Assassins

 

The recent attempt by a self-proclaimed assassin to enter the White House Correspondents dinner and possibly kill President Trump and other members of his administration marked the third attempt on Donald Trump’s life in the last twelve months. 

It makes you wonder why Donald Trump is such a target. The question was put to the President in the brief press conference held right after the incident. He replied that he had studied assassinations and claimed that the Presidency has always been a high-risk job, especially if the President has achieved much.  According to him there is little reason to target an inconsequential President like his predecessor.

I suspect that there is some truth in his remarks, but I think there is something more involved in the attacks aimed at him. I do not agree with those who think the problem will be solved by toning down the “rhetoric.” The rhetoric itself stems from something deeper. I do not believe that the people who claim that Trump is a dictator, a fascist, or another Hitler are lying or hypocritical. They really believe it. In a way, they can’t help themselves. It is as if they have been programmed. Let me give an example.

An incident occurred in our home during President Trump’s first administration that was strange. For years a window cleaner had been coming to our home to clean our windows. He was a nice guy who always did a good job, and my wife really liked him. While chatting with him on one occasion, she mentioned that she liked Trump. Immediately, he picked up his equipment and walked out of the house leaving the job half done. It was as if his psychological immune system had sprung into action and he could not help reacting. 

I thought of this trivial incident while trying to understand why three attempts have been made on the life of President Trump so far. What are the assassins like, and what do they believe?

The case of Luigi Mangione provides some clues. This young man deliberately shot a man in the back in broad daylight, a killing that in former times would have been considered craven cowardice. Yet, Mangione apparently thought he was doing a good deed in shooting the CEO of a large health care insurance company. Moreover, instead of being vilified, he is regarded by many as a kind of hero, even a saint. The CEO he killed was a successful Businessman who somehow deserved to die.  

In the eyes of his haters Donald Trump is the epitome of the Big Bad Businessman. He is rich and flaunts it. He is arrogant and self-assured. He brooks no criticism or insult. He is the personification of the villains of innumerable movies and TV series that I have witnessed over my long lifetime. For years, Law and Order, to name one, has been among TV’s most popular shows. Inevitably, the original murder suspect is usually a poor young Black or Puerto Rican, but then the murderer turns out to be a wealthy businessman.

The pandemic alerted us to the workings of our immune system: how it is programmed to immediately spring into action against harmful invaders. We also learned that sometimes the immune system can overreact and cause even more damage.

I have come to believe that we also have a psychological immune system that has largely been conditioned by what we have been watching over our lifetimes. Any rational person must admit that from the age of the robber barons to our current tech tycoons, the cultural bias has been largely left wing and anti- business.

The opinion page of my local newspaper has no conservative commentators. It cannot afford to offend the sensibilities of its readers or remaining advertisers. The mainstream news media is notoriously biased. The staff at NPR is overwhelmingly Democratic. It’s not much different online. It turns out that over 70% of Wikipedia sources are left wing, and only 1% come from the right. For every conservative on the Yale faculty, there are 36 liberals.  

I admit that I have my own psychological immune system, but I have never hated anyone or thought of killing anybody even if it would benefit humanity.  I can’t bear to watch or read left leaning news but do not hate the Democrats who for years have dominated politics here in Connecticut. I disagreed with many of the things that former Democratic Presidents Biden and Obama did, but I never hated them. 

In thinking about it, I believe that there were some institutions that kept my psychological immune system from over-reacting even when I was a young man. First, there was my marriage. My wife certainly would not have allowed me to be an assassin. Our shared beliefs, background, and values also helped. There were our children. We had to raise them, and I had to work to support them. There were our extended families who supported us and who we had to support in turn. There was our Church whose teaching, culture, and long history were in our blood.

I certainly don’t think that I am unique. On the contrary, I believe that most people still are supported by institutions like these that keep them from doing harm. Unfortunately, over my long lifetime I have seen most of these institutions ridiculed, bitterly attacked, or just regarded as irrelevant. Marriage, children, family, and religion are no longer the ideal. Young men especially are on their own.

###

Bogart and Bacall

  

 

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are among the most celebrated couples in movie history both on-screen and off. They first met on the set of To Have and Have Not in 1944. Bogart, age 44, was a star and Bacall a 19-year-old newcomer recruited by film director Howard Hawks after a brief New York modeling career. They immediately clicked. The four films in which they appeared are among my favorites. Here are brief notices.

 

To Have and Have Not.  Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall co-star in this 1944 wartime drama loosely based on an Ernest Hemingway story. It seems obvious that the filmmakers attempted to cash in on the success of Casablanca, the very popular 1942 war time drama that established Bogart as a huge star.

Both films are set after the fall of France in colonies under the control of the French Vichy government, a puppet of the German conquerors. Casablanca is in Morocco, and To Have and Have Not takes place in the French Caribbean colony of Martinique. 

As in Casablanca Bogart plays a tough, jaded American who just wants to go about his business without any involvement in the war or politics. In Casablanca he ran a popular night club but in To Have and Have Not Bogart is a charter fishing boat captain barely eking out a living. Still, much of the action takes place in a saloon/night club which even has its own likeable piano player, this time played by Hoagy Carmichael.

I suppose the greatest difference in the two films is the female lead. In To Have and Have Not the nineteen-year-old Bacall made a spectacular film debut. Instead of the sophisticated Ingrid Bergman of Casablanca fame, Bacall is a sexy and sassy young woman just passing through. The on-screen chemistry between her and Bogart makes this film a joy to watch.

The dialogue between them, written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, the renowned novelist, pushes the envelope of Hollywood’s Production Code. Although condemned by modern critics, the Code forced writers to be really creative in expressing sexuality without becoming offensive to their 1940s audiences. The scene in which Bacall teaches Bogart how to whistle is the highlight of the film. 100 minutes. CC.

The Big Sleep.  The successful pairing of Bogart and Bacall led to three other films in very short order. They next starred in a 1946 adaptation of famed crime novelist Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Big Sleep.  Bogart plays Chandler’s legendary private eye, Philip Marlowe, on the trail of killers, pornographers, gamblers, and a bevy of beautiful young women. In this film and in the earlier Maltese Falcon Bogart created the private eye. No one else ever came close. 

Despite a convoluted plot, once again director Howard Hawks brought out the chemistry between the now famous couple who had actually fallen in love on the set of To Have and Have Not, and married soon after. This time Bacall plays a wealthy sophisticated woman but the dialogue, especially between the two stars is discreetly sexually charged. 

Interestingly, there is an added feature on my DVD that sheds light on the creative process in Hollywood in those days. Before the film’s release Bacall’s agent saw a preview and thought it would destroy his client’s budding career. He wrote a long letter to the studio head asking that some scenes be re-shot to improve Bacall’s role. The studio agreed and the result is a classic film noir. 114 minutes. CC.

Dark Passage. Bogart and Bacall star in this 1947 film about a man who breaks out of prison after being falsely convicted of murdering his wife. Based on a novel by crime writer David Goodis, Bogart plays the escaped con, and Bacall plays another sophisticated woman who, for reasons of her own, provides a hideout for him in her lavish apartment.  

Nevertheless, to escape the law, he takes the advice of a friendly cabbie who in the middle of the night arranges an appointment for him with an outlaw plastic surgeon who claims he can make him look like anything, even a monkey, in 90 minutes, no more no less. Sure enough, the doctor, played hilariously by character actor Houseley Stevenson, turns him into Humphrey Bogart once the bandages are removed.

Next to the scene with the plastic surgeon, my favorite part of this film is the ending with the couple meeting to the tune of “You’re Just Too Marvelous.” 106 minutes. CC. 

Key Largo. John Huston directed this 1948 drama that would be the last film in which the famous couple appear together, but their roles are strangely subdued. Bacall plays a war widow who runs a small hotel in the Florida Keys with her wheelchair bound father, played by Lionel Barrymore. Bogart's character had served with her husband during the war, and though he survived, the war has had its effect on him.  He is not the tough self-assured guy of the earlier films.  

Bogart’s character wants to meet his deceased friend’s family, but arrives at the hotel in the midst of a hurricane warning only to find that there is danger within. Edward G. Robinson practically steals the show playing an over the hill gangster on the lam from police. His gang has taken over the hotel until they can find passage to Cuba.  Claire Trevor won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress playing the gangster’s mistress, an ex-nightclub singer turned alcoholic. 101 minutes. CC.

I prefer to watch on DVD with no annoying commercials. In addition, the DVDs sometimes include informative features.

###

Advice for Seniors

 My brother-in-law Richard Gardella moved to a Senior living facility two years ago  at the age of 88. For most of his life he was a practicing attorney but from his earlier days as a newspaper reporter he loved to write about people. He still believes that everyone has their story. In his new home he has continued his practice of writing by profiling the seemingly ordinary people who reside in the facility as well as members of the staff. His first profile was about Larry Kirby, a decorated veteran of WWII, who published a book, Stories From the Pacific, about his experience during the war. Larry died at the age of 99 shortly after Richard completed his profile. In that profile Richard included Larry's written advice to seniors entering the facility. It is good advice for anyone, and I repeat it here with Richard's permission. 

Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time around bitter people will make you feel older and harder to be around.

Try to keep a healthy life. Pains and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as part of life. Try doing moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It is easy to become sick, and it is hard to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. 

Don’t stress over the little things from the past. You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Small issues will soon be forgotten. Feel good in the now! 

Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love life, love your family, love your friends, and remember: Love is more precious than the finest jewels.

Be proud, both inside and out. Don’t stop going to your barber or hair salon, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.

Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age but keep your own sense of style. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you—keep it, and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.

Always stay up to date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised at what old friends you’ll meet.

Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideas as you, but they are the future and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism, and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today. Never use the phrase: “in my time.” Your time is now. As long as you are alive, you are a part of this time.

Never regret not living with your children or grandchildren. Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our own space. They need theirs and you need yours.

Don’t abandon activities. Each evening after dinner, check the activity sheet and the next day get involved in at least one activity. Be active, be friendly, be happy.

Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are.

If you’ve been offended by someone—forgive them. If you’ve offended someone—apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Forgive, forget, and move on with your life.

Laugh. Laugh away your worries. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones. You managed to have a life, a long life. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. Dear friends, enjoy a peaceful time at this point in your life.

Don’t worry…be happy. 

Larry Kirby in WWII.

### 

Irish Heritage

    

On St. Patrick's Day I repeat an earlier post on our debt to the Irish.                                          

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. 

###

* Iona photo courtesy of David Orme.

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.

###

Are Women Human?

 

                                     

 

Despite the widespread criticism of Christianity today, there is no doubt that it introduced a revolutionary improvement in the role and status of women. Where did early Christians get this revolutionary idea? I think we have to go to the Source, to the actual words and actions of Jesus in the Bible. Dorothy Sayers, a famed Christian author of the twentieth century, wrote the following in an essay entitled, “Are Women Human?”

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them. Never flattered or coaxed or patronized: who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “the ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.

But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day. Women are not human; nobody shall persuade that they are human; let them say what they like, we will not believe it, though One rose from the dead.

Perhaps Sayers, like many today, included St. Paul among those contemporaries of Jesus who did not understand, especially when we consider the famous passage in his letter to the Colossians where he advises wives to be subordinate to their husbands. 

For years I was a lector or reader at my local Catholic church. Ever since the Second Vatican council it has been the practice for the lector, usually a layperson, to read the first two scripture readings at Sunday Mass, after which the priest or a deacon reads the gospel. Reading the scriptures out loud to a congregation made them more meaningful to me than just hearing them read by others at Mass. I liked doing it but old age and diminishing eyesight made me give it up a few years ago.  

However, something happened last weekend that made me recall an incident from my lector days. It was on the feast day of the Holy Family that usually occurs on the first Sunday after Christmas. I was in the sacristy before Mass looking over the readings when the young priest who was to preside approached me and told me to read the short form of the second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. He must have seen a look of surprise on my face and added that the American Bishop’s Council allows shortened versions to be read on occasion. He didn’t exactly explain why but in this case the passage that I was to omit included St. Paul’s advice to wives to be “subordinate” to their husbands, a passage that even many Catholics today find objectionable.

I was younger then and declined to do it. Since childhood I had been instructed by priests and bishops to regard every word of the Bible as inspired, but apparently some words were not as inspired or sacred as others. It was jarring and I told him to find another lector and went back to join my wife in the congregation.  In the years that have followed it has become standard to omit the controversial scriptural passage. This past weekend, it was again omitted.  In all these years homilists just choose to ignore or omit this and other difficult passages that might be offensive to modern ears.  Rather than explain, discuss, or confront the difficult passages head on, they just ignore or omit. 

This failure was one of the reasons that I began to compose my own reflections on the Sunday Mass readings many years ago. Last Sunday I posted on the historical “context” of St. Paul’s words on my Sunday, Sunday blog.  I tried to explain why Paul would have advised wives to be subordinate to their husbands, but also why his advice to husbands to “love your wives” was revolutionary.

I certainly agree with Sayers about Jesus, but I believe that if we look at the whole context  of the life and writings of St. Paul, we will see that he was truly following in the footsteps of his Master. Despite today's popular opinion, Christianity elevated the role of women not only in society but also in the eyes of her husband. St. Paul understands the teaching of Christ to mean that Christian men must give up their whole lives for their wives and families, a rare thing in any time. The relationship in a family should consist of "heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." A family built on these virtues won't have to worry about who's the boss. 

###

Senior Advice

 My brother-in-law Richard Gardella moved to a Senior living facility this year at the age of 88. For most of his life he was a practicing attorney but from his earlier days as a newspaper reporter he loved to write about people. He still believes that everyone has their story. In his new home he has continued his practice of writing by profiling the seemingly ordinary people who reside in the facility as well as members of the staff. His first profile was about Larry Kirby, a decorated veteran of WWII, who published a book, Stories From the Pacific, about his experience during the war. Larry died at the age of 99 shortly after Richard completed his profile. In that profile Richard included Larry's written advice to seniors entering the facility. It is good advice for anyone, and I repeat it here with Richard's permission. 

Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time around bitter people will make you feel older and harder to be around.

Try to keep a healthy life. Pains and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as part of life. Try doing moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It is easy to become sick, and it is hard to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. 

Don’t stress over the little things from the past. You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Small issues will soon be forgotten. Feel good in the now! 

Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love life, love your family, love your friends, and remember: Love is more precious than the finest jewels.

Be proud, both inside and out. Don’t stop going to your barber or hair salon, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.

Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age but keep your own sense of style. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you—keep it, and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.

Always stay up to date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised at what old friends you’ll meet.

Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideas as you, but they are the future and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism, and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today. Never use the phrase: “in my time.” Your time is now. As long as you are alive, you are a part of this time.

Never regret not living with your children or grandchildren. Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our own space. They need theirs and you need yours.

Don’t abandon activities. Each evening after dinner, check the activity sheet and the next day get involved in at least one activity. Be active, be friendly, be happy.

Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are.

If you’ve been offended by someone—forgive them. If you’ve offended someone—apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Forgive, forget, and move on with your life.

Laugh. Laugh away your worries. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones. You managed to have a life, a long life. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. Dear friends, enjoy a peaceful time at this point in your life.

Don’t worry…be happy. 

Larry Kirby in WWII.

###

Happy Thanksgiving 2023

    

                                            

 

My wife and I are just thankful that we've made it to another Thanksgiving Day. Here is my annual Thanksgiving message.

To say I was born and raised in New York City would be a little misleading because in my memories of New York in the 40s and 50s, the city was a collection of small towns or villages. I was born in Woodside, a section of the borough of Queens, and the skyscrapers and streets of Manhattan were as remote for me as China would be to my grandchildren today.

Because of our insularity I can’t be sure if a Thanksgiving custom we had back then was unique to Woodside or whether it could have been found elsewhere throughout the great metropolis. Anyone else I’ve mentioned it to had never heard of it including my wife who was born a little bit north of the City in White Plains, the hub of Westchester county.

Anyway, on Thanksgiving morning the children in our neighborhood would dress up as bums or hobos. It didn’t take much since back then we would usually wear our clothes until they literally fell apart. We would take our most worn and tattered clothing and rip and tear them a little more. Then, we would blacken a cork over a candle and smear it over our faces to simulate dirt. I remember my grandmother giving me a little pouch with a drawstring, or was it a pillowcase, that we hobos could sling over our shoulders.

Then, we were ready to make the rounds of our neighbors to ask, “anything for thanksgiving?” Inevitably, they would answer our plea with some of the bounty from the meal they were preparing. Usually it would be apples, or walnuts, or sometimes a few pennies. Don’t laugh. Twenty pennies were enough to buy a Spalding (Spaldeen), the elite of bouncing rubber balls used by us in so many street games.

I don’t know where the “anything for thanksgiving” custom came from. We lived in a small neighborhood that seemed to have been mainly Irish with a mixture of Italians. In my nearby Catholic school the majority of the kids seemed to have Irish names. There were Ryans, Regans, Dunphys, Moylans, and Healys. However, A few blocks down busy 69^thStreet were the Napolitanos who ran the grocery store. In the other direction lived the dreaded Gallos whose kids were the toughest in the school. 

But I’m not sure that “anything for thanksgiving”  was an ethnic custom. We were a predominately Catholic neighborhood and the idea of thanksgiving was part of our religious heritage even though none of us knew that the word “Eucharist” meant “Thanksgiving.” On the other hand, it could have been a peculiarly American response to the end of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Nothing had marked the depression so much as homeless men on bread lines or riding the rails. These were the hobos that we children imitated. Even though most of us could be considered poor, at least we and our neighbors would be able to sit down that afternoon in our homes to the best meal of the year. We did have a lot to be thankful for. The Depression was over, the men had returned from the terrible war, and the NY Yankees were on the verge of recovering their past glory.

Over 75 years have passed since those childhood years but I can truly say that my wife and I have much to be thankful for. Our grandparents came to this country from Italy with nothing but their own traditions, customs, and religion. Like most children of immigrants our parent came to love America and worked hard to provide for their children and give them a standard of living that is still the envy of the world. 

Even today, after a pandemic and divisive political campaigns, there is more reason to hope than to fear. I would just like to end this post with George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789. Thanksgiving did not become a National holiday until after our terrible Civil War, but Washington’s words are as meaningful today as they were in 1789.  

Thanksgiving Proclamation
Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789

 


Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”



Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.


And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.



Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.


 

Go. Washington 

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The Killers

An article in the Wall Street Journal this week about young black men caught my eye. Barry Latzer, an emeritus Professor of criminal justice at New York’s John Jay college, traced the alarming increase in murder rates in the United States to a combination of “big cities, guns, and young black men.” 

Latzer noted new statistics that showed that while violent crimes like rape, robbery, and assault declined somewhat during the pandemic, the murder rate skyrocketed especially among young black men. Black males were victims of homicide at a rate five times that of white or Hispanic men, and the great majority of these murders were committed by other young black men. Often, the killings seemed to be over trivial matters, or affronts to “honor.”

 

Latzer attributed this type of killing to a holdover from Southern culture of 150 years ago, that blacks have carried into Northern cities. I trained as a historian many years ago, and one of the things I learned was to look for proximate causes of events, that is, causes closest in time to the event. I don’t think there is a need to go back a hundred years or more to find an explanation of why young black men are killing each other at alarming rates today. I think we have only to look at the education these young men received in their own brief lifetimes.

 

I am not referring to the formal education they have received in school. In my opinion, the low scores and poor results black young men achieve in school are not due to a lack of brain power but to a lack of motivation. Outside of school they have been educated to distrust and despise school. Their real education takes place on the street or on their phones. What do they learn there?

 

In a recent news story in my local newspaper, a Bridgeport gang member pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. He was a member of a notorious gang that “robbed drug dealers, customers and others, sold narcotics, and stole cars from inside and outside Connecticut, often using the cars to commit crimes.” In addition, they “frequently used social media to promote and coordinate their criminal activities.” Social media posts and text messages revealed that he “possessed firearms, including firearms with extended magazines, and that he sold a variety of drugs. … he also participated in the theft and possession of stolen vehicles, some of which were used to commit shootings.”

 

Over his 20 years this young man had obviously acquired the considerable education and skills necessary to compete in his chosen profession. He was part of a skilled band with their own code of ethics. His formal education in school must have seemed like mere child’s play, totally irrelevant to life in the real world. In other words, he and others like him are uncivilized. They are ruthless barbarians. 

 

 I do not say this is so because they are black. I think the color of their skin, or their race has little to do with it. After all, there is only one race, the human race, and we all have the same human nature. We can find examples of uncivilized young men all over the world today. Just look at images of members of Mexican drug cartels wielding AK-47s while ferrying migrants over our southern border. Remember the young men of ISIS cutting off the heads of captive victims. Are the Taliban in Afghanistan any different? Looking back on our own history, every wave of immigrants brought with it young, uncivilized young men who formed gangs and thought nothing of killing to avenge the slightest insult.

 

For thousands of years it has been parents, family, religion, customs and traditions that have civilized young men. The breakdown of these institutions in the past 50 years has been catastrophic in America. Coincidentally, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop music. In the same week that Professor Latzer bemoaned the high murder rate among young black men, Jason Riley, a black man who is a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal, bemoaned the effects of the musical genre that has been the most powerful educational tool among young black men.

 

“A-list hip-hop artists… became fabulously wealthy trafficking in racist gutter lyrics and ugly stereotypes about black people. For decades, black parents have devoted an inordinate amount of time—with mixed success—to shielding their children from the materialism, drugs, promiscuous sex and thuggery behavior that pervades the songs of some of hip-hops most popular artists. ... decades of glorifying the gangsta-rap lifestyle and, worse, presenting it as the only authentic black experience, have come at a cost.”

 

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Humphey Bogart: High Sierra

 

 

No actor, male or female, has ever appeared in more top rank films than Humphrey Bogart. Most of these films are as watchable today as they were when they first appeared in the 1940s and 50s. Most were made during Hollywood’s Golden Age when the Studio system brought together under one roof outstanding directors, writers, cinematographers, and a whole host of other craftsmen and women to produce true works of art. The actors and actresses were of prime importance, none more so than Humphrey Bogart. 

He first hit the spotlight in 1935 when he recreated his stage role as gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. The stars were Leslie Howard, also recreating his leading man performance in Robert Sherwood’s play, and a young Bette Davis. Bogart turned in an unforgettable performance which unfortunately hurt his career since he would become typecast as a villain in popular gangster films.

It took five years for Bogart to  break out of the mold in the ground-breaking 1941 film, High Sierra. Directed by Raoul Walsh, and written by John Huston, Bogart’s close friend, High Sierra marked the end of the traditional gangster film in that it attempted to humanize the criminal. It was Bogart’s first leading man role although he only got second billing to co-star Ida Lupino. Bogart plays Roy Earle, a notorious 1930s gangster who is pardoned after serving eight years in prison. The pardon had been arranged by his old gang boss who needs him to pull off one last big heist. 

In the opening scene we see Bogart leaving the prison and basking in his freedom. He directs the driver sent to pick him up to stop at a nearby park so he can see if trees and grass still exist. He sits on a bench and enjoys the antics of little children playing ball. Our hearts go out to him. Only in the next scene when he picks up his assignment to drive to California and lead a robbery of a wealthy resort hotel do we see his tough guy demeanor emerge. He slaps around the corrupt cop who gives him his orders.

On the drive west he stops at the old Earle family farm in Indiana which has been taken over by bankers during the depression. His nostalgic love of the farm of his childhood is evident. He even directs a young boy to a favorite fishing spot. The criminal’s yearning for the idyllic countryside of childhood would be repeated in many films to come including John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle.

 Arriving in California, he accidentally makes the acquaintance of an elderly couple who have lost their Ohio farm and have travelled west to stay with their daughter. They are traveling with their pretty teen-age grand-daughter, played by the lovely Joan Leslie, who unfortunately has a club foot. In another sign of his humanity, Roy Earle shows real concern for the plight of the girl, and eventually falls for her. He arranges for an underworld doctor to perform an operation on the girl’s foot. In those days, it was apparently easy and inexpensive but when the girl is healed, she reveals that she is in love with another man. Earle is too old.

This rejection is just another sign among many that after eight years in prison, Roy Earle is out of touch in the world of 1940. The world that he knew has passed him by. Even modern hoodlums are not up to his standards. When he finally meets up with the two other members of the hold-up team, they are obviously young and inexperienced, and certainly lacking in toughness. They are even shacking up with an unfortunate ex-dime-a-dance girl played by Ida Lupino. Tough-guy Earle claims that women are poison in a heist, and orders them to get rid of her. But when she tells him her story, she appeals to his sympathies and he relents. He is a human being, flaws and all. He is a tough and capable criminal but with a soft spot in his heart. He even develops an affection for a mongrel dog at the camp, one of the great dogs in film history.  Eventually, they pull off the heist but as usual in these films, things go wrong. ***

High Sierra marked Bogart’s first role as a sympathetic leading man, and established his persona as a tough guy with a hard exterior cloaking a soft, caring inside, a persona immediately evident in two subsequent iconic films, The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca(1942), that made him a huge star. Roy Earle, Sam Spade, and Rick Blaine were roles that it is now hard to imagine anyone playing but Humphrey Bogart. 

 

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*** Note. A four minute video on Youtube shows a couple of typical scenes from High Sierra. Click on the link or view the video below.

Cultural Inoculation

 

One of the results of the Covid pandemic is that by now practically everyone has some knowledge of how the human immune system works to attack and destroy foreign invaders into our bodies. The microscopic warfare is almost immediate, and by now we are all familiar with the symptoms. 

A few months ago an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal indicated that we also have a political or cultural immune system that works to repel foreign ideas. A lawyer with a 44 year career with a prestigious law firm attended a conference call called by the firm to discuss the implications of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. When she dared to assert that many legal scholars agreed with the Court that abortion should be left to the States, the response of her colleagues was immediate and visceral. Some even claimed that they could not breathe.

Many recent reports indicate that this visceral reaction to unwelcome ideas is prevalent today throughout our country, and most especially on college campuses where unwelcome speakers are harassed or shouted down before they can utter a word.  It is obvious that most of the protestors are very left of center. They call themselves Progressives but they are actually Regressives harking back to the days of Socialism and Communism.  

For most people Socialism is a political and economic system but it is also, and always has been, a cultural phenomenon. Years ago I read practically all the novels and historical works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian author of the twentieth century, whose writings contributed enormously to the downfall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). 

More recently, I found a tattered copy of Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward at a library sale. It is a novel about the inmates and staff of a cancer facility in the Soviet Union of 1954. It is semi-auto biographical since the author himself had been treated for cancer after years in USSR prison camps. The story of the novel grips the reader from the start but it also turns a spotlight on the cultural revolution that resulted from the triumph of Socialism after the Revolution of 1917.* 

One of the patients in the ward is Dyoma, a young man who is suffering from a deadly tumor in his leg. Here is Solzhenitsyn’s account of a significant aspect of Dyoma’s early education. 

Ever since he had been in the first class, before he could read or write, Dyoma had been taught, knew for certain and fully understood that religion is a drug, a three-times reactionary dogma, of benefit only to swindlers. Because of it the working people in some places had been unable to free themselves from exploitation. But as soon as they got rid of religion they would take up arms and free themselves. And Aunt Styofa with her funny calendar, with the word ‘God’ always on her lips, with her carefree smile even in the gloomy clinic, and her pasty, was obviously a thoroughly reactionary figure. (138)

The fruits of this cultural revolution could be seen in 1954 in the plight of young Russian women like the attractive nurse Zoya in a world without religion.

Did this mean that marriage was the only alternative, that that was where happiness lay? The young men she met all danced and went for walks with the same aim in mind: to warm themselves up a bit, have their fun and then clear out. They used to say among themselves, ‘I could get married, but it never takes me more than an evening or two to find a new “friend”, so why should I bother?’ 

Indeed, why marry when women were so easy to get? If a great load of tomatoes suddenly arrived in the market, you couldn’t just triple the price of yours, they’d go rotten. How could you be inaccessible when everyone around you was ready to surrender?

A registry office wedding didn’t help either. Zoya had learnt this from the experience of Maria, a Ukrainian nurse she did alternate shifts with. Maria had relied on the registry office, but a week after the marriage her husband left her, went away and completely disappeared. For seven years, she brought up her child on her own, and on top of it all, she was trapped by her marriage. (172)

Solzhenitsyn wrote Cancer Ward almost seventy years ago but the fruits of the Socialist cultural revolution are very evident today in the massive problem that Russia has with orphans or just plain unwanted children. 

A couple of years ago former President Trump vowed that America would never be a Socialist country, but there is no doubt that the Socialist cultural revolution has already come. Its tenets have been taught in American schools for years, and the results are more and more obvious. 

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*Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward, 1968. Penguin book edition 1971.

Best Films of 2022

Lists of the year's top films often appear at this time of the year. Since I am too old to understand or follow today's films with their special effects and constant cutting, I present my own list of outstanding films that I have watched from my DVD collection this year. I prefer DVDs because they often come with commentaries and other special features, In addition, they are usually closed captioned for the hearing impaired. 

            

Brief Encounter: This 1945 British film is widely regarded as one of the best films of all time. It is the story of an affair between a suburban English housewife, and a married doctor who meet accidentally at a railway terminal. Playwright Noel Coward adapted his own play for the screen, and David Lean directed. The film stars Celia Johnson, one of the UK’s greatest actresses, along with Trevor Howard.  

    Enchanted April: Stifled British wives Lottie (Josie Lawrence) and Rose       (MirandaRichardson) rent an Italian villa for a husbandless vacation. Sharing the retreat are acerbic widow Mrs. Fisher (Oscar nominee Joan Plowright) and socialite Caroline d’Este (Polly Walker). The four spend a month savoring newfound freedom and the opportunity for self-discovery. This film also features Michael Kitchen, Alfred Molina, and Jim Broadbent at the outset of their notable film careers.    

The Queen: Famed British actress Helen Mirren stars in this 2006 dramatization of the events following upon the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Mirren claimed that she had to consider herself as painting a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in order to take on such a difficult role.  Her portrayal won a well-deserved Academy award for Best Actress. 

A Foreign Field: This British film features an acclaimed international cast including Alec Guinness, Leo McKern, Jeanne Moreau, Loren Bacall, John Randolph, and Geraldine Chaplin. Two British war vets meet an American vet when all three return to Normandy on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Old rivalries resurface, particularly when two of the men discover they are searching for the same lost love. This disparate band of survivors eventually finds common ground in the memory of what they lost on that fateful day in 1944. 

Mid-August Lunch:  Gianni Di Gregorio stars in and directs this 2008 charming tale from Italy of great food, feisty old ladies, and unlikely friendships. The setting is a largely deserted Rome on the national holiday, Ferragosto, during the dog days of summer when most Romans have fled the city’s heat for the mountains or the shore. Four elderly ladies have to spend the holiday together sharing a sweltering apartment.

The Way. Martin Sheen stars in  a powerful and inspirational 2010 film about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating through life. Sheen plays an American doctor who travels to France after receiving the news of the death of his estranged son. Rather than return home, he decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, “the Way of St. James”, to honor his son’s desire to finish the journey.  Directed by Emilio Estevez, Sheen’s real life son.

Twilight Samurai:  This 2002 film, set in a changing Japan of the late nineteenth century, takes a modern look at the traditional Samurai story. Hiroyuki Sanada, one of Japan’s leading film stars, plays a low ranking, poverty stricken samurai trying to support his family. However, he is caught in the shifting turmoil of the times and ordered to confront and kill a renegade warrior. The film won twelve Japanese Film Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. 

The Son’s Room: In this 2001 Italian film Nanni Moretti plays a psychotherapist who thinks he has all the answers until an unthinkable tragedy hits home and turns his life upside down. Moretti also directed this film that won great critical acclaim as well as the Best Picture award at the Cannes Film Festival. 

The Holly and the Ivy: Celia Johnson, Ralph Richardson, and Margaret Leighton star in this 1952 British holiday film. A widowed minister is torn between the needs of his family and his parishioners. The annual Christmas reunion of the minister’s family exposes long simmering family tensions until they all rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

 

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