Portable Bohemia Newsletter Dec 15, 2024
Greetings from the Far Left Coast where I am faring considerably better than Bashar al-Assad. I have not had to flee. That could change after January 20 if my name finds its way onto that crackbrain Kash Patel’s enemies list.
Happy holidays nonetheless!
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. (John Keats, "Endymion"
I hope everyone is enjoying a season of good cheer with family and dear friends, even those with whom we may not always see eye to eye. The season cultivates a good spirit that fosters hope for the best in the year ahead and fortitude to act as conscience dictates come what may. As we used to say in the sixties, keep the faith, baby!
Ancient audio books.
The Rome of the imagination is dazzling…This is a city of eager erudition, a city whose richest men might acquire a library of well over a thousand scrolls. It is a city so voraciously intellectual that a man might, as Pliny the Elder did, instruct his assistant to walk around after him, reading out loud to him constantly from the scrolls that he carries in his hands…reading to him as he ate, as he lay in the sun…reading, reading, reading, text after text, lest learning be lost even for a moment. (Catherine Nixey, Heretic: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God)
My first thought for this issue of the newsletter was to steer clear of politics and current affairs but good grief there’s a tsunami of the stuff. So onward, into the muck.
What must be said. Celebration of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is beyond disheartening. Harm done by insurance companies in pursuit of maximum profit in a dysfunctional health care system does not justify murder. Period.
terrorism : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
terror 2 : violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion (Merriam-Webster)
“Murder,” Camus wrote, “leads to murder, and we continue to live in terror either because we resign ourselves to it or because we seek to eliminate it by means that replace one form of terror with another” (“Saving Bodies,” Combat, November 20, 1946).
I will always condemn terrorism.
Good line passed on by David Brooks about Christopher Wray’s decision to step down as FBI director before Trump could take office and fire him: Wray had no good options and he happened to choose the wrong one.
The intimidation of Joni Ernst. Joni Ernst is a combat veteran, lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, and survivor of sexual assault. The Republican senator from Iowa has leaned hard right throughout her political career.
Initial reporting had it that she was skeptical of Pete’s Hegseth’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense. Ernst now “appears to have experienced a real attitude adjustment about Hegseth” (Kilgore, Why Joni Ernst). Tremendous pressure is being exerted on her and other Senate Republicans by figures within Trump’s orbit and the social media mob with threats of retribution if they do not bend the knee to the once and future president. It is ugly.
Hegseth has adopted a strategy of telling Republican senators whatever they need to hear for an excuse to demonstrate fealty to Trump. I expect him to be confirmed.
Jordain Carney, Senate DOGE caucus to focus on limiting telework in first meeting, Politico, December 5, 2024
Ed Kilgore, Why Joni Ernst Is Caving on Hegseth Confirmation, New York Intelligencer, December 10, 2024
Ally Mutnick, For Trump’s allies, RINO-hunting season is in full swing, Politico, December 11, 2024
On Tuesday Capitol police arrested a man accused of assaulting congressperson Nancy Mace (MAGA-SC) in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Mace claimed she sustained injuries to her wrist and arm and alleged that the incident was in response to her recent vocal advocacy for transgender bathroom bans…Several witnesses have accused Mace of over-dramatizing the incident and calling the police unnecessarily. (Solender, Capitol Police arrest man).
Andrew Solender’s report at Axios cites three individuals present at the event where the incident occurred who characterized the exchange as a “normal handshake.” One said the accused man was “simply shaking her hand and asking about trans rights.” Emily Brooks at The Hill also reported accounts by witnesses disputing Mace’s allegation (Mace, activist).
Any accusation of assault on a member of Congress should be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly. If the evidence bears out the accusation, the assailant should be held accountable in accordance with the law. Likewise, if the accusation turns out to be false or overblown, as may be the case here, those responsible should also be held accountable.
Mace was quick to use the assault in a fundraising message (Andragna, Capitol Police arrest person).
Anthony Andragna, Capitol Police arrest person in alleged assault on Mace, Politico, December 11, 2024
Emily Brooks, Mace, activist dispute handshake that resulted in arrest, The Hill, December 11, 2024
Andrew Solender, Capitol Police arrest man accused of assaulting Nancy Mace, Axios, December 11, 2024
Israel is waging war on Syria with the customary claim of self-defense.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says its air force and navy have conducted more than 350 strikes since Saturday night, taking out an estimated 70-80% of Syrian strategic military assets from Damascus to Latakia.
They included fighter aircraft, radar and air defence sites, and naval ships, as well as weapons stockpiles, the IDF said.
"The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success," said Defence Minister Israel Katz. (Yolande Knell, Israel seizing on Syria chaos to strike military assets, BBC News, December 11, 2024)
Some suspect a land grab. Late breaking: BBC News reported this morning that “Israel's government has approved a plan to encourage the expansion of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights” (Emily Atkinson, Jack Burgess, Israel plans to expand Golan settlements after fall of Assad).
Meanwhile, in Syria a number are of factions with diverse agendas are expected to contend for influence. Some have or have had ties with al-Qaida and other jihadist organizations. Among them is Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the lead group in the whirlwind campaign that toppled Assad. Its leader, Mohammad al-Julani, has disavowed his jihadist past and pledged to build a pluralistic, tolerant society. This is how HTS has reportedly governed in Idlib province, where it is dominant, for the past few years. Early reports are encouraging.
Promises coming out of Syria ought not be taken at face value. Neither should they be dismissed out of hand. The US and others should monitor the situation and respond as appropriate. Israeli aggression, US politicians and officials eager to show they are not soft on terrorism, and crusader fantasists risk destabilizing an already precarious state of affairs. They do not serve US interests or the interests of the Syrian people.
Simona Foltyn, Daily life in Syria begins to return as new leaders work on building a functioning nation, PBS News Hour, December 12, 2024
Amna Nawaz interviews Murhaf Jouejati, distinguished visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and former chairman of The Day After, a nonprofit organization working to build democratic institutions in Syria, What to expect from the Syrian opposition coming to power after toppling Assad, PBS News, December 9, 2024
I follow football hardly at all these days and could not tell you much about even players and teams whose names I recognize. I check stats and sometimes reports on games with my home-state teams at the University of South Carolina, my alma mater, and Clemson, my brother and my lifelong friend Mendal’s alma mater. Both squads had fine seasons this year, posting 9-3 records. Carolina edged Clemson 17-14 in the rivalry showdown at Clemson’s Death Valley, where two fine quarterbacks played to a draw, each running for two touchdowns. Carolina got a field goal in there somewhere for the win.
Clemson earned a spot in the college football playoffs with a win over SMU in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, pushing its record to 10-3. Carolina did not get an invitation to college football’s big dance. The Gamecocks will settle for the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl where they play Illinois on December 31. The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl. Good grief.
SMU by the way is Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Atlantic Coast, right? Out here on the left coast the University of Oregon is champion of eighteen-member Big Ten Conference. In the long ago time when I was a boy, conferences had some geographical basis. The Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pac-8 Conference, if memory serves, later expanding to Pac-10 and Pac-12. The Big Ten members were in the midwest.
Professional teams played twelve games in the regular season with the two conference winners squaring off in a single postseason game to determine the league champion. College teams typically played ten games, with a select handful going on to play in postseason bowl games. This year Carolina will play thirteen games. Clemson with play at least fourteen and possibly as many as seventeen. It seems that just about any team with a winning record will go Bowling somewhere. How can anyone speak of student-athletes with a straight face? What is the logic of it? $$$.
Memo from the cinema desk. About Dry Grasses (2023). Directed by one of our finest filmmakers, Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
About Dry Grasses is another good one, the latest in a run of films I like a lot. In recent newsletters I have been so free with praise of films such as Une belle course (Driving Madeleine), Microhabitat, L'étoile filante (The Falling Star), Yuni, and Before, Now & Then that I risk being drummed out of the critics union. Critics, after all, are supposed to be wretched guttersnipes whose mission is to find fault and tear down books, poetry, and films that they do not have talent to produce themselves. Too many films that merit praise is a good problem to have.
Ceylan’s latest stands with his acclaimed films The Wild Pear Tree, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, and Winter Sleep. It opens with a car driving through a flat, desolate, snow-covered landscape in a remote part of eastern Turkey. The car stops. A man gets out and begins walking toward buildings that can barely be made out in the distance.
The man’s name is Samet. He is an art teacher at the local school where he has been assigned by the government. He is unhappy there and thinks only of leaving. At the end of the year, his fourth in this provincial back of beyond, he can apply for reassignment. He hopes to land in Istanbul.
Samet meets Nuray, an art teacher at a school nearby, and introduces her to his fellow teacher and housemate Kenan. She is a political activist committed to freedom, democracy, and women’s rights whose right leg was blown off below the knee by a suicide bombing at a demonstration. Samet is resolutely unengaged in social and political matters. The two debate her commitment and his refusal to be involved in the kind of extended discussion that is a feature of Ceylan’s films. In the meantime, Kenan and Nuray are attracted to each other but hesitant to express their feelings openly. A triangle ensues.
This part of the story plays out against the backdrop of misconduct accusations leveled at Samet and Kenan by two eighth-grade girls. The accusations were precipitated by a love note the principal found in one girl’s backpack during a surprise inspection after word got around that a boy had brought a laser to school and was using it to look up girls’ dresses.
One girl is Sevim, Samet’s favorite because she is his best student. He gave her a present and put an arm around her shoulder as they walked down the hall to the classroom. Kenan stands accused of touching the other girl’s cheek. The two girls say they were made to feel uncomfortable. There is no suggestion of anything beyond this.
Samet may be innocent of misconduct but is still an unappealing character. Self-absorbed and short-tempered, he yells at his pupils and can be mean, including to Sevim when they fall out over the note found in her backpack. When Nuray asks him not to tell Kenan about the night they just spent together at her place, he promises to say nothing. Upon his return home he tells Kenan at once, in tones of doubt about what he has just done, but with no sense of betrayal of his friend or of Nuray. Nuray figures it out soon enough but is not much perturbed, as if she expected no better of him.
This synopsis gives only the bare bones of the narrative. It does nothing to express what is conveyed by moments the camera gazes intently on the face of Sevim, Nuray, or Samet, and in photographs Samet and Nuray take of village inhabitants and the bleak landscape in this place of two seasons, winter and summer. Samet relates as the film comes to a close that spring there lasts only two weeks, after which grasses that were briefly green dry out and turn yellow. Samet and his friends are walking together out in that empty plain, for they are still friends, taking photos of the the vista that stretches out before them and selfies of the themselves together, at the end of their briefly blooming friendship, before Samet leaves for his next assignment.
Merve Dizdar won the award for best actress at Cannes in 2023 for her portrayal of Nuray.
Keep the faith.
Stand with Ukraine.
yr obdt svt