On Jews disliking evangelicals

The New Neo Posted on by

In a previous thread, commenter “Ann” offered a link to an article written in 2008 by James Q. Wilson entitled, “Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?”

From the article:

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction””about 16 percent””of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

Wilson goes on to write about a lot of things, although most of them have nothing to do with why Jews don’t like evangelicals. His main answer to that question, the one posed in the title, is “because Jews tend to be liberals.” True, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far.

Very unfortunately (and somewhat surprisingly to me), Wilson does not link the survey on which his entire premise about Jews not liking evangelicals seems to rest, nor does he give out enough information that a person could locate it (“one Pew survey” doesn’t quite pin it down, and one survey is not really much to base an entire theory on even if he did give the link). When I Googled the topic, I couldn’t find many surveys about it at all, although I did locate this one, which at least seems to be related although not precisely the same. My guess is that it’s a similar Pew survey, done in a year that’s different but fairly close in time (the one I found was done in 2014, so it’s more recent than Wilson’s article).

So I read the Pew report carefully, and it seems to me it’s pretty much “garbage in, garbage out” regarding the Jews and their opinions. The problems with it are as follows: it doesn’t define “Jews,” nor does it break them down into observant and non-observant, much less which type of observance they follow (there are ordinarily huge differences). Since many Jews in the US are nonobservant (although not necessarily atheists, which is a separate category in the survey), and even most observant Jews are reform Jews, people could describe themselves as Jewish while being basically secular and liberal. Unless the pollsters made a special effort to get Orthodox Jews in their survey (and since there is no breakdown, one can assume they didn’t pay attention to that aspect), that particular group is probably significantly underrepresented.

But perhaps more problematic is the fact that although the entire survey consists of a little over three thousand people, there are only 100 Jews. That’s not out of line with the percentage of Jews in the population—in fact, it’s slightly more, relatively speaking. But it’s by far the smallest religious group in the survey, and a small number in the sense of making it difficult to draw valid conclusions based on it. The results for such a small group are particularly prone to error, and if you look at the following chart you’ll see something interesting about the margin of error for the Jewish response:

errormargin

Plus or minus 12.6 percentage points seems pretty unacceptable for a poll. For what it’s worth (which isn’t much), the results were that Jews rated evangelicals on average as 34 on a “feeling thermometer” that goes up to 100, very similar to the score for how they rate Muslims. Jews rated evangelicals very similarly to how agnostics rated evangelicals (giving me a hint that perhaps a lot of the Jews in the survey are really agnostics), and somewhat higher than atheists did.

As a hypothetical, though, let’s just imagine that the results are accurate and that Jews don’t especially like evangelicals. I’m actually not at all sure most Jews even know what evangelicals believe in or stand for. The word sounds a great deal like “evangelist,” (same root), which traditionally has meant “a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching.”

With the Jews’ lengthy history of being the objects of forced or pressured or coerced conversion attempts, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to be somewhat wary of Christians you thought might be members of a group trying really hard to convert you. Unless a person is conversant with all the different Christian sects, and recent developments in Christianity—which believe me, most Jews and most non-Christians in general are not—it could sound as though “evangelicals” would be people who fit that proselytizing description. This in turn could be a fairly large part of the answer to Wilson’s question of “why” the dislike.

I strongly doubt that most Jews even know that evangelicals are their friends, or what they believe, or that evangelicals support Israel and respect Jews and the Jewish religion. Evangelicals may think those things are well-known facts, but I would wager they’re not at all well-known among Jews, secular or otherwise.

The religious categories the survey subjects were asked to rate did not include any Protestant denominations except evangelicals, which I find to be a curious thing. Most people—even Jews—have a better idea of what Catholicism is and a long history with it, and even some of the larger Protestant denominations (although I think that’s a lot less clear than Catholicism), but evangelicals are more of a mystery. By the way, the Wiki entry for “evangelicalism” mentions that adherants “believe in the centrality of the conversion or ‘born again’ experience in receiving salvation, believe in the authority of the Bible as God’s revelation to humanity and have a strong commitment to evangelism or sharing the Christian message.” That latter part—the commitment to sharing the Christian message—could be the source of some Jews’ fear that evangelicals are people intent on converting the Jews. Although that’s not a correct perception about evangelicals for the most part, it may be an understandable one in the absence of personal knowledge to the contrary.

One last thing—the Pew survey I found asked respondents to rate religions not on a measure of liking or disliking per se, but on a “feeling thermometer” with a cold/warm scale on which 0 was “coldest/most negative” and 100 was “warmest/most positive.” Some unknown number of respondents may have interpreted that in such a way that lower scores meant that the respondent is cold towards the group because he/she doesn’t know much about the it; more of an absence of feeling than an active dislike.

Air crash in the Alps

The New Neo Posted on by

A terrible air disaster:

All 144 passengers and six crew were today presumed dead after the Airbus A320 crashed in a remote region of the French Alps en route from Spain to Germany.

One of the plane’s black box recorders has been found and will be examined immediately, France’s interior minister said.

The images emerged as confusion reigned over the final minutes of the doomed Airbus A320 after air traffic controllers claimed they received no SOS despite the jet nosediving 32,000ft in just eight minutes.

Don’t there seem to have been a higher percentage of recent crashes where the controllers precipitously lost contact with a plane that was still intact? Apparently this jet descended for eight full horrific minutes, and yet there was no communication at all. I know pilots’ first duty is to fly the aircraft, but I still wonder why there might be no word from the pilots during such a lengthy interval. Was there depressurization and unconsciousness?

At least in this case the plane’s location is known, the black box has been found, and answers will probably be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future.

[NOTE: I noticed that this was the same type of plane involved in the amazing Hudson River landing by “Sully” Sullenberger.]

In a situation…

The New Neo Posted on by

…such as this, truth is especially hard to come by:

The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that in addition to Israelis spying on the highly-sensitive negotiations between Tehran and world powers, details were back-chanelled to US legislators in an effort to sabotage the deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

“Frankly I was a bit shocked, because, there was no information revealed to me whatsoever,” said House Speaker John Boehner

But I’ll take a crack at a guess:

(1) Israel did spy on the Iran talks. If they didn’t, they should have. The US has become its enemy, along with Iran.
(2) The US knew this, but is releasing this information now in order to further hurt Israel, and to harm some Republicans in the process. A twofer.
(3) Boehner is not actually shocked.
(4) Some details were back-channeled to US legislators. The funny thing is that the Obama administration is supposed to be giving Congress some information on the negotiations, but of course hasn’t. Now he’s peeved that the Israelis may have kept Congress abreast of his secret plans to give away the farm.

An awful lot of smoke and mirrors here, I think.

Dershowitz rips Obama on Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

Dershowitz:

I wouldn’t hire this administration to negotiate a one-month lease for me,” Dershowitz said.

He also called Obama “undiplomatic,” “petulant,” and “juvenile,” according to Noah Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel…

And yet, and yet—although these actions by Obama regarding Iran and Israel were totally and completely predictable, I seem to recall a certain Alan Dershowitz voted for him and vocally supported him, twice. In 2012, some of his stated reasons for that endorsement concerned wanting liberal justices appointed to SCOTUS (ironic that perhaps Obama won’t get to name any more, however, if all of them manage to hold up for the next two years). But then Dershowitz wrote the following, which was already risible in 2012 although if anything it’s even more risible now:

The case for Barack Obama also includes his approach to foreign policy, which has improved the standing of America around the world…The Obama administration has worked closely with our allies to impose the harshest possible sanctions on Iran, to depose Muammar Gaddafi and to help keep the Arab Spring from turning into an extremist Muslim winter…

With regards to Iran, which poses the most immediate threat to the security of the United States and its allies, most especially Israel, the policy of the Obama administration is crystal clear: It has taken containment off the table and kept the military option on the table…

But the best way to avoid the need for military action is for the Iranian mullahs to believe that the United States will never allow them to develop nuclear weapons. If they believe that reality then the pain of the sanctions will pressure them to give up their nuclear ambitions. President Obama has clearly stated that he is not bluffing when he says that his administration will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. A secondterm president generally has more credibility than a firstterm president when it comes to threatening military action…

When it comes to reenergizing the moribund peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, Romney has said that he would do nothing other than kick the can down the road.

President Obama, on the other hand, would almost certainly try to bring the parties together to achieve a two-state solution that guaranteed Israel’s security while allowing the Palestinians to govern themselves.

If I wanted a lawyer I wouldn’t mind having Dershowitz on the case. But for anything else—well, let’s just say I’m not impressed. Obama fooled you once, Dershowitz, fooled you twice…

Although I’m picking on Dershowitz (not that he’ll know or care), he’s not alone, and I doubt I’m telling him anything he doesn’t already know. I think that’s why he’s so very angry at Obama right now: he’s made a fool out of Dershowitz. Or shall I say, a useful idiot. But you know what? I think that, if Obama was running for a third term (perish the thought), that Dershowitz would go for that football again. And again.

That’s how hard it is to change one’s political mind, especially for those who are dedicated liberals and who have gone on record for years as such. Dershowitz wouldn’t even have to renounce liberalism; all he’d have to do is renounce Obama. But in a way, that’s the first step down the slippery slope.

In no surprise at all…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Ted Cruz has thrown his hat into the 2016 presidential ring.

Early-bird Cruz is one of the smartest guys ever to run for the presidency. And I don’t think even the staunchest conservatives would be likely to question his conservative bona fides.

Although I suppose someone can find a way—and indeed, just now when I checked, I find that the paleo/Buchananesque/isolationist wing of the party seems to detest him. They think he’s too hawkish, and that too many candidates will split the conservative wing of the party (I agree with the latter assertion).

Of course, Cruz is the only declared candidate so far, so the field is decidedly unsplit at the moment. But they think he has absolutely no chance of winning and therefore should never have tried in the first place. I believe he’s certainly a long shot, but not an impossible one. I happen to like Cruz, although he’s not my frontrunner. I think he’d be a better president than senator; as senator, he’s more of a lonely voice crying in the wilderness.

[NOTE: By the way, a quick perusal of that paleo publication to see which Republican candidate they do like doesn’t reveal anyone. They seem to detest Walker at least as much as they hate Cruz, and I can’t imagine that Jeb Bush is their man. This Buchanan article makes it clear that his isolation is intact, even now, and it seems that all the conservatives and Republicans are too hawkish for him. Maybe he wants another go-round for…Pat Buchanan? Now, there’s a longshot. He’s 76 now, by the way, but it seems he’s been around forever.]

Yemen…

The New Neo Posted on by

…was touted as a success story by President Obama a mere four months ago.

Now, not so much:

The Yemeni foreign minister is asking several Gulf Arab neighbors for military intervention to stop territorial advances by Houthi fighters in his embattled country, after the U.N. special envoy for Yemen warned the U.N. Security Council that events appear to be leading the country “to the edge of civil war.”

The Houthi rebels opposed to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi are threatening the country’s security, Yemeni foreign minister Riyadh Yaseen suggested Monday.

“They’re expanding in territory, occupying airports and cities, attacking Aden with planes, detaining whom they please, threatening and gathering their forces,” Yaseen told Al Jazeera TV.

As a consequence, the US and the Brits have pulled out of the country:

Over the weekend, the United States evacuated the last of its special operations forces — including Navy SEALs and Army Delta Force troops — amid the deteriorating security situation in the country, the U.S. State Department said.

On Monday, a security source in the region familiar with the situation in Yemen told CNN’s Nic Robertson that British special forces had also left Yemen in the last few days…

Yemen has been a key U.S. ally in the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, allowing U.S. drones and special operations forces to stalk terrorists in the country. Now, that arrangement is in tatters, along with any semblance of peace in the Middle Eastern nation.

Or in the Middle East as a whole, I might add.

Meanwhile, Obama goes blithely on, pursuing the great white Iranian whale of his megalomaniacal fantasies. Of course, that’s not a good metaphor; as a Moby Dick fan, I realize that Ahab wanted to destroy the whale, not to give in to accommodate, placate, and empower it.

[ADDENDUM: Michael Totten weighs in:

Far more likely than a comprehensive Houthi takeover is a new and more dangerous phase of Yemen’s endless self-cannibalization””more dangerous because this otherwise parochial and irrelevant conflict has been internationalized, with ISIS, the Saudis, and Iran squaring off against each other in yet another regional proxy war.

The Houthi movement is named after Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, an insurrection leader killed by the former government in 2004. They are Shias, but unlike the “Twelver” Shia Muslims of Iran””who revere eleven imams and await the birth of the occluded twelfth””most of Yemen’s Shias are “Fivers.” Iran doesn’t mind. From its point of view, better the odd “Fiver” Shias than Sunnis, but all that really matters is that the Houthis are willing to say yes to Tehran, its weapon shipments, and its top-notch military advisors and trainers…

The US has few friends and even less leverage, especially now that it’s all falling apart, so Washington is washing its hands and bringing everyone home. All we can really hope for there is less instability, not so much because Yemen’s local squabbling affects us””until now they hardly registered outside the country””but because dangerous adversaries that threaten the West are hoping to expand their base of operations and their ability to export malfeasance everywhere else.

We’re in the very best of hands.]

The road ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

I think that this comment from “Eric,” our resident strategist, is worth highlighting:

…[I]t’s up to the Republicans to counter the Democrats. It’s up to the Right to counter the Left.

Yes, the Democrats have been taken over by the Left, but it’s a matter of scope. The Left operates in larger scope than the Dems’ elected-office scope, ie, the social-activist scope, which is beyond the scope of the GOP.

In order for the GOP to effectively counter the Democratic wing of the larger Left, the Right must effectively counter the Left across the broader spectrum of the social cultural/political arena, and by the same token, develop the leverage to hold the GOP accountable, if not take over the GOP like the Left has taken over the Dems.

I think that says it quite succinctly.

In addition to all the anger at the GOP, there’s been quite a bit of reactive “I’m ready to give up on politics” sentiment on the right lately—a theme of depression and withdrawal. To those who say, “we vote for conservatives, but what’s the point?,” I’d answer that although I think that attitude is understandable, it could be a recipe for the triumph of evil. We don’t know what has been different as a result of voting for conservatives because we don’t know what would have happened if, for example, Congress and the presidency had been totally dominated by liberals all those years when they were not.

One thing that I think has changed is that, although conservatives don’t dominate the Republican Party, they do constitute a greater percentage of it than they did in recent decades. The solution to the problem of the GOP would be to support more conservatives, and work for that. I am quite puzzled as to why so many on the right appear to give up so easily and quickly. And if you say to me: what do you mean quickly?—I’ll point out that the left has been working for at least 150 years in order to reach the point it’s reached now, maybe even more. And working very very hard, too. I assure you they never give up, although there have been times when it must have looked to them like they were losing.

I realize that the left can point to a consistent record of long, slow victories—a steady march towards more government dependency, for instance. But that’s partly the nature of government in general and of human nature, as well as the left’s “end justifies the means” tactics.

The left has in many ways an easier road to go down because they are swimming with the tide—or what appears to be the tide—of human nature. The right has a harder task; the problem is baked in the cake, because it’s hard to convince government to control less, and to convince people to accept that government’s seductive promise to solve all its cares is a pipe dream. But it’s also human nature to desire independence. So all of this doesn’t mean that the right can’t someday reverse or at least slow and then halt that natural tendency of government and people to revert to what I’d call the “Grand Inquisitor” solution—although to halt it permanently requires more vigilance than the right has been able to exercise so far. As I wrote a while back:

There seems to be something in human nature that inclines societies in this direction. For every person who values liberty, how many are there who would prefer security (or at least what they perceive as security)? I don’t know the ratio and I think it varies over time and place, but right now the latter group appears to be markedly in the ascendance.

But the tendency is there in all times and places, and there are always those who would dearly love to exploit that tendency for the sake of power and control. Sometimes it’s done “for their own good,” and sometimes just for the sake of power and control itself and/or riches and/or glory, although they usually pretend to be more well-intended than that.

In this context, the classic passage from Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor keeps coming to mind. I’ve published it so many times on this blog I’ve lost count, but it never grows old and it never ceases to be relevant—unfortunately:

Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?

Heed this from a man who thought that the forces of liberty could fight back against the forces of the Inquisitor, and who lived his life accordingly:

The band that just walked away Renee (Part I: the song)

The New Neo Posted on by

RIP, Michael Brown.

Who’s Michael Brown? you ask:

Michael Brown, a keyboardist and songwriter who at 16 was a writer of the 1966 hit “Walk Away Renee” for his band the Left Banke and composed “Pretty Ballerina” for it as well, died on Thursday at his home in Englewood, N.J. He was 65.

Therein lies a tale. The following is a post I drafted in 2010 and (like so many of my drafts) it has just sat around among my other unpublished posts because I never quite found the right time for it. This seems to be the right time.

I once wrote a post about songs with lyrics containing the words “street” and “walk.” But until a commenter reminded me of its existence, I’d forgotten one of the most famous of them all, the monster 1966 hit “Walk Away Renee.”

“Walk Away Renee” is one of the great breakup songs—perhaps the greatest breakup song—of all time. I hadn’t heard the song for decades, but when I listened to it on You Tube, I instantly was reminded of how much I’d once loved its moody tone, its minor key, and the poignant and haunting voice of its lead singer:

I’d always assumed—from perceiving some slight something in the lead singer’s voice—that its members were probably British (the Brits were really big back then). And both the tone and the lyrics seemed to speak of a resignation that seemed experienced and almost world-weary.

But it turns out that the Left Banke was actually a bunch of teenagers from Brooklyn—and almost shockingly young, as you can see from the following video:

The video almost seems bizarre; it doesn’t seem as though such sounds could possibly be emanating from these kids—and it’s not just because they’re lip-synching, either. The lead singer (and sorta Paul McCartney lookalike), with the mature and melancholy voice that contrasts so strongly with his cherubic baby-face and his bouncy manner, was only 18 at the time. He was the young Steve Martin (not that Steve Martin), originally named Carmelo Esteban Martin Caro, and the son of a flamenco guitarist and singer.

The tune was written by 16-year old Michael Lookofsky, who composed “Walk Away Renee” under the less ethnic moniker Michael Brown. Renee was the name of another band member’s teen-aged girlfriend, a pretty blond on whom Lookofsky/Brown had developed an unspoken and unconsummated crush.

Mike Brown/Lookofsky was a classically-trained pianist. His father Harry was a violinist who had a small recording studio where the group rehearsed and later recorded the song. The son played the harpsichord on the cut, while dad Harry Lookofsky filled in with the violin that is featured so touchingly and prominently in the background, echoing and complementing the sob hidden in the lead singer’s voice. This just might have been the first (and only?) time that a rock star-to-be elicited a father’s help as backup musician in what turned out to be a megahit.

From whence came such talent, and where did it go? It’s a mystery; we know very little else about the performers. The Left Banke subsequently delivered a couple of other good songs (“Pretty Ballerina” was one), but the band split up quickly and Brown, despite a few more efforts, faded into obscurity and seclusion—as did Martin, as far as I can tell.

As for the lyrics, that credit goes to Frank J. Sansone, another young man who has hardly ever been heard from again. The lead singer’s voice and the music are haunting and well-matched. But the song hits the trifecta, because the words are at least as extraordinary as the music and the singing. They are poetry, conveying a tense pull between sorrow and stoicism, yearning and renunciation, regret and acceptance. You don’t believe me? Tune in for Part II, the lyrics.

More red vs. red

The New Neo Posted on by

Leon H. Wolf writes:

This year, the predetermined attack on Walker as insufficiently ideologically pure converges with a critical mass of voter resentment over Republican failures of leadership in Congress. Scott Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)82%, the only two candidates with obvious chances of taking down the admittedly much worse Jeb Bush…are both especially vulnerable to this impulse because they depend for their electoral success in this primary on the very people who are most susceptible to the siren call of “REJECT ANY CANDIDATE WHO IS LESS THAN 100% PURE ON ALL ISSUES.”

I wonder how long it will take us, as a movement, to learn from the strategic mistakes of our past. A major reason why we keep nominating moderates for the Presidency is that these kinds of attacks on viable conservative alternatives leave the moderate as the only plausible alternative standing. While conservatives are dividing their support into increasingly narrow slices, the moderate voters unify early behind a single candidate and don’t go to pieces over one or two differences of opinion.

I have noticed this and noticed this and noticed this over and over. As I wrote yesterday, the red-on-red war usually takes one of two forms:

One is nit-picking about each Republican candidate””even conservative ones””to see if he or she diverges in any way from the position the person would like the candidate to take, or has made any decisions with which the person disagrees. The other is at the Republican “establishment” in general and especially in Congress for betrayals previous and current, or perceived betrayals.

The quote from Wolf is of the first variety, with a quick reference to the second.

You can be mad at that “establishment” all you want, but it’s also obvious that the conservative vote usually gets split in the primaries among all the candidates. That’s normal, of course, but somehow conservatives have to be able to coalesce behind one early enough to make it count, and the vetting of candidates that must of course continue to go on (and is very important) has to be done in a less destructive and unrealistically perfectionist way.

I’m not sure how, or if, that can be accomplished. But I know it’s very important, despite the fact that conservatives tend to pride themselves on their rugged individualism and their devotion to principle, and are especially prickly about anything that smacks of being told what to do.

As for frontrunners and alternatives to Bush, Walker was starting to be that guy. I understand all the Democratic attacks on him through distortions of his record or focusing on trivia. But does the right have to help them quite so much?

Republicans playing hardball?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, one can hope.

It’s a fairly small and circumscribed game of hardball, but I applaud it:

Ms. Lynch’s vote to become attorney general is on hold for precisely one reason: Democrats won’t play ball on a bill to combat human sex trafficking. This is legislation, note, that is as bipartisan as it comes. It was jointly authored by Republican John Cornyn and Democrat Amy Klobuchar, and co-sponsored by much of the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell followed regular order, and Democrats gave unanimous consent to move the bill.

Yet suddenly faced with the real prospect of doing something productive””after six, long years of hiding from votes””the Senate Democratic caucus wigged out. (Debate? Vote? How does one do those things?) Desperate to revert to comfortable dysfunction, Democrats suddenly “discovered” language in the bill that upholds a prohibition against the federal funding of abortions.

Yes, it is language that has been in law for 37 years and yes, it was in the bill all along, and yes, Democrats had voted for it unanimously in committee, and yes they had voted for it unanimously last year in an appropriations bill. But Minority Leader Harry Reid needed a reason to balk, and the abortion language had the side benefit of allowing Democrats to revive the Republican “war on women.” They filibustered.

At which point, something new happened. Mr. McConnell made clear that so long as he didn’t get his trafficking bill, Democrats didn’t get Ms. Lynch. He would devote the rest of this week to the Cornyn-Klobuchar legislation, next week would be about the budget, the week after that would be Easter recess, and so on. Let’s hope Ms. Lynch enjoys Sudoku. No give, no get.

I think the reason McConnell is doing this for this particular bill is that, as Strassel writes, it’s “as bipartisan as it comes.” Or at least it was, previously.

It would be nice if Republicans could publicize this Democratic intransigence really, really loudly. But how do they go over the heads of the MSM to do it?

Does getting older make you care less?

The New Neo Posted on by

By the time my mother reached her high 90s, she seemed to care less about everything. Part of this, I’m almost sure, is that she was experiencing a marked although mercifully slow cognitive decline. There were a few pluses, though, in addition to the negatives: she had always been a relatively anxious person, and now her general anxiety seemed almost gone.

I wondered about this, and I decided that in order to be anxious it probably helps to have a keen appreciation of time, because part of anxiety is anticipating the future. And my mother seemed to be less aware of time and the future.

She also had had so many losses of friends—after all, she survived nearly every single one of her contemporaries—that she became more and more philosophical or perhaps stoic on hearing of the death of some of the last ones. It’s not that it didn’t bother her, but seemingly not too much or for too long.

My mother had a thing about my hair, which is curly. She always thought it too messy, and for years and years and years every time I visited her she’d frown a little bit and ask if I could brush it and smooth it out. “No,” I’d say. “This is the way my hair is. If I brushed it more it would just get bushier.” It got to be our little dance, and as she got older and older and older it bothered me less. In the last few years it made me smile because it meant she still cared about stuff like that, which I considered a good sign.

I had often joked that I’d know things had really gotten bad if she stopped saying it. Well, a couple months before she died—during her last, more precipitous, decline—she stopped saying it. I knew what that meant, and it made me sad. What had been a joke was no joke at all any more.

As I’ve gotten older myself I’ve noticed that long before the stage my mother reached there is often a diminution of the intensity of the feelings of youth. Some people are happy about it because no longer are they storm-tossed by every disappointment and fear they experience. For others it can segue into too much of a flatness and even a depression. Others don’t experience it at all.

I’m not sure where I stand on this. I know I used to be more shy in social situations than I am now. But I know I can still get pretty intense about a lot of things, and even more intense about some—for example, politics.

Ah, politics! You knew that would rear its ugly head, didn’t you?

Which brings us to the first sentence of this comment by “Tonawanda” earlier today:

Fast approaching the undiscovered country (age-wise) it is for me less urgent what folks like BO do, however despicable.

“BO” is, of course, Barack Obama. “The undiscovered country (age-wise)” is a reference to Hamlet’s soliloquy “To be or not to be,” in which he refers to death as “The undiscover’d country from whose bourn/No traveller returns…” (“bourn” has an archaic meaning of destination, domain, or boundary).

I’ve seen and heard a lot of comments to that effect over the years in political discussions: “I’m old, so I hardly care anymore.” People sometimes say a variant of it, which is that their children can worry about it but they don’t all that much.

I understand the sentiment and I’m not condemning it, but I find that not only do I not share it, but that I seem to care more than ever. There’s something about what Obama is doing to trash the rule of law and the separation of powers, as well as specific actions of his such as the pact with Iran that is likely to give them permission to have nuclear arms, or his advocacy of terrible policies such as this one, that bother me intensely. There’s something about the idea of the possible death of the American republic that fills me with a personal, bitter, and sharp despair, whether I’d be around to see the event or not.

How about you?