Holidays and Anniversaries, only one of them Jewy

Good Monday, Stroock's Books Continuum and happy Canadian Thanksgiving to our moose eating cousins up north. We're told by a fellow North American that the Canucks do the whole Thanksgiving dinner as we Americans do. Copying us, we see. Not so British in North America now, are we?!

Also, Happy Columbus Day. This blog endorses and celebrates the European conquest of North America. Yes, we've heard the news that Columbus was really a Jew. So the Native American community is against the Jews now too, we guess. 

And don't forget, today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. 1066 was the last time England had a legitimate king. God bless you, Harold Godwinson. We've written rather extensively about the Normans, with articles about Hastings, William the Bastard's conquest of England, the Norman Way of War, and even the First Crusade, which was more or less a Norman expedition. One can find some of those articles in Great Medieval Captains. 

And finally, our man on the ground in Ireland wished us a happy Yom Kipper, or Shona Tova as he said. We remarked that is sounds better in the original Klingon. 'What doesn't?' asked. Huh, 'Shona Tova' broke Google's Klingon translator. But when we submitted 'happy Yom Kippur' the translator replied with, 'Hlq Soh!' Can't you hear that? We added the exclamation point. Exit question, is Gagh kosher?

The Eagles won a crappy game against the terrible Browns. Luckily there are no style points in football. This ain't competitive figure skating. The Giants suck, losing to a bad Bengals team on Sunday night to boot. NBC pointed out that the Giants are 1-9 in their last 10 prime time games. And the Mets of New York were overmatched by the Dodgers of Los Angeles. We enjoyed watching the Dallas Cowboys get thrown to the Detroit Lions 47-9. And on Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones' birthday too. Reminder, Danny White, forgotten between Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, was a better quarterback than Dak Prescott. White got the Cowboys to three straight NFC championship games.  

A bit of explanation for our quoting of the Big Lebowski the other day, 3000 years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax. In 1965 Koufax refused to start a World Series game on Yom Kippur. There's been some controversy as to what Koufax actually did that night. The man himself has never said. The Times of Israel did some digging and turned up several eyewitnesses who say Koufax got himself to shul. 

Election update. Polls all show momentum for Trump. Never mind that. For the second weekend in a row now, Saturday Night Live has run skits mocking Harris/Walz. This is a big deal. The skits are a barometer of how the culture views these two putzes, and also helps perpetuate that view. Back in 2000, SNL skits about Al Gore were devastating to his campaign. That's the vibe. Exit question: can Trump Stop the Steal this time? 

With the now named Morning Suns turned in, it's time to get back to work on our other projects. As we do so, we note that we churned out and edited 8,000 words in two weeks, which is quick by our standards. Why? because we had deadlines and were focused. So why not focus now? Why not indeed?

Monday Metal. 17 years on, another VH1 promo we saw every hour while home with the baby. We give you, Metal against autism:

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 10/13/24

Good Sunday morning, Stroock's Books faithful. The autumnal weather has arrived in earnest here in northern New Jersey. Leaves are changing. Some are falling. The weather is just perfect Yankee autumn. We love these cool autumn mornings. We'll hit the gym and then of course, watch some football. As we wrote that we realized that's there's another game on at 9:30 AM this morning, live from London.

We'll be attending a backyard barbeque at across the street this evening. 

Mrs. Stroock's Nittany Lions won an overtime squeaker against UCLA  33-30. Actually, at one point Penn State was down 20-6, so this was a nice comeback win. The skipper was pleased, and an extra rum ration issued as a result. However, in casa de Stroock we still don't mention an unnamed baseball team from eastern Pennsylvania. 

While the Nittany Lions were coming back, we read through our as yet unnamed 8,000 word short story set on New Years Day in an alternate 1946. The story is as good as we can make it under the circumstances. Recall that two weeks ago we were given two weeks to write 8,000 words. We wrote 8,000 words. Which means we can segue...

...To Will's Good Idea for the Week of 10/13/24. Sometimes we think we should put off writing post World War 1990 novels. Then we think about timelines and a daughter going to college next year. But we do think about it...No decisions have been made on final stories for War Night. We'll be editing Morning Rory all week and probably starting Salyut. War Night will almost certainly not be published this year. Not for nuthin' but we have now written three alternate WWII stories totaling about to 25,000 words. These are the above mentioned, Ambush at Lingayen Gulf, and the Hawaii thnigy in Seven Stories, Kamehameha's Navy, about a Royal Navy Hawaiian PT Boat. That's one story away from the halfway mark. Hmmm....

Saturday Updates

Good morning, Stroock's Books Kibbutzim, and Shona Tova. To put it another way, Happy Yom Kippur, which one really doesn't say. Of course, one doesn't really have one's morning coffee and work on a blog post on Yom Kippur either, yet here we are.  

This is the Jewish day of atonement. As we've written may times before, Yom Kippur is like Catholic confession all packed into one long morning in which one puts it all on the table. Insert bad Will Yom Kippur jokes here. 

The Things.

There's really only one thing, upon which we've been busting our butt. 

The 8,000 word short story due tomorrow is 8,000 words. We'll give it a read through this afternoon and another tomorrow and that will be that. Then it's back to War Night and Morning Rory. Writing that just now, we realize we don't have a title for this story. Editors don't really like that. We're thinking, 'Two Jews walk onto a Gato class submarine.'

We approach story submission with great fear and trepidation. There's lots of rivet counters out there who will say things like, 'Why everyone knows that ComSubPac's plan for New Years 1946 was...' Or, 'That's a Block III Gato class boat, and those didn't have the Mark II periscope with the sonic proportion gage....' Lol, get fucked. We don't care.

Will gets Jewy

Good Thursday, Stroock's Books reader(s). After the Mets defeated the Phillies on Francisco Lindor's grand slam, Mrs. Stroock isn't pleased. She's not pleased at all. No, Lindor is not the NL MVP. The Dodger's Soheil Ohtani is the NL MVP. It's not even close, guys. Still... Meet the Mets. Meet the Mets...Note, we are not a Mets fan, we are merely noting that they won and happy for them. Recall, a few days ago we were writing beat the Mets, beat the Mets...Here's Mets broadcaster and superfan Howie Rose with another classic call. 

Related, it seems Hurricane Milton ripped off the roof of the Tampa Bay Rays' moribund and dank Tropicana Field. If the hurricane leads to the demise of the Trop, it did the Rays and baseball a favor.  Both the Rays and Marlins have weird histories and apathetic fanbases. Putting teams in Florida was a huge mistake by MLB.

The leader of this blog's Confederate Contingent asks why every female soldier in Israel looks like a supermodel. Good question. For those who don't know, here's a link to a female IDF soldier tribute page. This link is provided strictly for informational purposes. This link is also provided for informational purposes. As is this one. And of course we should take a moment to recall that Gal Gadot is an IDF veteran. For editorial balance, here's an article about the 'Lionesses of Syria.'

As to why the IDF is renowned for its beautiful female soldiers, recall that Israel is a Mediterranean country. It is also a young country. Which means there's a surplus of dusky hued young women fulfilling their military service. Heck, when we held a pro-Israeli rally at RVCC a decade ago, our flyers featured young Israeli female soldiers. We made our point. Two days before our rally those bastards tried to shut it down. We went right to the dean. The rally proceeded unabated.  

Huh, we've posted here and at Substack about To Defend the Earth and sure enough, we've moved a few copies. Look at us. Now we'll post about To Survive the Earth...no reason. Hmmm...sometimes we wonder if it's time to have some new book covers made. TDFT is almost 15 years old. Naaaa. But we do have ideas. We do indeed have ideas.

Meanwhile, our drive to complete an 8,000 word short story by Sunday continues. We're at 6,000 words. You'll never read a more Jewy story about a Gato class submarine rescuing downed flyers in an alternate 1946 in which Japan didn't surrender. Hey, ask us for a story during the High Holy Days, get a Jewy story. 

A Day Filled with Good Anniversaries

Happy Che Guevera Execution Day to all those who celebrate. 

The autumn weather is in full effect here in northern New Jersey. But we're still able to get away with shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt. Not for much longer, though. Soon it will be time to man-up and put on some long pants. Note: grown men absolutely do not, repeat, do not wear shorts out during the winter months. 

The US, Gulf States and Iran are conducting secret, high level talks for a ceasefire on all fronts, they say, without the Israelis. Though the US is keeping Jerusalem updated, which obviously leaked the info to the press. This is typical Biden backstabbing. But it's also a sign that Iran is afraid and Hezbollah is in deep trouble. It sounds like the Israelis are linking any ceasefire to the release of hostages, which they can do now that they have more leverage after expanding the war. Israel, escalation is your friend. 

Bibi just got off the phone with Joe. Presumably they were talking about Israeli's pending strike on Iran. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is promising great things and says Iran won't even understand how it was hit. We don't presume to know what's coming, but we look forward to it. This blog speculates that Bibi has agreed not to attack Iranian nuclear sites in exchange for unwavering American support against Hezbollah. One thing, Bibi. If you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.*

But it's hard to argue that Netanyahu doesn't know what he's doing. In an article about Bibi's political resurgence, The Jerusalem Post notes: 'Maariv’s poll last Wednesday showed Netanyahu’s Likud winning 26 seats if the elections were held today, seven seats more than Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party. Perhaps more telling, Netanyahu even outpolls a new right-wing party expected to be established by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, 23 to 20 in that survey.' 

JFC. Nothing succeeds like success. Bibi may be lucky, but as the late Brach Rickey, storied baseball GM said, luck is the residue of design. Of course, Bennett is the centrist dream candidate of the Tel Aviv smart set. We won't hold that against him. A Bennett premiership almost certainly means Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister. Lieberman thinks Israel should reestablish the security zone in Lebanon. All kinds of good things happen with Bennett in office-some day. 

Powerline describes and links to Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre's defense of the Jewish state. We've liked that man ever since he racked Justin over the coals during Covid. One day Pierre will be PM of Canada. Sadly that day is not today.  

2004 and more. We are informed that today is an old college buddies' wedding anniversary. Ah, we were there. 20 Years ago that night in Indianapolis. True story: that's the last time we were drunk. Seven or eight Bloody Marys at the wedding - the bar tender saw us coming and would start making one. Then beers out on the town. Finally a night cap in the hotel bar and the end of which, we realized, we didn't know what room we were staying in. We straightened out our tux, summoned what dignity we could, staggered to the front desk, handed them our keycard and asked, 'Can you tell me what room I'm staying in?...Thank you.'

*Reference

The Day after a Year After

A year after Hamas' genocidal attack on Israel, we still wonder what the plan was. Our guess is that Sinwar et al thought they'd bring about a revolution via bloodletting, Hezbollah would join the war followed by Iran. Netanyahu would resign, sparking a crisis of confidence and resolve in Israel, which would lead to the nation's collapse. Needless to say, the war has not gone according to Hamas' plan. However, Sinwar probably thinks he's winning in the long run, with some justification. Sinwar will think he's winning right up until Israeli commandos riddle him with bullets. 

Last night's football contest between the Chefs* and Saints was called by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. The duo is generally fine. But they do talk too much. Aikman says three words when two will do and ends his sentences with football gibberish. He over compliments as well. A few seconds of silence after the play would do so much. But overall, Buck and Aikman are alright. Of course we grew up with Phil Rizzuto so our bar is low.**

Related: the Israelis are being thorough: 'The Jets have shockingly fired head coach Robert Saleh on Tuesday after a 2-3 start to the season. Saleh was 20-36 as the Jets coach five games into his fourth season on the job. The Jets entered the 2024 season with Super Bowl aspirations as quarterback Aaron Rodgers returned from a season-ending injury in 2023.' The imams are right. The Jew is clever. As we write this the Israelis are hitting Beirut once again. A tough night for Lebanon. We kid, we kid.

'You don't think this has something to do with the flag thing, do you?' a friend from a nation that does not enjoy good relations with Israel asked. 'What do you mean?' we replied. Turns out there's some criticisms of Saleh wearing a Lebanese flag last weekend. Not a Hezbollah or even a Palestinian flag, mind you. A Lebanese flag. These criticisms are asinine. This blog has no problem whatsoever with Saleh's show of support for his ancestral land. Anyway, Saleh's record speaks for itself. He sucks. But firing the coach in the middle of the season never works in the NFL. Expect the Jets to remain a mess. Bottom line, same old Jets.  

Fun fact, the Jets had another Arab American head coach, the infamous Dick Kotite. He sucked even worse than Saleh, and represents the absolute rock bottom a Jets team can hit. [This isn't rock bottom?-Ed] No, it's not. Funner fact, the first Giant we remember isn't Phil Simms. It's not even Lawrence Tayler. Oh no. It's kicker Ali Haji Shiek. 

So a friend from a European nation that has an NFL football team named after its ancestors said he wanted to see another To Defend the Earth novel. We sigh with great melancholy. We have ideas, enough for at least three novels, including one where humanity attacks the Jai home world. It was Epsilon Eridani, wasn't it? On well. If newer reader(s) don't know what we're talking about, one may buy a copy of To Defend the Earth here. 

*IYKYK.

** 'Rizzuto broke rigid rules innocently; mingling play-by-play with sighs, birthday greetings, his favorite pasta dishes and extraneous. reflections.' Don't forget the canoles. That's not the half of it. He would have conversations with his producer on air. One would just hear Rizutto say, 'Oh...oh okay!' Tom Seaver once slammed Rizzuto to his face on air over the matter. Here's another good one. Rizzuto was the ultimate homer. He was good at being 'the Scooter' but not so good at calling the ballgame. 

Back in the 10/7/23

Many years ago (on September 11th, 2002 in fact) we read a post by the great James Lileks, in which he imagined going back in time to talk to himself on that horrible day one year before. We've never read it since, till now. To our surprise and joy, we've found the Lileks piece. Here it is.  We're going to do the same thing. Here's what we're telling ourselves one year on, let's call it 8:45 AM 10/7/23.

Calm down. For about an hour now you've been following the news about this terrorist attack on Israel. As we said, calm down. Because it's going to get so much worse. The casualties are mind numbing. This attack will turn into the Israeli 9/11, worse than 9/11. We've seen things you wouldn't believe, but you will come to believe because you will see the footage of gleeful Gazan's rapine and slaughter. 

Embrace your hatred. You already hate the Gazans and West Bank People, you won't know how to describe how you feel about them in a year. Let's just say you'll be sorry Curtis Lemay and the 20th Air Force aren't around. When someone hates you, it is important to hate them back. And don't you forget it. 

Take heart. Because the Israelis will unleash biblical level destruction upon Gaza. During this time you, Gaza, and the world will learn how to describe victory. Victory looks like rubble. It smells like gunpowder. It sounds like lamentations of women. Hamas no longer exists as a military organization. Most of its personnel are dead or captured. Sinwar hides in a hole. We've seen this story before, haven't we? And we know how it ends.

Gird your loins. Because there are going to be many low moments. Moments where it seems Joe (we won't give you the spoiler about what happens to him!) betrays Israel. The Juden haas here in the United States is appalling, though not surprising. Fortunately you and no one in your family will see it up close. You still haven't decided what to do when confronted by Juden hass. Laugh? Throw a right hook? Walk away?

Don't worry. Because the Israeli government will respond magnificently. A year from now you'll be glad Binyomin Netanyahu is the prime minister. No one in Israel right now could possibly have handled the pressures of war, diplomacy and domestic politics as has Bibi. Militarily, everything will come around.  By the way, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah will have the punch the experts expect them to have.

Ignore. Speaking of the above-mentioned experts. Ignore them. Twenty years ago these experts were talking about the Brutal Afghan Winter and the Arab Street. The experts are always wrong. They know nothing. 

Don't be surprised. The world will not let you down. That is, after some proforma condemnations and moral support for Israel, most of the world will turn against the Jews, of course. Ceasefire will be the word, uttered again and again by the usual suspects. 

Don't back down. You'll take little actions in the coming days, weeks and months. You'll go to temple. You'll attend a rally. You'll blog and blog. The most relevant thing you'll probably do is wear your Israeli T-shirts to the gym and your Israeli hat out. The only responses these elicit will be positive. You won't fly your Israeli flag. Too risky. 

Take comfort. The pain visited upon Israel, Jews and you personally has been revisited upon the Gaza, Hamas and Hezbollah a hundred-fold. They look about the rubble that was once their country, as the Confederates looked around Georgia after Sherman's March. 

One year on, things are much better than they are on the morning of 10/723. And they're poised to get better still. 

A Year and a Day

We woke up this morning expecting to see...we dunno what. As of this writing, 7:07 AM, we don't see much today. Day ain't over yet, as Curley once said. We await Hamas' cruelty. In the meantime, when pondering how to commit our thoughts and feelings to print, or pixels, anyway, we came up with a modification to a 50+ year old slogan. Bomb Gaza. 

October 7th 2023 was a Saturday. We remember it vividly. Coffee, checking book sales....and then The Times of Israel. Records show we didn't blog that day. Instead we watched in disbelief as pics of the Nova music festival, Israeli army bases, and southern towns flooded the internet. As we've noted before, those videos of Hamas in southern Israel that the press doesn't want you to see, well, we've seen them. 

More than anything else 10/7 marked the end of the Golden Age of Jews in Israel, and here in America. 

As reader(s) might imagine, it's 10/7 week here at Stroock's Books. 

We don't believe in wallowing in the moment. What are we, Irish? Today we'll carry on normally. 

Autumn hasn't really arrived yet here in northern New Jersey. We barbequed yesterday, which means quesadillas tonight. We're getting by with the typical autumn attire of shorts and a long sleeved T. We've begun growing our winter beard. We may do the neck thing this year. 

Mrs. Stroock's Phillies broke a 6-6 tie in the bottom of the ninth to win game 2 of the NLDS. There was much rejoicing in the Stroock household, and we celebrated by getting ice cream. 

We didn't watch one snap of the Giants' victory over the Seahawks.

We did see most of the Jets' most Jet like loss to the Vikings, in London. Aaron Rodgers looked both bored and annoyed as he under and overthrew his wide receivers, who clearly have no chemistry with their quarterback. Same old Jets. 

We're halfway through with the 8,000 word short story we have to submit [looks at watch] in six days. This is a naval story, and as always we get hung up on, who's the guy in the place with the thing? We have books for that. We approach the task with great confidence. This story is as Jewy as a story about a submarine in the Western Pacific can be. Jew score: maximized. 

Monday (not) Metal. We'll end on hope. Here's the transformative scene in Raid on Entebbe, after the commandos get the go ahead. Hine ne ma tov means roughly, 'how wonderful we brothers are gathered here.' This is the scene that makes the movie: