Various for the last day of May

Last night we finished watching Airport (1970). This film has been called dull and tedious and rightfully so. Not until more than halfway through the film do we get to the crisis, a crazed man detonates a bomb in the bathroom of a 707, depressurizing the jet and damaging the air frame, which may break apart. In 2023 it's impossible to watch Airport and not think of Airplane. As we write this, we hear the Airplane theme music. 

At the airport, emergency vehicles abound, ambulances, firetrucks, etc etc. A quartet of bulldozers stand ready to push a stuck 707 off the only functioning runway as big Joe Petroni (George Kennedy) struggles to taxi the aircraft through massive snowdrifts. Aboard Transglobal flight-2 several people are hurt, including a pretty and pregnant stewardess (Dean Martin's love interest played by Jaqueline Bissett). Among the passengers are three doctors, three nuns, a priest and at least two soldiers, all helping out.

We liked these scenes actually, and once the action began, we could not turn away and watched the film till the end. The writers followed the old rule, have a lion chase the protagonist up a tree, onto a branch and then have the branch begin to break. We didn't mean to finish watching Airport last night, yet we did. We literally, [Literally?-Ed] couldn't turn away. So the producers of the film must have done something right. 

Once again, in Airport middlebrow professionals -pilots, air traffic controllers, airline mechanics, doctors, pilots, customs agents - quietly and competently go about their jobs and save the day. Airport is a tribute to mid-century America and mid-century man. 

That's it? The ADL (I know, I know) took a survey of Juden hass in Europe. Their conclusion according to The Times if Israel headline,' over a third of people in Hungary, Poland have ‘extensive’ antisemitic beliefs – poll.' Those are rookie numbers we gotta bring those numbers up. 

Meanwhile, right here in America, or New York City, anyway: 'A graduate speaking at the City University of New York’s law school commencement called for a “revolution” to take on the legal system’s “white supremacy’’ and ripped the “fascist” NYPD, military and Israel.' and, 'The future lawyer slammed CUNY for continuing “to train and cooperate with the fascist NYPD, the military.” She also blasted the school for continuing “to train [Israeli] soldiers to carry out that violence globally.”' This young lady goes on to blame the Jews for a lot. You know, two decades ago the above mentioned ADL was all aflutter about Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ, but didn't have anything to say about Muslim immigration to the USA post 9/11. And here we are. 

War Between the States reading update. So these are in our grandfather's library at the lake house:

Those are original editions and belonged to our grandfather's grandfather, Jacob Loeb, Philadelphia. We've visited his gravesite a few times. We'll get to these during our summer sojourn to the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction. Till then, we read Joseph Wheelan's Their Last Full Measure. 

We're off to a fine start this week with both The Final Storm and Norway. The Final Storm readthrough has reached saturation point. We can't tell if what we're reading is any good any more. We're just gonna have to trust in Kek [You're still doing the Kek thing? -Ed] and the Amazon reviews that tell us we're a 4 + star writer. [Are you not among the best there is at what you do?-Ed] we are....we are....