What a good poem does
is make you feel
alive -
reminds you
but not in your head
in your body
how it feels
to be alive -
because we die
a bit
every day
and barely notice
we work
and barely notice
we eat
and barely notice
we talk
and barely notice
make love
and barely notice;
a good poem
like a laser pointer
helps you
notice.
Does anyone actually believe trump is mediating an end to the war in Ukraine?
Honestly. Has trump ever mediated anything in his life? Does he have anyone in his staff who knows anything about mediation?
And yet, if you go by the volume of serious press coverage this idea has been getting lately, the answer seems to be yes. I don’t know what they're seeing that I’m not.
Trump is a bully. Bullies don’t mediate—they dominate. They don't understand negotiation, compromise, or diplomacy. They understand force, intimidation, and loyalty. So what exactly is going on here?
What I see isn't mediation. It’s a game of tetherball, with Ukraine and the Europeans on one side, and Putin on the other, batting the ball—trump—back and forth. Analysts keep trying to count the rings on the pole to determine who's winning the "negotiation." But this isn't about negotiation. It's about manipulation. One day, it’s Putin whispering in trump’s ear; the next day, it's Zelensky. And like trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has said—trump’s decisions usually come down to whoever spoke to him last.
Personally, I don’t think trump has the slightest clue what’s really going on. He thinks he’s mediating a peace deal—but he’s not. The players involved aren’t treating him as a neutral broker. They’re treating him like a mark. Each side is trying to win him over, to pull him into their orbit. That’s the exact opposite of mediation. And because Trump’s so easily influenced, he doesn’t even notice.
Let’s be clear: Trump does not care about dying Ukrainians or Russians. He wants to “end the war” for one reason—because he thinks it will earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. Period. Full stop.
And that’s not even why he called Putin recently. That call was pure political distraction—an attempt to shift headlines away from the politically disastrous Epstein files. Putin obliged because he saw the opportunity: a way to slide back into trump’s good graces after a few cold months. Trump rolled out the red carpet. Putin talked his ear off, made no commitments, and walked away with what he wanted—trump’s renewed attention. At the joint press conference, trump looked dazed and glassy-eyed, clearly reeling from a few hours of psychological rope-a-dope. You could see the satisfaction in Putin’s expression. He’d spun trump like a tetherball on a rope.
Then came team Ukraine-Europe for damage control.
And here’s where Zelensky did something smart. He understood that trump isn’t a mediator—he’s a predator. So he offered something Putin can’t or hasn’t yet: a bribe in the form of a $150 billion security package, combining $100 billion in European-financed purchases of American weapons, and a $50 billion drone production partnership. Zelensky isn’t appealing to trump’s sense of justice or humanity—he’s appealing to his ego and transactional instincts.
The cold truth is that the war ends when Putin decides it ends. As long as he believes he’s still playing trump like a fiddle, he’ll think he’s winning. The only way to shift the calculus is for the U.S. and its allies to fully commit to Ukraine's ability to fight indefinitely. That’s what real leverage looks like.
So why does trump still seem favorable to Putin, despite having almost nothing left to gain from him? That question drives analysts mad. Some speculate about kompromat. But I think it’s simpler than that: Trump sees Putin as a “winner.” And trump sees himself as part of the winners club. Putin’s attention provides him with the narcissistic validation he craves. That’s why trump can’t let go. And Putin, ever the master manipulator, understands this perfectly.
The irony is that trump could help tip the balance—if he put his fist on the scale for Ukraine. But that would require him to knock Putin off the psychological pedestal he’s built for him, and I’m not sure trump is capable of that. In his deeply warped worldview, doing so might feel like a betrayal of a fellow member of the “winners club.”
The only actual mediation we are witnessing is going on inside trump’s demented mind - how to win the Nobel Prize while keeping Putin atop his pedestal.
We aren’t witnessing a diplomatic process. We’re witnessing a dangerous, performative farce. And the main impediment to progress isn’t a lack of talks—it’s trump himself. The longer the world pretends otherwise, the longer Putin gets to keep smacking that tetherball.
P.S.
About winning games like tetherball, and apparently the Nobel Peace Prize. Here’s the thing. You don’t actually win the Nobel Prize like it’s a cheap trophy at a fake golf tournament. But that’s exactly what trump thinks. To normal people, a Nobel Prize is awarded - not won - in recognition of a great achievement for the benefit of humanity. Trump thinks it’s something to put on his mantelpiece. It’s simply demented.
I grew up in the town of Hampstead. Not the one in London. My Hampstead is a tony, upper-class suburb of Montreal—a newer facsimile of London’s Heath, right down to the street names: Minden, Downshire, Harrow, and so on. Montreal’s Hampstead was the town upwardly mobile Jewish immigrant dreams were made of.
Ironically, Hampstead was originally established by a well-heeled Protestant banking class in the early 20th century and was once restricted to Jews. That only made it more desirable to Jewish families looking to escape the cold-water flats of the downtown Yiddish-speaking ghettos. There was a golf course and a curling club. Today, those have been replaced by sprawling McMansions with pools on double lots. It didn’t even take two generations for Jews to become the dominant group in Hampstead—it was already true when I was playing municipal tennis, baseball, football, and hockey in the mid-1970s.
Back then, the Jewish community still seemed politically cautious. The city was run by goyim. There was still a sense among many Jewish residents, that we were guests, and needed to remain respectful of our hosts.
No longer.
There’s a political storm brewing in my once-sleepy, well-heeled hometown. Alongside the Quebec fleur-de-lys and the Canadian maple leaf, the blue and white Star of David now flies proudly atop a flagpole outside Hampstead city hall. The Israeli flag actually replaced the town’s own flag. It was first hoisted in October 2023, in solidarity following the terrorist attack in Israel—and remains flying to this day.
At first, the gesture wasn’t particularly controversial. Today, with global suffering mounting and public opinion deeply polarized, it’s another story.
The mayor, Jeremy Levi, is an outspoken supporter of Israel. So, it seems, are most members of the town council and, presumably, a large part of the 60% Jewish majority. Levi has even advocated publicly for Israel to occupy and annex Gaza. When challenged about the Israeli flag at city hall, he’s defiant: “If they don’t like it, the citizens can vote me out at the next election.”
Not all residents agree. One of them, Adam Ben David—clearly also Jewish—feels the Israeli flag doesn’t reflect the full spectrum of political or religious views in Hampstead. In a letter co-signed by dozens of residents, he wrote: “Raising the flag at town hall effectively removes each Hampstead citizen’s ability to express their personal stance on Israel.”
Montreal-area city halls have long been sites of cultural and political tension. In the past, debate focused on whether religious symbols like Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs had any place on civic property. That controversy stems from Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” in the 1960s—a cultural shift that moved the province away from the dominance of the Catholic Church and toward a proudly secular identity. That secularism has hardened over the decades, most recently in Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, which banned public employees from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs and kippahs. The law remains under court challenge as a violation of individual rights.
Which makes Hampstead’s current controversy even more striking. In contrast to Quebec’s secularism, here we see public resources used to champion the identity of a particular religious or cultural group. It echoes something more American than Quebecois: the way Donald Trump has used government institutions to enforce symbolic loyalty, especially toward Israel, often under the banner of combating antisemitism.
To me, the Hampstead flag fight is a symptom of something larger: the localization of global conflict in the age of social media. We are being pulled into battles far from home in ways that feel increasingly personal. The stakes of daily life in our communities have shifted. What used to be local politics is now global ideology in miniature. And people seem to have lost their sense of proportion.
Some basic questions might help restore that sense:
Is it appropriate for the flag of a foreign country to fly in front of city hall?
If we do that, should we expect to see other flags—like the Palestinian flag —raised in front of other city halls? How would Jewish people living in those communities feel then?
Shouldn’t mayors, and all elected officials, represent all of their constituents, not just those who voted for them?
If members of any group—Jews included—choose to take strong public political stances (which is absolutely their right), should they be surprised when others push back forcefully? Do they still get to label all opposition as antisemitic?
I don’t fully agree with Ben David’s argument that raising the Israeli flag “removes” residents’ ability to express themselves. Individuals can and do fly whatever flags they like on their private property. I, for instance, have had a bright yellow “Bring The Hostages Home” sign in my front window since late October 2023. I feared that it might provoke vandalism, but vowed not to take it down until every hostage was freed. I never imagined that, nearly two years later, it would still be there. It’s never been vandalized.
But while individuals can express themselves freely, public institutions are different. They are meant to unify, not divide. City halls are supposed to belong to all of us. And do we really want our communities to become a patchwork of flags and symbols on every corner, each staking out some tribal claim?
There was a time when political leaders understood that it was their job to foster unity, to build a sense of shared belonging and sense of community. That now seems increasingly rare.
In the end, this isn’t just about one flag in one suburb. It’s about how we live together when the lines between local and global, identity and ideology, neighbor and enemy, are no longer clear.
I am made of love and wisdom.
Love says: You are everything.
Wisdom says: You are nothing.
- based on words from Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta
Israel is a normal country. It is following a global trend: the steady drift of liberal democracies toward authoritarianism, especially after major security shocks.
Defenders of Israel often argue that it is unfairly singled out for criticism. That claim is not without basis—Israel has received disproportionate attention for religious, historical, and geopolitical reasons. Many Jewish people interpret this as proof of enduring anti-Semitism.
But there is another way to look at it. We can accept that Israel is a special country and we should expect more of it, especially the Jewish people. Founded in the shadow of genocide, built as a democratic refuge for an historically persecuted people, Israel represents a higher moral standard, and therefore expecting more from our ancestral homeland should be a point of pride for Jewish people. Instead, many Israelis and Jews seem to want Israel judged by the standards of a “normal” country.
And in that sense, they have succeeded. Israel is behaving as other democracies have under similar circumstances.
The U.S. after 9/11 is the most obvious comparison. October 7th has been called Israel’s 9/11, but on a far greater per-capita scale—equivalent to 40,000 American deaths in one day. The American response to its terrorist attack was swift and transformative: the Patriot Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In retrospect, many analysts see this as the moment the U.S. began its slow erosion of civil liberties and expansion of executive power.
The same pattern has emerged elsewhere:
Turkey (2016): After the failed coup, President Erdoğan used emergency powers to purge over 100,000 civil servants, shut down media outlets, and rewrite the constitution to expand presidential authority.
Hungary (2010–present): Viktor Orbán’s government used the migrant crisis and later COVID-19 to justify sweeping powers, weaken judicial independence, and rewrite election laws.
India (post-2019): Security fears following the Pulwama attack and border clashes with China have coincided with curbs on dissent, tightened control over media, and controversial laws targeting minorities.
The dynamic is consistent: war and national emergencies accelerate authoritarian measures. The process is self-reinforcing—security crises demand extraordinary powers, which in turn lower the threshold for further conflict. Wars of defense can morph into wars of choice; necessary reactions slide into dangerous overreactions. Once the cycle begins, it is very hard to reverse.
Seen through this lens, Israel is not uniquely flawed nor uniquely virtuous. It is moving along a well-trodden path, one shared by other democracies in moments of perceived existential threat. The tragedy is that Israel, with its moral history and democratic ideals, could have been an exception. Instead, it risks becoming just another “normal” country in the worst sense of the word.
History rarely forgives nations that squander their highest ideals. For Israel, the true danger is not defeat by its enemies, but becoming indistinguishable from them. The measure of a “normal” country should not be how quickly it abandons its principles in the face of fear, but how stubbornly it defends them when they are most inconvenient to keep.
I recently listened to an insightful interview with Douglas Murray, the conservative British writer and journalist, who has become one of the most forceful public voices of Israel's right to self-defence following the October 7th attacks.
Murray’s stance remains unchanged, even as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened and the Netanyahu cabinet has decided that fully occupying Gaza might be necessary to achieve Israel’s strategic goals: eliminating Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza, and rescuing the remaining hostages—seemingly in that order. While Murray acknowledges that these goals may be impossible to fully realize, he insists that Israel is engaged in a broader civilizational battle against barbarism, fighting for Western values, and believes that the ends justify the means.
In the interview, Murray also referenced an argument from his most recent book, which I’ve heard others make as well. He asks: what army has ever been responsible for the welfare of its enemy’s population? He claims that Israel is expected to do more—unfairly, in his view—than any other country at war. Is Russia expected to feed Ukraine’s people, he asks?
Wait, did I just hear Murray equate Israel and Russia? Yes, I did. And that made me realize something crucial about the moral dilemma Israel faces. In fact, both Israel and Russia are invading forces, which is important to recognize. But their positions are morally very different. Russia launched a war of aggression to defeat an elected democracy, while Israel took military action from a defensive posture against a terrorist organization.
However, Murray’s comment highlights something significant: both Russia and Israel are, in effect, engaged in regime change.
Maybe it’s time to take a step back and ask: how did we get here? Israel failed to defend its borders on October 7th. In a defensive war, the only legitimate military objectives should be securing borders, restoring deterrence, and retrieving the hostages. Israel has already achieved two of these objectives, and the focus now should be entirely on the third. But this doesn’t seem to be the direction Israel is taking.
Israel’s current predicament stems from a shift in its strategic goals. What started as a defensive war has morphed into a war of aggression, one that will not end until Hamas is fully eliminated. Many analysts doubt whether that’s even achievable. At the very least, we can agree that Hamas has been defeated as a significant short- and medium-term military threat to Israel. Yet, the Netanyahu cabinet doesn’t appear satisfied with this outcome.
Above all, we should not lose sight of the key goal: getting the hostages back. If that requires a full withdrawal of the IDF, then I support it. Would I be concerned that Hamas would declare ‘victory’ and raise their flag over Gaza’s rubble? No. Let them have it. My bigger concern is that Israel is setting itself up to bite off more than it can chew—taking on a costly, unwinnable task that could drag on for many years to come.
Some are calling it the full occupation of Gaza. Apparently, this is what’s being contemplated by the Netanyahu cabinet. It may be a bluff, as some commentators have suggested — although to what end remains unclear. Perhaps it’s Netanyahu’s attempt to keep his faltering right-wing coalition intact, by reassuring the hardliners that Israel has no intention of making a deal with the terrorists, nor of halting operations and unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza.
Notably, Israel’s military leadership appears to oppose the idea, and that matters. The IDF understands the implications better than anyone.
In my view, the 'conquest' of Gaza would be disastrous on multiple levels.
First, it would deepen an already horrific situation. A full occupation would likely drag the IDF into a protracted urban guerrilla war, one that would exact a steep toll on young Israeli soldiers.
Second, it would make Israel fully responsible for the wellbeing of Gaza’s entire civilian population. The obligations of an occupying power under international law are immense. Given the current humanitarian catastrophe, this responsibility would be impossible to fulfill and would further damage Israel’s already very damaged international standing.
Third, it would validate the claims of those who label Israel a settler-colonial state. Occupation would provide fresh evidence to those who argue that Israel's intentions go beyond defense and into permanent territorial domination.
Fourth, it would drain Israel’s resources, manpower, and strategic focus. The IDF is already stretched. A long-term occupation would sap Israel’s military and economic strength, possibly for years to come.
Fifth, it would likely doom the remaining hostages. A campaign of total conquest could destroy what little leverage remains in any potential negotiations for their safe return.
Sixth, it would all but guarantee the collapse of any further normalization efforts, especially with Saudi Arabia. The Abraham Accords would stall indefinitely.
This would all come on top of an already devastating policy failure: the decision to halt food aid shipments from January through May. Dozens of desperate civilians are now being killed every week at food distribution centers. It is a humanitarian debacle of the highest order.
For the sake of Israel’s moral integrity and strategic future, I dearly hope Netanyahu is bluffing.
Sure, I've made a few bucks,
Had my share of good luck.
Bought myself a 4-wheel drive,
To haul around all of my stuff.
See ya later alligator,
The well has long since gone dry.
My life will get better and better,
If we can say goodbye.
Meanwhile back on the ranch,
The man I was holds court.
Kids not doing what they're told,
And the wife I love grows bored.
The cows are in the field,
The pigs they need their slop.
We're praying for another good yield,
While we wait for the next boot to drop.
The horses with their gumball eyes,
Grazing 'neath the autumn sky.
Happy in their fenced-in world,
While their spirits slowly die.
Meanwhile back on the ranch,
The man I was holds court.
Kids not doing what they're told,
And the wife I love grows bored.
I know there's love out there,
Beyond the mountain range.
Count our blessings, muster the courage,
And maybe we can change.
Meanwhile back on the ranch,
The man I was holds court.
Kids not doing what they're told,
And the wife I love grows bored.
Orban's Hungary and Putin's Russia - and now, unthinkably and unquestionably, the United States of America under trump: Strongman authoritarianism is no longer a fear, it's here. The tactics to consolidate power, silence opposition, and dismantle democratic institutions, are unmistakable.
- Intimidating media organizations.
- Branding political rivals as enemies of the state.
- Weaponizing the Department of Justice against political rivals.
- Stacking the courts with unqualified loyalists.
- Building detention facilities that bypass due process.
- Filling the Executive with cronies and sycophants.
- Rewarding supporters with lucrative government contracts.
- Purging government agencies and filling them with apparatchiks.
- Promoting revisionist history.
Every one of these authoritarian tactics has found expression in the United States. American authoritarianism is no longer something to fear in the abstract. It is here. It is expanding and becoming entrenched.
The question isn’t whether it can happen here. The question is: what are we willing to do about it?
France and the UK, and possibly Canada, are floating the idea of unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state — and doing so in the midst of an active war, with an estimated 50 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas. Let that sink in.
Recognition of statehood, once a hard-earned diplomatic milestone, is now being used as a bargaining chip — or worse, a threat — against Israel. What was once the culmination of internal organization, external negotiation, and international consensus is now being dangled to placate angry domestic constituencies and to pressure a sovereign nation into changing its military strategy.
The implications of this shift are not just dangerous — they are deeply destabilizing.
Statehood is not conjured by proclamation. A viable state needs internal political coherence, functioning institutions, defined borders, a monopoly on force, and economic sustainability. None of these conditions currently exist within the Palestinian territories. Gaza is still being ruled by Hamas after almost two years of war, and it remains a terror organization with genocidal aims. The West Bank is governed by a weak and increasingly irrelevant Palestinian Authority. The two are not only rivals — they are at war in all but name.
So yes, any Western recognition of “Palestine” now is purely symbolic. But symbols matter. They set precedents. They signal legitimacy. And in this case, they dangerously conflate mass terror with diplomatic reward.
An Israeli commentator recently suggested that this was Hamas’s fallback strategy all along: to provoke a war horrific enough to cast Israel as genocidal and force the international community to bestow Palestinian statehood — not through negotiation, but through revulsion. It’s a grim but plausible reading. The Palestinian version of the Jewish genocide giving birth to Israel. This is an historical simplification. Israel was the result of almost a century of institutional groundwork by the Zionist movement: education, immigration, land acquisition, and the formation of parallel state structures under the British Mandate. The Holocaust catalyzed global sympathy, but the infrastructure of statehood was already in place.
What has Hamas built? What has the Palestinian leadership built? Where is the groundwork for peace, for governance, for coexistence?
If this moment feels historically jarring, it’s because it is. In past cases — Kosovo, South Sudan, even Taiwan — recognition followed a long, difficult process of internal preparation or internationally mediated negotiation. Sometimes recognition was withheld despite state readiness (Taiwan); sometimes it followed a peace process and referendum (South Sudan); and sometimes, as with Kosovo, it entrenched a frozen conflict that persists to this day.
But in none of these cases did recognition follow mass murder and hostage-taking — at least not with the open, barely concealed logic of appeasement we’re seeing now.
For 75 years, the postwar international system was built on a fragile but real consensus: disputes should be settled through diplomacy. Recognition was to be earned, not extorted. That framework is now cracking — not just because of Russia’s war in Ukraine or China’s threats toward Taiwan, but because Western democracies are turning their own values inside out.
If you reward terror with a flag and a seat at the table, you don't just abandon your ally. You abandon the principles that gave your diplomacy any meaning in the first place.
This is not diplomacy. It’s panic masquerading as policy. And we will all be paying for it for a very long time.
What does it mean to support Israel in these fraught times? It’s a question many have been asking themselves recently, myself included.
The question of support for Israel has nothing to do with its “right to exist,” which I believe is a false framing. Anyone questioning Israel’s legitimacy must be prepared to question the legitimacy of every country — from Greece to Algeria, France to the United States. The fact that Israel is singled out reveals a bias. Some call that antisemitism. It could be. It could also be that Israel is simply a special case: its location, its religious significance, and the consensus manner the UN was involved in its founding, all contribute to Israel's scrutiny. But ultimately, a country's legitimacy comes from within not from without: shared values, shared culture, a shared economy, and a willingness to govern and defend territorial borders. Israel fought for its existence, and continues to do so. By that measure, Israel is as legitimate as any nation-state on the planet — whether others like it or not.
But now we have Gaza: reports of a new military offensive in central Gaza, more young IDF soldiers dying every week, and a worsening humanitarian crisis, with starvation tightening its grip on a helpless civilian population. In my mind, there is no question who is to blame for this war. It was precipitated and perpetuated by the actions of Hamas. Had the hostages been released months ago, none of this would be happening. Hamas gambled that a brutal attack on a vastly superior opponent would ignite a regional war. That was a gross strategic miscalculation. The slaughter of approximately 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, mostly civilians, was a short-term tactical victory that has turned into a catastrophe and tragedy of historic proportions. Hamas has been reduced from a governing entity with a quasi-fighting force to a fanatical martyrdom cult. Their secondary objective — religious salvation through self-destruction — is being realized at horrific cost to the population it claims to represent and protect. They are reaping everything they have sown.
While Hamas may be getting what it wishes for, it is Israel delivering the destruction — and that is undeniably problematic on several levels. Hamas has taken the approach that if they are going down, they’ll take as many with them as possible — Palestinians physically, and Israelis morally and politically. It's also hell bent on taking down the entire rules based international order and the UN system of assistance. For that they should be broadly and fiercely condemned.
But condemnation of Hamas does not excuse Israel from its responsibilities. The question I’ve been asking myself isn’t whether I support Israel, but what exactly I’m supporting when I do. And lately, it's not very clear, because I’m not sure what Israel is standing for in this historical moment with recent actions. And whatever it is, I fear for the long-term consequences.
It’s not just about Netanyahu's personal political interests, or his far-right coalition. We can support a country and still criticize its leaders. But Israel’s problems run deeper than any one administration. One major concern is the increasingly prominent role that religion plays in political decision-making. Israel was never intended to be a theocracy. Of the 37 signatories to the Declaration of Independence, only four were rabbis. The word “God” is studiously avoided in the document — there’s only an oblique reference to the “Rock of Israel” at the end — unlike the United States Declaration, which mentions God in the very first paragraph.
Israel is undeniably a Jewish country, in the same way that the United States or Canada is a Christian country and Morocco is a muslim country. But Israel was not founded in messianic terms. These days, a form of messianism appears to be motivating many of those in power. In that sense, Israel is beginning to resemble its greatest enemy, Iran — a theocracy animated by religious absolutism.
I’m not naïve. Israel is encircled by threat and cannot afford to let its guard down. That’s part of why October 7th happened in the first place - it let its guard down, tragically so. I’ve long believed that Israel’s internal weaknesses pose a greater threat to its long-term survival than any external enemy. And the current war, in some ways, proves the point. The most lasting damage has not come from rockets — but from headlines.
Israel is taking a huge international hit over Gaza, and a domestic reckoning is underway.
Take the ultra-Orthodox leadership’s recent threat to leave the country, claiming the government no longer supports them. The controversy revolves around long-standing exemptions from military service for religious students. Since the state’s founding, the ultra-Orthodox - who now make up around 13% of the population and growing - have enjoyed privileged status. In recent years, this has bred resentment among secular and modern Orthodox Israelis. Many would not mourn their departure. The idea that the most religious Jews might feel unable to live in the world’s only Jewish state is deeply ironic. But this controversy points to a broader truth: the ultra-Orthodox have become too politically influential, and the imbalance is destabilizing.
Meanwhile, secular and modern Orthodox Israelis — the ones actually fighting and dying — are increasingly disillusioned. The exodus of secular Israelis is real. According to Haaretz, more than 60,000 Israelis left the country last year — double the number from the previous year. Initially, after October 7th, many returned to defend the country. But as the war drags on, the trend has reversed. Young, educated Israelis who are the economic engine of the nation, are asking the same question I am, with much more at stake: What exactly are we fighting and dying for? Israel’s troubling internal fractures — social, religious, economic, political — are widening.
I don’t know if the Israeli government is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. But I do know that some of the most radical members of the governing coalition have publicly expressed support for such ideas. That alone should trouble anyone who cares about Israel. If the nation of Israel was meant to stand for anything, it was to be a “light unto the nations” — Ohr l’Goyim. That phrase, from the prophet Isaiah, lies at the heart of Israel’s moral mission. The light it refers to is not military might, it’s moral clarity. Yes, part of being a light means defeating barbarity and terror. But it also means doing so according to a higher moral code, and to be seen that it is acting accordingly. In an age of disinformation, that’s a heavy lift, but that does not absolve Israel from trying. And lately, it seems to have given up.
To support Israel, must mean supporting efforts and policies that promote unity, while opposing those that deepen division. This is what makes Netanyahu and his brand of politics so destructive. It’s what makes ultra-Orthodox political parties so toxic to the country’s long-term health. This moment is not completely without precedent. In 975 BCE, after the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel split into two: the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah) centered in Jerusalem. It's possible to analogize the Northern Kingdom to a modern, more open nation, and the Southern Kingdom to a more radical religious nation. Centuries ago, the division weakened the Jews as a whole, leaving it vulnerable to conquest. This period culminated in the ultimate political and spiritual catastrophe for the nation; subjugation, destruction and expulsion.
Support for Israel cannot mean blind allegiance. On the contrary, it must mean open eyes and engagement — passionate, uncomfortable, sustained engagement. We must insist that Israel be not only strong, but just. That it survive not only as a state, but as an idea, and a moral and spiritual aspiration worth fighting for.
We are feeling creatures. Actually, we are cauldrons of feeling. Our feelings can be stoked over a hot flame and brought to a boil, or they can be cooled and calmed. Our emotional cauldron can be stirred, seasoned like a recipe—and made into something that nourishes.
We use the word 'feel' as a euphemism for 'think' and our feelings almost always take precedence over our thoughts. The purpose of thought is often to explain, justify, or rationalize how we feel.
Plato didn’t imagine people as cauldrons. He imagined a charioteer trying to control two horses: one wild and unruly, representing our desires and passions, and the other trained and disciplined, representing our reason. He believed that these two forces are always in tension, pulling in different directions, and that the job of the charioteer—our conscious will—is to hold the reins and steer toward virtue.
I think Plato was optimistic. Most of the time, only one horse is steering the human chariot: the wild, passionate, undisciplined one. Reason is often just a passive passenger, taken along for the ride.
But Plato was right in seeing that life is a balancing act between reason and passion.
In school, we learn the tools of logic, reasoning, and critical thought through reading, writing, and mathematics. These sharpen the intellect. But more important, in terms of shaping our young, developing character, is the refinement of feeling. And this is done through the arts. We are taught about art, how to appreciate it, and how to create it. While mathematics aims at arriving at definitive, logical solutions, the arts exist in the space where skill meets emotion. Art involves craft, and craft has rules. Music is mathematical, writing has structure, painting follows form and technique. But the purpose of this structure is to produce something that moves us—to stir our emotional cauldron with intention and care.
The aim of all true art is the refinement of feeling. The more we experience art, whether as consumers or creators, the more our emotional life is shaped, deepened, and matured. Only art can do this.
There are of course art forms that do not refine the emotions, just as there are foods that do not nourish the body. This is “junk art” designed to momentarily satisfy a craving, but without any beneficial lasting impact. Junk food is to food, as junk art is to art: Product to be consumed and discarded.
My definition of art is that it must aim to satisfy as well as be emotionally nutritious.
Which begs the question: What happens when people live in a culture that promotes product over art? A culture that feeds its people with junk—cheap, empty, mass-produced—and starves them of emotional nourishment?
The answer: They grow unwell.
Just as junk food undermines physical health, junk art erodes emotional health. If great art helps us balance our passions with our reason, then the constant consumption of shallow, manipulative media throws that balance off. Emotion, untethered from thought, becomes the dominant force. It becomes the standard by which everything is judged—truth, value, meaning, even morality.
This is where we find ourselves today. And it goes beyond the processed food industry, the throwaway fashion trends, and consumer goods built to break. The more insidious damage lies in what we’ve chosen to devalue: the defunding of school music programs, the lack of literacy, the sidelining of art education. These aren’t just cuts to budgets; they’re cuts to the cultural soul.
If we want to live in a healthy society—emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually—we must reclaim the value of art as emotional nourishment. That means elevating it above entertainment, beyond commerce, and seeing it instead as a vital form of education. Art teaches us how to feel well, not just feel more. It trains the wild horse and empowers the charioteer. Without it, we risk becoming a culture of appetites with no direction—a cauldron left to boil over.
I was hired
some years ago
(with a little help
from family)
for a job
I never wanted
or imagined.
As it turned out,
I could stomach
the work — despite
the sociopath boss
with a gift
for making money
and hating people.
My co-workers
were usually kind,
we seemed to be
on the same page —
you know,
because
of the sociopath
at the top.
I never got
nauseous
on my morning drive
to work.
Listened to the radio,
and when a song came on
that I liked —
one that brought me back —
like Brandy
"You're a fine girl
what a good wife
you would be..."
I'd sing along
in my car, alone
full-voiced:
"But my life, my love,
and my lady
is the sea..."
and consider
myself
lucky.
I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the negative impacts of trump and his brand of politics—the damage he’s doing to institutions, the rule of law, and international relations. The degradation of values and civic discourse he represents. The way he peddles lies, conspiracy, and disinformation for personal gain. His depravity, immorality, and corruption.
But what I haven’t done is try to grasp the larger forces shaping this era of politics—the forces that paved the way for a politician as unthinkable as trump. Most importantly, I haven’t fully explored why trump was seen by so many as a legitimate response to the reality they felt they were experiencing. And no, it’s not because they’re all dumb, immoral, or uneducated.
Data Point #1: Trump was the only candidate in the 2015 Republican primary who positioned himself as explicitly anti-globalist and anti-establishment. In terms of substance—such as it was—this defined his identity and distinguished him from the rest of the field. His political appeal and eventual ascendency were rooted in a populist backlash to globalization and establishment politics.
Data Point #2: Trump’s style defined his campaign more than any coherent policy. His anti-establishment persona became a prop for his personalized style of politics. What most appealed to his supporters was how he personalized everything—especially his attacks which were usually personal insults. This threw his opponents off-balance—it was the exact opposite of the decorum they were used to. Personal attacks were supposed to be off-limits, beneath politicians. But trump didn’t play by those rules. He branded himself a “non-politician.”
This style of personalized politics meshed with his anti-establishment rhetoric. It resonated with people who felt that the institutions to which they had long given their allegiance had failed them. “The system is rigged,” trump repeated—a message that rang true to many. For decades, the rich had gotten richer, the poor poorer, and the whole system seemed designed to benefit the few while disadvantaging the many. “The Deep State” and “The Swamp” were slogans that functioned as calls for individual citizens to reclaim political power.
To trump’s most devoted supporters, he represents “people power.” He’s less their champion than their avatar. An embodiment of their sense of being victimized. They know he’s not like them—he’s wealthy and privileged—but it’s how he attacks and acts out that they identify with. They revel in his irreverence, anger, cruelty, impunity, and indecency. Being associated with someone like that makes them feel strong.
This strain of maverick individualism and distrust of authority is nothing new in American culture. It runs deep. The so-called frontier mentality is celebrated in stories, films, and music. The cowboy who tames the West. The rogue cop who bends the law to get justice. The lone hero who stands outside the system.
Data Point #3: The personalization of politics is fed by social media. I don’t think trump’s political rise would have been possible without it. It’s not just that algorithms stoke anger, conspiracy, and disinformation—though they do—but that social media in general promotes a culture of personalization and atomization. It erases the line between private and public, making every issue feel individual and emotional. The modesty that once defined public life—and used to be a civic norm among politicians—is gone. Trump’s impulsive, reckless style thrived in this environment. He seems more in tune with the times than traditional politicians. His use of social media bridged the emotional gap between politician and supporter in a way that felt unprecedented.
Data Point #4: Trump’s affinity for Putin. Sure, on a psychological level, trump is in awe of Putin’s immense wealth and power. But there are deeper parallels. In some ways, Putin’s rise was shaped by dynamics similar to those that brought trump to power. Putin emerged from the collapse of the Soviet empire—a superpower that, in its final phase, limped feebly toward market-based capitalism but failed to complete the transition. The call for "perestroika' (political restructuring) reflected a deep desire among Soviet citizens to escape decades of subservience, to reassert individual identity after being subordinated to a collapsing imperial project. Putin rose out of the chaos that followed.
While the American-led globalist project was far more successful than the Soviet one, it, too, came to be seen as insufficient. After decades of economic stagnation, many Americans felt their aspirations had been ignored or denied. The Cold War was over—America had “won”—so why were so many struggling? The liberal international order no longer seemed to serve them. The time had come to focus inward. This sentiment seeded the ground for trump’s isolationist, anti-globalist message, and personalized political style.
Trump’s rise didn’t happen in a vacuum, nor can it be dismissed as a fluke or anomaly. He is a product of systemic failures—economic, political, cultural—and his success reveals just how deep the cracks in the American democratic experiment have grown. By channeling resentment, personalizing politics, and exploiting the emotional logic of social media, he became the symbol of a revolt not just against elites, but against the very idea of shared reality and civic restraint. To confront what trump represents, we need to reckon with the conditions that made him possible: a disillusioned public, hollowed-out institutions, and a cultural appetite for spectacle over substance. Until those forces are addressed, trump—or someone like him, but more competent and potent—will always be waiting in the wings.
Government that no longer governs.
Leaders who no longer lead.
Politicians who no longer make policy.
Representatives who no longer represent.
Legislators who no longer legislate.
Laws that no longer make sense.
Courts that no longer adjudicate.
Judges who no longer impartially judge.
Police who no longer protect.
Borders that no longer secure.
Institutions that no longer serve.
Universities that no longer educate.
Professors who no longer teach.
Advisors who no longer have expertise.
Doctors who no longer heal.
Media that no longer reports.
Churchgoers who no longer worship.
Clergy who no longer believe.
Companies that no longer make product.
Jobs that no longer provide a living.
Artists who no longer create.
Families who no longer raise children.
Citizens who no longer vote.
People who no longer care.
I remember
what it was like
to make a deposit,
standing at the desk
before taking your place
in line,
filling out slips
of pink or green paper—
an amount, no mistakes—
then presenting
your precious little account book
like credentials
at a border,
hoping to be let
back into the country.
I opt for the machine now
to avoid
chit-chat with the Teller,
the fake pleasantries,
straight-faced nod
as she takes
an embarrassing peek
at my undersized balance.
To sum up:
I go for the screen's
impersonal privacy,
sidle up to the ATM
careful not to look
over the partition
at the guy
next screen over,
doing his business—
like we’re side-by-side
at airport urinals.
I slide my card in
for a withdrawal,
try recalling my PIN
(never show it to anyone)
my PIN, my PIN—
it won’t come.
The screen gets tired
of waiting:
"Do you want to continue?"
And I ask—
Do I?
I'm not sure
it's worth it.
My time is up.
I don’t mean that literally—hopefully. I’m thinking about that phrase and what it really means. Of course, it’s usually said to signify the end of a life. But in a deeper sense, it’s a multilayered description not just of death, but of time itself. Because the way we understand time is inseparable from the cycle of life.
In cosmic terms, we think the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. We say it was “born” at the Big Bang. The Milky Way is a bit younger—about 13.6 billion years old. These numbers are derived from measurements based on the Earth’s movement around the Sun, just as we measure our own lives: in days, seasons, calendars. In this way, time feels intuitive. But it’s also a contrivance.
Time is a mystery that has confounded poets, philosophers, and physicists alike. It’s an abstraction we can only comprehend through what we can measure—planetary movements, seasonal cycles, the arc from birth to death. Time, for us, is inseparable from the instruments used to capture it. We think of it as a clock. But that’s like saying a ruler is space. It’s not. Still, time becomes real to us only through measurement, as units we construct—past, present, future. In this way, time exists only in the mind.
The deeper reality is that even after we die, we continue to exist—just not in living form. Our atoms, molecules, chemical and mineral elements, don’t cease to exist. Only consciousness ends, as far as we know. So saying “my time is up” is accurate only in the sense that the mind—our internal clock—is no longer functioning. Time, as a construct, ends when the mind does. But the body never disappears. It simply changes form. It becomes part of something else.
The implication, then, is that time doesn’t actually exist. But space does. Time isn’t 'up' or down—it’s not anywhere. It can’t be located. Even Einstein’s notion of spacetime—brilliant as it was in showing their interdependence—still leans on the mind’s need to make time legible through space. But really, it may all be space. And what we call “time” might just be our way of experiencing movement through it.
Bob Dylan titled a 1997 album Time Out of Mind. (No relation to the catchy Steely Dan song of the same name.) Tellingly, the album includes no track with that title. The songs circle themes of lost love, alienation, and mortality. But maybe the phrase points to something deeper. Maybe Dylan, as he so often does, stumbled into a kind of accidental truth. Because what is death, if not time falling out of mind?
The women these days
write a lot of poems,
short stories,
and novels,
the lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals,
queers, trans,
and the rest too,
as if they're just discovering
they have
something to say
and must now
convince us,
and themselves.
The men these days
play video games,
kill zombies,
gamble online,
beat each other
to bloody pulps
in cages
for the privilege
of wearing
the golden belt—
champion
of the world.
They don't say
much.
Between the lines
the same old question
and the answer
is always
love.
For the past few days I’ve been trying to comprehend why this Epstein-Frankenstein has such legs. I think I’m finally understanding, and for that I have to thank a trump supporter friend.
To be fair, she’s not hard core. Like so many Jewish trumpies, her support centers on trump as somehow the bulwark against antiSemitism and defender of Israel. In a conversation she said, ‘Could you imagine what would be happening in the Middle East today if Harris had been elected!” The implication being that Harris would never have the ‘guts’ to order the bombing of the Iranian nuclear sites. My response is that this is pure speculation and not worth discussion - all the while thinking, that her question stems from engrained sexism (against her own gender!) Putting aside the question of whether bombing Iran was a good or bad decision in the long run, I believe Harris is thoughtful and competent and would have made sound decisions based on the facts, the risks and policy, unlike trump. It’s at least just as likely we’d be in a better position and one that is a step closer to actual peace if she were president in my view. But I don’t say this, because my friend is not actually interested in a discussion.
I do however direct our conversation toward things that can be known. I ask her what she likes and what she dislikes, if anything, about trump. She doesn’t like him as ‘a person’ she says. She finds him crass and vulgar. I often hear that reaction from wealthier more educated trumpies. She also thinks he’s quite mentally deranged, but she considers this a plus, because it means he will do ‘crazy’ things, and that keeps other ‘establishment’ politicians off balance. She likes that he is unpredictable and a disruptor. Of course I’ve heard that many times before from trump supporters as well. And I typically try to point out that being ‘crazy’ and unpredictable is normally not a positive attribute for any position of responsibility, let alone the leader of the free world. And then I pivot to the distinction between supporting the reform of institutions and supporting their craven, abject destruction. My friend, like other trumpers I’ve spoken to, are not thinking about consequences. They are revelling in the spectacle of destruction, and suppose that whatever replaces it has to be better than what we have now. That’s just how bad things are now. Echoes of trump’s ‘carnage’ speeches.
And this is what leads to my insight, again not terribly original. The reason why Epstein-Frankenstein has the most hardcore trump supporters so up in arms, like nothing we’ve ever seen before - to the point where they are publicly burning their MAGA merchandise (heresy!) It’s because they are suddenly waking up to the possibility that trump is not actually one of them. He might actually be playing for the other team. The establishment team.
To most of us sitting in the bleachers this was obvious. As obvious as his gold toilets, golf courses and Palm Beach private clubs. All the ‘drain the swamp’ stuff was always just BS sloganeering. Trump was always among the super rich and powerful. His interest was their interest. Angry, tear-it-all down, working class MAGA had somehow been hoodwinked into believing he was their champion. And every time he did something outrageous, every time he acted unconventionally, and was prosecuted criminally, it burnished his reputation in their eyes as their victimized anti-establishment hero. But he never cared about them. He was never on their team. He was always the swamp. In fact, like Epstein, he was the lowest kind of predatory reptilian Florida swamp creature.
And now they are seeing it for the first time. The cover-up may indeed prove to be worse than the crime in this case, although the crime is pretty horrific. The Epstein files has dropped the scales from their eyes. Maybe it’s registering with trump’s crowd that, as in Mary Shelley’s novel, the monster was never the creature, it was always the creator.
Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophilic monster. But he has become something more: a Frankenstein created by Trump-supporting MAGA conspiracists. And now that they have power, the creature they built has come back to haunt them.
This is a Gothic tale of a political movement forged on social media conspiracy. It was politically useful to stoke fear, outrage, and anger when they were on the outside. But now that they hold power — and “the file is on my desk,” as AG Pam Bondi so memorably declared on Fox — they’re cornered. Either they produce the goods, or they have to figure out how to destroy the monster before it destroys them.
One tried-and-true tactic: distraction. Launch a new, juicy fake scandal to draw attention away — say, an investigation of former CIA Directors John Brennan and James Comey for the “Russia, Russia, Russia” thing. But it won’t work. First, it’s old news. No one remembers or cares about Brennan and Comey anymore. Second, the Russia investigation already happened — multiple reports, charges laid, convictions obtained. It’s been done to death.
Tactic number two: bury it. This is proving to be a debacle.
The official FBI two-page memo dismissing the Epstein case raises more questions than it answers, giving it the unmistakable stench of a cover-up. One reason is obvious: Epstein and Trump were Palm Beach party besties in the mid-’90s, during the very period when Epstein was most prolifically raping 14-year-old girls. Common sense says the likelihood of evidence linking Trump is pretty high.
“The client list,” which the memo claims does not exist, was always just shorthand for the well-connected, high-powered ‘johns’ to whom Epstein trafficked girls. The overwhelming evidence is that he did exactly that — and we know one of them was Prince Andrew, despite his well-publicized denial. Whether a literal list exists is irrelevant. What does exist, according to the memo, is “a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.” The memo also claims Epstein had over a thousand victims. Yet no further investigation is warranted? It makes absolutely no sense.
Then there’s Epstein’s jailhouse suicide on August 10th. The memo repeats the official autopsy findings, and to support them, approximately 11 hours of poor-quality surveillance footage has been released — from a camera on an upper floor, trained on a lower-floor common area leading to a stairwell (mostly out of view) that goes up to Epstein’s cell. It settles nothing. It only adds to suspicion. The fact that a minute is missing from the video is almost incidental.**
There are so many anomalies and lapses surrounding the most high-profile, loathed, and feared (by the powerful) inmate in America at the time:
- There hadn’t been a suicide at the facility in 14 years — until Epstein’s.
- Epstein had already attempted suicide on July 23rd. At the time, he had a cellmate: multiple-murder and drug-conspiracy suspect Nicholas Tartaglione. Tartaglione was cleared of any involvement, no details given, and Epstein was removed from suicide watch after only six days.
- His new cellmate was removed the day before his death, on August 9th.
- The evening he died, Epstein met with his lawyers, who described him as “upbeat.”
- Epstein’s last phone call was unmonitored, against protocol, and originally reported as made to his mother by him. It was a lie, his mother died in 2004. In fact it was later determined to be made to his girlfriend in Belarus.
- No suicide letter was left — only a note complaining about large bugs on his body, burnt food, and a guard who locked him naked in a shower cell for an hour.
- The initial report said Epstein was returned to his cell at 7:49 PM. The video (and the FBI memo) shows he was actually led upstairs at 10:30 PM.
- After 10:30 PM, the guards didn’t do their scheduled rounds. Instead, they falsified logs. They claimed to be asleep, but the video shows otherwise.
- The camera near Epstein’s cell wasn’t recording.
- In violation of protocol, Epstein’s body was removed before crime-scene photos could be taken.
- The autopsy raised questions: the neck wounds, whether a bedsheet could cause such injuries, and whether a man of Epstein’s height and weight (1.8 m, 185 lbs) could have hanged himself from the top bunk. There was blood on his neck, but seemingly none on the sheet. Post-mortem photos show bottles and items still standing upright on the bunk.
If you’ve read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you know the monster is chased all the way to the North Pole by its creator, who dies trying to catch him. Similarly, this Epstein-Frankenstein will not die in the cold. It will survive in the server farms of social media. Those who gave it life will spend their remaining credibility trying to silence it — or be devoured by what they cannot deny.
** Since posting this I have watched a fascinating YouTube deep dive into the facts surrounding the missing minute as reported in the initial investigation which suggests that it may not be as incidental as first thought and could indicate something nefarious occurring.
Tariffs are on. Tariffs are off. Then on again. Ten percent. Twenty-five. Forty. Two hundred. Back to fifty.
Vladimir Putin is a nice guy. Then he’s not. Bibi Netanyahu? Not a nice guy—until suddenly he is.
We’re withholding arms from Ukraine. No, wait—we’re sending them.
What we’re witnessing is not policy. It’s not strategy. It’s not even chaos in the traditional political sense.
It's a public nervous breakdown of the most powerful individual on the planet.
I’m not a psychologist. But to my untrained eye, trump doesn’t belong in the White House—he belongs in a hospital ward.
When someone is in the midst of a nervous breakdown, they’re in severe mental distress. The stress can cause irrational thinking, paranoia, mood swings, verbal incoherence, sleep disruption, difficulty with basic decision-making, and disconnection from reality. It often looks like someone struggling to function in daily life, stumbling through tasks they once handled with ease.
Sound familiar?
And here’s the thing: there’s a known set of guidelines for how to treat someone going through a breakdown :
1. Create a calm, quiet environment. Remove stressors, noise, and triggers.
2. Keep the person comfortable and secure.
3. Stay calm yourself. Your composure can help stabilize them.
4. Offer non-judgmental listening. Avoid confrontation.
5. Validate their feelings. Offer support, not challenge.
6. Avoid criticism or shaming. That only escalates the situation.
Now think about how successful foreign leaders and domestic allies have handled trump in public settings. They’re not conducting diplomacy. They’re managing a psychological crisis.
Bibi’s figured it out. So has Zelensky. Macron too. Even Keir Starmer and Mexico’s Sheinbaum seem to get it. These leaders aren’t negotiating with a peer. They’re keeping the environment "safe" for a volatile man with immense power.
His advisors and enablers are caregivers.
And the media? They’re not just failing to call this out—they’re participating in the performance. They play a part, obsessing over his outbursts, his latest contradictions, his every move. They shouldn't be broadcasting his daily inane, babbling media scrums. But when they do, they should be followed by panels of psychiatrists and mental health professionals, not political pundits.
This isn’t policy inconsistency. This isn’t political posturing. This is instability playing out on a global stage, and too many institutions are complicit in pretending it’s entertainment.
He's not getting help. He’s surrounded by people whose jobs and ambitions depend on him staying upright. One prediction I can make with confidence is that it’s going to get worse. The only thing I can't say is how bad the consequences will be.
I read at least one poem
every day.
It comes to me from the internet
by email.
I open my email and say to myself,
what kind of cornucopia is this?
That a poem should just appear
to insignificant me
every single day?
How wonderful is this world?
Poetry sprouts in my inbox
like a garden,
digital seeds
blooming
with expressions of love,
and hope
expressions of need,
and wonder,
beauty,
and paradox;
I will be the gardener,
weed
to make space
for growth.
Je voudrais chanter en français,
Comme Serge Fiori et Michel Normandeau.
Comme les nuages dans un ciel blanc et gros,
Comme la pluie qui remplit un bateau.
Que sais-je ? Qui suis-je ?
Dans mon pays, avec ma famille.
Avec mes amis, dans cet ennui
En chantant une chanson de Serge Fiori.
Je ne sais pas composer harmonie,
Ni les concepts d'ontologie,
De quoi il s'agit, De quoi ça signifie,
Peut-être que c'est juste de la folie.
Que sais-je ? Qui suis-je ?
Dans mon pays, avec ma famille.
Avec mes amis, dans cet ennui,
En chantant une chanson de Serge Fiori.
Je me pose des questions,
Sans réponse et sans du sens,
J'aurais préféré créer une danse.
Ma copine appelait la police,
Après avoir fait sa valise,
Elle s'est libérée de toutes mes crises.
Que sais-je ? Qui suis-je ?
Dans mon pays, avec ma famille.
Avec mes amis, dans cet ennui,
En chantant une chanson de Serge Fiori.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ
The world is perfect -
the sky is vast and biblical
as the Sistine ceiling.
Down here among the mortals
water laps at the side
of our aluminum hull
like a loyal spaniel.
Waves lift us,
gently lower us,
in rhythm
to the moon's clock.
The magnificent fireball sun
extinguishes salmon pink
behind shoreline trees,
cottage lights blink on
signalling that fish
will soon be biting: Quiet
anticipation.
A carefully chosen lure
wobbles and jerks
mimicking prey, catching
the day's last rays
in weedy depths,
flash of chrome
to trick pike or bass
into suddenly attacking -
turn predator into prey.
Who will be lucky
who not
STRIKE!
(like a missile)
our cradle skiff
jolts, rocks
with violence
and surprise.
Senses are returned quickly
by the work at hand,
shriek of whizzing reel,
command of bowing rod,
tug and splash
of struggle -
the primal desire
to be free.
In a few minutes
the dorsal fin
full of spikes surfaces,
sleek elongated body
about the length of an arm,
green with yellow spots,
tail flapping like a small flag -
toothy prehistoric mouth
hooked clean
between lip and snout;
tired now,
too tired
to fight
anymore.
The work I do
is write poems.
I call it work
because it takes
time,
concentration,
and effort.
It’s not work
in the sense
of money—
which is okay,
because
if I got money
to write poems
it would ruin it.
Trump has completely obliterated (his favourite new word) the boundary between broadcast media and the presidency. Traditional political journalists, observers, and commentators have been left utterly befuddled. The problem is that they’re still trying to view his presidency through the old lens, applying to him the standards of policy and communication that no longer apply. They talk about him as if he were just a more extreme version of a normal president. They say he "defies convention" and "busts norms." But he doesn’t merely defy convention or break norms—he’s operating from a completely different script.
Trump's conception of the presidency has more in common with The West Wing or Survivor than it does with governance. He is a character playing a role in a fictional story. The elements of film production are his guiding principles—scene setting, casting, drama, set design, lighting, hair, and makeup. He thinks in terms of storylines and spectacle, not national interest, policy, or strategy.
Is fact-checking something we do when watching our favorite miniseries? Of course not. Facts don’t matter to trump or his crew—not because they’re lying in the traditional sense (they are of course), but because they’re working in a different genre. He’s not misleading reporters in his daily scrums—he’s delivering lines written to serve a narrative and hold the attention of his audience. In this light, film and TV critics probably have a better grasp of his presidency than political scientists. It’s why media critic Michael Wolff, author of the 2015 book Television is the New Television, has arguably been one of the most astute chroniclers of the trump phenomenon.
Trump was created by media, in the media capital of New York City. He cut his teeth in the world of magazines and tabloids, then graduated to The Apprentice, where he honed the persona that would pave his way to the presidency. He was able to ride that persona to the White House because the electorate, in the age of social media, increasingly sees itself as characters in a fictional world. His followers at his rallies are like extras taking direction. Or a game show host and the studio audience. That’s the essence of trump's bond with his followers. It feels cultish because it functions like the bond between a performer and his supporting act. Trump’s pact with his most fervent supporters is like Willy Wonka’s with the holders of the Golden Ticket: Enter my world of fantasy and imagination, and I will provide you with joy, laughter, and surprise—all you have to do is believe.
All of this was on full display in the recent episode of this new season of The Trump Presidency Show—the “12-Day War” episode. Stealth bombers dropping massive bunker-buster munitions in the middle of the night made for the highest drama. According to Secretary of Defense Hegseth—a former Fox News personality—“the President directed” (yes, he actually used that tv-speak) “the most complicated and secretive military operation in U.S. history.” Apparently, the Secretary of Defense never heard of D-Day. His press conference had all the elements of a well-constructed scene: a bit-player trying to save his role by picking a fight with journalists (who dutifully played their part) after the previous episode—the “Parade Episode”—fell flat. It’s worth noting that trump pulls much of his supporting cast from Fox, at last count 23 members of his administration have worked as on-air personalities, commentators, or presenters.
If there’s one thing I can predict with confidence, it’s this: like all TV shows, this one will eventually jump the shark. I just hope not too many people get hurt in real life when it does.
But how much farther ahead are we, really?
Iran’s fearsome reputation has long been a subject of debate. The real issue was never whether it could strike, but whether anyone was willing to test the proposition. That test has now taken place. And what we’ve confirmed is something analysts have long suspected: Iran’s post-1980s war strategy has centered on two things—cultivating a network of proxy militias and developing a nuclear program that serves primarily as a bargaining chip.
The proxy strategy allowed Tehran to skirt international accountability while creating chaos abroad. The nuclear program gave the regime a shield—an insurance policy against regime change, and a powerful tool for international leverage. But despite all the breathless warnings over the years, there’s little evidence that Iran ever intended to actually fully develop much less use a nuclear weapon, against Israel or anyone else. If it had been hell-bent on doing so, it would never have agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.
What the JCPOA revealed—though many missed it—was that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were negotiable. It was a revelation that should have reframed our understanding of Iran as a strategic, calculating actor rather than an irrational one. For all the deal’s flaws, it functioned as proof of concept: nuclear weapons aren’t primarily military tools anymore—they’re political instruments. And Iran was willing to trade that instrument for sanctions relief.
That brings us to the pivot point of the era we’re living through: Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in May 2018.
Let’s be honest—trump didn’t pull out of the deal because it was ineffective. He withdrew because Barack Obama had signed it. Trump committed himself early on to dismantling Obama’s legacy piece by piece—health care, climate agreements, and yes, foreign policy. The JCPOA was low-hanging fruit, and he took it down with gusto.
He was helped along by Bibi Netanyahu, a long-time opponent of the deal, and by a cadre of politically influential donors who had been lobbying against it for years. But trump needed very little convincing. In his world, if Obama built it, Trump had to bulldoze it.
The irony is rich. Today, trump is quietly hoping that Iran will return to negotiations—the very path the JCPOA made possible and that his administration shattered. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is dreading exactly that outcome, knowing any revived diplomacy could re-legitimize a deal he worked so hard to kill.
Trump now finds himself trapped by his own rhetoric. Any new agreement he might broker will inevitably be compared to the one he discarded. And he knows it. That’s likely why, when announcing that U.S. representatives would be meeting with Iranian officials next week, he quickly added, “We might not need a nuclear agreement.” It’s a preemptive hedge. Because negotiating a deal over something you claimed to have "obliterated" doesn’t quite add up.
Of course, it wouldn’t be trump without a twist of narcissism. His obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize—because Obama got one, of course—has become a guiding light for his foreign policy instincts. He floated the idea of winning it for brokering peace between India and Pakistan. Then between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Now, perhaps, he sees Israel and Iran as his long shot to glory.
But the real prize may have been within reach years ago—when Obama, along with a coalition of world powers, struck a deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear program without firing a single shot. It wasn’t perfect. But it was diplomacy. And it worked—until it didn’t, because it bore the wrong name.
And so here we are, again, circling back to where we started. Iran, diminished and exposed. Trump, desperate and entangled. And Obama, still living rent-free in the mind of a man who would undo the world just to outshine him.
Eventually, the truth is known. Sometimes it takes a very long time. Sometimes not so long. In the current round of the Israel–Iran conflict, the truth about the actual damage will be known relatively soon. But the shaping of the narrative—regardless of the facts—began within hours of the U.S. attack. There was no time to waste. Victory was claimed. Officials insisted that the target was "completely, totally obliterated," a phrase repeated by various members of the administration so it would be echoed by the media—and many outlets happily obliged.
The only problem is that “obliterated” is technically a meaningless term when it comes to the damage assessment of a military operation. It is transparently spin. Military officials use three words with specific operational meaning: a target is considered destroyed when it is eliminated entirely; defeated when it is rendered unusable for the time being; or delayed when it is temporarily incapacitated but repairable.
We will soon know the true status of Iran’s nuclear program and, in particular, the three targets hit by the U.S. B-2s. An initial Pentagon assessment—leaked and largely corroborated by Israeli intelligence—indicates that Fordow, Iran’s main nuclear development site, was nowhere near “destroyed.” It wasn’t even “defeated.” The preliminary consensus appears to be that it was "delayed"—for a period of months to a year.
If this is confirmed, it would be a worst-case scenario. Not only has Iran’s nuclear program survived, but Iran now finds itself in an extremely vulnerable position—cornered, so to speak—which is likely to embolden hardliners within the regime. Rather than discouraging nuclear development, this attack may add urgency to their pursuit of a weapon. Iran may now be more motivated to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and use any negotiations as little more than a smokescreen.
I suspect the Iranians either knew the American strike had largely failed or, at the very least, had moved their enriched uranium beforehand. Their “retaliation” appeared deliberately symbolic: a carefully calibrated response with advanced warning to ensure minimal damage. It was a savvy strategic maneuver—and the weak-willed, unprincipled, and clueless trump took the bait. He publicly thanked Iran for the warning and rushed to declare a ceasefire, possibly without even consulting the principal combatants. It seemed obvious—at least to me—that he was being played, again. His public outburst the next morning, criticizing Israel for threatening the ceasefire he had unilaterally imposed, sealed the deal. The mullahs are smiling.
How did we go from Netanyahu dancing a jig at U.S. involvement over the weekend to the mullahs of Iran throwing a party at the announcement of a ceasefire two days later? Since when did following international conflicts give analysts a case of whiplash? The answer is clear: since an impetuous man-child took over the White House.
Netanyahu maneuvered trump into attacking Iran.
Iran maneuvered trump into getting Israel to stop attacking before the job was complete.
On the chessboard of international affairs, there are players and there are pieces. In this game, Netanyahu and Khamenei are the players, and trump is a piece—an important and powerful one, like a Queen that can move in all directions—but a piece nonetheless. The same can be said about the conflict in Ukraine. The players are Putin and Zelensky, and they are maneuvering trump around the board as well.
Now that trump has declared victory, branding the conflict the “12-Day War” (a reference to Israel’s Six-Day War), what will he do when the official damage assessments say otherwise? Admit he was mistaken—as if he’s ever done that—and attack again? He’s painted the U.S. into a corner once more. If the administration continues to insist that the targets were “obliterated,” we may be looking at a case where the cover-up is worse than the blunder itself.
I have a feeling Iran will move to encourage trump to get 'negotiations' back underway.
I have a feeling Netanyahu won't let that process play out without making some moves of his own, especially as attention now turns back to Gaza, which is still going very badly.
It seems to be a month for the passing of our rock and roll heroes. Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, and this week Mick Ralphs the great British guitarist who gained fame with Mott The Hoople and later Bad Company. Millions of teenage basement bands, including my first band, can thank Mick Ralphs for teaching us how to rock on the three chorder Can’t Get Enough. That was the first rock song I ever learned to play, but it took 45 years for me to learn - from an interview with Ralphs I recently watched - that we were playing it wrong. Turns out it was originally played and recorded in an open C tuning, not standard tuning. No wonder it never sounded quite right when we played it.
But I wanted to pay tribute to another pioneer of rock music with this post. Someone who you probably don’t know, but who was, for anyone growing up in Quebec in the 1970s, absolutely pivotal: Montrealer Serge Fiori, who also passed away this week, fittingly in the early morning hours of La Fête Nationale du Québec (formerly called Saint-Jean Baptiste Day).
One of the few albums that I have never stopped listening to into my middle age, is the eponymous first album by the Quebec band Harmonium. Fiori was a founder, songwriter, guitarist and lead singer of the band.
Thanks to new Canadian Content regulations on radio, and the album rock orientation of FM stations, the burgeoning Canadian and Quebec music industries enjoyed a heyday in the 1970s. Along with progressive British rock groups like Supertramp, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Yes, who were just beginning to break into the North American market by way of Quebec FM radio, we also had hugely popular local artists like Michel Pagliaro, Robert Charlebois, Beau Dommage and my favourite Harmonium. I would describe the music of Harmonium as progressive folk, along the lines of the Moody Blues (who were also extremely popular in Quebec). The music had a distinct traditional Quebecois flavour, with lush twelve-string guitars, tempo-changes, and interesting chord voicings. Songs from the first Harmonium album were ubiquitous on the airwaves, especially the single Pour Un Instant, with the deeply resonant opening lines:
Pour un instant, j'ai oublié mon nom,
Ça m'a permis enfin d'écrire cette chanson.
Pour un instant, j'ai retourné mon miroir,
Ça m'a permis enfin de mieux me voir.
(translation)
For a moment, I forgot my name,
It finally allowed me to write this song.
For a moment, I returned my mirror,
It finally allowed me to see myself better.
The explosion of Quebec popular music came at a time when political separatism was coming into the mainstream as well. There was a lot of pressure for Quebec artists to publicly embrace the politics, to be voices of the movement, and many (maybe even most) did. Serge Fiori was no different. The lyrics of Pour un Instant were not only interpreted as an individual's experience of momentarily losing oneself in art and experiencing a sense of spiritual universal transcendence and renewal. It was also seen as an expression of rejecting the identity you have been given (by the powerful, the colonial), and finding a new self, in a nationalist sense.
Later in the song:
Des inconnus vivent en roi chez moi,
Moi qui avait accepté leurs lois.
J'ai perdu mon temps à gagner du temps,
J'ai besoin de me trouver une histoire à me conter.
(translation)
Strangers live like kings in my house,
I who had accepted their laws.
I wasted my time stalling,
I need to find a story to tell myself.
As a teenager, anglo-Quebeckers like me who loved the music didn't pay much attention to the political subtext of the lyrics. It's one of those ironies of growing up in Quebec during that tumultuous period, that the very forces that threatened us politically, inspired a cultural renaissance of the richest, most meaningful art and music that we still carry in our hearts.
So there’s a ceasefire? Yes? No? Maybe?
I know why Trump agreed to it. The ‘war’ was unpopular and risked getting out of hand. And oh yeah there’s the Nobel Peace Prize he still has his eye on.
If they did, I know why Iran agreed to it. They are running out of missiles and more importantly launchers. They don't do ‘war’ well. They are much more adept at terrorism and proxy war, and also using their military to repress their own population. I suspect they still have some nuclear weapons development facilities intact and fissile material stashed away. You have to wonder what the emergency meeting between Iranian officials and Putin was all about, but we can imagine.
If they did, I know why Israel agreed to it. They were running out of defence system rockets. And probably did as much as they could do to degrade Iranian capabilities.
And if you think this is over, keep thinking.
And here’s a question to ponder. If indeed Iran - while severely weakened, and at risk of being truly obliterated by escalating the war with US - took steps to preserve itself diplomatically, does it throw cold water on Netanyahu’s forever claim that the Islamic regime is apocalyptic to the point of suicidal? That was the crux of his argument. If Iran got a nuclear weapon they would certainly use it against Israel even if it meant knowing Israel would respond with their own bomb. Mutually assured destruction was not a deterrent to the crazy mullahs. Seems like they care about survival after all.
There’s not a lot we can be certain of these days—except that Benjamin Netanyahu had a very good weekend. And that Iran will retaliate for the American attack.
I would have said Israelis are probably pleased with what the U.S. did—except they’re too busy sprinting to bomb shelters every few hours.
The one thing we can say with certainty is that the situation is far less certain than it was just a few days ago. Wars, by their nature, are unpredictable and have an escalatory momentum. As the old adage goes: easy to start, hard to stop. That’s why diplomacy is always preferable. It offers something war never can: predictability. As long as opposing sides are engaged in negotiations, the process is structured and the outcomes measurable.
Am I glad that Israel and the U.S. have degraded Iran’s capacity to threaten the region? Of course. It’s like the high you get from your favourite gelato. But let’s not hang up the “Mission Accomplished” banner just yet. For one, there are still hostages held by Hamas in Gaza—easy to forget them when the news cycle moves this fast. And I believe the world is far more dangerous today than it was last week.
As I’ve argued before: until there’s a change in the terrorist regime in Iran, any achievement from an air campaign will be short-lived.
And then there’s trump.
Let’s stop pretending he gave any serious thought to this. He didn’t. He’s not capable of strategic planning. His approach can be summed up in one phrase: “I’ll show them I’m not a TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out—for those who haven’t been following the shorthand). His personal ties to Bibi Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, and the other gift-giving Gulf royals likely played a role. That’s about all you need to know.
So let’s look at the wider implications of trump’s decision:
1. The collapse of U.S. diplomatic credibility.
Secretary of State Rubio said the U.S. had nothing to do with Israel’s attack—a lie. A 6th round of negotiations with Iran was supposedly on the calendar—another lie. After the U.S. strike, Secretary of Defense Hegseth insisted this wasn’t about regime change—yet trump tweeted about wanting Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” then hinted at regime change. The result? Diplomatic credibility in ruins. Whatever legitimacy this administration had—if any—it has squandered in just six months.
2. The nuclear danger has grown.
We don’t know, and likely never will, how damaged Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities truly are without inspectors on the ground. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. The Iranians had over a week’s notice to hide or move fissile material, especially from Fordow. If they now withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and expel IAEA inspectors—as seems likely—there will be no verifiable oversight left. Their path forward is obvious: race for a nuclear deterrent. The diplomacy that restrained that ambition is now dead.
3. International law is in shambles.
All the pearl-clutching over whether these attacks were “legal” is sad to watch. It’s not that legality doesn’t matter—it’s that it’s now a joke. Watching the Iranian representative at the UN Security Council cite the Charter’s sovereignty clauses, you could almost forget Iran is itself a serial violator of those very norms. It was stomach-turning theater. The UN has failed—again—and its prestige has taken another serious blow. Iran should have been expelled from the UN as a state sponsor of terrorism long ago.
4. Are we closer to regime change, or even regime modification, in Iran?
This is the only question that matters. And the answer is: no. In fact, we’re further away than ever. And if the regime survives this, it will emerge more determined to secure a nuclear deterrent—its only insurance policy against future attacks.
So enjoy your gelato while it lasts. Because the sugar rush won’t.
