Update on my mother

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been about two and a half months since my 96-year-old mother broke her hip and had surgery, and I’m pleased to report that she’s doing pretty well so far.

She was in the rehab wing of the hospital for three weeks, and then in the rehab wing of a nursing home for a few more. Most of the staff were competent and kind. Some were curt and somewhat nasty, and some were clueless, but fortunately those were very much in the minority. I don’t envy them their very difficult jobs; I would never, never, ever want to work in a hospital or nursing home, but I’m very glad somebody does.

My mother hated the hospital food (so what else is new?). She would rather eat pizza and cookies than vegetables, but that’s an old story. She displayed a surprising stoicism, though, and stopped taking opiates just a day or two after the surgery, not complaining too much of pain.

She didn’t want to cooperate with physical therapy in the hospital, but she did it. When she got to the nursing home, though, she stopped cooperating, and they threw her out.

Well, maybe that description’s a bit dramatic. They didn’t throw her out, not exactly. But they said they were sending her home to her assisted living apartment early because she was refusing to do PT. Going home is what she wanted, anyway, because she hated, hated, hated the nursing home.

So home she went, although she wasn’t completely ready physically, and the doctors said she needed more physical therapy. She was ecstatic to be back, and everyone was overjoyed to see her.

In assisted living, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee—and when a 96-year–old breaks her hip and gets carted away for surgery, most of the other residents are quite reasonable to doubt they’ll ever see her again. But here she was, phoenix-like, rising from her own ashes, which gave everyone hope for themselves, too. Not only that, she was walking with a walker, more or less as before only a bit weaker.

It’s the “bit weaker” part that concerns us all. For a while she refused outpatient physical therapy in the assisted living place, too. But we finally appealed to her motherly instincts (“Ma, we’re worried about you; do it for us, Ma!”) and that seems to have worked.

So far.

I always say “so far,” because of course there’s no denying the woman is 96, almost 97. She is sometimes very puzzled at her advanced age; it was nothing she ever expected. Yes, her heredity is pretty good. But she’s outlived everyone in her family. Were her health habits anything special? Not really. She was fairly active by the standards of her generation, but not by today’s. She ate pretty much what she wanted when she wanted. She smoked heavily from about the age of 18 to her early 40s, and then she quit the first time she tried. She grew up in a neighborhood where she knew a lot of people, married someone from the same neighborhood, and never left until she moved near me for a few years and then back again.

So it’s a mystery, but a very welcome one. I’m in New York for Thanksgiving, saw her Thursday and plan to see her tomorrow before I drive back home. And at this point, my mother’s being basically okay is another huge thing for which to be thankful.

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Somalian teen terrorist caught in Oregon

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve come to expect this sort of thing for the holidays.

Somali-born US citizen Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, (double Mohamed there) was arrested yesterday in Portland, Oregon, after attempting to detonate what he thought was a real bomb but which was actually a fake helpfully provided by FBI agents posing as confederates. The article makes it clear, without ever actually mentioning the word “entrapment,” that although FBI agents were with him almost every step of the way and even provided the “bomb” material, the impetus for the bombing and the determination to execute it came directly from Mohamud himself.

The idea was to cause a double holiday bang by bombing the Thanksgiving weekend Christmas tree lighting ceremony, maximizing the horror factor and dismembering families with little kids into the bargain. There is no information yet as to how the agents initially discovered Mohamud, but it’s reassuring to know they did. Nor is there anything about the influences on the would-be bomber: mosque, family, friends?

It’s not at all surprising that bombers such as Mohamud exist in this country, and that they are among the immigrant population from predominently Muslim countries. Nor is it a wonder that, while so much attention was focused on the new airplane rules that resulted from the last holiday bomber (underwear guy), the new kid on the block’s modus operandi was completely different.

It’s Black Friday: skip the crowds, use neo-neocon at Amazon for your gift-giving

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Black Friday. The day to wait patiently in store lines for bargains—in-between bites of turkey salad sandwich, doses of Tums, and the famous ritual of making turkey carcass soup.

But neo-neocon readers needn’t wait in those lines if you (act of shameless self-promotion coming up) just use neo-neocon as the portal for your Amazon holiday gift purchases. Click on any of the Amazon widgets in the right sidebar, and everything you buy during that visit will send a tiny bit of money my way, and it won’t cost you an extra cent.

So relax and just eat those leftovers to your heart’s content. And I hope that you, unlike me, have access to pecan pie. My sister-in-law, who is a cook extraordinaire, doesn’t like the stuff and so we never have it when we’re at her place. But it’s a small price to pay for all the other wonders.

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The painter’s vision

The New Neo Posted on by

I was looking at a wonderful book I own, Paintings of New England, when I noticed this work by Thomas Hart Benton:

benton2.jpg

It’s of Martha’s Vineyard, a place Benton regularly summered, and a spot I’ve visited on occasion.

Benton is not one of my favorite artists. But this particular painting appeals to me, in part because it illustrates so forcefully the way the artist’s vision works. Millions of people could see that same sight—in fact, millions have. Other painters have even painted it (such as, I believe, this watercolor by Mina Goddard, from the late 1800s):

vineyardpainting.JPG

But no one sees it like Benton.

All artists—all good artists, that is—have a signature way of looking at the world. Benton sees nature and even people as dramatically scooped sculptural shapes that have a striking force. Everything he paints has been passed through that special sensibility and altered accordingly. As a result, students in art history courses can take those exams in which the professor shows them a painting they’ve never seen before, and if they’ve done their homework they can almost always identify the artist by his or her style fingerprint.

Here’s a photo of what I’m fairly sure is the original scene. You’ll see the resemblances to the Benton painting. But you’ll also see how much more exaggerated and dramatic Benton’s vision is:

marthasvineyardphoto.jpg

Beautiful indeed, but without the almost aggressively scooped shapes of the Benton work. Art imitates nature, but changes it by filtering it through the human mind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a post first published on Thanksgiving 2008. I’m in NY with my family this Thanksgiving.]

A few days ago I noticed a sign outside the local Burger King that said “Open on Thanksgiving.” It made me wonder just what a Thanksgiving Day gathering there might be like. But then I realized that I actually had some personal experience in this regard, many moons ago.

That was when I was in college, before fast food had taken over the world. My family lived about a thousand miles away. My freshman year I’d gone home for Thanksgiving, but it seemed I’d hardly said hello to them before I had to say turn around and say goodbye again.

So my sophomore year I decided to make life easy and stay at school for the holiday (as I recall, one of the things that sweetened the deal was that I had some sort of date planned for Saturday night. But I digress.) I was going home for Christmas in a few weeks anyway, so I figured that would be soon enough to see my parents. After all, I was hardly a baby anymore; I’d reached the outrageously autonomous and sophisticated age of eighteen.

The dorm remained open, and there were three other girls staying there for the duration, all of them from foreign countries. But on Thanksgiving Day I discovered to my surprise that the dorm kitchen was closed, and all the other girls had somewhere else to go for the big feast.

I did not. I sat in my room pondering the dilemma. I had no car. There were very few restaurants in town, and the only nearby one that was open was a greasy spoon across the street that served sandwiches and fries and burgers. To top it all off it was raining in torrents.

I waited till the evening when hunger got the better of me, and then I scooted across the street in shame to the restaurant that was empty of any other customers, ordered a double cheeseburger to go with extra ketchup and a large fries (it was, after all, Thanksgiving, time for a feast), brought it all back to my room, and ate it slowly at my desk. “Slowly” in this case might have been all of fifteen minutes.

I never again made the error of being alone on Thanksgiving. Or having a burger. Despite all sorts of menu and venue variations, the classic turkey-with-stuffing theme has always been scrupulously followed.

This year I want to express the hope that all of you had a wonderful meal with wonderful company—whatever the menu, wherever you may be.

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Obama is heavy bored

The New Neo Posted on by

Many of you may have already encountered this 2008 remark by Valerie Jarrett about Obama:

“I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. ”¦ He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability ”” the extraordinary, uncanny ability ”” to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ”¦ So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ”¦ He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

We talk a lot about Obama’s ego, and rightly so. But if Jarrett’s perception is correct (and she’s the adviser closest to him, and has been at his side for more or less his entire political life), then the worst sentence in her chilling quote may just be this one: “He’s been bored to death his whole life.”

Think about it. Jarrett is saying that as a compliment, not an insult. Boredom, however, is not a sign of intelligence (unless one is sitting in a classroom learning something one already knows). Perhaps Obama thinks he already knows everything? Perhaps he is depressed? What on earth could make a person bored his or her whole life, not to mention bored “to death?”

There’s the beautiful world of nature. There’s art and literature and love. There’s always-fascinating history. There’s friends and family. There’s the challenge of studying and observing people and their almost-endless foibles and crochets. There’s everything on earth and everything in the universe.

Of course, this is just Jarrett’s perception of Obama. But it’s hard to believe it doesn’t reflect a certain reality. What it really puts me in mind of, however (because I’ve got all those old poems floating around in my head), is poet John Berryman’s “Dream Song 14,” published in 1964.

Yep, that’s what I said. Take a look:

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) “Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.” I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

Cook that bird

The New Neo Posted on by

The big day is tomorrow. As usual, there are many pointers on how best to cook that bird.

I have a simple method: it almost doesn’t matter. Just get a good turkey and the rest will follow. A bird will be dry or moist, tasty or bland, depending on its nature more than on the cooking method you use.

Within reason, of course. The principle holds true as long as you cook it according to any of the generally accepted, tried and true methods. I’ve used somewhat lower longer heat and somewhat higher shorter heat, basted it more and basted it less, covered it with cheesecloth or not, and haven’t noticed any patterns—except that, since you bathe it in gravy and cranberry sauce anyway before you eat it, even a piece of bland dry turkey meat ends up tasting not so bad in the end.

The whole point is really the rest of the food, isn’t it? I’m a sweet-potato-sans-marshmallow gal, as well as a proponent of the pumpkin-pie-can-be-easily-dispensed-with school. Pecan pie, on the other hand, is a must-have, despite the fact that it packs in about 1,000 calories a bite.

Ann Althouse skewers…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the hypocritical Sally Quinn.

Although from the looks of things, it seems Quinn had already self-skewered.

The whole thing’s about the burning topic of ethics and “Dancing With the Stars:” who should have won, and what constitutes cheating in the show’s voting. I will now go on record as stating that (a) I have watched the show on occasion; (b) I’ve never voted; and (c) I don’t give a rat’s posterior who wins or whether voters bend the rules in the process.

However, I do know a bit about dancing. I thought the show’s format was to choose the best amateur dancer. If so, winner Jennifer Grey should not only have failed to win, she shouldn’t have been on the show on the first place. She is an actress whose main claim to fame is having starred in the film “Dirty Dancing,” performing—you guessed it—in a dancing role.

North Korea flexes its muscles

The New Neo Posted on by

It should come as no surprise that North Korea has decided on a show of force to celebrate its imminent change of leadership and to send a number of veiled messages:

A South Korean soldier was killed and 13 others injured after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island setting more than 60 houses ablaze and sending civilians fleeing in terror…

The attack came as Stephen Bosworth, the United States envoy on North Korea, departed from Seoul for Beijing. Mr Bosworth is attempting to find a consensus to restart the six-party talks between China, South Korea, Russia, Japan, the United States and North Korea on the rogue state’s denuclearisation.

It also comes as North Korea prepares for a change of leader, with Kim Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il, widely expected to take over from his 68-year-old father. Analysts have noted that the last handover of power in North Korea was also accompanied by a series of aggressive acts intended to strengthen the new leader’s relationship with the army. An internal power struggle in North Korea, between hardliners and reformists, is also thought to be underway, and could have sparked military action…

South Korea has often speculated that the North will attack Yeonpyeong in order to strengthen its hand in any negotiations with the West.

The Korean situation has been a mess for quite some time. I’m relatively certain that Obama’s weakness doesn’t help matters, but the North Korean agenda has been difficult to change or affect whether the US is run by relative hardliners or softies.

The key, as always, lies with China, the only country that seems to have influence with the North. When (and if) China wants to put the screws on North Korea, it will. Till then, North Korea seems free to demonstrate periodic and controlled aggression towards the South, in order to make whatever internal and external points it wishes.

Roundup of the latest Obama musings

The New Neo Posted on by

It must be bad when Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift finally gets fed up with Obama—or rather, with his advisers. Ah, if only Stalin knew!

Obama’s not like Carter, he’s like Truman! A more far-fetched presidential comparison can hardly be imagined.

Obama’s foreign policy: hard to be coherent about something so incoherent. Furthermore:

Certainly, no major problem has fallen to solution just because Obama made a speech about it. Indeed, there is scant evidence that the change in tone the President did manage to bring about has sprouted any positive concrete policy consequences at all. Polls have shown that while the President is on balance more popular abroad than his predecessor, his policies really are not””not in the Middle East, not in Europe, not in Asia.

Ya think?

Jackson Diehl is of similar mind:

Still, this administration is notable for its lack of grand strategy – or strategists. Its top foreign-policy makers are a former senator, a Washington lawyer and a former Senate staffer. There is no Henry Kissinger, no Zbigniew Brzezinski, no Condoleezza Rice; no foreign policy scholar.

Instead there is Obama, who likes to believe that he knows as much or more about policy than any of his aides…

Sad thing is, Obama may be correct about that.

Those most powerful women

The New Neo Posted on by

Time magazine offers a list of the 25 most powerful women of the last century.

There’s always something a bit tiresome and arbitrary about such lists, especially if they spotlight some group such as “women” or “blacks,” but even if they don’t.

This one seems a particularly odd document with some odd inclusions. Angela Merkel, for example, isn’t a selection with which I’d quarrel, except for the fact that her power has mostly been in the 21st century, not the last one. But Virginia Woolf? Say what? Her inclusion seems to be sheer political correctness, because she certainly hasn’t had a lot of influence, except on university English departments.

And then there’s Margaret Sanger, whose Time bio constitutes a whitewash of major proportions. No mention by Time of her extreme racism, nor of her eugenics campaign against the mentally defective. Guess they didn’t have enough room.

Does Estée Lauder really belong there? Don’t think so. Coco Chanel, perhaps, for the end of the corset. But Madonna??? Sorry, I don’t see it at all. Rachel Carson yes, for better or for worse, depending on how you look at it (I view a significant amount of her influence as for worse).

I’m an Aretha Franklin fan, but what’s she doing there? Why not—oh, I don’t know, Marian Anderson instead? And how about some trailblazing businesswomen?

For that matter, I would have included Nancy Pelosi, much as I detest her. She was, after all, the first female Speaker of the House. And—assuming HCR has staying power, which I sincerely hope it does not—she was almost single-handedly responsible for its passage, if anyone was.