Has Israel Gone Too Far?

Israel will have gone too far when we see them attack without provocation. Hamas is like the two-year old or teenager for whom the first "No" was not loud enough. Prior responses have obviously been inadequate, because Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel; the attackers are not deterred. Israel's response should escalate until the pain of her response is greater than the pain of Hamas' perceived injustice.

The occupation of Palestine by Israel is unjust. It is obvious that controlling forces in Israel do not want real peace, for whatever reason, because they are blind to the fact that they create their own enemy, and they alone can solve their problems. How many times has "peace" been brokered? By how many different international actors? Sadat was murdered by his own people, as was Begin. No Arab state has, or will, accept that Israel is a legitimate sovereign, due the respect and rights of any global actor.

According to Benny Morris, writing on the Op-Ed Page for the New York Times, the Palestinians have only to wait it out. Public opinion in the West is shifting against Israel, as memories of the Holocaust fade and more criticize Israel's occupation of Palestine; Iran continues progress towards nuclear weapons; Hezbollah has a large arsenal of rockets, as does Hamas; Gaza continues to be a fertile bed of radical, anti-Israeli recruits; and Arab Israelis, by virtue of mere birth rate, will outnumber Jewish Israelis within thirty years. So either attacks from without or demographics from within will stage the end game for the State of Israel.

But you do not pick a fight with the biggest kid in the schoolyard. Alone. Hamas will never win this fight. Maybe they're expecting some of the other kids to join in, but right now, they don't have the resources; they might have thousands of rockets, but it's going to take more than rockets to achieve their goals. They don't have the manpower, and their opponent is backed into a corner. How many divisions do they have? How many tanks? How many aircraft? More importantly, which Arab nation is gathering a "coalition of the willing" to come fight for Hamas?

This is the real question. One important fact that Mr. Morris overlooks is that Hezbollah is mostly Shi'a, as is Iran, and that Hamas is mostly Sunni. Gaza is Sunni, and so is Egypt. The current civil war in Iraq is between these two branches of Islam, and they are not known for conciliation and cooperation. Hezbollah and Iran might be content to let Israel do their job for them, to mortally wound the predominantly Sunni Hamas, wait for the U.S. to exit Iraq, join with the Shi'a majority in that country, and sweep in to take the prize.

Surrender. Unilaterally disarm. Renounce the extremists whose only employment, whose only justification is conflict for conflict's sake(ask them about their post-victory plans). Recognize Israel. Palestine will never see real peace otherwise, and she will sacrifice generations of her children to violence and despair. Imagine the opportunities for commerce, for education, for health care that are waiting for a durable peace. Worse, imagine Israel facing the choice between defeat, and all that that would entail, and pushing the button.

Jeffrey Goldberg has a few words on this very issue in the New York Times

There you have it.

How Not to Use Your Chainsaw

I've asked a friend to remind me to tell him this story, and that offhanded reference brought those memories back so clearly that if I write them out here, I may be able to capture that event clearly.  One thing I've found about writing is that, if you're not a regular, disciplined practitioner, and I'm not regular, at the desk anyway, or disciplined, in most ways, you have to write when you're struck.  I'm sure that with discipline, like a daily jog or brushing your teeth or checking your email--when was the last time you got a handwritten letter?--I'd be in "the zone" as soon as I sat down to write.  Well,  I'm looking forward to that day. Except that Time is a finite resource, so that no matter how jealously I husband it, there are others who need it as much as I do.

So two years ago, before I had my own chainsaw,  not that I would have tried to do this on my own anyway, I had my friend, John Schwechheimer, who is Brother to the Lady Anita, come over to help me take down a tree.  He's had experience with this, owns a couple of chainsaws, and has a pickup truck with a plastic liner.  That last factoid is relevant, because in return for John's expertise, equipment, and labor, he was going to cart away the wood and the bed of his truck, with the plastic liner, would be ideal for that, and the bed of that truck has seen some wood, and stone, and oil, but more on that later.  John is always on the lookout for wood.  He will see a pile on the side of the road, drive home, drop off his lovely daughter Alice, and return to pick up the wood.  Now that I have a pickup truck, with an eight-foot bed and a spray-in liner, I'm always on the lookout for wood too, and I keep a pair of work gloves in my truck for just that purpose.

This tree is in the middle of my back yard, on the right-hand side, if you're standing on the porch, and it's got a few raggedy limbs, mostly dead, but a few alive, and I'm convinced that the next strong breeze is going to knock it over. Knock it right into the neighbor's fence, or his shed, or anything my homeowner's insurance won't cover.  The tree is about thirty feet tall; tall enough to be a challenge, but not so tall that I should have called a professional tree service. Add to this the fact that my next door neighbor, Lou, a guy that's seventy-five and can out-work you and me both without breaking a sweat, has professional tree experience.  I saw Lou drop a seventy-foot pine into his yard, which is the size of a postage stamp.  Tie a rope, cut off the top, drop the top to the ground.  Move down the tree and repeat the process.  Imagine a circle around you, with you as the center, a ten-foot radius, and you now have some idea of the space that Lou dropped his tree down into.  Just amazing, but remember, it's not Lou that's helping me, it's John. 

We put a cable from the stout end of one of the major branches of this tree to the trailer hitch on John's truck and pull John's truck forward, to put some tension on the line.  We want the branch to fall where we want it to.  There's a fair amount of tension on this steel cable, and not only is the branch bent, but so is the tree.  I lean a ladder against the tree, right at the base of the branch we intend to cut.  John goes up the ladder with the chainsaw, pulls the rope and the chainsaw starts.  Now, I'm holding the ladder, John is directly above me, and the saw is about four feet above my head.  As he begins to cut, the sawdust is falling directly onto my face and into my eyes.  I have my glasses on, so that helps, but not much.  Remember the tension in the line, the one tied to the branch and John's truck?  As John is cutting the branch, that tension overcomes the shear strength of the branch and it breaks with a sound like a Cherry Bomb.

The branch breaks, knocks the chainsaw out of John's hands, knocks him off the ladder, and hits me in the head, right before the chainsaw blade lands on the underside of my right forearm.  Years ago, before some idiot used a chainsaw to scratch his head and successfully sued the chainsaw company for damages, chainsaws continued to run, even after you took you hand off the trigger.  If that was the case today, it would have taken me twice as long to write this as it has, and all my friends would be calling me "Lefty."  Now chainsaws for home use have all kinds of safety features, and the one that I like best is that the chain stops as soon as you release the grip.  But, if you work at it, and really try, you can still injure yourself with a chainsaw, as I have proved.

I look down at my arm, and I see two parallel cuts, and they look a lot like the cuts in Arnold Schwarzenegger's arm when he played The Terminator in the movie by the same name.  When he's up in a hotel room with an X-acto knife making repairs to himself on the fly, as it were.  So I wiggle my fingers, just like he does, and they all work! Yea! The blade of the saw had only peeled back the skin, like a gas-powered vegetable peeler, and had missed any of the important stuff, like muscles and tendons.  John was fine, the branch was down, it hadn't really hit me that hard, and we started back to work.  John had expressed some concern about my arm, because he is my friend, and he is a caring kind of guy, so we went into the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen towel and a roll of duct tape, that's right, duct tape, and we proved, right then and there, that redneck culture, right down to redneck First Aid, is alive and well all over this great nation of ours.

I called the Lady Anita and asked her if she would stop by the CVS and pick up some 4X4 gauze pads and medical tape, and the Lady Anita, who does not respond well to any injury, no matter how minor, immediately suspects that something has gone wrong. "What did you do now?!?" she asks.  "Nothing," I replied.  "Did you cut yourself?" "You don't want to know." This was the wrong thing to say if I wanted to allay her fears and shorten the conversation, as she goes on about how she doesn't respond well to injuries and if there's blood she doesn't want to see it and so forth.  I had the presence of mind not to tell her that my arm was now wrapped in one of her dish towels.  I ended the call by telling her to drive safely and that I had to get back to work.

John and I felled the rest of the tree without incident, unless you count putting a log through the rear window of his truck as we were loading the wood, but no one was injured there.  That was the second time that I did that to his truck, and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the insurance coverage is such that you don't have to pay for damage to your windows, so he wasn't upset at all.  He had a bed full of wood, I opened up a big piece of yard for gardening, and eliminated the risk of some random damage from a dead tree.  And learned a big lesson.  I now have my own chainsaw, my own truck, and know that the fall can be dictated by the cut and how the wind is blowing.  John is still my good friend, even more so now that we've shared this adventure, and I'm looking forward to having him help Lou and I take down a couple more trees this coming March.

There you have it.

Christmas Memory

I'll stop with the auto industry bailout rant. For now.

I had the good fortune yesterday to catch up with an old friend from the neighborhood. His mother, my mom, Ann Balmos, MaryLee Wallace, and Janie Towner were like a collective "Mother", watching over me, encouraging me, and supporting me in my early years, right up through college. The conversations I had with this fellow, and seeing that he favors his Mother so strongly, brought all sorts of memories to the surface. They're like the rich, fragrant bubbles in a stew as it simmers, bringing up all the complementary flavors into your nose, just like they do from the rim of the spoon, right before it favors your mouth with a big bite.

Jimmy is with me right now. He's snuggled under my fleece, making little clucking and chirping noises as I type.

This particular memory, that I'll share with you now, is of my Father making eggnog every Christmas. This was a point of pride with him, and it wasn't until just a few years ago that I learned that the recipe came out of Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker's "Joy of Cooking", an essential reference source for every kitchen, and not from an oral family tradition, he guarded it so jealously.

Just an old ceramic bowl, brown, I don't know where it is now, even though I went through the house in Phoenix pretty thoroughly after he passed, that was filled and covered and put out on the screen porch. I remember that it was colder, more consistently, back in those days. And the snow seemed deeper back then, although we've had a couple of winters up here that have seen record snow. Like when we had 106" back in '96. But the screen porch was cold enough, though not so cold as to present a risk of freezing the nog.

He would start with a dozen eggs. Of course, it was made from scratch. Anybody that tells you that there are no stupid questions is wrong. There are two: "is this made from scratch?" and "did you tie that bow tie yourself?" Those are two stupid questions. I'm at the doctor the other day, for some damn medical thing or another, and this guy, a smart guy, the guy that excised my supraclavicular tumor last New Year's Eve, looks me in the eye, and says, "is that a real bowtie?" C'mon Doctor. And I'm trusting this guy with sharp things inside my neck?!?!? So Dad separates the eggs, yolk from white. The yolks go into the ceramic bowl, and the whites go into a two-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Gotta be glass, gotta be Pyrex. The yolks get whipped, by hand, with a balloon whisk, until they lighten up. Now "light" is a matter of your own judgment. Just how tired is your arm? Do a little more and that'll be fine. If you're using an electric mixer, and I have, then it's light like sunshine, or the color of a Peep, those little marshmallow things you find behind the couch, with a light dander of fuzz, about three weeks after Easter.

Now whip in two cups of dark rum. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and foil and put it in the fridge. If you have a screen porch that will be cold, consistently, but not too cold, then put it out there. Pour a glass of wine and put "The Sound of Music" on an endless loop. I can't put my finger on it, but that movie, one of my Top Five, sounds like Christmas to me. Suffice to say that my Sainted Paternal Grandmother, Frances Treischmann Blakney, was born and raised in Alsace, on the border of France and Germany. She couldn't sing a note, and certainly was not the daughter of Prussian nobility, but those landscapes drew her like a moth to flame.

Fast forward to the next evening. Whip in a pound of confectioners' sugar, put it back in the fridge or out on the porch. Next night: add two cups of bourbon. Dad liked to use Jim Beam, and he'd buy it by the half gallon so that there was plenty to keep the ice afloat in his lead crystal Waterford tumbler. Truth be told, I'm drinking out of that very same tumbler right now! Only, I have a few fingers of the Water of Life, a fine single malt, as Glenn prefers malted barley rather than corn mash as the basis for his spirits.

Fourth night: add another two cups of either the dark rum, or the bourbon. Also add two quarts of heavy cream. This can be just plain heavy cream, or whipping cream; at this point, it really doesn't matter. Whip it all together. You won't need the electric mixer, because you're not really whipping it, just mixing it thoroughly. Please don't whine. This is not a tonic for your heart. But, then again, you're not drinking it every day. It is not heart-healthy and it is not supposed to be. If you are in such a state that you can't have a small glass or two of eggnog at Christmas, you have my every sympathy. I had cancer and I was able to enjoy this. It's not Russian Roulette, which I understand is enjoying a Renaissance, it's not a rock of Crack, it's not a dose of Meth (however we consume that stuff these days), and it's not radioactive waste. It's eggs and cream and sugar and alcohol; all things created by God for us to enjoy. If you are an alcoholic, and I do know some, skip this post. I know that even after decades of sobriety, there's no such thing as "just one."

Fifth night, no pun intended. Add a cup of some fruit brandy. I've experimented with several and I recommend peach or apricot, anything else is too bitter and will spoil the creamy smooth sweetness of the nog. Back on the porch.

Sixth night.

Seventh day. Just like God. Whip the everloving sh*t out of the whites. Not a hard peak, but a solid, firm peak. If you have a copper bowl, the volume will astound you. I don't really understand the chemistry behind this, but the copper and the egg white come together like old teammates in the Red Zone. An eighth of a teaspoon of Cream of Tartar will make those peaks if you're having trouble, although on a cold, dry Winter's day, this should not be a problem. Also, chill the mixing bowl in the freezer for twenty minutes. You may use an electric mixer. Unless you are used to strenuous, long-term whipping, with perfect form, doing this manually will not give you the results you're looking for. And start the mixer on high immediately. Something about instantaneous violence really resonates with egg whites.

Now a cooking lesson: Fold the whites into the nog. Fold, don't whip. Use a spatula. Take a spatula full of whipped egg whites and place it gently on top of the nog. Grip the bowl with your left hand(assuming you're right-handed; reverse if otherwise), now dip the spatula into the nog, scraping down the opposite wall(the side of the bowl opposite you) and drawing it along the bottom of the bowl and up and out towards you. Turn the bowl a half turn, counter-clockwise, and repeat. Push the flat of the spatula down through the nog and up and out on the near wall. Be gentle. You've taken all that time to put all that air into the whites and you'd like to keep it there. Fold several times until the whites are, well, folded into the nog. There will be big blobs of whipped white; do not fold in all of these blobs as they lend a certain authenticity to your final product, nay, creation, and will, in short time, absorb nog all by themselves.

Get a ladle. Do not let some well-meaning, but disastrously ignorant, guest use the ladle to try to "smooth out" the nog. You serve it, with pride. Some nice mugs, with Santa or reindeer or elves, or lead crystal Waterford, are perfect. If a guest feels that Santa is, pagan, or a celebration of ancient Teutonic folklore, then they may not have any eggnog. Sprinkle some ground nutmeg on top and enjoy.

Get serious: DO NOT DRIVE. DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. DO NOT FLY AN AIRPLANE, DO NOT PERFORM MEDICAL PROCEDURES. One glass of this, heavenly as it is, is pretty much pure booze. Remember that it took us a week to make it? What do you think the sugar is doing with the rum and bourbon and brandy during that week? Conspiring to turn you into a drooling retard faster than you can say: "Bert and Ernie." I'm very serious. This is a powerful alcoholic beverage whose sweetness effectively masks the taste of alcohol that usually tips you off to the fact that you're drinking. Be careful. Kids can have a little. Mature Americans can have a little, but remember that your ability to process alcohol is a function of your body weight and metabolism.

I always had some. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was great. Just a sip now takes me right back.

There you have it.

New-Car Dealerships by State as of January 1, 2008

Alabama 345 

Alaska 38

Arizona 256

Arkansas 267

California 1594

Colorado 284

Connecticut 320

Delaware 65

D.C. 1

Florida 948

Georgia 603

Hawaii 66

Idaho 123

Illinois 934

Indiana 521

Iowa 369

Kansas 258

Kentucky 298

Louisiana 337

Maine 144

Maryland 358

Massachusetts 478

Michigan 759

Minnesota 438

Mississippi 242

Missouri 494

Montana 132

Nebraska 213

Nevada 118

New Hampshire 169

New Jersey 574

New Mexico 140

New York 1112

North Carolina 692

North Dakota 96

Ohio 958

Oklahoma 299

Oregon 274

Pennsylvania 1161

Rhode Island 63

South Carolina 326

South Dakota 117

Tennessee 420

Texas 1346

Utah 153

Vermont 97

Virginia 551

Washington 383

West Virginia 169

Wisconsin 597

Wyoming 70

Total U.S. 20,770

Source: NADA Industry Analysis Division

The NADA also reports sales in 2007 of $693 Billion, and 1,114,500 Americans employed with a total payroll of $54 Billion.  

I'm still working on this.

There you have it.

ATT Redux

Look at the breakup of ATT back in '84. Seven Baby Bells started to compete regionally, and several companies competed for long-distance service.  The comparison breaks down then, because the lines, or means of production, were owned by competing companies.  However, since the Big Three own the bulk of the factories, the solution might be to sell off those plants to entrepreneurs, using government-guaranteed loans.  I hire some designers, or some engineers, raise some equity, take down some debt from the Federal Government, and I make some cars. Or I buy the license and make retro Mustangs, or Bugs, or '55 Chevy's with big fins.  Or I make a cheap, durable, plain vanilla pickup.

There are 112 assembly, powertrain, and stamping plants in America, according to figures provided by Ford, GM, and Chrysler in their proposals to Congress, and 20,770 dealers(NADA figures, as of 1.1.08), selling, year-to-date 2008, some 12 Million units.  Certainly there are more than enough people to work in those factories, maybe we accept the inefficiency of smaller scale production if it means more jobs.  Do we need 20,770 dealers?  Does it make sense to provide service at the same place you provide product?  Instead of 415 dealers per state(on average), there are 50, or less.  And the service is provided by branches that only provide service, and maybe some aftermarket product.  So you, entrepreneur that you are, own a couple of sales offices and a network of service bays.  Just like the guy that owns 20 gas stations, or 20 McDonald's.

Take some risks, make/sell some cars.  Those market niches still exist: pickups, SUV's, sedans, minivans, muscle cars, etc.  So you have a design advantage, or an efficiency advantage, or you're churning out ZipCars, or rental fleets buy your sedans.  

The bailout is only justified if we decide that it's in the National Interest to have inefficient producers to keep workers employed; it's positively Soviet.  Even the term, "Car Czar" is Russian.  Let's do all the central planning in Washington, or better yet, outsource it to Beijing; they're already configured for central control.  Hopefully, if it all works right, after a few years, they can just make one, really, really big car, for a billion $'s! As long as they meet their production quota.

There you have it.