Latest Parries
April 2012
From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S
Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.
February 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous
After they finished watching the Bond movies, I figured the next series John Gruber and Dan Benjamin would discuss on The Talk Show would be Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. But Gruber refused — too personal for podcasting, he said. Disappointed, I rewatched 2001.
January 2012
A Scheme of a Number of Friends
Instead of acknowledging the wisdom of leading from behind, the Right jumped on the Obama administration’s handling of Libya as yet another example of at best incompetence. They lost me there.
October 2011
The Mouse and the Cantilever
Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was still only 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.
March 2010
Friendship is for Weenies
It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust this US President.
Before the Setup
Nobody from usesthis.com has asked me what my setup us, nor is likely to anytime soon. So I’m just going to mouth off here about it. But first, some background.
February 2010
Walter Russell Mead steps gingerly into the Wieseltier/Sullivan imbroglio
On the Leon Wieseltier/Andrew Sullivan spat, Walter Russell Mead seems to want to have his strudel and eat it too.
October 2009
My Hope: Obama’s Change
Defeat in the Olympics bid may focus the mind in the Oval Office where it should be: Afghanistan.
July 2009
At Modi’in Mall
There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. It’s a hot July Wednesday morning. Things are reasonably busy. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown — Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Israel, the Bad So Far
I’m surprised at the general appearance of Tel Aviv folks. Yes, it’s hot, but people appear dressed as if they’re in, I don’t know, Be’er Sheva. And the people in Be’er Sheva, last time I was there, looked to me like they’re dressed for Gaza.
T here’s a bridge in London’s St. James’s park (yes, two “s“s, I looked it up) from which you see, at the end of the pond, on one side Buckingham Palace, and on the other parts of Whitehall with the London Eye behind. So you’re standing are you not in the center of the realm, between the offices of symbolic and executive power, and this afternoon the weather was potent for evocative viewing. It was cloudy and yet the buildings were improbably lit up by some break in the sky, and it was warm and though it was gone 6pm the sun still had plenty of lebensraum left. Whitehall looked less like a haven for bureacrats than a fairytale town, with the improbable Eye completing the fantasy.
Center of the Realm
St James’s Park, London
Well. Standing on that bridge I felt to be enjoying my British birthright, though somehow not having done military service means the nationstate never quite belongs to you as much as it would to one who did. But I did my time in Israel’s army, such as it was, and that seems to count just fine, kind of like the driving license being recognized. I think as well the way to get this country inside the bones is to get on up to Scotland already and walk and hike in that order.
Passing Gatwick on the way up to the capital I felt a burgeoning of warmth this time for the place — whereas last time I’d seen the airport it was with the bitter taste of crapitude after leaving glorious New York. This time however all I felt was Soon, soon, America, but not yet, not yet, there is Britain, so much Britain to breathe. Only when I get out of Brighton it seems do I wake up a little to that feeling; presumably it’s not poor Brighton that suppresses it but simply seeing the same old streets repeatedly.
So, my Rule Britannia from the Bridge moment having passed, or simply cut orf by my impatience to be back in my cell at home, I headed up towards Victoria Station past the right side of the Buckingham Palace compound, still with my Darjeeling takeaway tea from Inn the Park. While standing in line to buy this tea, one had thought to one’s self, My, this is a place where nobody can ever feel any ill will; if one is here one is doing alright with hisself. But I’m just a visiting provincial, as I’m reminded yet again by my faltering diction and this here knowing review from The Times:
Inn the Park (I’m ignoring the name — if I start, I’ll never finish) is the cafe in St James’s Park. Though I’ve never been before, it has been here for a few years and is, I’m told, the third way for Arcadian grub. It is housed in a big wooden shed, which is probably a low-impact amenity pod created from renewable sources.
St James’s is the invisible park. Nobody has sung a song or written a play about it. It’s the park no Londoner ever goes to. And it’s rather quaint. There’s a lake where amusing pelicans eat pigeons. People come from all over the world to watch.
I had no idea no Londoner would go here. Yes, there are lots foreigners, but blimey there are lots foreigners everywhere here. Irit’s uncle and aunt from ‘endon did say they never come down to the park when we went there with them, but I presumed that’s because they don’t appreciate their own city, not because they’ve got better parks to go to. I’m put out. I like it. It’s a pleasant walk back to the station. Which I suppose is why Londoners never go to it — they don’t have to walk back to the station.
There at a gate outside Buck House, out walks a woman clutching a bunch of flowers. She’s beaming. The policeman guard shakes her hand. Who is she? What has she done to deserve this? And who gave her the flowers? Could it have been she whose title rhymes with been? Oh, the exciting mystery of it all. She crosses the road and greets and kisses her fellow, with his tracksuit and a big sports bag. They walk down the street, she still beaming, her behind a little generous. All these exciting little vignettes of life — that’s the big city hinnit?
That spot, Buckingham Palace Road: it reminds me of Viale George VII in Rome, just to the right of the Vatican. But quieter, cleaner, less thin.
Also today:
- Boris Johnson announced he’s running for Mayor of London because it’s a lovely job
- President Bush opened his speech on the Middle East equating Palestinians living under “poverty and occupation” with Israelis living under “violence and terror”. Gone are the heady exciting days when I last heard him say “rule o’ law”, though reality hasn’t changed, just our perceptions of it. The Bush Doctrine is a little like expectations of the effects of new technology: people are impatient for the changes, but they do come, and though they take longer than we thought they might, they change things more than we ever imagined. This speech was clearly a step back from his last one, which said that facts on the ground, ie existing settlements, must be taken into consideration, but it did seem that Bush was choking a little on having to tell Israel what it needs to do (stop settlement expansion). Maybe I see in him what I want to see, as people did with Clinton, but it does seem to me that having uttered none too supportive words towards Israel in public, he’ll now bend over backwards in private to accommodate the nationstate he probably sees as America’s far and away most stalwart ally for miles around. The only time he got excited during the speech was in saying America will protect Israel etc etc. Update: Michael Oren thinks this speech through and articulates what I’m too dumb to say (and think) clearly: “Mr. Bush called on those Arab governments that have yet to establish relations with Israel to recognize its right to exist and to authorize ministerial missions to the Jewish state. Accordingly, Saudi Arabia, which has offered such recognition but only in return for a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, will have to accept Israel prior to any territorial concessions.” That was quite a reasonably emphatic statement to make.
Previously
First Time in this House All Day
Nextly
A Ride to Gatwick Airport