December 29, 2023 - A Scholarly Poet, Pejorative Nouns, SuperBowl Prediction, College Football Transfers, and Why Diplomats Have a Tough Job

 

                                                 

Let's wrap up 2023 with hope for a better 2024, one in which domestic problems like immigration and riddng politics of liars are resolved along with bringing peace to the Middle East and Ukraine.  You can make a difference.  Happy New Year!

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The Night Before Christmas and All Through the House …

Clement Clarke Moore, whose famous poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ appeared in the last posting, was much more than just a poet.  In fact, he felt that poem was far, far, down on his list of accomplishments, and for years, he didn’t even admit to having written it.  Find out more by visiting https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/clement-clarke-moore  or by CLICKING HERE. 

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Adjectives and Nouns Can Be Poisonous

I am not a grammarian, nor have I ever been a teacher, but I recognize that substituting a noun for an adjective to modify a noun can impart a pejorative sense to it, disparaging it.  The only example I can come up with is the antisemitic habit of calling a Jewish doctor or a Jewish businessman, a ‘Jew doctor’ or a ‘Jew businessman.’  Get the idea?

Ever Since 20^th century Republican politician and Minnesota governor Harold Stassen, perennial potential presidential nominee, started calling the other major party the ‘Democrat party,’ other Republicans have continued the habit.  Doing so allows them to speak as if the Democrats were not ‘democratic.’  It is a cheap shot and mildly insulting, but if they want to do it, who can stop them.

What gets me, however, is when supposedly non-partisan journalists, news reporters, or even worse, Democrats, blindly accept this misnomer and start calling the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, the ‘Democrat’ Party.  This purely Republican habit should be brought to their attention every time you encounter it being used by those who should know better.

JL

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Early Superbowl Prediction Based on H2O

This year’s Superbowl will be won by the Baltimore Ravens.  Why?   Their quarterback, Lamar Jackson, comes from my adopted neighborhood, having graduated from Boynton Beach High School.  His talents will make the difference, regardless of whom they face on February 11.  It could be that it has something to do with the water around here, water that all-star Philadelphia Philly shortstop Trea Turner, who graduated from neighboring Park Vista High School, and numerous other local professional athletes, also drank.  But it doesn’t seem to help me.

JL

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As College Football Goes Down the Tube

Springsteen singing 'This gun's for hire.'

And speaking of football, those of you who have been following Jackspotpourri know that I have repeatedly condemned the ‘transfer portal’ as the ruination of college football.  True, it does enable talented athletes to seek college connections that would lead to greater remuneration and ultimately, the possibility of lucrative professional contracts for them.  But in doing so, it drastically changes the nature of college football to little more than a training ground for the NFL.

Right now, according to the Athletic, a website that reports on such things, 46 FBS  scholarship transfer quarterbacks have already made commitments to new schools! 

There are about 133 college teams in that FBS classification, formerly known as Division I-A, the highest level of college football in the United States.  Generously assuming that each FBS school has about three scholarship quarterbacks on their rosters, I conclude that this means a good number of these schools’ quarterbacks, about 12% of them (46 out of a total of perhaps 399 quarterbacks), including some who are not just benchwarmers, are jumping ship via the transfer portal seeking greener pastures. 

This may be fine for the athletes, and the teams in need of the quality quarterback whom they failed to have drafted out of high school, but it significantly weakens the teams that they are departing, leaving them looking into who’s coming through the other side of that same transfer portal.  This might work just fine in a schoolyard game but not in big time college football. 

Check out the quarterbacks at many ‘Power Five’ schools to see how many are still at the institution where they started their freshman year.  The number is shocking.  Dillon Gabriel who started off at UCF, starred at Oklahoma, and is now transferring to Oregon is a fine example.  There are many others, even at legendary football schools like Notre Dame, which has just picked up Wake Forest’s quarterback, Sam Hartman, for his last year of eligibility.  The concept of a ‘student-athlete’ is a joke.  More fitting is Bruce Springsteen’s line from ‘Dancing in the Dark’:  ‘this gun’s for hire.’

I once knew an executive in the insurance industry who explained that ‘loyalty’ was no more than a word in the dictionary somewhere between ‘lox’ and ‘lozenge.’   It's a quality too many college athletes on full four-year scholarships totally lack.

Back when I was in the Army over 65 years ago, a buddy of mine from Texas boasted that he was an excellent place kicker, capable of kicking long field goals, and of course, easy extra points after touchdowns.  I don’t think he ever attended college, but he made a nice living during the football season as a well-paid place kicker for one game at a time for the many small college and semi-pro teams down there that you’ve never heard of.  The coaches just gave him a helmet and a jersey and told him what his name for the game would be and handed him a few twenty dollar bills. (That was long ago when that was good money!)  They didn’t have a transfer portal in those days.  Yeah, ‘this gun’s for hire.’

 

JL

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Diplomacy Made Simple

It’s really very simple.  Israel should agree to a complete and permanent cease-fire in Gaza, and also at flashpoints on the West Bank and along the Lebanese border, in exchange for their antagonists in Iran and the Arab world accepting the permanence and the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and cease all attempts to destroy or undermine it, with their agreeing to do so being internationally enforceable and monitored, by nations more trustworthy than the United Nations.

Only then can the extremists on both sides be removed from power and everyone can sit down and determine the details of a two-state solution, where the Palestinians would at last have a state of their own alongside of Israel.  That must be part of the deal. 

If Israel’s antagonists cannot agree to that, then Israel should never consider a cease-fire in Gaza, or anywhere else for that matter, because doing so amounts to putting down its weapons in its fight for survival without getting anything in return. 

Diplomats know that while Israel would eventually go along with such a deal, Israel’s antagonists would have to be bribed to accept it.

That would be because Israel’s agreeing to a cease-fire in Gaza and an independent Palestinian state would not be enough for those of them pledged to totally destroy the State of Israel.  Such bribery or ‘baksheesh’ is common in that part of the world.

The bribe money will have to come from oil-rich (for the time being, anyway, until electric vehicles impoverish them) Arab states and Iran, as well as from the Western nations that control the world’s financial systems and be structured to endure for at least the next century, locked safely away from being touched by those with evil intent.

So I guess diplomacy really isn’t that simple.  

JL

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 Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

 

JL

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December 24, 2023 - A Holiday Message, Babies and Bathwater, a Bret Stephens Times Column, and a Revolution in College Football

                                              

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Holiday Greetings 

Until a few years ago, my daughter and grandson lived around the corner from a small park and playground on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. The plaque on its gate announced that it was named in honor of Clement Clarke Moore, who had he not written the following poem, no one would ever have heard of …

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              A Visit from St. Nicholas

  'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

  Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

  In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

  The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

  While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

  And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

  Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

  When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

  I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

  Away to the window I flew like a flash,

  Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

  The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

  Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

  When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

  But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

  With a little old driver so lively and quick,

  I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

  More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

  And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

  "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

  On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

  To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

  Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

  As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

  When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

  So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

  With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

  And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

  The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

  As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

  Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

  He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

  And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

  A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

  And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

  His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

  His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

  His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

  And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

  The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

  And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

  He had a broad face and a little round belly

  That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

  He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

  And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

  A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

  Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

  He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

  And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

  And laying his finger aside of his nose,

  And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

  He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

  And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

  But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

  “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

 

Let this be Jackpotpourri’s Holiday message to you all!

 

JL

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Preserving Representative Democracy

When people living in a representative democracy don’t like the way things are going for them from an economic or cultural standpoint, they look to place the blame on the government they themselves put into power. This may result in their using their right to vote, nationally or in the State in which they live, to reject the democratically elected government they put into power, and vote to replace it with a more efficient, usually authoritarian, form of government.  Representative democracy permits them to do this, in effect allowing it to commit suicide.

This has happened in democracies such as Germany and Italy between the two World Wars of the last century.  It has happened in individual States in this country such as Texas and Florida that have elected governors and legislatures with authoritarian agendas.  Right now, Hungary and Poland are leaning in that direction.

When dissatisfied with democratically elected government, voters should look more carefully at the agenda of candidates for office.  Some offer reasonable solutions to whatever problems exist and others blame those problems on democracy itself and look no further than asking for extensive powers to fix things themselves.  ‘Trust me,’ they say.  ‘I can fix things.’  That’s a very bad idea.  We must never throw out the baby with the bath water.

(That expression started in medieval times, when a family might take a single bath once every few weeks, all using the same bathtub filled with water, one after another, starting with the parents and continuing through the children, with the infants being bathed last.  By then the water in the tub was so dirty that there was a chance of spilling out the baby as well when it was emptied.)

JL

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Bret Stephens Column: ‘Why I Can’t Stop Writing About Oct. 7’

Don’t miss this New York Times opinion column linking together Hamas, antisemitism, and the mood in America today.  Copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/opinion/october-7-jews-hamas.html  on your browser line or just CLICK HERE .  It's Stephens' last column for 2023.

 

JL

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A Revolutionary Football Game

A few comments about the recent ‘Boca Bowl’ football game are in order. 

First of all, calling it the ‘Roof Claim’ bowl game is too reminiscent of the occasionally shady, if not criminal, operations of some roofers, insurance companies, adjusters, and law firms, involved in submitting homeowners’ insurance claims for roof damage, a good deal of which occurred in Palm Beach County, site of the Boca Bowl.  That’s one of the reasons homeowners’ insurance remains in a permanent state of crisis in Florida.  (For your information, the game was played in Florida Atlantic University’s stadium in Boca Raton.) The sponsor of this bowl game might be entirely legitimate, but still the naming of the bowl game seems unsavory.

Otherwise, the University of South Florida’s 45-0 victory over Syracuse University was remarkable in two ways.

During a college football game, there is a 40 second period between plays during which the offensive team must run a play without being penalized for ‘delay of game.’  This gives the officials plenty of time to place the ball on the ground ready for the next play, and for the team with the ball to run that next play.  USF led the nation’s college football teams in the quickness it getting off those next plays, usually taking no more than twelve or thirteen seconds, once the ball was placed on the line of scrimmage.  

And that was the case in the Boca Bowl.  South Florida never bothered with a seconds-consuming ‘huddle’ and their players were always quick to take their positions for the next play, probably orally called by the quarterback, regardless of whether or not the clock had been stopped, even for a variety of reasons such as penalties, an injured player on the field, reviews of a referee’s decisions, a ‘time out, the direction of a runner’s momentum going out of bounds, or a first down during the last two minutes of a game’s second and fourth periods.

As a result, USF’s offense was rapid-fire, rarely giving the Syracuse defense time to recover from the previous play and get ready for the next one.  This is why Syracuse, not a bad team, lost 45 to 0.  (This season, the teams they had defeated included Wake Forest, Pitt, Army, and Purdue.)  But against USF’s rapid-fire offense, Syracuse’s defensive line was in a permanent state of exhaustion and their secondary usually not in the right places to defend against passing, neither having enough time to recover and reset itself.

The other effect of this manner of play by USF was upon the TV presentation of the game.  Quick TV replays of the action, commentary by the telecasters, and ‘squeezed-in’ commercials, features of most football telecasts, were drastically reduced. The telecast even missed USF’s first touchdown because it was busy dissecting the prior play, about a dozen seconds earlier, which hadn’t succeeded.  They had to show the touchdown as a replay.

If other teams copy USF’s style of play, which breaks no rules of the game, there will be a revolution in the way football telecasts are managed.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

                                                

JL

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December 21, 2023 - The Role of Diplomats and Colorado Court Removes Trump from Primary Ballot

 

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Colorado Supreme Court Removes Donald From Primary Ballot

The papers and the TV have been filled with the news that the Colorado Supreme Court (contrary to the courts of some other States) has ruled that Donald Trump cannot be on that State’s presidential primary ballot!  Zowie!  Maybe!

He will try to use this to his advantage, claiming
that it proves the 'deep state' is out to get him.

But hold on a second!  While Sec. 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment specifically mentions Senators, Representatives, and other office holders, it does not specifically mention the office of the President.

Recognizing that, the Colorado court held, however, that the amendment applied to the President because his ‘personal actions’ amounted to his engaging in an 'insurrection' and that sufficed to take him off of the ballot, even though he was not specifically in violation of Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment, his office not being included in the broad array of office holders it does mention who lose the right to hold office if they were involved in insurrection against the government or the Constitution.

While it takes a really stupid person to claim, in view of all the evidence presented, that Trump did not incite the January 6 insurrection, I can see the three members of the Supreme Court appointed by him plus Justices Thomas and Alito (that makes it a majority) voting to overturn the Colorado decision in the absence of any specific mention of the Presidency in the Amendment. This would follow their ‘originalist’ approach to the Constitution’s language, not reading into it what it doesn’t specifically say.  

Three other justices will say it does indeed apply to him, and Chief Justice Roberts will probably join with an opinion of his own.  Some might say the timing of these opinions ought to be separable from the political environment in which we now exist, but that environment should not be ignored by the SCOTUS either.

I suspect that while Roberts will vote along with the five Justices overruling the Colorado decision, he will write a separate fence-straddling opinion that not quite, but almost, goes along with the Colorado decision that said Trump's personal actions amounted to his engaging in an 'insurrection' anyway although his office was not specifically mentioned in Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment's language. Roberts is probably staying up nights trying to figure out how to phrase it.

Add to this the pending request by Department of Justice prosecutor Jack Smith that the SCOTUS rule quickly, because of the forthcoming 2024 election, as to any presidential immunity that Trump might have against charges based on his behavior in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection.  To use a word I mentioned in a posting on here a few days ago, this is a real 'clusterfuck' and the Supreme Court is right in the middle of it.

JL

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The Role of Diplomats

In the overall Israeli-Palestinian dispute, of which the war in Gaza is part, it is the role of diplomats to rein in the extremists on both sides. Once that is done, the war will end and there will be a chance for peace.

Excluding the extremists, most reasonable people seem to agree that there must be a two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state accompanying the State of Israel in what was until 1947 the British-administered ‘mandate’ of Palestine, formerly part of the Ottoman empire dismembered after the First World War.  The United Nations produced a map at that time, more or less defining the borders of each state, with Jerusalem, still a problem today, being internationalized.  Getting there is the problem.

Original 1947 Partition Map

Diplomats must get those who desire a Palestinian state, be they in Gaza or in territories lost to Israel in the abortive wars against it, to acknowledge the permanent existence of the State of Israel, renouncing any attempt to eliminate it.  And they must do so in a manner that convinces Israel of their honest intent, removing the necessity for Israel to guarantee Palestinian sincerity with the threat of military action, as they have been forced to carry out in Gaza.  I don’t know how diplomacy can accomplish this, but it must.

These diplomats must also get Israel to renounce any desire for territorial expansion beyond its borders despite the failure of the Arabs in Palestine and in neighboring countries to accept the UN’s partition of the ‘mandate.’  This would mean the discontinuance of Israeli settlements in the ‘occupied territories’ outside of the borders of the State of Israel, territory lost by the Arab states supporting the Palestinians in their abortive wars against Israel and that would be part of a Palestinian state.  It would also call for the gradual, scheduled, removal of such existing settlements.  I also do not know how diplomacy can accomplish this, but it must. 

Right now, extremists on both sides will not agree to any of this.  I suspect, however, that eventually such ideas would be acceptable to the majority of Israelis and Palestinians, despite opposition by Israelis living in ‘settlements’ and Palestinians who never did and still do not accept partition, and are now living elsewhere as refugees or their descendants. 

Unquestionably, these extreme changes in philosophy on both sides are preferable to the bloodshed that is proving to be a part of any ‘single-state’ solution.  Both Jews and Muslims should look to a bit of theology from another religion that preaches that ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’  And of course, diplomats are today’s peacemakers.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

JL

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December 16, 2023 - Immigration, Israeli-Hamas War, Optimism, Charitable Donations, SCOTUS' Black Marks, and finally, CLUSTERFUCK!

 

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Clusterfuck

I've hesitated to use the word 'clusterfuck' in postings on Jackspotpourri but since it appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and other dictionaries, I suppose it is now acceptable. Barely.

(Merriam-Webster definition - 'vulgar slang. : a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation : a muddled mess.')

‘Clusterfuck’ well describes the management of the House of Representatives by its Republican majority.  That’s what it is!

It also might be applied to describe our justice system's attempt to resolve the charges against the indicted former president, charges that probably won't be finally resolved until too late to have any meaning.  More clusterfuck!

But fear not, there is an excellent chance that both of these 'muddled messes' will be resolved by that most supreme of all courts, the American voter, on November 5, 2024.

JL

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Immigration Problem Just Won't Go Away

It is poetically coincidental that ‘muddled messes’ of ‘clusterfuck’ bring to mind the ‘huddled masses’ in Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, referring to those desiring to emigrate to our country.  Up until our tightening of immigration laws in 1924, the United States welcomed most immigrants recognizing their value to our society. 

(Unless you are a descendant of the original Native American population, here before European explorers ever came anywhere near to our continent, you are yourself a descendant from immigrants or perhaps are one yourself!) 

Even though the very restrictive 1924 immigration law has been revised, enabling more immigrants to come to the United States, especially as students, or those providing skills that we need, or those wealthy enough to be able to invest in our economy, immigration policy still qualifies as ‘clusterfuck.’  Republican legislators are today using that need for a new immigration policy as a hostage, demanding that it be taken care of in a manner to their liking before other totally unrelated, but extremely crucial, legislation can be considered in the House of Representatives.  Now that is truly more ‘clusterfuck.’

There are many reasons why most of the population of the planet, given the opportunity, would want to emigrate to the United State.  Except for a few European countries, there are no places on Earth with as high a standard of living, greater economic opportunity, or better guarantees of freedom. 

Seekers of Asylum:  But it is the hundreds of thousands of those living to the south of the United States fleeing oppressive governments and in constant fear of gang violence, who make the headlines as they seek political asylum here.  Now, they are being joined by those from elsewhere on the planet who have scraped up the resources to get them here and who get in line with them, facing similar dangers where they now live. Spanish is not the only language spoken by those seeking to enter the United States on its southern border.

But there has to be a limit to the number to which asylum is granted. There is only so much space in this country, and opportunity here is not infinite.  Clearly, the burden of hosting such potential immigrants should not be borne by the areas where they first enter the country or eventually settle.  If they are admitted as immigrants, it is a national responsibility.   Invariably, such immigrants are initially in need of public services, if not support, that must be funded by America’s taxpayers.  That bothers a lot of people (… who happen to be descendent from earlier immigrants.)

Obviously, it is in the interest of the United States to work to improve the conditions in the places from which such immigrants come, so they might have no reason to leave there, but that cannot be done overnight.  Meanwhile, closing our eyes to this problem is not an alternative.  Failure to properly address this problem can result in some Americans supporting those who want to totally shut the door to all immigrants, extinguishing the torch held aloft by the Statue of Liberty.  That is a very bad idea. 

But it must not be extinguished

You even can sense this in those urban areas, distant from the southern border, where many immigrants end up and seek support.  New York City is an example.  Florida’s hypocrite-in-chief and governor, Ron DeSantis, even flew a load of immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, to make this point, even though his State is sorely in need of agricultural labor that immigrants, legal and otherwise, have provided for years.  This situation is indeed a ‘muddled mess’ or a (you fill in the word).  Something must be done to address it.

JL

 

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Another ‘Muddled Mess’ – The Israeli-Hamas War

The Israeli-Hamas war can be ended quickly if those who started the current hostilities on October 7 announced their abandonment of their policies of working to wipe the State of Israel from the map, and of their intent to resume similar attacks in the future as soon as they are able to.

Until Hamas does that on their own or are forced to do it by those who provide them with financial and military aid, Israel will have to continue its military actions to destroy, or at least totally degrade, the military and governmental structure of Hamas within the Gaza Strip.

Getting the innocent civilian population there out of the way is as much a problem for the Arab states that support Hamas as it is for Israel, but these nations seem to ignore it. They must allow Palestinians access to their countries, at least until they finance the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip as a peaceful entity, governed by those not dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel, to which Gaza’s Palestinian population can return.  

It is clear that Hamas has lost, or will lose, the present military struggle that they started on October 7.  If this forces them to abandon their policies of working to wipe out the State of Israel, and of their intent to resume similar attacks in the future as soon as they are able to, it might appear to be a surrender on their part. 

But don’t be fooled!  

it is entirely possible that they always anticipated losing the military struggle they knew their attack would bring about, but proceeded not with the aim of winning militarily, but with the aim of unifying Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and elsewhere, in their aim of eventually destroying the State of Israel, rather than seek a two-state solution, and totally replacing it with an independent Palestinian state.  The unavoidable deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, resulting from Hamas military targets being intentionally located amidst civilian populations, would only bring more support to Hamas among Palestinians elsewhere.

That is why Israel should not jump to agree to any ‘cease-fire’ or surrender that allows Hamas to walk away with that kind of ‘moral’ victory, gaining the allegiance of Palestinians outside of Gaza to their deadly philosophy.  

Eventually, Hamas must still renounce both its dedication to the destruction of the State of Israel and its intention to stage further attacks upon it, even if they don’t really mean it.  That would be a start, even though no one should expect the Israelis to believe them either.  That’s why Israel must continue to attack Hamas militants wherever in Gaza they may be, and once the fighting ends, which someday it will, must ‘keep its powder dry.’

Peace has to start somewhere.

JL

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Optimism Department

If you still need a dose of optimism in the face of the lies and ignorance that are hallmarks of the Republican Party, (and since it’s raining as I write this so you might be cancelling your outside activities for the day), check out the latest from Simon Rosenberg, eternal optimist, found at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKZPGTFhrlgmvjWprcLhjSPcMFLVXHtDHJKFvFWKKglGsFqRfDmsBkDXQNZzKLFlQvq 

Or by CLICKING HERE.

And some guarded optimism crept into a New York Times column by Paul Krugman the other day when he concluded by writing. ‘… the fundamental puzzle isn’t that people are unhappy despite favorable macroeconomic indicators.  It is that Americans say that things are terrible but behave as if they’re doing pretty well.  And I, at least, am inclined to place more weight on what people do than what they say.’

 

JL

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Nineteen Dollars a Month, Please

It bothers me that charities that advertise on television no longer seem to be asking for donations, usually in amounts less than $50 or $100, the kind of donations that have been their lifeblood for years.

All they seem to be asking donors for these days are commitments for a monthly contribution, usually $19 a month, that adds up to $228 a year, an amount that that usually also gets the donor a cheap blanket or tee shirt.  You know the organizations that I am talking about, hospitals that specialize in children’s diseases, abandoned dogs and cats, homeless teenagers, starving children, endangered wildlife and other highly emotionally charged needs.  Lately, in this holiday season, some of them even have ‘Silent Night’ playing in the background. 

I gladly contribute regularly to several charities, and at this time recommend that you do so as well, if you can afford to do so.  One good one is the ‘Season to Share’ (https://yourcommunityfoundation.org/funds/season-to-share/) that solicits through my local newspaper, the Palm Beach Post.  Many other newspapers have similar campaigns.  But I don’t commit to monthly donations to any of them.  I don’t think that is a wise idea.

JL

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Black Marks on SCOTUS

It’s slipping out in the news that Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts had been working on a compromise that would have saved some of the provisions of Roe vs Wade, protecting some abortion rights.

These efforts were totally sidetracked, however, when a tentative draft copy of the Dobbs decision, the 2022 ruling that totally reversed Roe vs Wade was ‘leaked.’  It is rumored that Justice Alito was the source of what obviously was a leak intended to short-circuit Roberts’ efforts.  If this were the case, Alito’s name will be joining that of the late Justice Scalia, whose opinion unleased the murderous proliferation of guns in this country, among the black marks on the reputation of the SCOTUS, almost equaling Justice Taney’s infamous Dred Scott pro-slavery decision in 1857.

 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

 

JL

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