Chindia, the Hebrew/Hindu Nexus

We had an interesting conversation with a quartet of our Hindu neighbors last night. First off, with Indiana Jones in the news, we couldn't get any of them to say they were offended by The Temple of Doom. We've tried this trick before, and it doesn't work. Moving on, our neighbors like Prime Minister Modi and think there's a double standard applied to Hindu issues and Muslim issues. In short, what's wrong with Hindu nationalism? To hear our neighbors talk about Islam and Muslims....they sounded like militant Israeli Likudniks. Also, they miss Trump, which annoyed us. Then where were you in 2020, we didn't ask. 

Talk shifted to the 2024 and the GOP primary. 'What do you think, Will?' They asked. We said we weren't breaking out our Trump flags. They laughed. As for what we think, these people who say DeSantis is 'way behind' (true but irrelevant at this point), or that DeSantis is doomed or his campaign is flailing don't know what they're talking about. It's July. Maybe DeSantis is diminished. Or maybe he's just taking his time, going on the shows, building organization. 

Segui to 2003 and Me. You know which Democrat was being dismissed by the media as a lightweight with little support who should just drop out? John Kerry, that's who. Twenty years ago right now the talk was about Howard Dean's rise and Al Sharpton forcing the Dems to the left, etc etc. Pundits were still predicting W would have an easy race. [You know this pointless nostalgia is bad, right? And it is a Thursday, which means the Thursday Downer-Ed] Shut up, Ed. 

Progress of a sort. The Jerusalem Post reports: 'The BBC issued an apology on Wednesday following a contentious interview in which a presenter made controversial remarks suggesting that "Israeli forces are happy to kill children," according to the Jewish Chronicle. Anjana Gadgil, the news presenter, made these comments while discussing Israel's military operation in Jenin with former-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, during a Tuesday evening broadcast.' Yesterday we tweeted Anjana and told her she blood-libeled the Jews and Israel. We tried to tweet Anjana today to tell her the apology was not accepted, but she deleted her account. Good. Jew hater be silent. 

What Will's Watching, Margin Call. [Again? What happened to Uncommon Valor? Ed]. Meh. In 2008 an investment house figures out the market is collapsing that it's going to run out of money in a few weeks and decides to sell it all. Ethical and moral discussions follow. Basically, this movie is about people in suits sitting around a table at 3 AM making decisions. We love it. Margin Call captures the feel of every cabinet meeting we've ever written, especially the meetings in Nederland, where the ministers are in the cabinet room at 3AM waiting for the Soviets to invade. 4/4 and we're watching it again tonight. 

We're writing about Margin Call because watching it we got a great idea for the nuke novel short story compilation. It's war night, the crisis is developing, the White House thinks the missiles are about to fly. A couple of young White House staffers are pulled out of a bar near Capitol Hill and have to make their way to the White House as all hell breaks loose. They start in a cab, have to get out and hoof it, have to talk their way past the police cordon to get into the White House etc, etc. We could write that in a week.