the Terrible there and then been transferred to Sobibor in March. The two camps were only 100 miles apart and Wachmanner were often transferred."

Raab completely ignored the numerous contradictions--not to mention outright lies--in Demjanjuk's various accounts of his wartime activities, including the fact that Demjanjuk has admitted that he lied on his immigration application to the United States. Demjanjuk also did not have a satisfactory explanation for the scar on his left arm in the exact place where Waffen SS members received tattoos; Demjanjuk admitted to being tattooed there and he admitted to gouging out the tattoo but denied that it had been an SS tattoo.

Murachik declared, "None of the courts that have heard Demjanjuk's case, in America or in Israel, has found him credible on his wartime experience. As Judge Thomas Wiseman, Jr., the Special Master appointed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, stated in his report: 'Mr. Demjanjuk's alibi was so incredible as to legitimately raise the suspicions of his prosecutors that he lied about everything.'"

It is irresponsible for Raab to not have made it quite clear that Demjanjuk has not only contradicted himself during his various court testimonies but at times Demjanjuk has even contradicted the evidence supplied by his own lawyers! Demjanjuk has never provided a credible, consistent account of his wartime activities. Raab paints an image of a sickly, dying Demjanjuk but the reality is that Demjanjuk lied when he was a young man trying to gain entry to the United States and Demjanjuk lied when he was a middle aged man on trial for being an SS guard.

The Israeli Supreme Court ultimately set Demjanjuk free on a procedural technicality and declined to put him on trial again despite the very strong evidence that he did in fact serve as an SS guard in Sobibor, so for Raab to try to make Demjanjuk a sympathetic figure is reprehensible. Murachik concluded, "In short, the evidence that Demjanjuk served as a Wachmann at Trawnicki, Sobibor and Flossenburg was and remains quite persuasive. In addition to the identity card, at least one other document places him at Sobibor and at least four put him at Trawnicki, while at least three put him at Flossenburg after Sobibor. All of these documents are mutually consistent and all bear Demjanjuk's tell-tale identification number...Is John Demjanjuk Ivan the Terrible? We may never know. If he is not, then justice of a sort has been done through his acquittal by the Israel Supreme Court. But that acquittal hardly makes him 'an innocent victim,' as his defenders would have it, much less a martyr. Far from it. That he served the SS and assisted in unspeakable crimes against humanity--of that, there can be no doubt."

Raab obviously spent quite a bit of time interviewing various Demjanjuk family members/sympathizers--but did he ever take the time to review the court proceedings and the actual evidence of the case? Raab's article will surely give great comfort to Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers but it hardly did justice to this case or to the victims of the Holocaust.

Scenario: Multinational Nuclear Experimentation Lab in 2005

2009-09-02T03:58:00.002-04:00

For five years during elementary school and junior high school I participated in "Spectrum," a program for gifted children; the Trotwood-Madision (Ohio) school district was one of the few school districts in the country that had a gifted program at that time (early to mid 1980s) and I very much enjoyed having the opportunity to learn at an accelerated pace and to do activities and projects that were much more sophisticated than standard classroom fare.

One of our assignments involved writing a scenario set in 2005 about a "Multinational Nuclear Experimentation Lab (MUNNEL)" that had been founded in 1988; although we could choose from three general story templates to describe MUNNEL's activities and status, in retrospect it became apparent that that we were expected to portray glowing, optimistic visions of the nations of the world joining hands and singing "kumbaya"--but even though I had just turned 13, I fully understood that the world does not work that way and that it was sheer folly to imagine that the nature of humankind and world politics would change in just two short decades. Therefore, I offered up a dystopian characterization of MUNNEL, mirroring the corruption that I saw in the U.N. and other multinational organizations that ostensibly work toward the betterment of the world but in reality largely serve the interests of dictators and despots.

In addition to submitting the story as a Spectrum assignment we also had the opportunity to enter our stories in a "Scenario Writing Contest" from the "Future Problem Solving Program." My story received the highest possible grade from my Spectrum teacher but--in an outcome that is hardly surprising considering the pessimistic (but quite realistic) tone of my piece--it did not win a prize in the contest; the contest stories were graded on a 1-5 scale (with 5 as the best score) in seven different categories: I received a "5" in "Structure of Scenario," a "4" in "Creative Imagination," "Interest," and "Quality of Solution Proposed or Inferred" and a "3" in "Social/Cultural Influences," "Feelings/Emotions" and "Future Knowledge." The latter grade is particularly ironic considering that the real world in 2009 is pretty much in exactly the mess that I described in my 1984 story, with the very countries that I mentioned--Russia, Iran, Syria and Libya--continuing to be major sources of instability. The contest judge offered this comment about my story: "The existence of opposing blocs of nations is a valid scenario based on the stimulus solution proposed. But otherwise the scenario sounds very much like the present with exactly the same national alignments and controversial personalities. The future, in other words, sounds so much like the present that the reader wonders how the world got from 1988 to 2005. You certainly have loaded the central figure with the enigmatic characteristics that people can interpret to fit their own prejudices."

What a shortsighted view by the contest judge! Although the Berlin Wall fell with much fanfare just a few years after I wrote this story, Russia today is ruled by an ex-KGB official and the U.N. is still dominated by a Communist-Third World voting bloc that prevents that organization from taking any meaningful actions to stop war, feed the hungry or fight disease.

Some of the phrasing used in the story reflects my age at that time, but it is funny that even when I had just turned 13 I already wrote better than a lot of adult bloggers do now! Of course, now I cringe at some of the sentence formulations that I used but this story can be made much stronger with just a little bit of editing--which is more than I can say for a lot of the work that professional writers submit (just for fun, I have appended a lightly edited version of the story at the bottom of this post). More important than any structural changes that I would make to this story, I think that the understanding I displayed of exactly why and how a "MUNNEL"-type project would fall apart was well beyond my years; just as I foresaw, the international community has been unable to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a problem that is a major threat to peace and security worldwide.

I wrote this story before the information about former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim's Nazi past became public knowledge but the description of the sordid nature of the character Hans Kiplinger clearly reflected my cynicism about the background and motivations of Waldheim and other ostensibly neutral voices for peace who have served as mouthpieces for despotic regimes. At first glance the allusions that I made to Kiplinger's disreputable lifestyle away from his job may seem bizarre or out of place in the story but considering some of the scandals that have taken place in the past decades involving powerful leaders in various fields I think that was actually a bit of precocious insight on my part; corrupt men often act in dissolute fashion away from their jobs as well: consider some of the activities enjoyed by Max Mosley, the top official in Formula One racing.

Here is my "MUNNEL" short story exactly as I wrote it on December 3, 1984:

A visitor to the "Multinational Nuclear Experimentation Lab" (MUNNEL) in Blurin, Denmark would find on the surface scientific wizardry coupled with international cooperation. Perhaps it's this surface view of MUNNEL that has too many people fooled. Although some people see through this, most don't see that the Communists and the Arabs just aren't playing fair. In the past year alone, there have been 20 cases of Communist espionage and over ten of Arab espionage. However, some say this is overshadowed by the appointment of Hans Kiplinger as chairman of MUNNEL in 1997.

Hans Kiplinger is a man who appears to have lived several lives. At least the claims about him are past enumeration. The only things known for sure about him are that he is in his late 50s, of German stock, that he is 5-11 and 180 pounds. According to some rumors, Kiplinger is a former mercenary, while others say he is a businessman befallen with more than his share of bad luck. Whichever the case, people from a dozen nations hold his credits. Some say his debt, however he got it, climbs into six figure numbers.

How would such a man get the chairmanship of MUNNEL? Simply, he has connections. Russia, Libya, Iran, Syria and their allies voted him in. Back in 1997--and still today--the Communist/Arab bloc holds on to a narrow 35-33 majority at MUNNEL. On top of that, not all Western Bloc countries voted against Kiplinger.

Another problem of MUNNEL is that the terms of the agreement (the so-called "Blurin Pact") are constantly challenged by either the West or the Communists. Furthermore, the pictures released of MUNNEL showing American and Russian scientists working together were usually either staged or out and out falsifications. Of course, Hans Kiplinger denies this, saying (June 8, 2003), "MUNNEL is a place of international goodwill and cooperation." Ralph Jameson, head of the International Council Against MUNNEL (1200 members worldwide), responds to that by saying, "MUNNEL, in reality, is a haven of espionage, distrust, secrecy and international hatred."

Hans Kiplinger's lifestyle is another example of one of Jameson's prime arguments. The argument is that MUNNEL and Kiplinger are "hypocrites." Hans Kiplinger claims to be in favor of the simple life. He once said (August, 2000), "I am against alcohol and the modern life of the rich...drugs and greed are disgusting to me." Hans Kiplinger lives on the French Riviera, is often seen with one or more female companions, drinks alcohol and, in general, lives life to the fullest. It should be added that Hans Kiplinger flies almost daily to Denmark so that he can live on the Riviera.

A further example of Kiplinger's alleged hypocrisy is the claim that he spent five years in a drug rehabilitation center in Franfurt, Germany. Kiplinger and his chief ally, Russia, claim that the aforementioned is "dirty propaganda and capitalistic lies." America usually tries to remain and appear neutral in this, though the U.S. voted against Kiplinger in the 1997 MUNNEL elections.

Instead of releasing international tension, MUNNEL has instead increased it. Bold optimists who once declared, "MUNNEL will defrost chilled U.S./Soviet relations," now have to admit it just won't happen. Even MUNNEL's primary goals of nuclear disarmament and different uses of nuclear energy have failed, miserably. By 2000, the Soviets already started to rearm. America did likewise in 2001. With most people fooled and a cure not in sight, total failure of MUNNEL seems imminent.

****

Without altering the essence of the scenario that I crafted as a 13 year old, here is a lightly edited version of that story:

A visitor to the "Multinational Nuclear Experimentation Lab" (MUNNEL) in Blurin, Denmark finds on the surface scientific wizardry coupled with international cooperation--but this superficial, idealistic view of MUNNEL has fooled too many people and blinded them to the reality that several Communist governments and Arab regimes are not upholding their MUNNEL treaty obligations. However, these violations are overshadowed by the appointment of Hans Kiplinger as chairman of MUNNEL in 1997.

Kiplinger is in his late 50s but the stout, 5-11, 180 pound German still looks robust enough to be a mercenary; he is rumored to have fought as a soldier for hire in various conflicts two decades ago but his past is shrouded in secrecy and intrigue. There are also persistent reports that he is deeply in debt to various governments and/or private individuals.

How did such a shady character become the chairman of MUNNEL? Simply, he has connections. Russia, Libya, Iran, Syria and their allies supported his candidacy. The Communist/Arab bloc still holds on to a narrow 35-33 voting majority at MUNNEL. On top of that, not all of the Western countries voted against Kiplinger.

Another problem for MUNNEL is that the terms of the agreement (the so-called "Blurin Pact") are constantly disputed by the West and the Communist/Arab bloc, with each side offering vastly different interpretations of their responsibilities and privileges. Furthermore, the published photos released by MUNNEL showing American and Russian scientists working together were often either staged or out and out falsifications. Kiplinger denies this, declaring (June 8, 2003), "MUNNEL is a place of international goodwill and cooperation." Ralph Jameson, head of the International Council Against MUNNEL (a non-profit organization with a membership of 1200 concerned scientists and intellectuals), responds to that by saying, "MUNNEL, in reality, has been plagued by espionage, distrust, and ethnic hatred."

Hans Kiplinger's dissolute lifestyle has also come under fire, because there are indications that Kiplinger has enriched himself at the expense of MUNNEL's budget. Kiplinger rejects these charges, saying (August, 2000), "I am against alcohol and the modern life of the rich...drugs and greed are disgusting to me" but the truth is that he maintains a residence on the French Riviera, where the married Kiplinger has been seen with various female companions who are not his wife. Instead of maintaining a residence in Blurin like most MUNNEL officials do, Kiplinger often uses MUNNEL aircraft to shuttle back and forth from the Riviera to Denmark.

There are credible reports that Kiplinger spent an extended period of time in a drug rehabilitation center in Franfurt, Germany. Kiplinger and his chief MUNNEL ally, Russia, say that he is the victim of a campaign of "dirty propaganda and capitalistic lies."

Although the U.S. voted against Kiplinger in the 1997 MUNNEL elections, the U.S. has avoided public confrontations with Kiplinger since he took power.

Instead of relieving international tension, MUNNEL has instead increased it. Bold optimists who once declared, "MUNNEL will defrost chilled U.S./Soviet relations," now have to admit that it just won't happen. MUNNEL has failed miserably to achieve its primary goals of nuclear disarmament and the promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In 2000, the Soviets violated the Blurin Pact by restocking their nuclear arsenal, forcing the U.S. to do likewise in 2001. Total failure of MUNNEL seems imminent.

Hanukkah Stories

2009-08-31T01:07:00.001-04:00

Scotland has committed a craven and crass act by freeing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the Libyan intelligence operative who is the only person convicted of a crime in connection with the December 21, 1988 terrorist attack that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Scottish and British governments expect to profit from establishing commercial ties with a grateful Libyan government but such appeasement of terrorism inevitably will exact a high cost in innocent blood.

The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing killed 270 people, including 25 year old David Dornstein, a staff member for CAJE (Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education). CAJE sponsors an annual contest for the best original short story on a Jewish theme by a writer between the ages of 18 and 35. I submitted the following story for the 1996 contest.

"Grandpa, tell me another story."

"It's getting late, Daniel."

"But, Grandpa, you said that you would tell stories until the last candle finished burning."

Abe Lemuel looked at the old menorah in the windowsill. One candle flickered intermittently. Abe chuckled. "All right, you win. Do you know why we light those candles?"

Daniel shook his head.

"More than two thousand years ago the Syrian-Greeks tried to destroy the Jewish people. The Syrian-Greeks had a powerful army and the Jews were a tiny nation. But a brave Jewish priest named Mattathias told the Jews to not be afraid. He and his sons put together a small army. The Syrian-Greeks had more soldiers, better weapons and better training. But Mattathias and his followers had tremendous faith in God. When Mattathias died his son Judah became the leader of the Jews. He was called Judah Maccabee--Judah the Hammer. Judah outsmarted the Syrian-Greek generals and led the Jewish people to victory. The Jews were free for the first time in hundreds of years but they could not celebrate yet: the Syrian-Greeks had desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and there was only enough oil left to light the candles in the Temple's menorah for one day--but a miracle happened and the oil lasted for eight days. That is why we light Hanukkah candles for eight days, Daniel."

"Wow, Grandpa! That was a great story."

Before Abe could answer, a sarcastic voice said, "Yeah, great."

Abe looked up and saw his son-in-law standing in the doorway. "I didn't expect you back so soon, Ari."

"Yeah, well, plans change. And, for the last time, my name is Eric."

"Dad, Grandpa just told me--"

"Yeah, I heard. Get your stuff. We're going back home."

"But Dad, you said I could stay all weekend--"

"Yeah, well, like I said, plans change."

Daniel stomped out of the room. Eric Brown glared at his father-in-law. "I don't know why you insist on telling him those silly, outmoded fairy tales."

Abe shook his head sadly. He spoke firmly but did not raise his voice. "And I don't know why you changed your name, Ari Berkowitz--or how you convinced my only daughter that Sadie is an old fashioned name and that the eternal faith of our forefathers is somehow outdated. Your father and grandfather were pious men. If they would see what you have become--"

"But that's precisely the point. My parents and grandparents aren't here--and neither are my brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. The only family I have is the one I've made for myself in America. I refuse to fill my son's head with false stories of our supposedly glorious history. I will not shackle my son's future to a bunch of ancient myths and archaic rituals."

Daniel walked dejectedly into the living room, dragging his backpack behind him. "Cheer up, son. I got tickets for the Knicks' game tomorrow--best seats in the Garden."

"Grandpa and I were going to go to shul tomorrow."

"Shul? Since when would you rather go to synagogue than a ball game?"

Daniel shrugged. "I've never been to shul. Grandpa said it would be fun."

"Your grandfather's a sickly old man," Eric answered angrily. "He doesn't remember what it's like to be a kid."

"Grandpa and I have a lot of fun," Daniel replied defensively.

"Do not take that tone with me, young man. Go wait for me in the hallway."

As soon as Daniel walked out, Eric jabbed a finger into Abe's chest. "You're turning my own son against me! This is the last time I'll bring Daniel over here!" Eric left the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Daniel looked up at his father and burst into tears. "Come on, Daniel. We're going to have a lot of fun tomorrow. You'll see."

*****

"It's time to get up, honey." Daniel heard his mother's soft, sweet voice and he slowly woke up. Memories raced through his head: flickering candles, his grandfather's vivid stories, his father's angry voice, waves and waves of tears.

"I'm not getting up," Daniel said defiantly.

Susan Brown stepped into Daniel's bedroom so that he husband would not hear. "Daniel, your father went to a lot of trouble to get those tickets."

"I don't care. I wanted to go to shul with Grandpa."

"Honey, you can go next week."

"I wanted to go this week." Daniel's voice was just loud enough to get his father's attention.

"Look what your father's done!" Eric knocked the breakfast dishes off of the kitchen table with a powerful sweep of his arm. "You told me you wanted to get away from your father's outmoded ideas but now he's poisoned our son's mind."

Daniel began crying and pulled the covers over his head. Susan rushed into the kitchen and put her finger to her mouth. "Shh! Your shouting and carrying on are only making things worse. No matter what we think of my father's beliefs, I don't want to turn our son against his only living grandparent."

Eric threw his hands in the air. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let Daniel go to shul." Susan lowered her voice conspiratorially. "What can it hurt? He'll go, he'll be bored out of his mind and that will be the end of it."

"All right, but before I take him to see his grandfather I'm going to tell him some real history."

The Browns went back to Daniel's room. Daniel was still buried beneath the covers, sobbing uncontrollably. Eric looked at Susan but she nodded at him as if to say, you caused this mess, so you fix it. "Come on, son. Get dressed. I'll take you to the synagogue."

Daniel answered without lowering the covers. "It's too late now. By the time we get there services will be over."

Susan saw the rising tide of anger on Eric's face and shook her head. Eric took a deep breath. "Yeah, you're probably right." Eric looked at Susan and repeated the words that she mouthed to him. "And, uh, I'm really sorry about that. You can go to services next week. How would you like to spend this afternoon at Grandpa's apartment? He should be home from shul by the time we can get over there."

Daniel jumped up and rubbed his eyes. "Thanks, Dad!"

Daniel moved like a whirlwind, throwing on his clothes and rushing through his breakfast. "Wow, you got ready fast, son." Eric forced a smile. "You really like visiting your grandfather, don't you?"

"Yeah," Daniel answered warily, afraid that his father was having second thoughts about taking him to see his grandfather. Eric put his arm around Daniel's shoulders as they walked to the car. "I want to talk to you about that, son."

The car ride to his grandfather's apartment building seemed to last forever. Eric told his son of unimaginable horrors--gas chambers, piles and piles of corpses, crematoria. "Can you believe in such a God as this?" he bellowed over and over. "Your grandfather speaks of heroes and glory and God's love for the Jewish people. He is teaching you Jewish fairy tales, not Jewish history!" At last they arrived and Daniel ran up the steps two at a time. Abe had seen the car pull up and he stood in his doorway smiling when Daniel reached the top of the stairwell. "This is a pleasant surprise!" Abe then noticed the somber look on Daniel's face. "What's wrong, Daniel?"

"Grandpa, Dad says that your stories are fairy tales, that God does not really exist. He says that the Jews have always separated themselves from others and that's why everyone hates us. I told him that he was wrong but--"

"But now he told you what happened in Europe."

Daniel nodded his head. "The Nazis killed his whole family. Dad told me that there is no God, that the worst blasphemy of all is to say that God exists and allowed the Holocaust to happen."

"Let's go inside, Daniel. Then we can talk about this." Abe turned around slowly and struggled to walk into the apartment. Daniel offered his left arm for support and Abe silently accepted the assistance.

"Are you okay, Grandpa?" Daniel asked nervously, because Abe usually stubbornly waved off help.

"I'm fine, Daniel, just a little worn out from walking to and from shul."

"Next week you can lean on me."

Abe smiled as he eased into his favorite chair. "Thank you, Daniel."

Daniel sat on the floor in front of his grandfather. Had his grandfather always looked that old, that vulnerable?

"Daniel, I understand your father's pain, believe me. My wife, your grandmother of blessed memory, was killed by those Nazi butchers. Your mother and I only narrowly escaped death. After such tragedies it is only natural to question God, to be angry at God. Do you remember why our Patriarch Jacob was renamed Israel?"

"Because he wrestled with God and man and prevailed."

"Very good, Daniel. We Jews wrestle with God, but, ultimately, we believe in Him and His Law. That is our strength. No enemy can ever truly defeat us so long as we hold firm in that belief. Our sages say that there is a Jewish neshama--a Jewish soul--in every Jew, no matter how far he strays from his people."

"Does my Dad have a Jewish soul?"

Abe answered without hesitation. "Of course--but he conceals it with his anger and bitterness. You must make sure that you never do that. Let me show you something. Please bring my siddur to me."

Daniel walked across the room and carefully picked up the prayerbook from its resting place on the bookshelf. He handed it to his grandfather.

Abe quickly found the desired page. "Daniel, read the first line of this prayer--first in Hebrew, then the English translation."

"'Yisgadal v'yiskadash shmai raba': Magnified and sanctified be His great name.'"

"Now read the heading at the top of this page."

"'Mourners' Kaddish.'"

"Think about that, Daniel. In Judaism, when one of our loved ones dies, we praise God's greatness. This is done to reaffirm and express our great faith in God. If we responded by cursing God we would become angry, bitter and, ultimately, alienated from God and man alike. Someday your faith will be tested, Daniel--and how you respond will define you as a Jew and as a human being."

"This is all very confusing, Grandpa."

"In time things will become clearer to you, Daniel. You are very bright and your Jewish soul yearns for Jewish knowledge and Jewish experiences. That brings me to this." Abe pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. "I forgot to give this to you yesterday."

Daniel looked at it and then shrugged at his grandfather. "I don't understand."

"I want you to contact this rabbi. He's a good friend of mine and he will continue to teach you about Judaism when I am, uh, no longer available."

"What are you talking about?"

"Daniel, I'm not a young man--"

"You're not going to die!"

"Don't be silly, Daniel. Death is a natural part of the life cycle. Don't get my wrong, though, I plan to be here for you for a long time. But someday you will need a new teacher, a new mentor."

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Grandpa."

"Don't say that, Daniel. Savor our time together, learn from it--but know that it will end, but that your life, your growth, will continue after that."

*****

"Daniel, you're going to Sabbath services with your grandfather almost every week now. We don't live in a shtetl, we live in America. Why can't you be a normal kid?" Eric could not believe that driving Daniel to his grandfather's apartment had become a regular ritual. He and Susan had been certain that, given a free choice, Daniel would eventually reject religious observance. If he now refused to take Daniel to visit his grandfather he would surely alienate his son forever. I have no choice but to let this passing phase play itself out, Eric thought. Someday that boy will understand that there is no deity that cares about the everyday lives of human beings.

His father's cold words stung Daniel but his grandfather told him that this bluntness was Eric's way of dealing with overwhelming feelings of fear, loss and abandonment. "Answer your father's taunts with love, not anger, and he eventually will see the correctness of your chosen path," Daniel's grandfather emphasized.

"Why don't you join us, Dad? Maybe you would enjoy coming to synagogue."

"God was silent during my family's hour of need and I have nothing to say to him now."

"Why don't you at least come upstairs, Dad? You haven't even spoken to Grandpa in months."

"I don't have anything to say to him, either." Eric's knuckles whitened as he clenched the steering wheel.

"Dad, this isn't right. You've not only cut yourself off from Grandpa, but you've put up a wall between Mom and her father."

"Your mother doesn't want anything to do with this religious nonsense. That's why she married me in the first place, to get out of his house and away from his old-fashioned ways." Eric pulled the car into the parking lot and stopped by the entrance.

"In your heart you know this isn't right, Dad. At least come upstairs, spend a few minutes with Grandpa."

"Okay, fine." Eric impatiently swerved into the nearest parking spot and turned the car off. "Let's go upstairs and get this over with."

Eric led the way up the staircase. "I don't know why I let you talk me into this, son. This is just a waste of time."

Eric knocked on the door. "Abe, are you here? Abe, I'm here with your prize pupil." Eric waited for a response, then knocked a little harder. "He's probably sleeping. Well, the door's open. Let's go in and--"

"Dad, look! Grandpa must have slipped on something!"

Abe Lemuel was sprawled on his back on the living room floor, his head resting against the bottom of his bookcase. Eric knelt down. "There's no pulse, son. He's dead." Abe's precious siddur lay just a few inches from his right hand. "You see what kind of world this is, Daniel?" Eric picked up the book and gestured wildly toward the sky. "You see how much good prayer does? Now do you feel like praising God? Do you feel like telling God how great He is, son?"

Daniel choked backed his tears and answered without hesitation: "Yisgadal v'yiskadash..."

God and the Spider's Web

2009-08-28T03:21:00.000-04:00

When I turned on the light, the jet black, thick legged spider sought shelter by scurrying into an empty shoe. I turned the shoe upside down and watched the spider tumble out. The spider fell straight into a web that had been spun by a Daddy long legs, a web littered with the corpses of previous visitors; the more the spider struggled to get out of the foreign web, the more entangled and trapped he seemed to get.

“This should be interesting,” I thought dispassionately. “That spider should have never tried to hide in my shoe and now he’ll find out what happens when you go where you are not supposed to go—and my hands will be clean, because I did not kill him.”

As the spider frantically tried to free himself, the vibrating web alerted the Daddy long legs that fresh meat had arrived. The Daddy long legs, bigger but leaner than his prey, climbed on to the web and poked at the captive spider, who lashed back violently with all of the strength that he could muster.

Meanwhile, I watched without interfering, musing that the two spiders were likely not even aware of my presence or the fact that on a whim I could kill either or both of them.

After the captive spider’s violent thrashings slowed down, the Daddy long legs came closer to him—but the spider again lashed out furiously when the Daddy long legs poked the spider.

Then the Daddy long legs pounced on the spider and the two creatures wrestled with unbridled passion, their bodies becoming so intertwined that it was not clear if they were trying to kill each other or if they were making love to each other; in either case, it was impossible to tell who was on top.

Their gyrations slowed a bit and the two bodies moved in unison. At first it seemed as though the larger Daddy long legs had engulfed the spider and was about to eat him but in fact the spider was carrying the dazed Daddy long legs. The spider then flipped the Daddy long legs over, delivered a savage death blow, tore down the web and sprinted to safety, dragging the now lifeless Daddy long legs on the ground.

The Daddy long legs died suddenly and brutally, a victim of the winds of fate that cast the spider into the web after I casually dumped the trespasser out of my shoe.

I put on my shoes, turned off the light and left the room.