Holiday Spectacular XIV

Those of you who spend all year wondering what I will write about in the next Holiday Spectacular can know two things for sure. It will be my last post of the year and . . . it will be sPeCtAcUlaR. 

And there are several customs associated with this annual venerable event. First, I use a lot of green and red, for obvious reasons, although lots of people find it distracting. Probably is. Oh, well.

Second, I don't know what I'm writing about until I start and I just write it as fast as I can, although not in one sitting.

Third, you will enjoy the same highly unprofessional editing and formatting as in the rest of the year.

That's about it for customs, actually. Now for the meat.

TOP TEN PEOPLE NAMED KLAUS OR CLAUS

This is an official Xmas list, meaning, until I change my mind, it is to be treated like gospel under a theocracy. Also, it's a for better or worse list - everyone on it isn't a good guy. Most are German or Germanic (d'uh).

10. Klaus Marie Brandenauer, an Austrian actor, who brilliantly played a Bond villain in Never Say Never Again. I don't know if he's really been great in anything else, but he was great there.

9. Claus Ogerman. A composer and producer, he worked with an astonishing number of stars including Sinatra,  Billie Holiday, George Benson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Leslie Gore,  Freddie Hubbard, Oscar Peterson, Mel Tormé Connie Francis, Better Carter, Al Hirt, Stan Getz, Barbra Streisand, Diana Krall,and many others.

8. Frank Klaus, an American despite his name, was a World Champion Middleweight boxer who took the the vacant title (the very young, but even greater champion known as Stanley Ketchel, had been murdered) in 1913. Though pretty much forgotten now, he is considered by some boxing aficionados as one of the greatest middleweights ever.   

7. Klaus Voormann was walking in Hamburg's Reeperbahn in the 1960s when he heard music coming from a club. He stopped in to listen and, intrigued, went in. The second band up was The Beatles. He was floored, actually never having heard rock 'n roll before. He became a bit of a groupie, following them. During a break one day, he foisted some record sleeve artwork upon John Lennon, who fobbed him off on Stu Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe recognized Voorman's talent, but Voormann had already left. Sutcliffe was fascinated by Voorman and his friends' style and tracked them down. Sometime later, Voormann moved in with Harrison and Starr after McCartney and Lennon moved out. He designed the cover for the Revolver album, winning a Grammy award. He designed covers for the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Harry Nilsson and others. He also became a producer (most famously for "Da Da Da"), and a musician, being the bassist for Manfred Mann for about 3 years and then a session musician, including for former Beatles and Carly Simon.   

6. Claus von Bülow was essentially just a rich guy, from a successful family and years as a private secretary to J. Paul Getty, who also, possibly, killed his wife, Sunny, in 1980, after failing to get it done in 1979. His first conviction was overturned (represented on appeal by famous Harvard lawyer, Alan Dershowitz), and he was acquitted at the second trial.   

5. Klaus Kinski was a German actor most famous for working with director Werner Herzog, and the film, Nosferatu, the Vampyre. He was famously temperamental on set, and fathered three children, all who became actor/actresses, one also famous - Natassja Kinski. The two daughters later wrote that he had sexually abused them. 

4. Klaus Fuchs was another bad guy. Working on the atom and hydrogen bombs at Los Alamos during WWII and for the Brits later, he was actually a communist spy. Though accused, he got away with it, but then voluntarily 'fessed up. He served 9 or so years of 14 (time off for good behavior) after conviction and emigrated to Germany. 

3.  Mrs. Klaus. Santa's wife, albeit without a first name, gets third place. She is actually much younger than her husband being first created by a Christian missionary in 1849 in a short story, A Christmas Legend. Actually, the character in the story wasn't really Mrs. Klaus, but the idea caught on and she's been quite a hit since then. Some people say she really doesn't exist. Wouldn't that make Santa a liar?

2. Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer during WWII and hereditary nobleman, who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944 in Operation Valkyrie. He was played well by Tom Cruise in 2008's Valkyrie, and was the subject of other movies and books.    

1. Obviously, Santa Claus, known by many other names. I don't think I need to tell you anything about him here.  

What's my favorite Xmas movie? 

Many people who know me, know this. I love Miracle on 34th Street, but only the wonderful 1947 original.  The other two versions are abominable. I often find something to say about it here. For one thing, I cry three times every time I watch it at the same scenes, when Santa speaks Dutch to the orphan, when the leading lady sends him a note that she believes in him and when there is doubt cast at the end that he might have been Santa, after all. Well, maybe. The cast was fantastic. It starred:

Edmund Gwenn, who won an Oscar for his Kris Kringle. There were also two Oscars for writing.

Maureen O'Hara, too famous to need to go on about.

John Payne, once a well-known actor. Now, this is pretty much all you will see him in. 

Natalie Wood, then a child, later considered at least one of the, if not the, most beautiful actress in the world, and who drowned in the water (her phobia) under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Every few years some DA or the other says he is reopening the case, and then nothing happens. Why? Probably because her husband, Robert Wagner, didn't murder her. Anyway, sad, but I think of her mostly as this child actress and not in her later roles.

Supporting roles played to perfection by:

Thelma Ritter, a wonderful character actress who later garnered two Oscar nominations. But, this was actually her first roll, and probably the only one she is really remember for.

Porter Hall, another great character actor and reputedly a wonderful man who usually played not so lovable characters. Here, he is a nervous and angry store psychologist who causes a lot of trouble.

Jerome Cowan, why another great character actor, who here plays the hapless DA, forced to put Santa Claus on trial.

William Frawley, who was Fred in I love Lucy and here the political advisor for the judge.

Gene Lockhart, who played the judge was yet another great character actor and also the father of June Lockhart. Some of his expressions and lines are unforgettable.

Phillip Tonge, still another great character actor, was Susan's a co-worker. A small roll, but he made it charming.

Alvin Greenman, who played the lovable Alfred, a young friend of Kris Kringle. Alvin didn't have much of an acting career. This was his first and most memorable role. He continued in the industry in other ways. But, he was great in this.

There was even an uncredited bit part for Jack Albertson, who did many things in film and television, but probably most famously starred in Chico and the Man (Emmy, best actor) in the 1970s.  Many of the other actors/actresses were well known at the time.

All I can say, if you haven't ever seen it, watch it. If you don't love it, you are a joyless buzzard who doesn't deserve to ever have a happy moment in your life again. And I might not think much of you, even if I wouldn't say it during the holidays.

What's my second favorite Xmas movie?

That's tougher, but, and few people know this, maybe no one, but it's another miracle movie, this one Miracle at Morgan Creek, which came out in 1944, a few years before Miracle at 34th Street. But, like MO34thSt., it is preserved by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and is on the American Film Institutes' top 100 list, which given how many movies there have been, is quite an accomplishment.

But while Miracle on 34th Street has become a Xmas tradition, you rarely if ever see, or even hear of Miracle of Morgan Creek ("MMC"). The film was written and produced by film renegade Preston Sturges, a film-maker who made movies he wrote, and he did MMC at night just ahead of each day's filming. It dealt with a very touchy subject, the impregnation of a teenage girl by a soldier on his way overseas. He was fought by the powerful censors, who did not like the idea of her getting pregnant, any possible comparison of her child with Jesus (there was none) and teenage drunkedness, among other things. Somehow, he managed to get around the big problem, by having the heroine be technically married to the unknown soldier who knocked her up in a sort of off-screen wild party wedding. Because, I guess, it was okay for her to get knocked up in a one-time fling so long as they got married. My favorite Sturges fact is that his mother, who was definitely a character, had a relationship for a while with satanist Aleister Crowley. That had to be weird for the kid.

Despite the subject matter, this is a comedy, and it's really funny. Likely, if you are a film buff, you've heard of Sturgess, but you probably wouldn't know most of the stars because they really aren't famous anymore. 

Here's the basic story. Betty Hutton plays the heroine, Trudy, a cool chick who is going to a party of boys going overseas the next day. Her suitor, Eddie Bracken, sort of Jerry Lewis before there was a Jerry Lewis (and Lewis sort of remade tof MMC as Rock-A-Bye Baby), who it seems she loves like a wacky retarded brother, is also treated like a bit of a lacky by her, as she uses him as a beard while she goes to a party. She gets plastered, married and has sex with some fellow whose name she cannot remember, but is something like Ratzkywaksky, or was it Zitskywitsky? So, what to do? 

Betty Hutton, who plays the female lead, Trudy, is virtually unknown today though she was famous enough in her day. She was a comedienne, but she also sang, and did so briefly (thankfully, its really archaic faux-operatic sounding). The hero, Norval, an abnormally nice but idiotic patsy who is hopelessly in love with Trudy, is played by Eddie Bracken, who was also well-known but later largely eclipsed by other wacky comics, like Jerry Lewis. Hutton actually didn't want to work with Bracken, because his slapstick comedy overshadowed her singing (for good reason). She also starred in Annie Get Your Gun, if you've ever seen that (I acted in it, in my one school play). Hutton actually had quite a sad life, filled with depression.  

Trudy's sister, Emmy, is played by Diana Lynn, who was a concert pianist at age 12, and a pretty good actress, though never super-successful. She played opposite Ronald Reagan in Bedtime for Bonzo, was in a couple of Martin and Lewis movies, and lots of other stuff. She died young though, age 45, of a stroke. In any event, whatever her career, she was terrific as the perky and out-spoken little sister. 

Porter Hall also has a small role in MMC, again playing not the nicest guy. But, the film is perhaps stolen by William Demarest, who acted in many Sturgess films and most people wouldn't know today. But, people my age and older would recognize him as Uncle Charlie, from the television show My Three Sons. He plays Trudy's and Emmy's father, a cop, and he's terribly funny in a comically brutal way.

In any event, it's in black and white (not colorized like Miracle on 34th Street, and an older style film some might not be able to handle. What make it a Xmas movie? I'm not sure, but it just is. I highly recommend it.

Here's a clip with the stars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Rkj3u2UVk

Would someone teach Jewish kids that their people made Christmas (I mean, to some extent)?

Every once in a while I have a conversation with a Jewish person who dislikes the holiday season because he or she (more she's) feels left out at Xmas. My argument is Christians don't have a monopoly on pretty lights and magical songs and movies. Of course, it seems that way, but, do you have any idea how Jews have dominated Christmas entertainment? Leave aside Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song, which is really about famous Jews, Jews actually wrote some of the most famous Christmas songs and made some great Christmas movies.

Songs

Irving Berlin - White Christmas.

Johnny Marks - Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer (his brother-in-law had written the story for the store, Montgomery Ward), Silver and Gold, A Holly Jolly Christmas and Run Rudolph Run.

Mel Tormé (Torma) and Robert Wells (Levinson) - The Christmas Song (you know - "Chestnuts roasting . . . ." )

Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne - Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
                       
Edward Pola and George Wyle (Bernard Weissman)- It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Joan Javits (Sen. Javits' niece) and Philip Springer (I don't know if he was Jewish, but she was) - Santa Baby.

Jay Livingston and Ray Evans - Silver Bells.

Felix Bernard - Winter Wonderland (music).

Walter Kent and Buck Ram (co-lyricist, Kim Gannon, not Jewish)- I'll be home for Christmas (music).

Mitch Parish and Leroy Anderson (not Jewish) - Sleigh Ride.

Bob Allen (not Jewish) and Al Stillman - There's no place like home for the holidays (arguably, a holiday, not a Christmas Song - but I don't think anyone plays it to celebrate Chanukah).

Lee Mendelson (producer of A Charlie Brown Christmas) and songwriter Vince Guarardi (obviously, not Jewish). Christmas time is here. See The List below.

MOVIES

Holiday Inn - Idea and Music, Irving Berlin, Co-starred Fred Astaire, apparently, half Jewish on his father's side, though they were converted to Catholicism. Director, Mark Sandrich (Goldstein), writer Glen Rice (Reizenstein)


White Christmas - Music, Irving Berlin, director Michael Curtiz (Kaminer, a great director - e.g., Casablanca), screenwriters Norman Panama, Norman Krasna and Melvin Frank, all Jewish. And Danny Kaye (Kaminsky) co-starred.

Elf - Director is Jon Favreau, Jewish mom, screenwriter David Berenbaum, actors Ed Asner, James Caan (Dutch for Cohen).

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Produced by Lee Mendelson

30 Hallmark Christmas movies I'm not listing - written by Tippi and Neal Dobrofsky.

40 Christmas movies I'm not listing - directed by Jeff Schenk.

THE LIST

The list - that is, best Xmas song list, has changed some, more on the bottom half.

1. Baby, it's cold outside. Little of the crazy stuff going on in this country makes me as mad as the assault on Baby, it's cold outside, a charming, fun and absolutely harmless song, written by the great songwriter, Frank Loesser, for his wife (you morons). They sang it at their annual Xmas party and then, she was furious when he sold it to the movies. “What’s in this drink?” doesn’t mean he drugged her drink (you idiots).  Even the scene in the movie, Neptune's Daughter, which featured the song, went back and forth and between two couples - in one, the male was the aggressor; in the other, the women was? Last year though, normal people fought back with appreciation and it was, for the first time, in the top 10 in digital sales. This year, a singer I liked, John Legend, added to the madness by recording a "safe" version of the song. I curse you, John Legend for your offense to the universe. G*F*God. Once again, I celebrate it as my number one song.

2. Game of Bells. I so rarely hear this on the radio, but it is a great cover. Formidable. Viva la L.E.J.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtk3kyHlmfo.
3. Cool Yule.  Louis Armstrong should have a song on every top ten list. It was written by a famous tv host and comedian,  Steve Allen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxTSxQcCWLI. The Louis Armstrong version is still the only one I listen to.

4. Hallelujah. Cohen died last year. His best song lives on at Xmas (it's not really a Xmas song, but, that's when it's played).   
5. All I want for Xmas is you. I love this Vince Vaughn and the Vandals one-hit wonder. It was recorded before the Mariah Carey hit of the same name.
6. Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Dean Martin was greater than Frank Sinatra. There, I said it. This is one of the songs which should have no future covers. None of them can compete with his.
7. Joy to the World. Most people I know, and maybe that's mostly my generation, think that no singer in our memory could compare with Whitney Houston. Not even Mariah. 
8.  Snoopy and the Red Baron.  The Royal Guardsman. Still no. 8. I can’t help feeling good when I hear this song.
9.  Linus and Lucy (from a Charlie Brown Christmas – I think of it as a Christmas song). This jazzy tune bumps up one spot. I heard it a few times and marvel at its creativity. It was written by Vince Guaraldi for the Christmas tv special and is one of two of his songs on this year's list. 

10. As with last year, I call a tie for three Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs -  Christmas Eve, Siberian Sleigh Ride and Carol of the Bells.

11. Frosty the Snow Man (Jimmy Durante version ONLY. Please, behave).
12. Home for the Holidays (Perry Como, although there are other good versions).
13. Christmas by Maria Carey. I'm a little sick of her big song, and prefer this one. Her Christmas album is the best and this is the best song on it. 

14. Christmas Time is Here. Leaping up from number 20 is the other Vince Guarardi song from the Charlie Brown special. I also love the Daniela Andrade version. 
15. Ave Maria by Andrea Bocelli. Some opera stars and aficionados think he's not that good. Regular folks think different. 
16.   New York City Christmas by Rob Thomas. Appearing on the list for the first time. I have a feeling it will be higher next year. 

17. Do you hear what I hear? This 1962 song, actually written during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a plea for world peace made my list this year. Winter Wonderland. I love the Eurythmics' version.
18. Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Bruce Springsteen's version is infectious. 

20.  Silent Night. For some reason I've been into quieter Xmas songs this year. This classic was written by an Austrian pastor, Joseph Mohr, in 1816 and the music by a local schoolmaster/organist at Mohr's request in 1818 (although the internet also attributes the music to many famous composers, it's not true). Just in 1995 a manuscript was found in Mohr's handwriting, telling the story, although no one knows what prompted him to write it. There are a zillion versions. Right now, I like Martina McBride's, but take your pick.

Did you notice three songs stemming from the Peanuts comic strip? I really don't know how that happened. A friend of mine asked me if Little Drummer Boy was on the list. It's not. Nothing wrong with the song. Just too sad for my tastes. Another friend asks me every year if Christmas (Baby please come home) is on the list. He likes the Darlene Love version. No, it's not, but it's a great song. But, it's a top 20 list, not a list of all great Christmas songs. Maybe next year. 

That's it. We are done. Jolly Christmas. Chappy Chanukah. Merry New Year!

Reading stuff we don't agree with

I was at the library many months ago and decided to give a chance to a couple of people whose books I knew I would unlikely benefit from, Mostly, like most people, maybe everyone, I read stuff that interests me or which, if political, I'm attracted to because I already think that way. But, I insist on challenging myself once in a while and sometimes to great benefit. I've read many books by those who make outrageous arguments (from Adolf Hitler to Eric Michael Dyson [no comparison intended]) often to my great dismay. One of the books I recently read was by presidential candidate Marianne Williamson - A Politics of Love. Despite some interest during the first debate, her "love" approach to beating Trump hasn't exactly grabbed the party. But, you never know. Many writers I agree with are relatively unpopular, so why not give her a shot? The other was Antonio Scalia's On Faith, which is a posthumously edited collection of his writings on religion. He was a very religious man and one of his sons, who was involved in this collection, became a priest.

I admit, I didn't expect to be transformed by either book. I know from television that I liked both of them personally. But, both are religious. I'm not. And, pretty much after a chapter of each, I confirmed my suspicion.

Williamson begins by mentioning that in 1983, when she was 31 (I have to say, at 67 years old, she looks very youthful) that she was giving lectures on a book called A Course in Miracles. Hard for me to take that seriously. Sounds like the type of book she writes, but this was a self-help book written by others. And, in this first chapter, she goes right on the attack, and it doesn't sound much like love to me:

"Our political establishment was gobsmacked by the success of Donald Trump in the last presidential election for exactly that reason. It didn't see it coming, but it should have. In its arrogant reliance on what it considers "hard facts," the political establishment failed to hear the galloping of a million hooves coming at it. And it didn't hear those for one reason only: it wasn't listening. Psychological pain doesn't register on its radar. The chronic economic despair of millions of people--despair that our political establishment had in part created and largely failed to address--had been going on for years, and it was going, to make itself heard in that election.

"The political establishment was caught off guard because words like "despair," "anger," and "anxiety" refer to emotions, and the establishment mind-set sees emotions as "soft"                      rather than "hard" political factors. . . . .

"We don't just need a progressive politics or a conservative politics; we need a more deeply human politics. We need a politics of love. . . When politics is used for loveless purposes, love and love alone can override it. It was love that abolished slavery, it was love that gave women suffrage, it was love that established civil rights, and it is love that we need now.

"Fear has been politicized once again, and once again love must respond. . . ."

This was just the first chapter and I disagreed with almost everything she wrote (obviously, I gave you a smattering). First of all, our political class does not rely on hard facts. Everyone is very much aware that people do things like vote for those they emotionally like or think are like them, and highly emotional issues like race, resentment, abortion, class warfare and the like dominate elections. And, if she doesn't think that the politicians understand economic pain, why are they always accusing each other of fear tactics? Economics does matter, a lot, in fact, but very few people can cite ANY hard facts. They just KNOW intuitively that their side is good for the economy and the other side is bad. Maybe because she really isn't a politician (like Trump), she isn't aware of this.

Although the idea of a politics of love sounds good, great even, it's the quintessential road to hell paved with good intentions. It reminded me of a friend of mine who wanted schools to stop football, which she didn't watch and teach morals. I asked her "Whose morals, yours?" I then gave her a few examples of what those politically opposed to her might think was teaching morals. She didn't like it much. Yes, she finally said, she meant her morals.

Which is the politics of love? One that is pro-choice or pro-life? Well, the pro-choice people don't think it's very loving not to care, in their view, about women's health and lives. And the pro-life people don't think it's very loving to not care about the aborted baby's lives.

And, perhaps love had something to do with abolishing slavery or women's suffrage or civil rights. But, there was love wanting to abolish slavery for a long time. What really abolished slavery was the destruction of the South and the lost lives of 600,000+ persons. Extreme violence. What really ended Jim Crow was the power of the federal government and the relative lack of it in the South. There's still bitterness and resentment over it.

No, I'm not saying that the intangibles aren't important. If we learned anything from the greatest movie ever, Miracle on 33rd Street (although only the first version), it is that those lovely intangibles matter.  But, love in itself is helpless, sometimes without a gun, and sometimes, as in World War two, which she uses as another example of love triumphing, its with a lot of guns and the "arsenal of democracy" (and "capitalism") buying those guns. After all, love didn't integrate Southern schools, did it?

And, like the rhetoric of all of the other D candidates and most Trump haters I know, she seems to have drowned in an emotional deluge when Trump was elected and sees fascism when he says we need a border and Hitler if he says if you don't like our country, go home (to, unfortunately, some Americans he thought were born elsewhere). You'd have trouble convincing me that Trump isn't a little bigotted, like my elderly deceased relatives, even my parents were (although I doubt they'd see it). Perhaps we all are to some degree too. He's very ignorant about a lot of things I'd like our president not to be ignorant about, but Hitler? Come on. But, the over-reaction to his election, which I've written about before, is astonishing. Just this past week, the "friend" I refer to here as "Eddie" put on his social media page a split image of Trump and Hitler's face. Trump's a knucklehead in many ways, but if you don't understand the difference between someone who is a blockhead and maybe is a little prejudiced and someone responsible for the holocaust and millions of lives, you are either incredibly ignorant (much more so than Trump) or are just engaging in out and out partisan bellowing. Actual Nazis and Klansmen, are awful, obnoxious and idiots. Agreed. But, in the political mainstream the last few years, the only ones we've, by a large margin, seen using at least some fascist tactics, are on the left - beating up speakers, taking over the floor of congress, shutting down rallies, confronting politicians in public and even at their houses, publishing political donors' and politicians' addresses. They aren't killing people often, but some on both sides do that. But, you know its coming and then they will say, as they did recently when crazed gunmen killed multiple persons, it's Trump's fault. One good villain is worth a 1000 heroes.

For all the love talk, Williamson is engaged in the same kind of hysteria. She writes things like:

"Today, Americans are living at the behest of a tyrannous economic system that puts the               short-term profit maximization of huge, multinational corporate entities before the health                 and well-[being] of our people, the people of the world, and the planet on which we live."

"America has fallen, and now it's time for us to rise."

Really, how is that so different than "Make America Great Again?" She uses a very telling example, one not surprising for a "hippie" (she doesn't deny it) of her generation. She recalls a young man asking her if it wasn't true that her generation was just "into sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll!" She answers, "Uh . . . that was just part of the day!!. We spent the rest of the day stopping a war."

Uhhh, stopping a war? Obviously, she means the Vietnamese War. That's not only a pretty ignorant statement, but a dangerous sounding one to me. First, no doubt, the hippie generation (really people a few years older than me - and by no means most young people then - were against the American participation in the Vietnam War. They did not always combat it with what anyone would call love, of course. Violent protesting even, by very few, domestic bombing and more vicious confronting than goes on now, were also part of it. And, they did not stop the war, which went on for a few years after our laughable "Peace with Honor." But, our politicians, Johnson and Nixon, did give into the fierce opposition against it, and finally, we withdrew all our troops. Unlike Russia and China, we then abandoned our ally, the South, monetarily, while those countries, then trying to make communism the world political order, poured it on. LBJ certainly understood that, despite the opposition that drove him from office.  I take a pause from our regular programming for this speech of his:

"The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place. The first reality is that North                    Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of South Viet-Nam. Its object is total                   conquest.

Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream from north to south.

This support is the heartbeat of the war.

And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities….

Over this war—and all Asia—is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist  
China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has  
destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by the  
United Nations for aggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces of  
violence in almost every continent. The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider pattern of  
aggressive purposes.

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam ?

We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President  
has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam….

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand,  
are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they  
are attacked. To leave Viet-Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people                    in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America's word. The result  
would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war.

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a  
moment that retreat from Viet-Nam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be 
renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the  
appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to  
prepare for the next….

In recent months attacks on South Viet-Nam were stepped up. Thus, it became necessary  
for us to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of  
purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.

We do this in order to slow down aggression.

We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Viet-Nam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.

And we do this to convince the leaders of North Viet-Nam—and all who seek to share their conquest—of a very simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired."

Wrong. We fought the war very badly and many lives were sacrificed. In the end, we gave up. How many American lives were lost because of this debacle?  Usually, it is said to be about 58,000. A far greater number than in Iraq and Afghanistan (roughly 7,000 Americans) in a shorter time. Of course, there were far more casualties.  But, how many Vietnamese died? Far, far more. How many S. Vietnam lives were lost because we abandoned them in the end? It is impossible to know but reports go as high as twice as many in the two years after we left than in the previous entire war. How many were sent to re-education camps where they were tortured and starved? Perhaps 300,000? How many fled the country or otherwise perished? Who knows? There are many things you can say about the Vietnam War, and this isn't even a post on it (although probably seems like it by now). The South Vietnamese government was incredibly corrupt and made horrendous mistakes themselves. Corruption, ineptness. Situation normal, worldwide. 

I'm not arguing that the Vietnam War was a plus for anyone, even if we should have stayed (I think we should have). It was a loss all around, including to the N. Vietnamese and Viet Cong, who were triumphant. It's this. If love, as she concludes, ended the Vietnam War, it seems to me, it caused more deaths and pain for our allies than they deserved. If love ended the war, it did so at a tremendous cost of life. Nixon himself acknowledged that the war could have easily been won if the U.S. had destroyed, by bombing, the dikes in North Vietnam. He didn't do it because he believed 250,000 (I believe the number I read) North Vietnamese would have died by drowning. Otherwise, he would have. But, in the end, would the opposite of love, hate, have saved more lives? And if it did, would hate have caused more love? Maybe it would have. Did abandoning the fight destroy our aura of invincibility and reputation for stalwartness? I believe so, and it remains the case to this day.  

I'm just not comfortable with the statement by Marianne Williamson that "they" stopped the war (as if our idiot politicians, wrong-headed Pentagon, North Vietnam and the Vietcong had nothing to do with it) and without a discussion of the aftermath. Russia and China had their own problems and the Soviet Union ended, at least, and China, at least minimally modernized its approach to capitalism. But, is there doubt that our adversaries believed, still believed, because of Vietnam, that we can be defeated by simply waiting us out and that a good portion of Americans will be for simply cutting and running if we face any obstacles, particularly death? That it seems, is what we do.

Everything in Williamson's book seems plausible, maybe on the face of it, desirable. I mean, I like this:

"It's my personal goal-at times I'm successful and at times I'm not--to dissolve the personal negativity I sometimes feel toward those with whom I politically disagree, while retaining the passion and conviction of my disagreement. I've read enough words of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and studied enough treatises on political nonviolence to know the goal. I know that we have to be the change. It's practicing all that's sometimes hard.

All of us have our fingers pointing at someone today. 'They're the problem.' 'No, they're the problem.' But in a spiritual sense, the pointed finger is the problem."

and

"It's as though no one today has any impulse control; anger and anxiety spew out everywhere, making much of our public discourse dangerously toxic and mean-spirited. From both Left and the Right come harmful shutdowns, aimed at those whose only transgression was the audacity to share an opinion that doesn't align with someone else's preconceived notion of truth. Aiding to the chaos, a constant bombardment of disconcerting news has millions of Americans on edge each day. Our very nervous systems are assaulted by these things, increasing the possibility of mistakes and inappropriate responses. And all of it mitigates against the wise, deep thinking and communication so needed . . . . 

It's the kind of stuff I preach all the time (and, yes, I make exceptions for tolerating fascists - left, right or otherwise). In the end, she recommends the solution of prayer and meditation. I find it difficult to swallow. Not meditation, but prayer was certainly plentiful during most wars. Meditation had never worked for me. Arguably, I wasn't doing it right, but, I'm pretty disciplined when I've decided to try something and gave it a shot. Nothing. I do know many people who swear by it. If they do, they do. I just don't see it as a solution. What is the solution for making America better? Education, particularly in history and economics, family guidance, upbringing, and perhaps the model of at least a few politicians behaving well. 

So, why am I not on board with her? She says, after all, that she blesses the president and prays for his happiness and enlightenment while feeling free to resist him when he runs counter to the values of democracy and works hard to defeat him. Fine. My problem is, she seems to much in line with those who have become literally hysterical and lost all reason when it comes to him. She calls the current situation a "crisis." She compares it to those marching at Selma and that, if traumatized, we should keep marching. Selma? She invokes Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. Does she really think that she or those she feels connected to have to suffer through what King and Gandhi did? 

That's where she and I part company. If you value moderation, which is what she describes, you have to have some moderation in what you believe. I'm not suggesting don't have values, don't prefer one side to another, don't think this is right or this is wrong. Someone at a discussion group I attend implied that if I listen to everyone, I don't have values and wouldn't have fought the Nazis. I disagreed. I said what my values are is pro-freedom, pro-free speech and conscience, democracy and enlightenment values. I oppose those who fight against them. I may disagree with your economic prescriptions, but the hatred and vitriol that people feel for each other is raised to a high degree that ruins civil discourse and democracy if people actually believe they are victims going through a holocaust.

She makes some of the same prescriptions I do. She has a whole chapter on education and what we need to teach our children other than math and science. But, I have a feeling that the children would be taught very different history than I would teach, if she was running things. I was pleased to be, not long ago, at the graduation of a class at a charter high school for minority women. Their college-bound rate was astonishing. The spirit and collegiality of the class wonderful to behold. Imagine my disappointment when one of the speakers briefly spoke about the times we live in and all but mentioned Trump's name. I was able to ask her why she did that. She told me, she didn't want to. She hated doing so. But, that was the compromise with another speaker who wanted to castigate Trump by name. So, we have a class of bright, high-spirited and very educated women going to college - all who have been taught that they are victims and hate Trump and, I infer, all Republicans.

That graduation, of course, had nothing to do with Williamson. But, it seemed to me that it was my problem with her book. Peace, love, moderation, fairness . . . as long as you realize who the enemy is and what the problems are.

I am summarizing a book. You could undoubtedly find statements in it to argue against me. But, that's what I got out of it, what I thought its main fault was - the premise that Trump, if not evil, is dangerous (she's careful what she says but implies). That is also what I got out of two debate appearances. She's going to fight with "love," but . . . . 

Let me leave her and go to the Scalia book. Her book is called Politics of Love. His is called, by his son or editors, On Faith.  But, either book could have been published with either title. They are, very similar books, although the formats are somewhat different. Hers is a long essay broken up in chapters. His is a series of different essays strung together with the same theme. It may be what lawyers call a distinction without a difference.

The first chapter in On Faith called Not to the Wise. I can't agree with it, or much of it, though, like with Williamson, there are parts I can get on board with. So, I will make his argument first, at least to the main point, before criticizing

There is a second half to the title - the Christian as Cretin. He is a Christian, of course, so, obviously, he is not throwing out a slur. Cretin, he explains, is derived from the French - Chrétian, meaning Christian. It was used, oddly, to refer to cretinous people in the alps who were Christians; used to remind that these Christians had souls and were not animals.

He finds that it can be used to refer though in a different way to those who except traditional Christianity - not just a belief in God or a human Jesus with a good message. But, to believe in Jesus was God, that he rose from the grave, that his church pronounces the will of God for man, that hardship and suffering are to be embraced as sharing in his sacrifice, and that those who love God and obey him will also rise from the dead and live in heaven - the others burning in hell. Those things, he says, are not considered very sophisticated, rather simpleminded.

Not to the Wise alludes to a gospel passage in Luke and Matthew. "I praise thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent, and didst reveal them to little ones." Also St. Paul writes similarly to the Corinthians, including - "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone of you thinks himself wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may come to be wise.

He compares the actual New Testament to the Jefferson Bible, where Jefferson, in 1804, excised all the nonsense and kept what he found to be the wise stuff. He was sure that the superstitions and nonsense were later interpolations. It was easy, he wrote to a friend, to separate the wheat from the chaff. He now gets to his main point:

"My point is not reason and intellect must be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned. Assuredly not. A faith that has no rational basis is a false faith. That is why I am not a Branch Davidian. It is not irrational, however, to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses, who had nothing to gain by dissembling, about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and about what Jesus taught them; or for that matter, to accept the evidence of        later miracles that establish the truth of the Church that Christ founded. What is irrational, it seems to me, is to reject a priori, with no investigation, the possibility of miracles in general, and of Jesus Christ's resurrection in particular--which is, of course, precisely what the worldly-wise do. They just will not have anything to do with miracles."

I am not going to revert to one of my atheist screeds here. Done that before. Leave aside that we don't know if this is the testimony of eyewitnesses or not. All I will say is that many years ago a very bright co-worker whose argument in favor of astrology was "We are foolish if we think we know everything." My response was, "We are more foolish if we believe anything, however unlikely, because we can't know everything." We just shouldn't just accept things like astrology that make little sense in the reality we know. And I don't accept religion just because we can't.

He goes on to describe a local example of stigmata (look it up) and statues crying. As far as witnesses could tell, he writes, the priest was not a charlatan. I wonder if those witnesses were believers. He didn't say. But, he does say that he didn't go, because one more miracle would not make him believe more than he already did. Really? Frankly, I doubt he saw anything like that before. I wouldn't have gone either, just as I don't go to mediums. Because the appearance of something miraculous is not going to make me believe something that seems so improbable any more than the very convincing ghostly experiences I had in Virginia made me believe in ghosts. So, it was evidence to him, without investigation. It was a hoax or at least misunderstanding to me, also without investigation. 

He goes on too Sir Thomas More, a British Renaissance man who defied his king by insisting that only the Pope, though he himself had found the church corrupt, could sanction the divorce of Henry VIII. Scalia writes: "I find it hard to understand the reasoning those wise people who rever Thomas More as a saint rather than a world-class fool for dying to support the decision of Medici Pope Clement VII concerning King Henry's divorce of Catherine of Aragon, but who themselves ignore and indeed positively oppose the teachings of Pope John Paul II on much more traditional and less politically charged subjects."

He concludes with what he thinks are wise words. I'll let him sum it up:

"Are we thought to be fools? No doubt. But, as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "We are fools for Christ's sake." And are we thought to be "easily led" and childish? Well, Christ did constantly describe us as, of all things, his seep, and said we would not get to heaven unless we became like little children. For the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world for these seeming failings of ours, we lawyers and intellectuals--who do not like to be regarded as unsophisticated--can have no greater model than the patron of this society, the great, intellectual, urbane, foolish, childish man that he was. St. Thomas More, pray for us.

Well, there's something to be said for that. As with Williamson, I can get on board with some of it. I have spent my life being considered a fool for things I think important. Some of the most complimentary things that have been said about me have been intended as insults, at least mocking. I have always enjoyed those who say things like the stoic, Epictetus: "If you wouldst make progress, be content to seem foolish and void of understanding with respect to outward things. Care not to be thought to know anything. If any should make account of you, distrust thyself." 

Thomas More died because of devotion to principle, convicted of treason. It was a tough way to go, and it wasn't worth it. Nothing could change because of his sacrifice at that time and place. No one else lived because of him, no one else was more free because of him. I doubt he would he would have wanted them to be, he who had others hounded, even put to death, as he was dedicated to his strict religious principle, not a strict principle of freedom. 

But, what of Scalia's wise words? Well, I don't mind being thought a fool for what I think (I'd better not).  But, I hope I don't believe in things that are highly unlikely just because I was conditioned to or committed myself to when young. Much wiser are the writings of Mark Twain. I highly recommend his Mock oration on the Dead Partisan and Inconsistency. Not to mention - "Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world - and it never will." 

I chose these two books to read because despite being from opposing parties and probably in many ways, completely opposed to one another. I give those I don't agree with a chance (within reason). That doesn't mean I have to accept anything that seems to me unreasonable just to be fair. 

I can imagine Williamson and Scalia (were he alive) finding an awful lot in common. After all, Scalia and RBG were best friends. And the books were uncommonly similar in some themes. Both are incredibly successful people who did not have all that many advantages. For me, Williamson and Scalia make the same error. They have values I believe are truths, but then seem to focus them all through their prism. Well, that's fine as far as having these views. But, then, they both seem to focus on things that seem unreal to me AND exclude consideration of other views. Both open themselves to reason. Williamson recounts how she was with Dennis Kucinich and was shocked when he told her that Lindsay Graham, who they had run into, and whom she reviled, was a great guy. Scalia acknowledges that faith without reason is not faith, but insists it is a good idea to be considered foolish by clinging to things that even he (tongue-in-cheek) seem to think are absurd to believe. But, for both of them, it seems to come down to faith. And, when it comes to mystical things, well, I like reading about them, but I don't really have any.

I read both of these books many months ago and never posted this. I was reminded of it watching the Democrats and Republicans fighting over impeachment. Though the Democrats are to my mind far worse right now than the Republicans, they remind me a little bit of what both Williamson and Scalia, both also political people, are talking about, a faith in a political narrative as well as a religious one, that they seem almost willing for us to die for - and politically, or perhaps as a country, perhaps we will.