No more Chickens

Good morning once more from the beach. The sky is pink and gray. The air is cool and breezy. In the distance a seagull squawks. An excellent day yesterday, though a late afternoon thunderstorm blew in and turned the walkway here into a three-inch-deep stream. Today the weather promises to be glorious. We have great expectations. 

In the Middle East Hezbollah is insisting its attack on Sunday was a great success. This is propaganda and spin of course, but many across the region believe them. Blowing up a chicken coop doesn't count. Arabs don't understand the difference between victory and defeat. Egypt for example, thinks it won the 1973 War.* 

Oh look, the Israelis rescued another hostage. Cross a few more terrorists of the exchange list...

The incomparable James Lileks wrote an excellent article about the past and memory. After writing about his role chronicling the culture of the 50's and 60's, Lileks notes: 'Now it’s the fast-food ads of the ’80s and ’90s that seem like a lost culture, a golden era. The reasons are the same: Everyone’s happy, the families at the McDonald’s look solid and content, the framework of America looks strong. Neon and saxophones, spiked hair and Ray-Bans, cars cruising through fog. That, too, is a half-truth.'**

Someone remarked recently that in the 80's you knew America was a great superpower a civilization that had yet seen its best days. True, but...A sense of nuclear doom hung over everything. People thought Germany and Japan had won the peace. Younger reader(s) go look up the 80s trade wars and Japan Bashing.  TV was blamed for a lot of problems. Even then the Boomers were slamming 'the kids'. Gen-X was thought to be apathetic and adrift. To quote Billy Joel, 'Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide, foreign debt, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz...' Crime was a huge political issue. And there was a tonne of nostalgia for the 50's and 60's. Boy, America was America under Ike and JFK. Nobody messed with us. 

*So after the Jews flambéed the Egyptian's Kabob in 1967 their general staff was summoned to Moscow to explain themselves. 'No, no, you don't understand,' the Egyptians insisted. 'We're copying Soviet tactics. We've lured the Jews into the Sinai Desert. Now we wait for winter!' [I really think after the 10/7 genocide you'd take this a little more seriously -Ed]

**And a lot of movies set in the 50s and 60s.