Did you know that the English novelist George Eliot was instrumental in launching Zionism? Now that right there is the power of books!
George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans, was many things: a journalist, translator and novelist. But few people think of her as the power behind Zionism.
By replica by François D’Albert Durade (1804-1886) - National Portrait Gallery: NPG 1405, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78993800
Daniel Deronda, George Eliot's final completed work, predates by twenty years the instrumental article by Theodore Herzl calling for a "Jewish State". Was Daniel Deronda intended to launch the Zionist movement? Or was it just an imaginative work of fiction? Read the book to find out:
It's out of copyright and free to be read by anyone with access to the internet. But if you are strapped for time, you could also watch this miniseries on YouTube free of charge.
Is your YouTube video "Made for Kids" or "Not Made for Kids"? Have no idea? It does not matter. You have to answer. Choose one. It is a binary choice. If the answer is "Made for Kids", you will lose many privileges. If not, all is well. Of course, we all say "Not Made for Kids." But what is this really all about? Julia and I discuss in the video embedded below.
Today was Veterans Day. Julia Hanna told me about her two grandfathers, Grandfather Mike Hanna and Grandpa Fulkerson. They each served in World War II.
She also shared information about her great grandfather Moses Hanna who served in WWI, and who was awarded American citizenship after his service.
I spoke about Jean Laffite, who saved the United States in the Battle of New Orleans, whose ships were looted by the Navy, and who still chose to donate flints and gunpowder as well as artillery, but received no reward, not even citizenship. I also mentioned Aaron Burr who served in the Revolutionary War, but was not recognized as a veteran until very late in his life.
When I think of Lebanon, I cannot help but think about tall cedars and free commerce and Phoenicians and the Land of Canaan. I think of Tyre and Sidon, but also of those who left. Often when I think about the Phoenicians, I also think of Carthage. A recent discussion with Julia Hanna on a livestream brought up both the past and the present.
I had been drawing Hannibal as part of the Inktober art challenge.
I also recently dined at That Lebanese Place, a restaurant whose name is self-explanatory.
When I was looking for the menus to use in my review, I came across a Facebook video depicting the recent protests in Lebanon that was posted by the owner of the restaurant. I shared that video with Julia, and she shared a video she had found of Nassim Taleb speaking in Arabic about current events in Lebanon. Julia and I decided to share this information with our viewers.
Watching the protesters enjoying barbecue and dancing in the streets to protest taxation, centralized banking and crushing national debt, I felt suddenly hopeful. Are these people more libertarian than we are?
Recently Julia Hanna and I spoke with Barrister Amanda Jones about a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom brought about by the suspension of Parliament by the Queen upon the request of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in order to allow the secession of the United Kingdom from the European Union to be carried out smoothly according to the Brexit plan.
Originally, it seemed as if the suspension of Parliament had been a routine practice, but later judicial review ruled that the suspension (called a "prorogation") had been unlawful. ([2019] UKSC 41)
Relevant portions of the published opinion explaining the rationale behind the decision read as follows:
For present purposes, the relevant limit on the power to prorogue is this: that a decision to prorogue (or advise the monarch to prorogue) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect offrustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In judging any justification which might be put forward, the court must of course be sensitive to the responsibilities and experience of the Prime Minister and proceed with appropriate caution.
If the prorogation does have that effect, without reasonable justification, there is no need for the court to consider whether the Prime Minister’s motive or purpose was unlawful."
In other words, the court decided that since the suspension of Parliament had the effect of preventing Parliament from carrying out its legislative duties (rather than being for a special occasion or holiday) the suspension was unlawful, regardless of what the Prime Minister intended.
For Americans with a written constitution, it is surprising that the British system contains so many checks and balances and all based on an unwritten framework of law. But to me, listening to Amanda Jones discuss the case, the thing that struck me as most counterintuitive, though it was just an aside, was the fact that the British have no identity cards.
Amanda Jones: The UK doesn't have an identity card, but quite a few EU countries do. But you don't need one to travel between the UK and Ireland, because it's a common travel area. But if you turn up... If you try to enter the UK from France without a passport you won't succeed.... Our passports are biometric,... but we don't have official ID cards here. We just don't have them. I suppose a driving license you can use as photographic identity, but not everybody has a driving license, if you don't drive.... ID cards here are quite unpopular as a concept. We had them during the Second World War. Everybody had an ID card... And the government quite liked it. It's very useful keeping tabs on people, but eventually ... people just refused to accept it, and refused to provide them, and refused to carry them, and they were abolished in the 1950s.. ... You don't actually need to carry your driving license, either. ...But if you are stopped by the police, they can say that within seven days you have to take it to your nearest police station.. (starting at the 0:5749 mark in the video. )
While the United States has also traditionally had a strong resistance to the idea of requiring an identity card, the social security card is used as some kind of national identity card, and the push for real ID in driver's licenses has created a number of official identity cards that most people find it impossible to live their daily lives without possessing these documents.
If citizens of the UK can drive and travel within their country without carrying an identity card or driver's license with them, and Americans cannot, does it mean that in this sense the United Kingdom is more free?
Today is Mary Shelley's birthday. Remembered today as the author of Frankenstein, she didn't exactly spring fully made out of nowhere, catapulting into eternal fame. Long before she eloped with the poet Shelley, she was known as the daughter of Williiam Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, an Anarchist who married a proto-feminist.
The story of how Mary Shelley came to be Mary Shelley, is told in Theodosia and the Pirates, and it is narrated by none other than Aaron Burr.
My daughter and I saw the new Lion King movie on July 19, 2019. The video below was my initial reaction,
To answer the question of whether the different animals on the different trophic levels represented classes of people, I made a second video.
A remark I once overheard was: "It's funny how all the animals bow down to the new baby lion, when lions kill other animals." I answered that lions, as apex predators, also make sure that the lesser animals that they hunt remain in prime condition. So the lion really does perform an important service to the animals he preys on. The benefit of this service is reaped collectively, rather than individually.
Nevertheless, The Lion King was never meant to be realistic. It is a musical with a story that has more to do with human beings than lions. The ethical dilemmas The Lion King portrays make sense to modern humans. The sensibilities it plays to are specifically American. Is it terrible to kill the baby son of the man you just slew in battle? Ask Achilles' son, Pyrrhus. You do know that he married Hector's widow and threw her son off a cliff, right? There's a reason you're not going to get a Disney movie that gives us a musical number based on that moment. It's contrary to current American values. People today still praise Andrew Jackson for adopting the son of native Americans he slaughtered. The survivors said to him: "You killed his entire family. Why not kill him, too?" And while that reasoning makes sense to a lion or an ancient Greek warrior, it is not PG13.
It's not that real animals have no feelings. They do. It's not that real animals can't give us moving performances. They can. But the CGI version of The Lion King is trying so hard not to anthropomorphize that the charaterization of Mufasa and Simba as Americans and of Scar as a hoity toity British flavored intellectual just fails. It's a clash between the visuals and the soundtrack.
The Tim Rice lyrics, which are so clever, get very short shrift in this new version. So attend the Broadway Show or watch the old movie, if you want to experience the musical drama. And if you do eventually get a copy of the 2019 version, I would watch that with the sound muted. Because it does look good. But that's about it.
