Welcome to The Cruelest Day: September 22, 2026 and the day of my cataract surgery (I am iatrophobic). As you read this, I will be having the lens of my right eye emulsified and sucked out, then replaced with an artificial lens. I have to admit to some apprehension.
NOTE: Because I have to go home and rest after the surgery, I won’t have time this afternoon to prepare a Hili for tomorrow, and because tomorrow I must go downtown to have the eye patch removed, there will likely be no Hili on Thursday, either. Bear with me; I do my best.
In the Northern Hemisphere it’s also the first day of fall, known as The Autumnal Equinox. which begins at 6:05 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S.
The autumn equinox is one of two days when all points on Earth except the polar regions see the sunrise and set at due east and due west. With few exceptions, all latitudes see almost precisely 12 hours of daylight and 12 of darkness.
I understand it’s a public holiday in Japan.
It’s also Hobbit Day, celebrating the publication of the eponymous Tolkien book on this day in 1937, National Eat Local Day, National Ice Cream Cone Day, National White Chocolate Day, World Rhino Day, and National Elephant Appreciation Day. Here is a hornless rhino (de-horned by rangers to eliminate poaching) and a passel of elephants taken in or near Kruger National Park in South Africa when I visited two years ago. Notice the birds pecking insects off the rhino:
These elephants were digging for water in a dry stream bed:
A mother has hit water and allows a baby to get a drink:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 22 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Just when you think Trump can’t get any loonier, it happens! Now he’s proposed that his huge triumphal arch (the Arc de Trump) is also going to be a military complex, complete with drones and snipers!
President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Sunday that he would convert plans for a Washington, D.C.-area “Triumphal Arch” to those for “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch” at the request of the U.S. military, citing “national security.”
The new plan, he said, is to “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”
Reached for comment, a Pentagon spokesperson said the department has “nothing additional to provide beyond the post.” The White House declined to provide additional information.
His post marked a significant change in plans that had already been in progress, as the Trump administration had announced earlier this month that it was preparing to break ground in the coming weeks.
The proposed 250-foot arch project, which would sit in a roundabout between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, has faced legal challenges from veterans and historians. The project area sits on the Potomac, across from Washington.
The arch proposal has already passed key hurdles, though it’s unclear how Trump’s announcement could affect the prior approvals. In April, the project obtained approval from the Commission of Fine Arts, which is now composed of the president’s allies after he fired previous members. In July, the National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by Trump appointees, approved the preliminary site and building plans. The arch, which would sit a few miles from Reagan airport, also passed the Federal Aviation Administration’s air safety standards last week, with the administration announcing that it “would not pose a hazard to aircraft.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., whose district includes Arlington National Cemetery and is adjacent to the proposed site, slammed Trump’s plan in a post to X.
Here’s the tweet:
Putting a drone launching site directly in the landing path for DCA is a stupid, dangerous, and unworkable idea.
Trump clearly expects to lose a lawsuit and therefore wants to set up a pretext to argue that the arch is tied to national security. Which is obviously idiotic. https://t.co/YIMlIm65TR
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) September 20, 2026
And a bit more:
The project appeared poised to move forward imminently. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on Sept. 3 that the administration was preparing to start excavation work “over the next two-week period.” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the Trump administration to provide 48 hours’ notice before it starts “any activity” on the arch, other than work to determine whether there are archaeological resources on the proposed site.
What can one say but “0y vey” (if you’re Jewish)? Why turn a decorative arch into a weapons site, also making it a target for terrorists? Only if you want to justify the arch (like Trump justified the White House ballroom) as being of crucial importance to National Security.
*As expected, CNN, Politico, and MS NOW are suing Trump, who excluded the venues from the White House and deep-sixed them from its press pool. But the t.v. networks struck back, banding together to black out all television coverage from the White House:
The decision marks an escalation of tensions between the press and the Trump administration after the president announced last week that he would ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
The three news outlets said earlier Monday that they were suing the Trump administration over the ban.
In a joint statement early Monday, the outlets said they were filing the suit to “protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, called the ban “a direct assault on the First Amendment and a blatant violation of due process.”
. . . Major television networks agreed on Monday to suspend a rotation of broadcast journalists who cover President Trump after the White House removed CNN from a planned assignment covering the president’s trip to New York.
“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News wrote in an email to pool members. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”
The White House press pool is a rotation of reporters, videographers, photographers and technicians who cover the president when he travels or when he conducts events in spaces that are too small for the entire press corps. Monday’s decision suspends—for now—the television press pool, which distributes video footage and reporting about the president to TV networks and other broadcast outlets.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” White House television pool members Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News said in a statement. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
I don’t know whether other media, like print and/or radio, are part of the pool, and whether they’re still participating. This will take some of the wind out of Trump’s sails as he delights in getting attention. Now he’s not getting it from television networks, at least in the pool coverage.
*The midterm elections are 42 days away, and so the NYT prognosticates: “Who’s winning the race for Congress?” (article archived here).
The Senate prediction is 3 states favoring Democrats, 2 favoring Republicans, and 7 states being tossups.
It’s a critical couple of weeks for Representative Mike Collins, the Republican nominee in Georgia, and Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee in North Carolina.
Both have consistently trailed in polls, and Republican strategists are actively discussing whether to cut bait, especially on Collins, as The Times reported last week.
At a donor meeting earlier this month in Dallas, Collins was notably missing from a slide presentation of the party’s top
“quality” recruits this cycle — though he was in the room as the presentation was made.Republicans haven’t given up on Georgia or North Carolina. President Trump campaigned for Whatley last week in North Carolina. Vice President JD Vance will be there on Monday. And Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican majority leader, is headed to Atlanta on Thursday to headline a fund-raiser for Collins.
But as Thune said last week, Republicans “obviously make decisions when it comes to resources” on a stretched map.
Translation: Improve soon in the polls — or else.
For the House, 9 districts are leaning Democratic, 7 leaning Republican, and there are 21 tossups.
Republicans are seeing the same polls that the public is. The Times measured a nearly 9-percentage-point edge for Democrats on the congressional ballot last week — akin to the margin in the 2018 Democratic wave.
But Republicans are openly hoping those numbers are understating G.O.P. support.
“None of us should put any stock in polls anymore because they are wildly inaccurate; we all know that,” Speaker Mike Johnson said last week at the Capitol. “We know this is going to be a tight race. It is going to be decided by about 20 jump-ball swing districts around the country.”
His math is not wrong. The Cook Political Report currently rates 206 seats as leaning Democratic and 208 as leaning Republican. Democrats will need to win a majority of the 21 tossup seats to win.
I’m no pundit so I’ll refrain from predicting anything. But clearly the Republicans are going to lose quite a bit of Congress this time. If the Senate goes 50/50, it will effectively be Republican since VP Vance will be the tiebreaker.
*The WaPo has joined the chorus of media that recognize the value of standardized test in an editorial board op-ed called “A multifront war against educational accountability” with the subtitle, “New York drops Regents exam as a graduation requirement and conceals AP test results” (article archived here).
No wonder NYSUT feels threatened by more competition: Only 48 percent of New York public school students in grades three through eight can read proficiently, according to preliminary assessments released last month by the state. Bad scores aren’t for lack of investment: New York spends more per pupil than any other state.
Instead of rising to the challenge, NYSUT would prefer the state water down standards. “More teaching, less testing” is the union’s mantra. Manhattan Institute fellow Jennifer Weber told us, “They don’t want the tests because they don’t want to be held to the data and the outcomes.”
Last week, the unions won a big battle in their crusade against accountability when the New York State Board of Regents voted to end the use of the Regents exam as a high school graduation requirement. Though students will continue to take the test, the board says it will develop a different set of graduation requirements, such as being a “critical thinker” and “effective communicator.” But how will those skills be measured?
. . .New York’s Education Department has joined the anti-transparency brigades by blocking U.S. News & World Report from gaining access to the state’s Advanced Placement scores. New York claims it’s protecting student data from being used for a “commercial product.” In reality, suppressing aggregate data on AP scores covers up the shortcomings of public schools while handicapping higher performing alternatives, such as the charter network Success Academy.
One of the network’s high schools was ranked 11th in the state last year when U.S. News factored in AP scores. This year, without the AP scores available, the school fell to 196th. Success Academy is suing the state and deserves to win.
I’ve come to realize that teachers unions are among the biggest opponents of merit as a metric for advancement in schools, but New York’s Education Department? And they block AP scores so the shortcomings of the states’ schools aren’t evident (the “commerical product” argument doesn’t wash). Oy again!
*Over at The Free Press, journalist Ardena Schwartz, using a new book (below) as a prompt, asks “Israel won the battles. Did it lose the war?” Her answer is “yes”.
While that commission of inquiry may never come, a new book offers the most extensive analysis to date of the war, and the behind-the-scenes decisions and debates that shaped its trajectory. In the War Room, released this month, is a riveting—and at times infuriating—look inside the deliberations that drove Israel’s multifront war against the Iranian Axis from 2023 to 2025. Co-authored by Israeli journalist Yonah Jeremy Bob of The Jerusalem Post and American journalist Elliot Kaufman of The Wall Street Journal, the book takes readers inside the conversations—both within Israel and between the U.S. and Israel—that produced the war’s greatest achievements and failures.
. . .As the book progresses, a pattern becomes obvious: Litanies of stunning Israeli military successes are repeatedly offset by colossal mistakes and miscalculations, egotistical infighting, and a jaw-dropping failure to reassess assumptions about Hamas. Indeed, this is the first time it’s been reported that Netanyahu did not speak to the head of the IDF until four hours into the Hamas invasion.
The authors make it clear that the failures that led to October 7, and the disastrous mistakes made that day, belong to all involved. “Israel’s prime minister, cabinet, military, intelligence agencies, and opposition all wore the same blinders,” write Bob and Kaufman, referring to the belief that Hamas was incapable of a mass invasion of Israel and that it favored quiet over confrontation. Still, they add, “the buck must stop with the prime minister. On some level, he knows that.”
. . .According to documents retrieved by the IDF in Gaza, former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned the October 7 attacks with two overarching goals. The first was to thwart the Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement that the Biden administration was close to securing. The second was to lead Israel into a long and grinding invasion of Gaza that Hamas had long prepared for and Israel had not, and that Hamas knew would result in the deaths of many thousands of Palestinian civilians. The ensuing humanitarian crisis, Sinwar predicted, would turn Israel into an international pariah.
It is hard to argue with the fact that both of Sinwar’s goals were achieved. Israel’s international standing has seldom been worse, and Israel is now a bitterly divisive topic on both sides of the aisle in the United States. It is an open question whether the next American president—representing either party—will sever ties with the Jewish state. The prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia, briefly revived by the Biden administration, was laid to rest by Netanyahu’s rejection of the conditions that agreement required. Today, relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are frayed, with the U.S. rejecting Saudi requests for aid as the kingdom faces renewed attacks from the Houthis. Prospects for normalization are muddled at best.
As for the military successes achieved in this war, many have failed to stick. As the book explains, the same Hezbollah that was supposedly decimated in the 2024 pager attack rose from the ashes to terrorize Israelis in 2026, emptying northern Israeli towns and killing dozens of soldiers. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime—the benefactor of Hezbollah and Hamas—survived the unprecedented American-Israeli attacks, leaving its ballistic missiles and nuclear program largely intact.
There’s a lot more, and you can read it if you subscribe. Schwartz seems to think that the solution to the whole problem was to somehow replace Hamas with the Palestinian Authority. That is dumb for two reasons: Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza prefer Hamas to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian authority is still committed to terrorism.
The book (click the link to go to the distributor’s page):
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili sees the despised Kulka outside:
Hili: Our neighbor pretends she doesn’t see me.
Andrzej: Use the same method of coexistence.
In Polish:
Hili: Nasza sąsiadka udaje, że mnie nie widzi.
Ja: Zastosuj tę samą metodę kohabitacji.
*******************
From Stacy, image by Chris Shapan:
From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:
From Give Me a Sign (it refers to a horse):
From Masih, a heartbreaking voice message from an Iranian woman who may be about to be executed:
Hello everyone, this is a message from inside prison, from a young Iranian woman who is about to be executed. Please help me to amplify her voice before they hang her. 💔
«Remember my name, maybe I will not be able to speak again.»
This is the voice of Najmeh Amini, a 23 year… pic.twitter.com/ceH6Hj0wGq
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 21, 2026
From Malcolm, cat moments from Facebook:
Ricky Gervais displays his cat:
My lovely cat, Pickle. With her pickle. pic.twitter.com/MSkl188LSX
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) September 19, 2026
Two from my feed. I couldn’t resist posting the first one:
Apparently, the Nova Music Festival was a military base.pic.twitter.com/k0sEddhwkL
— Prof. Math & CS (@Zeev81309559) September 21, 2026
I love time-lapse videos of birds nesting:
A bird house with a solar powered camera inside was installed at the Historic Cemetery in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Here’s what happened next.
[📹 historiceastoncemetery] pic.twitter.com/oSb0zRkrR5
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 21, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial. This brother was selected to work in the camp, but decided to stay with his ten-year-old sister. Both, Jews from Czechoslovakia, were then put to death in the gas chamber.
22 September 1932 | Czech Jewish girl, Vera Taglicht was born. As a refugee she went to Norway.
She was deported to #Auschwitz with his brother Tibor in March 1943. Tibor was selected as able to work. He asked to stay with his sister. They were both murdered in a gas chamber.… pic.twitter.com/Bfu0oJ9Lcv
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) September 22, 2026
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, listen to the coyote chorus:
Sunrise song. You'll want the volume up for this one, but not too high. Every coyote within a half kilometre radius decided to make themselves known this morning while I was enjoying the sunrise from the kayak. A truly magical moment. #mammals 🌿
— Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 (@secondnaturemb.bsky.social) 2026-09-21T16:37:10.099Z
Matthew says, “That’s the way to do it.”:
“…the day of my cataract surgery”
I wish you the very best of luck, I know it makes such a difference to quality of life.
Yes indeed. The modern way of dealing with them is so fast and relatively comfortable (no stitches).
+1
An exception to the “+1” rool I think 😁
Cataract surgery and replacement lenses have come a long way since my grandmother had it around 1975. Each replacement lens has its pros and cons, but they’re all better than what I had before (60+ years of thick glasses). I went with mild monovision – one eye for distance, the other for mid-range so that my depth perception isn’t compromised. I still use reading glasses for reading books, but that’s not a problem for me. You’ll love the results.
Having both my cataractous lenses replaced by clear acrylic IOLs was the best surgery I ever had! I was amazed at how bright and colorful the world appeared afterwards. And my distance vision was 20/20 and 20/15! Although I went from very myopic to being slightly farsighted, I use mid-distance reading glasses for computer work and closer. If I want not to wear glasses at all, I can use a +1.25 contact lens in one eye for reading, “monovision”.
I expect and certainly hope you’re as thrilled with your new vision as I and most IOL recipients are!
“I expect and certainly hope you’re as thrilled with your new vision as I and most IOL recipients are!”
I am not sure if you are addressing me or the Prof here but I shall assume me! From my most recent eye test around a month back I am probably heading for replacements in a few years, around the Prof’s age actually, assuming the progression continues apace.
My own experience comes from aged relatives, and your “bright and colourful” is a perfect description of their improvement in quality of life – I certainly won’t hesitate to get the replacements when the time comes. I doubt that I would hesitate even if the old techniques were still used, the difference it made to my late relative all those years ago was beyond description, and they sincerely regretted having put off having the operation.
Regarding the arc/arch/whatever the hell it is, maybe he is reactivating the Army of the Potomac and this will welcome them back across the river from Virginia. And the arming of the arch is to discourage the Army of Northern Virginia from pursuit? Makes as good a sense as anything else the guy does.
Hope the surgery goes/went well and a rapid recovery.
They mean shortcomings of the students. There’s only so much a school can do. And the “higher performing alternatives” will be all about the intake they get.
Seriously, oodles of studies have shown that differences in school outcomes are ~ 80% about the kids and only ~ 10% about the school.
The unions are right that teachers should not be blamed for poor outcomes; and we can’t have sensible public policy without rejecting blank slateism and facing reality.
I think it important to clarify what we mean by “teachers.” You mean the people in the classroom. But it is commonplace, even if inappropriate, to say “teachers” when one really means the broader education ecosystem: teachers’ colleges, unions, local administrators, curriculum publishers, and school boards. Within the United States, this ecosystem varies tremendously from one district to the next. Moreover, any of these contributors can hamstring potentially talented teachers and students, whether it be through weak curriculum, low academic standards, lack of accountability, equity emphasis that flattens outcomes, unwillingness to champion gifted programs or student tracking, unwillingness to enforce discipline, etc. So, yes, it is unfair to lay solely upon teachers the accountability for low scores when much else is in play. The problem we have in many districts is that nobody accepts responsibility.
That said, while I agree that we shouldn’t scapegoat teachers, we should also be careful not to protect the failing ones. The union position plants the first stake and can protect the poor performers. While I accept there is only so much a good teacher can do to improve outcomes for intellectually weak students, poor teachers can hinder intelligent ones. This is a common phenomenon in leadership, as well: a strong leader can bring a weakly talented team only so far, but a lousy one can significantly degrade a previously high-functioning unit.
Whether it be intelligence or other talent, one hits a performance ceiling. Best that ceiling be imposed by a person’s innate abilities and temperament rather than artificially by the mediocrity and poor decisions of others. Yet I’m curious how you would determine whether a given student was held back by innate intelligence or hampered by incompetence within the education ecosystem.
“Seriously, oodles of studies have shown that differences in school outcomes are ~ 80% about the kids and only ~ 10% about the school.”
American schools?
Googled…didn’t see one claim. It’s an absurd claim, so not surprised there’s nothing “there”. Maybe it’s a European thing.
It’s not an absurd claim, it’s what studies show (though, yes, it is wildly at odds with how the public debate usually goes, so people can find it implausible).
For one citation that attempts to disentangle all of the various environmental effects, see Englehardt et al 2019 “Accounting for the shared environment in cognitive abilities and academic achievement with measured socioecological contexts” (pdf link here.)
This is based on analysis of 1728 twins aged 7 to 20 in Texas. In particular, look at figure 2 and the component estimates in Tables 3, 4 and 5.
Thanks for the link Coel, I appreciate it! Haven’t looked yet, but I will. Twins studies are always fascinating and informative.
Really appreciate your comments on this topic…great insights.
It seems that in order for this system of large scale public education to work, students must have certain minimum levels of social and intellectual skills. Those who are deficient in one or both of those areas should be in the minority, and attended to by specialized programs.
In the past, it seems that generally this was the case. Most students entered the building with the requisite minimum levels of social and cognitive skills to a) not be a disruption and b) to some kind of mental work.
Also, in the past it was not taboo to recognize the often stark variation in these qualities within children even of the same age. Hence, advanced classes, remedial classes, and everything in between. This greatly facilitated learning as the precocious kids were no longer bored, and the remedial kids were getting much needed special attention. Today, there is a lot of resistance to this idea of segregating kids by ability, and it is delayed as long as possible.
Today, for a variety of reasons, large swathes of children are severely lacking in one or both of these qualities (socialization and cognition). And, teachers cannot be expected to make up for these deficits.
Like a boat taking on too much water, the school system in some communities is sinking into complete dysfunction.
The resistance to segregating kids by ability comes almost entirely from the fact that black kids would be hugely over-represented in the lowest-ability grouping and hugely underrepresented in the high-ability grouping.
Similarly, today’s resistance to sanctioning ill-disciplined kids comes from the fact that black kids would be hugely over-represented in those getting sanctioned.
America’s refusal to face reality and have a grownup discussion about these things is driving everything that’s wrong with the US education system.
I’m told by my Bloomberg hubby that the reason Trump is adding the military narrative is so he will no longer need permission from Congress to fund the arch. At least that is the common narrative amongst DC media.
Trump’s addled mind doesn’t want to arm his vanity arch to repel foreign invaders. Drones and snipers are to keep the domestic population controlled. As evidenced by his past actions, he wants the perfect police state.
In other news, extreme left Die Linke party won the Berlin elections. A Turkish female Mamdani made in DDR. https://eadaily.com/en/news/2026/09/21/mamdani-of-berlin-a-turkish-woman-will-become-mayor-of-berlin-for-the-first-time
By now, the surgery is over and perfect vision is soon to commence—at least in that one eye. All the best!
Trump? Still crazy after all these years.
The war in Gaza? Israel’s military reduced Hamas to almost nothing, and the IDF needs to keep it there or to reduce it to zero. But Israel lost a huge amount of international credibility. Some of the criticism is justified, a great deal is not. Claims of mass starvation and genocide are nonsense. Israel’s lack of preparedness for an attack on the scale of October 7, 2023 was almost certainly real. Israel’s policy of “mowing the lawn” was a bad one in that it enabled Hamas to create a terror fortress under the radar (figuratively) and under the ground (literally). Did the IDF go too far in damaging so much of the infrastructure in Gaza? There’s room for debate. Would a leader other than Netanyahu done things differently? We’ll never know. The war is not even over, so no history written now can be definitive.
I have no particular expertise to back this up, but I no longer expect wars to have clear winners and losers. What we’ll have are changed conditions: geographical, political, and social. I expect this to be the case in Israel, in Iran, and in Ukraine. Only in the fullness of time will we be able to see the full picture. Historians are still debating the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, and even the U.S. Civil War.
The person in the Nova Music Festival video is doing an amazing impression of the Catherine O’Hara character Moira Rose.
I was thinking there might be a “Lenin Award for Useful Idiots”. Lenin is often attributed to be the source of the term, but apparently the origin is obscure. Anyway, Lenin Award for Useful Idiots it should be, and although we are not short on those who deserve it, that baffled woman is definitely one who merits it.
I’m sick of the bs about Trump kicking CNN and Politico out of the W.H. press pool. We’ve been here before.
Were this 1970 it would mean something but in an era of instant communication (you are reading this now, aren’tcha, LIVE FROM NY!) it is an abstraction.
Oh ladies clutch your pearls. I’m no big Trump fan, never voted for him, but this is just silly.
Plus I’D throw CNN out, they’re garbage.
And I quite like the idea of the arch. I mean.. there’s nothing there now and I quite like arches. PLUS… it’ll keep him busy!
Saying it is “national security” is just an end run around opposition.
D.A.
NYC
D.
Don’t be afraid. Just pray to god and everything will go well… Just kidding!
Of course, if you’ve already had the surgery, it’s behind you now (at least the first surgery). I hope you had a pleasant narcotic high 💉, and I’m happy for you that you’ll soon have two 👁️👁️that are better than the ones you’ve got now.
I’ve been told I have cataracts, too. I’m particularly curious about the claims that the surgery enhances colors. Since my impression is that I already have vivid color perception, I find it kind of exciting to think that I might be able to see colors even better after surgery.
My experience was that after one eye, if I looked with one eye at a time at a porcelain sink or something else bright white, my new eye would see it as brilliant white, while the old one saw it as a tan color. So it wasn’t that I could see colors better, but the old eye definitely seemed to be looking through a brownish filter.
I think the most important outcome of this war on Hamas is that finally, the 77+ year-old notion of a “two-state” solution is dead in the minds of Israelis.
I think the Left in Israel has, at long last, come to realize that the grand notions of Israel’s founders – to live in peace with their Arab neighbors and build mutual prosperity – was a pipe dream that could not survive the combination of Palestinian culture and Islamic radicalism.
Unfortunately, holders of conventional “liberal” opinion in the US and Europe are still smoking that pipe—and nothing, not 9/11, not Bataclan, not Oct. 7, not any mere evidence—can seem to dispel its fumes.
Everyone knows that that the recent full war against Hamas in Gaza has damaged Israel’s international standing, as Yahya Sinwar & Co. intended. But two aspects of this relationship should be kept in mind. (1) Israel’s prior policy of “mowing the lawn” was designed precisely to at least minimize this kind of public relations harm; the policy’s growth into a bureaucratic reflex simply illustrated the way bureaucracies function. (2) Sinwar’s scheme illustrates, for the umpteenth time, that Hamas views its civilian population as a tool to be used, exactly like the airplane passengers of 9/11. An outfit that uses its own constituency this way still wins its votes, through the powers of childhood brainwashing (as asserted long ago by the founder of the Jesuit Order), and of religious piety.
And the inevitable question always arises: what happens after? What does it look like for Israel to “win”? No 2 state solution? OK, fine, but what replaces it? Assuming there is a replacement scenario. Same goes with current Iran war. OK, Iran “loses” then what? Everything still points to never ending conflict and strife as far as I can surmise. And it’s not a secret that Americans are weary of the support, unfortunately.
“The only way out is through” is a current meme I’ve been noticing. So it’s war, all the way down. Luckily the midterms are in a few weeks, and afterwards all this will be solved! So says the dipshit in chief.
Trump’s replacement for the press pool: a YouTube channel called Trump TV, commenting disabled.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A4gNgHfZ-v4&ra=m
But, I presume you do realize what this is saying? That senate votes will be decided strictly along party lines? That not one senator, regardless of party affiliation, will vote based on the merits of the issue in question? This may all be true–it may even probably be true–but it’s sad, as it means the complete failure of representative democracy. It’s senators either pandering to their bases, in order to be reelected, or kowtowing to the president. In either case, the “leaders” are not leading, not considering what is best for America, and certainly not considering what is best for the world.
Yeah, lady, that’s why Hamas carried phrases for saying things like Take your pants off, and Spread your legs.
Hope that the surgery went well, and, like myself and others here, you have a good outcome. Please update us when you can.
I spent some time hiking solo in the southwestern US, and am no stranger to coyote choruses. But I never heard anything quite like that!
Whatever one’s opinion about the source of educational deficits, I think that every school deserves hardworking, good teachers, especially with the money that the US invests in public schools. From what I have seen (with a brother, sister-in-law, and cousin teaching), the system seems to put obstacles in the way of good schooling. Teachers’ unions stand in the way of retaining and promoting good teachers, and supporting those teachers who are worse than useless. Until real standards are instituted for teachers and schools, with honest metrics, American education is doomed to failure, with the exception of specific target schools that do institute such standards. How can we expect good education when teachers are forbidden to fail students, which certainly happens in many school districts? Bringing back standardized testing, at all levels, would be a good first step.
“Bear with me; I do my best.”
In these lean days, we will await the later fattening. Best of luck for a rapid recovery!
Correction: the equinox occurs at 8:05pm Eastern Daylight Time.
βPer
So now the arch de Trump has military use. That makes sense: build a large, ornate target on a military site. Nothing like a perfect target.
Reminds me of the joke: What is the difference between electrical engineers and civil engineers?
Electrical engineers build weapons.
Civil engineers build targets.
What should we expect from a guy who demands that the military remodel aircraft carriers because he liked the way the old ones looked?
Training for teachers is backwards in the US. They must get a specialized “teaching education” and a degree in “education”.
But, a prerequisite for being able to teach something is being a subject matter expert. An engineer who knows math backwards and forwards might run rings around a teaching “generalist” with an advanced degree in education who can barely do math. I’ve heard teachers joke about only needing to “one page ahead of the students”. That’s not true at all. Barely knowing a subject means that you have no deep resources of knowledge to draw from, and students recognize this instantly.
So, teachers should be subject matter experts first and foremost. Then they can learn the ins and outs of classroom management, admin, and the latest pedagogical fads if need be.
“Those who can, do. Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, teach teachers.” And presumably those who cannot do any of these become educational theorists or administrators.