Ukraine Solution 2024

 

As the war in Ukraine drags on and our Congress is debating a massive military aid package for Ukraine, it seems to me that there is a better solution than a military escalation. From its beginning in 2022 the war in Ukraine has been a tragic failure of diplomacy on all sides. It is easy to blame President Putin of Russia and call him insane as our media like to do, but leaders in the West are also to blame for the diplomatic failure.

Faced with Russian warnings over the past few years, the government of the Ukraine only had to pledge that it would never join NATO or the European Union , or allow foreign troops on its soil.

 

In other words, while affirming its independence of both Russia and the West, Ukraine could have opted for neutrality in the same way that Switzerland has done for hundreds of years. This pledge would have retained Ukraine’s independence as well as its ability to deal politically and financially with both Russia and the West.  A pledge of neutrality would not have been appeasement. It would have allowed the people of Ukraine to live in peace and shape their own destiny. It was worth a try especially now that we see the  devastation and loss of life on both sides.

 

In March 2022, shortly after the war began, the Wall Street Journal, always hawkish on Ukraine, published an interview with Robert Service, a respected historian and analyst of Russian affairs. In the interview he pointed out that in November of 2021, President Biden dismissed Russian objections to NATO expansion. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense strategic blunders; Robert Service says. The first came on Nov. 10, when the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter of Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The pact made it likelier than ever the Ukraine would eventually join NATO—an intolerable prospect for Vladimir Putin. “It was the last straw,” Mr. Service says. Preparations immediately began for Russia’s so-called special military operations in Ukraine.

 

People will remember President Biden’s history of meddling in Ukrainian affairs as Vice President during the administration of President Obama. He even bragged about bullying the government of Ukraine by threatening to cut off U.S. aid unless it agreed to dismiss a prosecutor investigating corruption in the Ukrainian energy company whose board of directors included his own son, Hunter, who somehow got the high paying post with no experience or qualifications. Ironically, President Trump was impeached by Democrats because of a phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky asking him to investigate corruption.

 

The Biden administration can now add the war in Ukraine to its list of failures which are too numerous to recount here. Any policy that results in war with its attendant destruction, loss of life, and displacement of  people must be regarded as a failure despite the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people.

 

I also blame Democratic politicians in this country for spending the four years of the Trump administration constantly harassing the President over a Russia collusion hoax that effectively hindered the President of the USA from coming to any kind of peaceful arrangement with Russia over the status of Ukraine. Remember that President Trump was a critic of NATO and its expansion. He even questioned its existence especially since the European partners seemed unwilling to bear the financial burden. Nevertheless, NATO went so far as to include tiny countries on Russia’s border like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as members. Does anyone seriously believe that the USA will go to war if those countries are invaded?

 

Of course, Vladimir Putin of Russia must bear the lion’s share of the blame for the tragedy in Ukraine no matter how the war turns out. It seems to me that he could have used Russia’s vast energy reserves as a much more potent weapon than his military. Ukraine and Europe are dependent on Russia for energy. Despite the long-standing animosity between Russia and Ukraine, they still could have worked together for each other’s benefit.

 

Despite his heroism in the current crises, President Zelensky could have and should have found a peaceful resolution to ally Putin’s fears. Looking at things now, what did he gain by signing the Strategic Partnership Pact with the USA in 2021?

 

Interestingly, Vladimir Putin, in his lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this year, claimed that preliminaries of a negotiated settlement of the war had been ironed out at a meeting in Turkey, but that the deal had been scotched by the last minute intervention of then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It is hard to imagine that Johnson acted without the concurrence of the Biden administration. 

 

Some day someone will write the history of Joe Biden's involvement in Ukrainian affairs from from his time as Vice President during the Obama administration to the present. In the meantime, the war is a real black mark on his Presidency. On the other hand, even Trump haters, who still believe that President Trump colluded with Russia, must admit that there was no war in Ukraine during the Trump administration. The war in Ukraine should be one of the leading issues in the 2024 Presidential campaign. 

 

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Review. M.J. Sangster: The Real Inconvenient Truth

     

I have been a Climate Change skeptic but after reading M.J. Sangster’s, The Real Inconvenient Truth,  a 2018 book on all the factors that make up the Earth’s climate, I now accept the opprobrious label of Climate Change Denier (CCD). It is not that I deny that the Earth might be in a warming phase, or that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has been increasing over the last 100 years. 

But in Sangster’s extremely well-researched book, he demonstrates that human-caused CO2, is a tiny fraction of the CO2 produced by nature, and that it makes up an  even tinier fraction of Greenhouse gases (GHG) which are 95% water vapor. In other words, human caused CO2, is little more than a drop in the vast ocean that is our atmosphere. Despite the claims of Climate Change Alarmists (CCA), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), human-caused or natural, is not poisoning the planet. Here are some facts from Sangster’s book.

 

“Carbon dioxide  (CO2) is not a toxic gas; it plays a vital role in plant and animal processes, including photosynthesis [CO2+sunlight+Water produces Plant food (carbohydrates) + Oxygen). Obviously, we need the oxygen, and plants need the carbohydrates.” … [199]

“That CO2 is directly correlated with temperature is not the issue however, the issue is whether or not the relationship is the dominate climate driver in the presence of other natural events and feedbacks, and clearly it is not or, as CO2 increases linearly, so too would temperature… It is just one climate forcing event in a complex Earth system… “[198]

 

The major factors in the complex Earth climate system are the Sun, Tectonics, Wind and Ocean Circulation, Oceanic Oscillations, Clouds and Aerosols, and Greenhouse Gases.  Sangster devotes a chapter to each of these factors and they are must reads for anyone really interested in following the science. Actually, his book is a fascinating introduction to Earth science. Did you know, for example:

That the Sun revolves in a relatively circular orbit around the nucleus of our galaxy at a speed of over 500,000 miles per hour. It takes 11 Earth years to complete its immense orbit, and drags us along with it although we don’t feel a thing. On route, we pass through fields of cosmic rays that bombard us. Our atmosphere protects us, but these cosmic rays still effect our climate. 

That the plate tectonics that formed our continents is still going on and generating vast amounts of energy. They also create mountain ranges. Did you know that 85% of the Earth’s volcanos are below the surface of the oceans?

That wind and Ocean circulation is a major factor in our climate. Without the warm waters of the tropical Gulf Stream, Northern Europe would be uninhabitable.

That clouds play a key role in regulating our climate. Some let in needed heat from the Sun, while others reflect it back into space. As noted above, water vapor makes up 95% of the greenhouse gas that keeps heat in, and that prevents the entire planet from looking like Antarctica. Sangster quotes former President Obama’s Science Czar, Dr, John Holdren: “a 1% increase in cloud cover would decrease the surface temperature by .8 degree C., the entire warming amount attributed to CO2 since the start of the Industrial Age.” [196]

That water vapor makes up 99% of the greenhouse gases that help regulate our climate, and that it is entirely natural. There is nothing we can do about this fact, or any of the other facts noted above. 

Finally, Sangster points out a basic truth: “Earth is the only planet in the solar system with an atmosphere that can sustain life. The blanket of atmospheric gases not only contains the air we breathe but also modulates the energy balance… “[197].

I have limited this post to Climate Science. The rest of “The Real Inconvenient Truth” deals with the politics of Climate Science. We will deal with that in a subsequent post, but for now I will just say that it appears to me that it is the height of hubris to think that humans can combat the vast and powerful natural forces that have shaped our Earth on its incredible journey through space and time. 

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Dreams on a Rock Ledge

Someone told me that April is National Poetry Month, so I thought I would post a poem by my younger brother, Robert. Only a few years ago did I discover that he had been writing poetry. I have known him as a master science teacher and naturalist but recently he showed me a little collection of poems he has written, most based on his great love of nature. He claims that he wrote these poems to pass the time while proctoring classroom exams but it seems to me that they reflect a lifetime of experiencing nature at close hand.  Here is one that had a particular meaning for my wife and I as she celebrated her birthday yesterday. Below is Rob's explanatory note.

She

sat on the rock ledge

in her youth

and dreamed

now

in old age

the

same

rising sun

reflected off her radiant face

for a moment

the trials of

a long life

evaporated

 like morning dew

she

spied

a monarch butterfly

perched

on a nearby tree limb

she

sat motionless on the ledge

peering

into a

withering

field of goldenrod

gazing

into the future

butterfly goldenrod and

she

wondering

if there are any dreams

left

to be dreamt 

I never know what will inspire me to write a poem or a story.  Something might just catch my eye at the right moment.  My brother, Frank, and his wife, Linda, often visited my Aunt Rose’s log cabin in the Berkshires after they were married almost 60 years ago.   Now that I am in charge of the log cabin, they often visit my wife and me at the cabin.  We all have a great fondness for the cabin and its surroundings.  When Frank and Linda arrived on a recent clear, blue sky, sunny, Autumn day, a camera in my brain snapped an unforgettable photograph.  Linda walked to the log cabin, and then walked up the stone steps, but instead of going into the cabin, rested on a stone ledge that extends from the outside wall of the log cabin.  She placed her back against the logs and extended her legs on the rock ledge and let the Sun warm her body.  I smiled to myself knowing I would someday write a poem based on her actions.  I had been inspired.  I did not ask her, but I am certain she has rested on that rock ledge many times in the past.  I began to wonder what she might be thinking about at that moment, and what she might have thought about years ago when she rested there.

I wonder what the butterfly might be thinking about after she has laid her eggs.  I wonder what the goldenrod that has provided nectar and pollen for honeybees might be thinking about as its seeds have finally been shed.    Everyone has dreams when they are young, now older, I wonder if I have enough dreams left.

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Easter Signs 2024

  

I was born and raised a Catholic and have remained so for 84 years. Frankly, I have to say that I still like being a Catholic. One of the many reasons is the great feast of Easter. At Mass the other day, we heard the story of a woman who was about to be stoned to death for adultery by an angry crowd of accusers who had apparently caught her in the act. They brought her to Jesus to get his opinion before proceeding. His reply still resounds through the ages. "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." 

Hearing those words, the crowd melted away, and the woman was left alone with Jesus. He said that since no one would condemn her, neither would he. But he just told her to sin no more. He had in effect raised her from the brink of death and then showed her the way to live thereafter. Her resurrection is a sign of his own resurrection that we celebrate on Easter. 

There are many other signs that remind us of Easter. Some have become secularized and commercialized but I still like them. The Easter egg is a symbol that refers to the tomb from which Jesus arose on Easter Sunday. The Easter bunny itself is a sign of the risen Christ seen by believers in the Eucharistic host. The great Renaissance artist Titian featured it in a painting that is usually called the Madonna of the Rabbit.

More often the risen Christ is depicted as the Lamb of God from the Book of Revelation. More than 500 years ago, Jan van Eyck painted the most famous version of the Mystical Lamb in the Ghent altarpiece. In my own parish church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Fairfield, Connecticut, the Lamb is shown in the center of a beautiful Rose window at the back of the Church. The Lamb reclines on the Book of the Seven Seals with a triumphal cross and banner.

 The word "Easter" comes from a Germanic goddess of spring. Latin peoples use the word pasqua from the Jewish pasch or passover. When the Germanic peoples were converted the Church wisely associated the word for Springtime with the feast of the Risen Lord. All around us new life is springing from the dead of winter. 

One of the many traditions associated with Easter was the famous Easter Parade, especially on New York's 5th Avenue. Here is a link to the ending of the film Easter Parade that featured Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. He was a little old but she was never lovelier than when she sang the title song. Or view the brief video below.

Happy Easter.

Irish Heritage

   

                                           

Practically everyone must know that the great migration of the Irish to America took place after the terrible potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century. However, even before that disaster the Irish had been the subject of persecution going back to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century when King Henry VIII seized control of the English church. 

The Irish were longtime enemies of the English and when Henry, who considered himself King of Ireland as well as England, attacked their thousand-year-old faith the enmity only grew worse. Later, Henry’s daughter Elizabeth tried unsuccessfully to subdue the Irish Catholics throughout her reign. After the Puritan revolution in England in the mid-seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell brutally suppressed Irish resistance. By the end of the century William and Mary, after driving Mary’s Catholic father James from the English throne, delivered another devastating blow to the Irish at the battle of the Boyne.

The almost perpetual Irish resistance led the English and their Protestant friends in Ireland to pass penal laws that had the effect of depriving most Irish Catholics of all their rights including the right to their own confiscated properties. 

Many Irish left their homeland for good in the century before the great famine. They were sometimes called the “wild geese” and many of them made a name for themselves in Europe. In the nineteenth century the ruling family in Serbia was the Obrenovich family, heirs no doubt of some Irish O’Brien. Years ago, Ed Obradovich played linebacker for the Chicago Bears. His family must have come from central Europe but there must have been a Brady ancestor. I recall meeting a Polish American priest whose name, Okonski, must have derived from O’Conner. John Konecny, a long ago squash buddy, looked as Irish as Paddy's pig.

When the Irish came to America, they didn’t starve because of the availability of jobs and land. Nevertheless, despite separation of Church and State in America, the Irish were still objects of prejudice and discrimination primarily because of their Catholicism. I recall an American historian saying that the most long lasting and abiding prejudice in America was directed not against Jews or Blacks but against Catholics. That assertion may be disputed by some but the KKK was so called because its hatred was directed against Koons, Kikes, and Katholics.

Just because national or ethnic groups have been victimized by prejudice and discrimination does not mean that they themselves cannot practice such behavior when given the opportunity. Growing up in New York City in the 40s and 50s I vividly recall that only Irish need apply for membership in the City’s Transit Workers Union. I have never forgotten the resentment of my mother-in-law when her Italian parents were told by an Irish priest that they did not belong in predominately Irish St. John’s church and that they should attend the Italian church in town. 

Still, the success of the Irish in America means that we all are in their debt. I would just like to give a few personal examples. I was born and raised in the Woodside section of Queens, a neighborhood after WW2 made up largely of the descendants of Irish and Italian immigrants.  My best friend was my cousin Pete whose father’s ancestry was Irish and German. Pete’s father, my Uncle Pete, was a New York City policeman who always seemed all Irish to me, and so did my cousin even though his mother was Italian. My next best friend was Dermot (Dermie) Woods whose family was very Irish. Both of Dermie’s older brothers had served in the Navy during the war.

St. Mary Help of Christians, my parochial elementary school, matched the ethnic make up of Woodside. There were some Italian kids in my class, but the majority was Irish. I still remember Richie Moylan, John Regan, Tom Fay, Charley Dunphy, and top student Pat Ryan who would go on to become a Jesuit priest and get a doctorate from Harvard in Islamic studies. His father was a saloon keeper. 

Most of the nuns were of Irish ancestry. They were of the order of St. Dominic and their formidable black and white habits helped them keep almost perfect order in classes sometimes numbering over 50 students. Only years later did I come to find out that many of them were barely out of their teens and still attending college.

It seemed natural for me to follow cousin Pete to Power Memorial high school in Manhattan. Power was a Catholic school for boys run by the Irish Christian Brothers whose most famous graduate would be Lou Alcindor, who would later call himself Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I still remember some of the Irish brothers with great affection and respect. There was Brother Hehir, my first home room teacher, a saintly innocent old man who was the butt of innumerable pranks and jokes by us “dirty little stinkers.” No one fooled around with wise old Brother Gleason, however. He was the Latin teacher with a passionate love of ancient Rome. Only years later did I discover that it was the Irish who had saved Western Civilization during the Dark Ages when monks in the mold of Brother Gleason preserved and later revived the lore and wisdom of antiquity. Finally, I remember Brother Conefrey who ran our honors class and exposed us modern barbarians to the wonders of English literature. 

Monastery Iona*

For some reason that still remains unclear to me I went to college at Fordham University, a famed Jesuit school in the Bronx. The Jesuits had been founded in the sixteenth century by Ignatius of Loyola, a young soldier from the Basque country in what is now northwestern Spain, but the Jesuit fathers at Fordham seemed to be largely of Irish ancestry. Nevertheless, in 1957 they taught and revered an old curriculum based on a model devised during the Renaissance. We studied Western philosophy, theology, history (eight credits in medieval history were required), rhetoric, literature, and language under scholars named O’ Sullivan, O’Callaghan, Mc Nally, Walsh and Clark. 

Three cheers for the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. 

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* Iona photo courtesy of David Orme.

Trump Enthusiasm

 

A recent poll indicated that 97% of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 would again vote for him in 2024. If the poll is correct, of the over 74 million who voted for him four years ago, about 72 million would vote for him again. Despite the repeated claims of his political opponents whose opposition borders on hatred, Trump does not represent a tiny, fringe group of MAGA hat wearing, flag waving supporters.

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and Trump practically swept all the Republican primaries by overwhelming margins, after earlier record-breaking victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan.  Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining Republican opponent, has now dropped out of the race. She was the last hope of the anti-Trumpers, and commentators still claim that Trump cannot win without Haley voters. In reality, a large percentage of Haley votes came from Democratic Trump haters who would never have voted for her in November.

Interestingly, these same commentators never bother to wonder how Haley or any of the other Republican contenders could have won without the votes of Trump enthusiasts. Did Haley or Chris Christie actually think that over 70 million Trump supporters would vote for them after their repeated Trump criticisms? Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was smart enough not to openly criticize Trump or his supporters during his short-lived campaign, and quickly endorsed Trump after he withdrew from the race.

What explains Trump’s popularity?  During his successful campaign in 2016, I never in all my life saw such enthusiasm for a candidate. Now, eight years later, his popularity remains intact.  Two impeachments did not hurt him, and the recent multiple indictments have, according to a chart in this week’s Wall Street Journal, only increased his popularity. Is it just poor education or irrationality on the part of his supporters, or is there something else? Here are some reasons for the enthusiasm.

In the first place, he already has experience as President. This is very important. I remember that back in 2016 many commentators believed that Trump could not last a month as President. They felt it would be almost impossible for him to even form an administration and govern. Nevertheless, whether you like him or not, you would have to agree that he was up to the job. I will not list the many accomplishments of his term since he continually refers to them in his speeches. But more than anything else, he was always up front, a true leader in both foreign and domestic affairs. Even during the Covid crisis, he was on stage practically every day during this national emergency. Whatever you think of vaccines, there is no doubt that he acted with firmness and alacrity in their development.

Secondly, there are his words, his manner, and behavior. Detractors, who will never vote for him anyway, want him to tone it down. But his supporters want him to do just the opposite. So what if he fooled around with women in the past, not one of his many critics ever accused him of sexual misbehavior while in office. He certainly never had sex with a young intern in the White House. 

So what if he ridicules his opponents. His supporters love when he pricks the balloons of the high and mighty. Think about it and compare his jibes to those insults hurled at him by his haters. Did he ever call anyone a mother f----er? Don’t his critics have a sense of humor? His supporters, after being ridiculed and derided as deplorables, love his combative personality. Did nice words ever prevent Mitch Romney from being derided as a heartless nabob who wanted to deprive grandma of benefits?

Trump detractors never mention his actual performance as President. They just don’t like him, period. Basically, they dislike the fact that he is a white businessman who is not only wealthy but who also flaunts his wealth. But his supporters love the fact that he made his money in the private sector battling in the shark tank that is New York City real estate. They want a shark in the White House and not a feeble old man like his successor who somehow made millions for himself and his family as a career public servant.  

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Review: The Spanish Inquisition

 

      

The Spanish Inquisition has become a code word for human cruelty and injustice.  Who will ever forget the three red-robed cardinals in a Monty Python skit breaking into someone’s living room shouting, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.” During his term even President Obama equated the Inquisition with the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS Moslem fanatics in devastated Iraq.

 

Some years ago I pored through Benzion Netanyahu’s massive study of the Spanish Inquisition. If the name sounds familiar, it is because the author was the father of Bibi Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel. Although Benzion Netanyahu took a leading role in the founding of the State of Israel, he will perhaps be best remembered as a great scholar. His field of study was the Spanish Inquisition and his masterpiece, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, revolutionized the study of the subject. 

 

Few people understand that the Inquisition in Spain was not directed against Jews in Spain but against Christians. The Inquisition had no authority to persecute or even investigate the Jewish population. It was specifically chartered to deal with popular charges leveled against Christians of Jewish ancestry and their families who had converted to Christianity. These converts were known as “conversos,” and there were elements in all levels of Spanish society who suspected that the conversos were not sincere Christians, even if their families had converted more than a century before.

 

Periodically charges were made that the conversos had only converted to gain political or financial advantage. Indeed, they were often suspected of adhering to their Jewish beliefs and practices in secret, and even working to undermine Christian society. Some regarded them as a kind of “fifth” column in the struggle against the Moslem Kingdom of Granada.

 

It is true that many of the conversos had prospered during the century before the creation of the Spanish Inquisition. Some had risen to high places in the administrations of the various Kings of Castile. Aristocratic grandees who regarded themselves as pure-blooded Christians without any trace of Judaism in their veins were often jealous and contemptuous of these conversos in high places. Among the lower classes it didn’t help the reputation of the conversos that some of them had become tax collectors for the Royal government.

 

Netanyahu’s 1000 plus pages demonstrated that the charges leveled against the conversos were false. He marshaled an enormous amount of evidence to show that the conversos were almost always sincere, even dedicated converts to Christianity. Like many converts, before and after, these converts from Judaism to Christianity in medieval Spain could even be more zealous or committed than the cradle Catholics of the time. 

 

Descendants of conversos often became theologians and clergymen. Some bishops and abbots of famed monasteries could trace their origins to converso forebears. Even Torquemada, the first head of the Inquisition in Castile and a favorite of Queen Isabella, had converso roots.

 

Nevertheless, in times of political turmoil, military defeat, or economic hardship the conversos were often blamed. Sometimes the charges erupted into mob violence and riots. It was to deal with these charges and riots in very difficult times, that Ferdinand and Isabella sought permission from the Pope to set up an Inquisition in Isabella’s Kingdom of Castile.

 

The young Isabella had inherited the throne under the most dangerous of circumstances. Castilian grandees or warlords disputed her right and authority. The King of Portugal put up a rival claimant to the throne and launched an invasion of Castile. Once these threats were somewhat subdued, the young Queen had to turn her attention to the constant border menace of the Moslem Kingdom of Granada in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula.

 

Islam was a real threat. In 1480 an Islamic naval expedition had landed on the Adriatic coast of Italy and destroyed the city of Otranto. The invaders tortured and killed 12000 of the 22000 inhabitants of the city. Every priest was murdered and the Archbishop of Otranto was sawed in two. Those who were not killed were forced to convert or taken into slavery. In Spain there was constant border fighting and raids with Moslem Granada.

 

It was a time of great peril from both within and without and fear led to the inevitable outcry of charges against the conversos. Isabella established an Inquisition in Spain to deal with the charges directed against the conversos and unite her country in the war effort. One modern historian has called the Spanish Inquisition “a disciplinary body called into existence to meet a national emergency.”

 

The word “inquisition” has the same root as the word “inquiry.” The inquisitors were to look into the charges, call witnesses, and take testimony. The fact that the great, great majority of the conversos accused before the tribunal of the Inquisition were released is a testimony to Netanyahu’s thesis that they were innocent, sincere Christians, and that the charges leveled against them were baseless. Since the publication of Netanyahu’s book, historians have had to alter their perspective on the Inquisition, its methods and its results.

 

In many ways the Inquisition represented an enormous improvement in methods of justice prevailing throughout the European and Moslem worlds at the time. The proceedings of the Inquisition were carried out in public and not in secrecy. Its prisons were only temporary detention centers with conditions much better than in local jails. There were no pits with giant swinging razor sharp pendulums. Torture was rarely used in contrast to the methods almost universally used in other European and Moslem countries. Even when torture was applied, there was little danger to life and limb.

 

Studies of the Spanish Inquisition that followed upon the publication of Netanyahu’s masterpiece have shown that the “scenes of sadism conjured up by popular writers…have little basis in reality,” and that the inquisitors “had little interest in cruelty and often attempted to temper justice with mercy.” Indeed, as one historian noted: “The proportionally small number of executions is an effective argument against the legend of a blood thirsty tribunal.”

 

Nevertheless, the Spanish Inquisition has become synonymous with barbaric cruelty and injustice. In the wars of religion that followed upon the Protestant Reformation, a “Black Legend” arose primarily in Protestant England, which found itself involved in a life and death struggle with Catholic Spain. The Black Legend has gained mythical status and is still used as a weapon to batter Spain and the Catholic Church. It was one of the factors behind the hatred engendered in modern history by the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

 

In one of history’s interesting footnotes, the bitterness and hatred engendered by the Spanish Civil War did not prevent Spain under Generalissimo Franco from standing almost alone in offering sanctuary to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. The Franco government maintained neutrality throughout the war, and insisted that all Jews who could claim Spanish citizenship be given safe conduct back to Spain from Nazi occupied countries. The Franco government even went so far as to offer Spanish citizenship and sanctuary to all Jews who could trace their ancestry back to the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

 

Benzion Netanyahu’s masterpiece is now recognized by scholars like Joseph Perez and Henry Kamen who have followed his lead. Nevertheless, their findings will probably never eradicate the myths still propagated today. Politicians and ideologues will still continue to grind their axes, as will popular TV shows like Monty Python. 

 

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Tucker Carlsen Interviews Vladimir Putin

Last week my wife and I watched Tucker Carlsen’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The interview lasted a little over two hours, and it took us two nights to get through it, but it was well worth the effort. So far, the interview has received over 18 million hits on YouTube although the American media seems reluctant to mention it.

Credit must go to Tucker Carlsen not only for scooping the rest of the journalistic world, but also for allowing us to see Putin unfiltered by media bias. Carlsen limited himself to a few questions and then just let Putin respond with hardly any interruption. It was a breath of fresh air. In the beginning Putin asked if it was going to be an interview or a talk show, and for the most part Carlsen was content to hear him out, and not engage in incessant back and forth.

I did not take notes but here is my recollection of some of the insights provided by the Russian leader. Putin came across as extremely articulate, experienced, and levelheaded with a deep grounding in Russian history, as well as in current world affairs. Indeed, he prefaced his response to Carlsen’s first question on the Ukraine war with an almost 30-minute disquisition on the history of Russia in which he went all the way back to its ninth century origins. In that discussion he included an historical analysis of the origins of what is now known as Ukraine, a word that means fringes or borderlands in Russian. Indeed, he believes that Ukraine has always been a part of Russia, and that the Ukrainians are Russian, and not a separate ethnic group. 

To Putin the war in Ukraine is a Civil War and not an invasion of a foreign country. He traced the current conflict in Ukraine back to 1991 with the demise of the Soviet Union. In the West, we call it the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he regards it as an attempt by the then Soviet leaders to normalize relations with the West and usher in an era of mutual security and prosperity. He even stated that he had asked President Clinton if Russia could join NATO. Initially, Clinton seemed agreeable but after consulting with his security advisors, the offer was rejected. Instead of a partner, the US would continue to regard Russia as an adversary.

Moreover, he claims that after 1991 Russia received assurances that the NATO alliance would not extend any further east, but that the promise was subsequently broken, especially during the Obama administration when the door seemed to be opened to Ukrainian membership in NATO.  Putin traced the start of the war in Ukraine to 2014 when a coup in Kiev overthrew the then pro-Russian government. He believes that the coup was engineered by Western security services, and that the new government in Ukraine then began to seek close ties with NATO. He also believes that the new Ukrainian leadership contains many who had fought with the Nazis against Russia during WWII.

Nevertheless, he insisted that he is open to a negotiated settlement of the war and argued that he had agreed to one only months after the fighting started. At a meeting in Istanbul both sides had agreed to a settlement but at the last minute, Boris Johnson, the then British Prime Minister, had stepped in to quash the deal, obviously with the backing of his NATO and US allies. 

Johnson has retired but the war goes on. Putin claims to be still open to a negotiated settlement. He also believes that the war is hurting the West more than Russia. Western sanctions have not hurt Russia whose economy is now the largest in Europe, but they have forced Europe to pay exorbitant prices for imports of liquified natural gas. Speaking of that, Putin did not claim to know who blew up the Nordstream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, but pointed out that the culprit would have to have had both a motive and the capability to pull it off.

These are just a couple of the issues that Putin discussed with ease and calmness, but I would like to end with Carlsen’s last question concerning a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who has been imprisoned by the Russians for espionage. Actually, Carlsen asked if Putin, as a goodwill gesture, would release the jailed reporter to him for return to the USA claiming that everyone knew that the reporter was not a spy. Putin responded that the man had been caught red-handed with classified documents but that he would prefer to leave his fate to the negotiations currently going on between the security agencies of both countries. 

In this interview Putin did not appear as a madman or a Hitler out to dominate the world. As mentioned above, he spoke with calm, self-assurance. He knows his geo-politics. He is aware that China has overtaken the US economy, and that India is in third place. It is a new world, and the West must learn to live with it. Tucker Carlsen has been criticized for even conducting this interview. Some have even called him a traitor, but we are not at war with Russia, and Carlsen deserves great credit for letting us see the Russian leader with our own two eyes.

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Note: By now it is difficult to find the whole interview on YouTube but it is well worth viewing in its entirety. Here is a link.

Ash Wednesday

 

                                             

A few years ago around Ash Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Michael S. Roth, the President of Wesleyan University, on the reluctance of modern students to consider topics like the soul and salvation. In addition to his administrative duties Roth taught a class in which he tried to inculcate historical imagination in his students by asking them to consider and discuss the questions that deeply concerned people in the past. However, he was disconcerted when he discovered a particular blind spot among his students.

Whenever he tried to discuss the interest of philosophers and other thinkers in the past with questions about the soul and salvation, he found a decided reticence on the part of his students to engage. Although usually eager to discuss any of the pressing issues of the day, the students generally clammed up and avoided eye contact by looking down into their notebooks. 

Unfortunately, Roth did not go into the reasons for the students’ reserve but took most of his essay explaining why it was important to understand why such issues had such importance to great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. Roth admitted that he was a secular Jew and an atheist, and insisted that he was certainly not trying to “convert” the students. 

It’s too bad that Dr. Roth did not ask his students about their reasons for shying away from any discussion that smacks of “religion.” I can think of a number of reasons why the students might have been reluctant to engage, but I’m only guessing.

The first that comes to mind stems from the high probability that most professors at Wesleyan, then and now, neither believe that they have an immortal soul, nor think that they require salvation. Any student professing such beliefs would likely be ridiculed by teachers and regarded as a pariah by their classmates. Actually, I think that the animus towards religious subjects was inculcated even before the students went to college. It is part of the media world that they have inhabited since childhood.

Despite Dr. Roth’s good intentions, I doubt if he ever would have become President of Wesleyan if he had been a church going Methodist. Even though the school is one of many named after the eighteenth century religious reformer, a school like Wesleyan would probably never name a President today who shared John Wesley’s beliefs or concerns.

Practically all the great institutions of learning in Europe and America were founded by churches, but today a belief pervades modern society that there is a total disconnect between religion and reason when it comes to the search for truth. Nevertheless, our universities have not become centers of reason and science. Credulity of all kinds still prevails. Someone once said, “when people cease to believe in God, they will believe in anything.”

Look at the popularity of the supernatural and occult in films and videogames today. Vampire films are box office bonanzas. My grandson went to a Jesuit Catholic university where he could hardly find a course on Catholicism to fulfill his religious studies requirement. He had to fall back on a course on Voodoo taught by a truly committed believer. 

Ironically, Dr. Roth admitted that despite his atheism, he still felt the need to say the Jewish Kaddish for his deceased father. Of course, tradition would not allow him to say it alone and so he had to find a group of ten. It wasn’t easy for a non-practicing Jew but he eventually found a group. Not only was he able to say the prayers for his father, but he also found in the group a congenial community. So Dr. Roth is not really an atheist. Either he reserves his religion for special situations, or he just has gone back to ancestor worship, the earliest form of religion.

I suspect similar motives drive modern Catholics when they go to Church on Ash Wednesday. Years ago on a visit to our daughter in California, my wife and I attended the local church, St. Joseph’s Basilica, in Alameda. The church is an enthusiastic community made up of the descendants of the original settlers of the island right next to Oakland, as well as more recent immigrants from Mexico, the Philippines, China, and Vietnam. The dynamic but self-effacing young pastor from India scheduled five masses for Ash Wednesday. The morning mass that we attended was packed with people waiting to receive the ashes on their foreheads.

Maybe people don’t like to think about the soul and salvation any more but down deep they seem to want to be reminded that they are dust and to dust they will return.

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A Fine Romance

 

My wife Linda and I celebrate our 61st wedding anniversary today. We were married at St. John the Evangelist Catholic church in White Plains, NY on February 9, 1963. 

We originally met about two years before on a blind date. I was a senior at Fordham College in the Bronx thinking of going on to graduate school to study and eventually teach History. She was a nursing student at Cornell University on pace to get her BSRN the next year.

Both of us were unattached. I had broken off with a girl I had dated for months and wondered if I would ever find the right girl. She had also parted ways with a recent boyfriend. I guess that is why a friend of mine at school asked his girlfriend at the nursing school to find me a date so that the four of us could attend the annual Fordham glee club concert.

Maybe because I was Italian, his girlfriend thought of Linda Gardella. When she couldn’t find her, she asked a friend of Linda’s if she thought Linda would be interested. “Of course,” she answered without bothering to even ask her. Linda was a little upset but did agree to go. I guess that’s how fate operates.

Anyway, in those days men were not allowed entrance to the nurses’ quarters. I had to give my name to a receptionist who would let Linda know I was there to pick her up. On this occasion she was already ready in the lounge, a kind of waiting room. I can still see her now. I don’t know if it was love at first sight, but not only was I struck by how beautiful she was, but also by how mature she seemed to be. 

I think the first date was kind of a flop. The glee club concert was a major affair for the school and held every year at New York’s "Town Hall", not far from the nursing center on the East Side. The concert was on Friday evening, March 3, but even though the chorale was premiering a new piece, the only thing I remember was that Linda fell asleep during the concert. In those days nursing students actually worked in the hospital wards and she had had a busy day. I don’t recall how we got back to the nursing center. I dropped her off and that was it. There was no holding hands or good night kiss.

Nevertheless, it was a start and despite my shyness, I got up the nerve to call her up and ask for another date.

As an aside, there were no cell phones in those days. There wasn’t even a phone in my grandparents’ home where I lived. I used pay phone booths that could be found on street corners. Any fan of Superman will be familiar with them.

She agreed to go out with me again and we began to date. In those days New York City was a wonderful place for a budding romance. Quiet bars (the drinking age was 18), coffee shops, and neighborhood restaurants were everywhere. Movie houses, theaters, and concert halls were nearby, and inexpensive. You could get seats for a Broadway play for less than $20 and half price tickets were readily available to students. Central Park was a short walk from the nursing center, and the lovely East River walk was around the corner.

In that beautiful spring of 1961, we held hands for the first time while watching “The Days of Thrills and Laughter” at a local movie house. We kissed for the first time one night in Central Park by the Lake. I had certainly fallen for her, and unbeknownst to me, she told her mother that she would probably marry me. 

Nevertheless, when summer vacation came, she went back to White Plains and while she didn’t exactly break it off, she went incommunicado. I’m still not sure of the reason. I was so despondent that I even grew a beard. 

After a couple of months, I was finally able to get through to her and she agreed to see me again. Persistence paid off. Of all places, I took her to Belmont Park, one of New York’s premier racetracks. Guys in my neighborhood in Queens loved the races, and I had become a little bit of a fan myself. Fate took a hand again. I had a couple of winners and was able to take her out to dinner at a nice restaurant back in White Plains.

After that we were a couple. I guess all she needed was time and space to make up her mind. In the meantime, I had graduated from Fordham, and had been accepted in the graduate program at Columbia University. She still had a year to go in nursing school. We dated regularly, wrote incessant love letters which she recently burned, and began to plan for the future.

 Shortly after she graduated in 1962, I proposed and she accepted. Of course, I went through the formality of getting her father’s permission. By then he knew I was not really a gambler. Years before, in Catholic elementary school the nuns had us open up a savings account with a local bank. I think we would deposit a nickel every week. In 1962 I took the little more than $200 life savings that I had in the account and bought a diamond engagement ring from a jeweler in New York’s Diamond district on 47th Street. Maybe, I got taken but she still wears it 61 years later. 

 It has been, and still is “a fine romance.” In the  1936 film "Born to Dance", a young Jimmy Stewart sings this charming love song to Eleanor Powell that reminds me of those walks in Central Park. 

Movie Musicals

 

With the coming of sound, Americans came to love musicals. In 1929. only the second year for Academy Awards, MGM's Broadway Melody won the award for Best picture. Below are brief reviews of two early movie musicals that feature spectacular dancing. Use the links to see for yourself.                                  

 

Swing Time. 

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are universally regarded as the greatest dance team of all time. Starting with their first appearance in Flying Down to Rio where they danced the Carioca, they appeared in a series of films whose dance numbers have never been equaled. No one else danced together as a team as they did. My personal favorite is Roberta, but Swing Time, which opened in 1936, is generally regarded as their best film.

It includes two great songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, the Academy Award winning, “The Way You Look Tonight,” and “A Fine Romance,” as well as four of their greatest dance numbers: “Pick Yourself Up,” the most popular of all their dances; the effervescent “Waltz in Swing Time;” the dramatic finale “Never Gonna Dance;” and the solo “Bojangles of Harlem,” Astaire’s spectacular homage to the great black dancer Bill Robinson.

Speaking of homage, Ginger Rogers never gets enough credit for her performances opposite Astaire. She is said to have quipped that she did every step that he did, but backwards and in heels. To my mind she was much more than a beautiful singer and dancer. One only has to look at her facial expressions and posture while she dances to see that she was a great actress as well. In her book on the Astaire Rogers films, Arlene Croce paid homage to Ginger.

“It’s easy to underrate Rogers’ dancing because she never appeared to be working hard, and because, with a bold nonchalance that irritates women more than men, she sometimes threw away stuff she never had. But Rogers danced with love, with pride in the beauty of an illusion—and with one of the most elegant dancer’s bodies imaginable. She avoided any suggestion of toil or inadequacy. She was just physically incapable of ugliness.”

A few years ago, the complete set of Astaire/Rogers films was made available on DVD. Even though streaming has largely replaced DVDs today, the DVD versions often include commentaries and other features. John Mueller’s commentary for Swing Time is one of the best I have ever heard. 103 minutes.

 

Broadway Melody of 1940.

The first Broadway Melody film appeared in 1929 and won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Six years later, MGM produced Broadway Melody of 1936 that made a star of newcomer Eleanor Powell, who would become famous for her extraordinary dancing. She became known as the Queen of Tap, but she was able to do anything from tap to ballet. The success of the film led MGM to follow with Broadway Melody of 1938, and Broadway Melody of 1940.

Despite weak story lines the series is worth watching today not only for Powell’s dancing but also because MGM used these films to spotlight up and coming talent. For example, in Broadway Melody of 1938, a young Judy Garland has a small role but does get the spotlight on her for an unforgettable rendition of “You Made Me Love You,” sung to a photograph of Clark Gable. But only in Broadway Melody of 1940 did Eleanor Powell find a partner to dance with. In this film the Queen of Tap is paired with Fred Astaire who had recently ended his long career with Ginger Rogers. Famed ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “Fred Astaire is dancing, and the rest of us are doing something else.” 

And so, in Broadway Melody of 1940, despite a weak script and the inevitable comic interludes that including a fantastic female juggler, the "Begin the Beguine" finale of this film is perhaps the greatest dance number ever filmed. MGM created a huge set for this number with countless light bulbs sparkling in the dark background, and a dance floor of glass that would mirror every step.

The first half of the finale is a Latin dance introduced by a female singer intoning Cole Porter’s famous words, but soon the camera pans to a chorus of beautiful girls in lovely white gowns dancing to the Latin music. Then, almost as if she was Venus rising from the sea, Eleanor Powell appears, also in a flowing white gown, and takes over in a solo featuring her incredible back bends and high kicks. Finally, she is joined by Astaire who first appears as a mirror image in a bolero outfit. They complete the dance beautifully and twirl off stage, but there is more to come.

Now, a female quartet appears singing Begin the Beguine in an upbeat swing rhythm. They finish and move off camera as Powell and Astaire, now dressed in contemporary outfits, come tapping into view and launch into a sprightly, up-tempo number where they almost seem to be competing to outdo each other. The King and Queen of Tap match each other step for step in a dance number that has never been equaled.  Heaven, sheer Heaven.

For those who do not want to watch the whole film, the Begin the Beguine number can be watched in two parts on YouTube, but I still prefer the DVD in order to view it in its entirety. The film includes other fine Powell/Astaire numbers including “I’ve Got My Eyes on You,” “I Concentrate on You”, and “Jukebox Dance” which Powell regarded as her personal favorite.102 minutes. CC

 

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