Blue Velvet

Archeologists have traced warfare in the Middle East (West Asia) back about 10,000 years, well before writing was invented. The first detailed written account of a battle in human history describes a conflict that took place in Israel in 1457 BCE. 

Result: Egypt 1, Kadesh 0. 

Kadesh was a set of allies, mostly Canaanites from today's Israel and Syria. 

People have been fighting over Israel for 10,000 years. Sometimes Egypt wins, sometimes Kadish.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California stated that 61% of Californians believe we should not take sides in the conflict. 

Meanwhile there's a bad war going on in Nigeria between the herders and the farmers. Americans don't mind that one. And Ukraine and so on and on. 

I'm reminded of the key question raised in the movie "Blue Velvet,"  which is,"Why are there people like Frank?" 

No answer.

Mass Extinctions

Science tells us that a mass extinction killed the dinosaurs, except for those that could fly. A huge comet had struck the planet; that event created a deadly climate change, which some consider a liberal myth.

In the last 500 million years, five different mass extinctions wiped the slate on Earth almost but not quite clean of animal and vegetable life forms. The main cause each time: climate change. 

Western civilization first collapsed during the Bronze Age, about 3,000 years ago. The Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians fell.  Probably from climate change.  

The Maya civilization disintegrated 1200 years ago. Likely cause, a local climate change.   

Mail

In the rain I went to get our mail. When I reached the mail boxes, I saw a middle-aged couple near the package concierge. The concierge is a tall metal structure with many boxes. You put in your individual code and one box will open its door so you can get your package.

The woman was punching in her code. The man was standing about ten feet away with his back to her.

"Don't look!" she barked at him.

"I'm not!" he shouted back. 

I got out of there fast. 

I hope it was a Christmas present. 

Nothing

When I was in graduate school, I had a friend who was writing a novel about nothing. That was decades before "Seinfeld," a famous sitcom about nothing. 

In those days the Fugs had a striking song out with memorable lyrics: "Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday lots more nothing." (You can find the Fugs on YouTube.)

My friend's novel was set in a small midwestern town (as I recall) in which the citizens feared nothing. In this fiction, nothing mattered. The civil authorities were asked to prepare for nothing. And then nothing actually happened. And so on. 

That first two chapters were memorable, but my guess is my friend never finished his project. That was a long time ago. We were in revolt against a war. And some thought that nothing was sexist. 

 

Ivy League

The presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn were in the news last week, trying to answer a question. Would a student calling for the genocide of Jews violate their university's code of conduct? 

My favorite presidential answer was the announcement that the decision to ban student calls for genocide would be "context dependent" at MIT. In other words, the meaning of a slogan like "Palestine must be free/ from the river to the sea" depends on its context.

The university president was right. 

The meaning of any sentence (including this one) is context dependent. By claiming that administrative  decisions were context-dependent, the president of MIT managed to say an impressive nothing at all. 

Unfortunately people noticed.  

From the River to the Sea

"From the river to the sea" has become a popular chant signaling support for Palestinian civilians trapped in the war between Hamas and Israel. The phrase was taken from the Hamas constitution, and many consider it a call for an ethnic cleansing: getting rid of the Jews who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. 

That's what the phrase means to me, but it means other things to some people.  

I suspect that many Americans who chant "from the river to the sea" do not intend to call for another Holocaust and the erasure of Israel. They believe they are supporting justice for Palestinians. But as Hafez al-Assad, former dictator of Syria once said, "We shall only accept war and the restoration of the usurped land . . . to oust you, aggressors, and throw you into the sea for good."

A slogan that some consider a call for the extinction of Israel blocks a path to peace. But leaders on both sides do not seek peace. They seek power. 

And "from the river to the sea" works, in different ways, to empower both Hamas and Netanyahu. 

Houthi

Last week the Houthi, a rebel group in the Middle East, fired on an American ship, using one missile and one drone. No one was killed. Insulted American TV commentators reacted by calling for an escalation. They argued we should kill Houthi in batches and teach them a lesson.  

Here is the problem. If we kill Houthis in batches, the Houthis will next try to kill us in batches. Another pointless American war will take off. 

Why not follow the Code of Hammurabi instead? The Code is the oldest legal system on the planet, and it is local, having been written in Babylon (Iraq). Hammurabi argued that we are entitled only to an eye for an eye. In other words, we are entitled to attack the Houthi with one missile and one drone, being careful to kill no one. We do to them exactly what they did to us. That's fair. Do not escalate. 

 

Leaving California

I have friends who found life in California too expensive, so they moved to Oregon, Washington or Nevada. That makes sense. I'd be willing to move to a cheaper but civilized state with decent weather, modern medicine and solid Internet connections. But most of my family lives along the California coastal plain, so I'm staying here.

The population of California is about 40 million, three times what it was when I was young. Too many people crowded in. But when a mere 51,000 people move from California to muggy, bug-ridden Florida in one year, and 28,000 move from Florida (where the state flag is a pair of orange-brown cargo shorts) to California, the pundits go nuts. It's like California lost a war.

In fact, California has gained 28,000 liberals. It has lost ladies and gents who hope to carry guns while attending anti-abortion rallies. They are leaving for Florida and Texas. They are the ones buying cheap,  homes in low places sinking under water as the oceans rise and hurricanes grow more mighty.