Cart Pulls Horse

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

You might think I'm anxious,

Did everything that I could.

To make you think you're mine,

Never thinking that you would.

I dressed the part and I said the words, 

But couldn't offer any proof. 

I was shy and quiet, half-scared to death - 

Hoping you'd approve.

Just tried to get my chance,

At something better than I've got.

Not trying to be the type of guy,

Who's someone that he's not.

I'm going all in with nothing to lose,

And I swear I really care.

Not saying it makes any sense,

But I've got this soul to bear. 

Won't try too hard,

Won't use much force,

Hope this time it works,

When cart pulls horse.

There are times when one and one, 

Don't add up to two. 

I'm going to put it all out there,

Ignore all the old rules.

I've decided if I can't be cool,

I just won't bother trying.

The birds with the brightest feathers,

Don't use them for flying. 

Won't try too hard,

Won't use much force,

Hope this time it works,

When cart pulls horse.

I'll get the order wrong,

Reverse the way time flows.

Do it cock-eyed and backwards,

Declare my love then watch it grow.

Because whatever we may have,

It begins and ends with hope.

It ends and begins with hope,

Horse pulls cart, cart pulls horse.

Won't try too hard,

Won't use much force,

Hope this time it works,

When cart pulls horse.

Whither Canada

One more brief word on the recognition of a Palestinian State. In my last post I focused mostly on why it was counter-productive. This time, I want to add a word that’s more emotionally motivated, as a Canadian.

Despite the speeches at the UN General Assembly about how recognition would benefit the Palestinians and advance a two-state solution, the real drivers are domestic politics and performance. Britain and France want to placate their growing Arab populations. And what better place to do this than on the world’s biggest stage, the UNGA? It’s also a form of political “virtue signalling,” reflecting the growing influence of social media on international politics. From their perspective, it’s understandable.

But why Canada? We don’t have a particularly large or influential Arab community. The answer, I think, is Trump. Canada wants to send a signal, also on the biggest stage: that it’s distancing itself from the U.S. and aligning more closely with the EU, economically and politically.

In other words, these moves are less about what’s genuinely best for the Palestinians, and more about how countries are positioning themselves in the shifting international order. Once again, the Palestinians are being used.

What we’re witnessing is not a peace process or a step toward resolution, but countries staking claims in a new geopolitical game.

Cart Pulls Horse

How does the recognition of Palestinian statehood by Western allies make any sense? A political entity without clear borders, no means of defense, no independence, and no capacity for self-sustainability—how can such a state be recognized? It's putting the cart before the horse. Recognition doesn’t create a viable state, it merely offers a symbolic gesture that lacks substance, and that's counterproductive in a number of ways.

The argument that recognizing Palestine will encourage a two-state solution is flawed. Israel, the more powerful actor in the equation, has made it clear they’re unwilling to participate in such a solution. How does recognizing Palestine when one side refuses to negotiate advance peace? Recognition, in this context doesn’t promote a two-state solution, it widens a growing divide.

The western allies argue that recognition lends legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority (PA). But the PA’s legitimacy is questionable, even among Palestinians, many of whom view it as corrupt and ineffective. How does this "legitimacy" support the creation of a state when the entity being legitimized lacks the internal credibility to govern effectively?

A key concern is what recognition of Palestinian statehood would mean for Hamas. If the October 7th attack is seen as a path to statehood, it sets a precedent that violence can lead to political gains, undermining the importance of peaceful negotiation. Furthermore, Hamas’s influence within the Palestinian political landscape is growing, and recognizing a Palestinian state at this moment could empower Hamas, making them more relevant to the Palestinian identity, not less.

Given that Hamas and the PA have fought for control of Gaza, it’s hard to see how any future Palestinian state can be unified. Recognition is likely to exacerbate internal divisions and lead to further civil conflict.

From an Israeli perspective, external pressure for Palestinian statehood will harden opposition. After the October 7th attacks, many Israelis view negotiations with groups like Hamas as dangerous. Any move towards Palestinian statehood, particularly without a unified Palestinian government or clear intentions, risks deepening Israeli mistrust and resistance. This makes any genuine two-state solution even more distant.

The Palestinians themselves are not united on what statehood means. Some factions view it as the first step toward eliminating Israel. Until there’s internal consensus among Palestinians on what statehood entails—whether it’s peaceful coexistence or the total rejection of Israel—recognizing a state that’s divided on its purpose is premature and counterproductive.

Recognition of a Palestinian State when none exists also does further damage to a UN that has shown itself to be impotent on matters of international security and terrorism, and misguided in the way it handles human rights and international justice.

The most egregious aspect of this happening at this time is that Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages, releasing them was not a condition of recognition. So recognition is worse than just political theatre, as the Israeli ambassador to the UN has said. It puts a stamp of approval on the use of political violence, further divides the Palestinian leadership, and further hardens Israeli resistance. 

A meaningful peace process, built on mutual understanding and compromise, cannot take place until the Palestinians can agree on what they want. And by handing over, free of charge as it were, the critical incentive of international recognition, the net result is the exact opposite. 

A New Man

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

Bump stocks and automatic guns,

Volleyball and video games.

Cruise ships and particle physics,

Fashion brands and User names.

American Football and Taylor Swift,

Comment sections and mineral baths.

Crypto-currency and NFTs,

People who vote for sociopaths.

There's still so much, 

I don't understand.

But trust me when I say, 

I'm becoming a new man.

Jesus Christ and McDonald's meals,

Billionaires and content creation.

Tik-Tok influencers and school shootings,

Anabolic steroids for recreation.

Los Angeles, Late Night talk shows,

Pole vault and Biathalon.

Coltrane's album 'A Love Supreme',

Greek frappé and Ozzy Osbourne.

There's still so much, 

I don't understand.

But trust me when I say, 

I'm becoming a new man.

James Joyce and machines that learn, 

By artificial intelligence.

Plastic surgery, music streaming,

The epidemic of loneliness.

What some people call patriotic,

The fuss made over diversity.

Feeling at home with so many homeless,

Cancer, famine, and poverty.

There's still so much, 

I don't understand.

But trust me when I say, 

I'm becoming a new man.

What it means that I was born,

The distance to the closest star.

Manic-Depression and gravity,

Love, hate and peace and war.

There's still so much, 

I don't understand.

But trust me when I say, 

I'm becoming a new man.

Today I saw

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

Today I saw 

an injured songbird

lying on the pavement—

probably 

a car.

I was walking to work,

through the parking lot,

about to slip in 

through the exit 

next to the garage door

of the building,

when I noticed the small body—

a Yellow Warbler,

curled like a fist,

wings folded tight

like fingers.

The morning sun shimmered

across its feathers,

flashed green and red

with each strained breath.

I stopped.

Wondered what to do:

Should I pick it up?

Hold it 

in my cupped palms,

carry it inside,

try to save it—

How?

I bent low,

close enough 

to see the beak,

sharp as a syringe,

trembling,

a tiny bead

eye.

The bird was afraid—

not of death,

not of pain,

but of me.

I wished it well,

went inside.

Forever Is Now

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

The pursuit of happiness 

takes you away from happiness.

The pursuit of meaning

takes you away from meaning.

The pursuit of wisdom

takes you away from wisdom.

The pursuit of authenticity

takes you away from authenticity.

The pursuit of modesty

takes you away from modesty.

The pursuit of love 

takes you away from love.

To approach, stay still.

To find, 

refrain from seeking.

Everywhere is here.

Forever is now.

Whatever We're About

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

I was always wrong,

In most everything I thought.

So don't listen to the things,

I said when we fought.

Yeah I may have meant,

Everything in my head,

Still, pay no attention,

To whatever I said.

The future was for me, 

Part of some fascination.

No way it could match, 

All my expectations.

We’ll marry and have kids,

Or maybe we won't. 

They'll decide to have kids, 

Until they don't.

It's all okay, it's all okay,

I promise it’ll all turn out.

It’s all okay, it’s all okay,

We’ll figure out,

Whatever we’re about. 

There are no big storylines,

So don’t look for a saviour.

Just ask a friend,

To do a little favour.

Maybe just maybe,

Someone will come through.

And some of your wishes,

Might even come true.

I’ll play you a song,

Nothing too fancy.

You might get inspired,

To do a little dancing.

You’ll tell me a story,

Cause we all have a few.

I’ll drink to your health,

And you’ll drink to mine too.

It’s all okay, it’s all okay,

I promise it’ll all turn out.

It’s all okay, it’s all okay,

We’ll figure out, 

Whatever we’re about.

The Danger of a Weak President

Charlie Kirk's assassination was foreseeable. Not his assassination in particular, but political violence in general, because it was already on the rise. It follows the assassination attempt on trump, his pardoning of the violent Jan 6 seditionists and the leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, and an uptick in a number of other acts of political violence since he took office. 

Political violence is symptomatic of the deterioration of rule of law and democracy. It happens when people lose trust in the institutions that support law and order. No American President in recent history has done more to undermine law and order than the convicted felon-President. 

Political violence increases when: 

a. It's outwardly and implicitly encouraged by leaders against political rivals. Violence is rhetorically normalized.

b. There is a breakdown in the rule of law. The law enforcement and criminal justice system are weaponized and politicized. The guilty get off scott free, or get unearned clemency, and the innocent go to jail.

No President is recent memory has done more to weaponize politics, demonize political rivals, and tacitly or actively encouraged political violence, as Donald J. Trump. This has the impact of encouraging violence among his supporters as well as among those who oppose him, a vicious cycle. Violence is contagious. 

This is a perilous moment for America, but for trump who thrives in chaos, it's political gold. An opportunity to crank up the heated rhetoric, when any normal politican who actually cared about his country would be doing the opposite. Predictably, in a statement from the Oval Office he blamed the 'radical Leftists', implictly encouraging further violence. The politicization of this tragedy feeds trump's agenda of consolidating authoritarian power and militarizing the streets. A very weak president, which is what trump is, weaker than ever, is an even more dangerous president because the only way he can maintain power is to further divide the country and radicalize his supporters.     

I would hope that Americans understand the political dynamic underway and resist it. I'm not terribly encouraged that they have the capacity or will.

Strike On Qatar?

Israel bombed Qatar. 

Actually they bombed a residential building in the capital city Doha, purported to house the headquarters of the internationally-recognized terrorist organization Hamas, with whom they are at war, and who holds their non-combatant citizens as hostages.

The international community is almost unanimously wringing its hands or outright condemning the attack. The Prime Minister of Canada called the attack 'an intolerable expansion of violence'. Trump said he was 'very unhappy' with the attack, impotent as usual.  

Netanyahu said that the decision was made to attack the day Hamas gunmen attacked a bus stop outside Jerusalem killing six people.

So let's think about this.

What we see happening in real time is the unravelling of the international order. The power vacuum left by the weakness of the United States is being filled, by new alliances - China, Russia, North Korea, and India in Asia, and in the Middle East, Israel asserting itself as the preeminent military power in that region. In Europe, the power vacuum issue is being fought out in Ukraine. 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, saying “I condemn this flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.” He is saying this because the Israeli action is also endemic of the abject failure of the UN to deal with terrorism. 

At the heart of Israel's action is a question: Do we live in a world where terrorism is acceptable or not? Will we accept countries (member states of the UN) providing safe haven and funding for terrorism?    

On the respected podcast The Rest Is Politics, Alastair Campbell said that if Israel was planning this attack all along it means they were negotiating for the release of their hostages in bad faith. An astonishingly naive comment. So, the government of Israel is in bad faith doing whatever it can to get its citizens released from captivity? Is there no distinction between the government of a nation-state acting on behalf of its citizens and a terrorist organization? Terrorists holding hostages is the very definition of bad faith.   

After strongly condemning the attack, which of course they had to do, the Qatari PM said that it would not deter them from acting as mediators for further negotiation. I read this as a wink and a nod. They either knew or at least expected the attack was coming and tacitly consented.  

I am in favour of attacking terrorists. Even if it means attacking them in sovereign countries who give them safe-haven. And especially if the terrorists hold your hostages. This was not an attack on Qatar, and the Qataris know it. It was not an attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar, as the UN SecGen said. It was Israel acting in defence of the international order against terrorists who want to undermine it. 

Because Israel realizes that if they they aren't going to do it, no one will.    

Rick Davies 1944-2025

Supertramp gets very little respect. For a band that has sold 60 million albums worldwide and had one of the bestselling albums of the 1970s (Breakfast In America, 18 million sold), a decade bursting with classic albums, it’s sort of mindboggling how this band is never in any conversation of the greatest rock bands. 

It’s not about the musicianship. Rick Davies, who passed away this week at the age of 81, was as gifted a pianist as Elton John or Billy Joel, but is never mentioned in that company. Songs like Dreamer, Bloody Well Right, Give A Little Bit, The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger, are catchy, melodic, lyrically meaningful and expertly crafted. The songwriting duo of Davies and Roger Hodgson, the former a jazz and blues influenced Yin, to the latter's hipppie-folk Yang, has been compared to Lennon and McCartney. Supertramp albums like Crime of the Century (1974), Crisis? What Crisis? (1975), Even In the Quietest Moments (1977) and their massive selling Breakfast In America (1979), are some of the best sounding albums of all time. As a concept album, Crime of the Century must certainly be considered a benchmark of the genre, and yet it didn't make Rolling Stones' top 50 list. 

 

So what gives? I have a theory. 

But first a personal anecdote. Crime of the Century was the first album I ever bought, I may have been 14 years old. I’m sure I’d heard the single Dreamer on the radio - it was ubiquitous on Montreal FM radio - but that was not why I bought the album. I bought it because of the artwork - the image of two hands gripping jail bars, floating through dark space, spoke to me. I didn’t know it consciously at the time, but those hands were mine. I felt locked in the emotional prison of adolescence: I was lonely, not taken seriously by my parents, didn’t care about school, and resented all the crap the teachers were trying to stuff into my daydreaming head. I brought the album home, set the needle down on the stereo, and started reading the liner notes. By the end of Hide In Your Shell, I was a weeping mess. 

Too frightening to listen to a stranger

Too beautiful to put your pride in danger

You're waiting for someone to understand you...

Don't let the tears linger on inside now

Because it's sure time you gained control

If I can help you, if I can help you

If I can help you, just let me know...

It was the first time in my life that I felt like a song was written specifically for me. In fact, I can remember having that strange feeling, the very first time I heard the song, like I’d heard it before, as if in some mysterious way the song had always existed. It seemed perfect.  

That mysterious feeling kept happening on every Supertramp album I bought, and I bought them all. There was one or two songs that reached my very core in that indescribable way, like it was somehow fundamental, like it was part of nature itself. It happened on the orchestral Fool’s Overture, a song that contains the epic beauty and majesty of history. It's a song about Britain during The Blitz, and uses a recording of the famous defiant speech of Winston Churchill marshalling his compatriots during its time of existential crisis to 'fight on the seas and oceans whatever the cost' and ‘never surrender'. If that song doesn’t count as a masterpiece of classic rock, I don’t know what does. 

So why don't people ever talk about Supertramp in the same category as they talk about other progressive/art rock hitmakers like Pink Floyd or Yes or Genesis or Steely Dan? Incidentally, of the preceding list, only Genesis had more Billboard top 10 singles than Supertramp.

My theory is that Supertramp, according to the critics, commits the cardinal sin of rock n' roll: Their music doesn't offend enough. The one defining characteristic of rock in all its permutations and combinations, from hard rock to progressive rock, is edge, and Supertramp's music has very little. Rock and roll is the music of rebellion. If it's not blatantly offensive (like Punk), or ironic (like New Wave), it has to at least push musical boundaries (like Prog). But even when they are singing about serious subject matter, like the pressures that society puts on a child growing up (Crime of the Century, The Logical Song), Supertramp does it with depth, sensitivity, sweetness and consolation. 

Take a song like Bloody Well Right, a Rick Davies penned tune on the edgier side - Davies had the working-class perspective of the songwriting partners - he sings:

So you think your schooling's phony

I guess it's hard not to agree

You say it all depends on money

And who is in your family tree

  

It's an indictment of the British class system, and yet, the round timbre of his voice almost croons, and the carefully arranged horns and Wah-Wah guitar make the song sound almost too neat. Don't get me wrong, there's much to appreciate about the polish of Supertramp's songs. But there is such a thing as being too polished, and that's a rock n' roll no-no. It's also part of the reason their music defies the standard categories. It's not quite as Prog as Genesis or Yes, and not quite as Jazz/Blues as Steely Dan. Supertramp's biggest hits, like Give A Little Bit, have a melodic catchiness and straightforward message, like many Beatles songs (obviously they were a major influence on Hodgson), but none of the Beatles experimental tendencies. Supertramp always stays tightly within musical and lyrical boundaries, and that's part of the reason they fall through all the cracks and are overlooked.

I also think it's the earnest child's point of view that works against Supertramp. It figures in so much of their music, accompanied by Hodgson's almost child-like soaring tenor. At a certain point you grow out of that perspective. Not coincidentally, I lost interest in Supertramp at Breakfast In America, just as they were achieving their major commercial break-through, and I was graduating high-school. 

It's sad to lose Rick Davies, more so at a time when irony is dead, some say rock music is dead, and we can all stand to share a little more goodwill - Give A Little Bit seems written for exactly this moment:

There's so much that we need to share

So send a smile and show you care...

I'll give a little bit

I'll give a little bit of my life for you

So give a little bit

Give a little bit of your time to me

See the man with the lonely eyes

Oh, take his hand, you'll be surprised

A Spoke In The Wheel

"Just a spoke in the wheel."

It’s a line uttered in the operatic, multi-layered 2000 film Magnolia, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The words come from a barfly played with wry perfection by Henry Gibson. If you’re my age you remember Henry from the late-60s sketch comedy Laugh-In, where he played “The Poet,” reciting verse while holding a giant artificial flower. In Magnolia he appears as Thurston Howell — a name lifted from Gilligan’s Island — itself a nod to the absurd collisions of class and circumstance. That’s what Anderson’s film does too, only here it’s not castaways on a remote Pacific island, but lonely souls adrift in Los Angeles.

At the center of the film is a game show, "What Do Kids Know?" The answer the movie suggests is: far too much. Anderson shows us how children absorb more than we’d ever admit — the anger, shame, and regret of their parents. They inherit the fallout.

That’s why Gibson’s line stuck with me, especially when paired with something I heard this week from a dry-witted YouTuber who calls himself The Functional Melancholic. In a post titled "America Alone: How We Lost Connection", he observes, “This is what happens when you have 10,000 Instagram followers, and not a single person to pick you up at the airport.”

Magnolia is about connection. Family, society, love, hate, denial, reconciliation. It insists there’s no such thing as living independently. We’re bound together whether we acknowledge it or not — just as the past binds itself to the present and the future. Anderson hammers this home at the end of the film with a biblical plague of frogs falling on L.A., smashing through car windshields and rooftop skylights, the bloody slimy amphibian carcasses littering the pavement — a warning about the cost of refusing responsibility for each other. 

The movie was released at the dawn of the 21st century, before Facebook (2004), before the algorithms fully rewired us. Today the film almost feels quaint, even naïve, in how seriously it took human connection.

Anderson clearly had scripture in mind. The “spoke in the wheel” line echoes Ezekiel’s vision of a wheel in the sky, a symbol of divine presence and power. Wheels moved by cherubim, in a city named Los Angeles — the City of Angels. That’s why Gibson’s other line in the bar cuts so deep: “It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels.”

Our children are no angels, indeed. They’re not even spokes in the wheel these days. They’re test subjects in the largest uncontrolled social experiment ever attempted. And the results are plain: adolescent addicts, suicidal teens, isolated incels.

If only they were still just spokes in the wheel.

But the wheel is gone.

Always Between

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

I've got me a job,

I guess it's okay.

Don't care very much,

But it's worth the pay.

I got me a girl,

Yeah, she's alright.

Watch movies, have dinner, 

Almost never fight.

Sometimes I think, 

There's another way.

Choices I could make,

Before I go gray.

Take myself down,

A different road.

Where the sky is wide,

The air not so cold.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be.

It feels somehow,

Like I'm always between.

My girl ran away,

Took a part of me.

All she left behind,

Was a mountain of lonely.

Used to have buddies,

Shared a game and a beer.

They're off doing something,

Or so it appears.

My folks worry 'bout me,

Say my life's a dead-end.

I'm happy they're talking,

Since their marriage did end.

I may not go far,

Whatever 'far' means.

I'm heading somewhere,

I'm always between.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be.

It feels somehow,

Like I'm always between.

Dangerous Delusions

On Friday Bob Rae, Canada’s estimable Permanent Representative to the UN, a man whose decades long political career includes being Premier of Ontario as a New Democrat and a federal Liberal Member of Parliament, was interviewed on the CBC. The topic was Canada’s plan to recognize a Palestinian State on the first day of debates of the UN’s General Assembly this month, specifically when the Prime Minister will be in attendance on September 22nd. I’m not sure he could see the irony - that day also being the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Although he might, seeing as Mr. Rae is married to Arlene Perly who is Jewish and a past Vice President of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Rae also raised their three daughters as Jews, and perhaps the family will be celebrating the High Holidays at the venerable Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto where they are members. Rae himself was raised an Anglican, but as an adult learned that his paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant to Scotland.

In both his personal and public life Rae has expressed a strong affinity for the Jewish people and staunch support for the State of Israel. So I was a little more than disappointed listening to him defend Canada’s decision. He didn’t hedge, as I expected he would, by saying that Canada’s decision was conditioned on the Palestinians reaching several benchmarks, which they haven’t reached and are unlikely to.

Rather he doubled down on the decision, saying that it was long overdue, and harkens back to the UN’s original 1947 Partition Plan, only half of which was ever fulfilled - no mention of the fact that it was the Palestinians who had rejected it and the surrounding Arab states who attacked Israel after they declared independence with the aim of destroying it. He rather obliquely (and shamefully) said, “out of battle and war came one state.”

Rae argued that Canada’s decision was well thought through, and the result of a great deal of discussion and coordination with a number of other countries including France and Britain. He said, the move would in no way reward Hamas terrorists for their October 7th attack, but rather achieve the exact opposite. Instead of wiping Israel off the map, which is Hamas’s objective, recognition of a Palestinian state would be predicated on two states living side by side to ensure the peace and security of their respective peoples. Rae offered no further details about how exactly that would happen, under the current dire circumstances. He said that it would be the PA (Palestinian Authority) which would be supported to provide the new interim government and elections would have to be held within a certain reasonable delay. Hamas would not be permitted to play a role in the new government, he said, although he didn’t provide any idea about how to ensure that would happen. 

Rae, and one presumes France and Britain, are convinced that this maneuver is a logical step to bringing peace and security to the region. The approach appears to be that if the Palestinians have demonstrated over and over that they are utterly incapable of creating responsible and rational political governance themselves, do it for them. It’s never worked before, but hey, we’ve tried everything else. 

Rae even went so far as to suggest that it was Israel who was preventing the Palestinians from self-governance. No mention that Israel left Gaza unilaterally 20 years ago and we see the results. If today there is zero appetite within Israel to let the Palestinians give it another try, maybe it’s because they’ve learned their lesson.

To his credit CBC host David Cochrane pushed back a bit saying with Israel’s operations to take over Gaza City, settlements expanding, and no will in the Netanyahu government, there doesn’t seem to be any capacity to have a state. Rae’s answer: We can’t let that prevent the Palestinian people from exercising their rights. 

Say what? In other words don’t let reality get in the way of our fantasy. I have never heard Bob Rae sound so muddled and delusional. 

Rae ended by saying “If we succeed (in creating a Palestinian State) you know who will be the most unhappy… the people who preach hate… Hamas.”

I think he may have unwittingly admitted why the fantasy he is living in (and Canada’s approach) is so dangerous. 

___________________________________

PS. No sooner do I post the above commentary and Israel suffers the deadliest terrorist attack in two years. Six were killed at a bus stop outside Jerusalem when gunmen opened fire. The perpetrators were two young men from West Bank villages close to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, I fear we are in for more of this kind of terrorism. It should be a signal to the western allies that any move for recognition of a Palestinian State is at the very least premature.    

Rogue Regime, Journalistic Malpractice

The CNN headline reads, “US military kills 11 in strike on alleged drug boat tied to Venezuelan cartel, Trump says.”

I’ve seen several reports on the incident, but not one asks the most basic questions. Since when can the United States attack vessels in international waters and kill their occupants—on mere allegations? No arrests, no trials, no due process?

Even if we assume the boat was filled with narcotics, and further assume those drugs were bound for the United States, do drug dealers suddenly lose their legal rights? In America, being suspected of a crime—even a serious one—does not carry an automatic death sentence.

Trump himself took public responsibility for the strike. “We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat,” he told reporters at the White House. And yet not one journalist in the room pressed him on the legality.

The administration is trying to frame the incident as an act of self-defense, calling the occupants “narco-terrorists.” But that’s a sleight of hand. International law permits interdiction of stateless drug vessels under certain conditions, but it does not authorize extrajudicial executions at sea. Standard practice is seizure and arrest, not summary killing. Even the U.S. Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act—often criticized for its overreach—envisions prosecution in court, not military strikes.

Reuters at least called the operation “unusual.” Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, put it bluntly: “Being suspected of carrying drugs doesn’t carry a death sentence.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted, “These particular drugs were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean.” In other words, the supposed threat to the U.S. homeland wasn’t even credible.

This action raises broader concerns. Domestically, trump has already deployed federal troops into Democrat-run cities under the pretext of combating “rampant crime.” Now he’s sending warships into Latin America to combat drug cartels. What’s next? Every time he wants to distract from scandal (Epstein) he seems ready to conjure a new “war” that expands executive power and erodes the rule of law.

This incident alone should be grounds for indicting trump. It was a deliberate killing outside combat conditions—an extrajudicial execution in violation of international and domestic law. But it’s also an indictment of the press, which failed in its most basic responsibility: to question government power and defend the principles of law. By uncritically repeating the president’s talking points, the media normalizes actions that in any other context would be called what they are—rogue state behavior.

In Praise of Gidget

I’ve been watching a lot of classic movies lately, mostly from the forties and fifties—the post-war period. You might think the attraction is nostalgia for a more ‘innocent’ time, but these were far from innocent years. Many post-war films wrestled with difficult social and personal issues, often rooted directly or indirectly in the experience of war. Noir, the era’s most popular genre, depicted the underside of urban society: crime-ridden cityscapes and the toll of human cruelty. Its protagonists were often returning soldiers, quietly tormented by what we now call PTSD. The war may have ended, the economy may have been booming, but many veterans didn’t feel like winners—or free.

One film I watched recently is 1959’s Gidget. Yes, that Gidget: the much-maligned CinemaScope cultural phenomenon that launched the careers of Sandra Dee and teen heartthrob James Darren, inspired a wave of 1960s beach party movies, spawned a Sally Field TV series, and brought surfing into the mainstream.

Most critics have dismissed Gidget as fluff—the story of a 16-year-old girl reluctantly discovering boys and pulling away from her loving, conventional parents. This isn’t James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Blackboard Jungle (1955), or even Splendor in the Grass (1961). For one thing, the protagonist is a girl—bookish, nerdy, tomboyish, not particularly interested in romance. For another, her struggles are played for laughs, not tragedy. This is a feel-good movie where all turns out well in the end—which may explain why critics dismissed it. They prefer tortured characters, paying in blood or sanity for their lost innocence. Getting dunked while learning to ride a wave hardly seems dramatic enough.

But there’s more to Gidget than critics admit. At its core is a character who places the film squarely in the post-war tradition: the rugged Cliff Robertson as the “Big Kahuna.” He’s the leader of the surf bums, charismatic and unapologetic, living free in a ramshackle hut. Idolized by teenage boys, he represents the rejection of school, work, and parental authority in favor of endless horizons.

Yet Kahuna is no simple hero. We learn he chose this life after returning from the Korean War. Nothing specific is revealed, but the scars are visible. His real name—Burt Vail—hints at the tragic secrets he is keeping. His decorative “tribal” mask, supposedly a gift from a chief, is later revealed to be store-bought. By summer’s end, the fantasy collapses. The teens return to class, and Kahuna to his airline job. He is the tragic figure of the film, emblematic of both the end of the 1950s and the unrest that will erupt in the 1960s.

Inspired by Gidget—a story about a girl struggling to separate from her parents as her society struggles to emerge from its own post-war adolescence—I see a larger theme: the tension between individual freedom and the pull of social and familial attachment. This describes the dynamic of history itself. The pendulum swings: from individuality, the period from the late 19th century to the Roaring ’20s, for example, to collapse (the Great Depression and the World Wars), to conservatism (the 40s and 50s), and back again. Today’s American authoritarian turn can be read as a reaction to the social upheaval and rampant individualism of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. The pendulum swings again, from post-war liberalism and globalism to tribalism, nationalism, and isolationism.

So no, Gidget is not just beach-party fluff. It’s about the most important force in our lives: the struggle between individual freedom and attachment. Zen thinkers tell us attachment is the root of suffering, and so we should resist it. But from birth we are wired for attachment—it literally ensures survival. Alone, we perish; together, we endure. But we attach ourselves not just to other people, but also to material objects, and even to ideologies. The problem isn’t attachment itself, but what we attach ourselves to. After all, what is meaning if not a form of attachment?

It Happened To Us

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

It happened to us,

We called it love.

It came from below,

It came from above.

When we first met,

You had something in mind.

Because you believed,

That I was your kind.

There were things that you wanted,

But you weren’t in control.

It didn't take long,

For it to take a toll.

The mattress has gone soft,

On my side of the bed.

Most times when we talk,

It's all in my head.

It happened to us,

Like it happened to them.

It happened before,

It’ll happen again.

I won’t feel alone,

So go do your thing.

I'll build an altar,

For your next offering.

I'm down for this trip,

Wherever it goes.

Cause half the fun,

Is that we don't know -

But I will admit,

I'm pretty damn scared.

To hand my heart over,

I'm so unprepared.

I'll remember the saying,

Nothing new under the sun.

When one cycle is over,

Another's begun.

It happened to us,

Like it happened to them.

It happened before,

It’ll happen again.