On Will Smith vs. Chris Rock at the Oscars; a new 700 Club; a Saudi political prisoner, released; the late Madeleine K. Albright; and more
What America lacks is commentary about the altercation at the Oscars. We are starved for such commentary. I’m here to serve. Seriously, I’ll be brief. I’ll “nutshell” it for you. (Everything in English can be made a verb, true?)
1. Chris Rock’s bald joke was bad. I know that some large percentage of jokes are aimed at people’s looks. But maybe we can have a slightly lower percentage of these jokes — especially if they’re aimed at women.
2. Will Smith’s reaction — the punch, or slap, or assault — was understandable. Please note that “understandable” does not mean “acceptable” or “excusable.”
3. Self-control is very important. Underrated, too.
4. Chris was admirable in, literally, rolling with the punches.
5. Will’s speech? To my ears, it was mawkish, self-righteous, and nauseating.
Okay, that’s enough commentary from me. But before I leave — one comment on No. 3. I love a verse from “America the Beautiful,” little sung:
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Confirm thy soul in self-control — nice.
Hang on, one more point, before I go, or move on (dot org): Some years ago, a political pro told me something about debates — televised debates between candidates: The debates don’t matter. Rather, the post-debate spin does. Who will “win the post-game”? So, I ask: Who has won the Oscars post-game? Team Will or Team Chris?
Or is it ongoing?
• Let me pause for a language note. Above, I wrote, “I know that some large percentage of jokes are aimed at people’s looks.” Shouldn’t that be “is”? The percentage is aimed? Not necessarily. English, that blessed, flexible, protean language, accommodates both.
Look at the rules, yes, but don’t neglect your ear (especially if your ear is good).
• Words concerning January 6 are very touchy. “Assault”? “Riot”? “Insurrection”? “Spirited gathering of patriotic tourists”? Some people wet their pants if you say “assault” — and it could be worse if you say “insurrection.”
(Said Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, “We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”)
What do you like for what Will did to Chris? “Punch”? “Slap”? “Assault”? Should the cops have been called? Some people who object to “assault” for January 6 insist on the strongest language for Will Smith’s action.
Words are funny, because people are funny. Words are important, because people are, I guess you could say. “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” One of the wrongest statements ever uttered.
(Have there been times in your life when you would rather have been slugged in the face than talked to the way you were? I bet.)
• Here is a news item: “The White House will unveil a new minimum tax targeting billionaires as part of its 2023 budget Monday, proposing a tax on the richest 700 Americans for the first time . . .” (I have quoted from the Washington Post, here.)
I loved David Frum’s reaction: “701st richest American thinks, ‘About time those bastards paid their fair share.’”
Also, I’ve thought of a name for the plan: “The 700 Club.” Think it’ll catch on?
• Raif Badawi was the most prominent political prisoner in Saudi Arabia. How good to say “was.” He has now been released. I have written periodically about Raif for years.
He was a blogger who asked for fundamental human rights in his country: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and so on. In 2014, they sentenced him to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes. The lashes were to be administered in installments of 50 every Friday for 20 weeks. The first lashings almost killed him. They were meted out in a square outside a mosque in Jeddah. “God is great!” cried the crowd (as they do). A video of the flogging was seen around the world, prompting international outrage. Raif was not flogged again.
Many people campaigned for his release, chief among them his wife, Ensaf Haidar, in exile with their three children in Canada. The European Parliament awarded Badawi its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
I interviewed and wrote about Ensaf in 2016 (here). She has followed in the tradition of Avital Sharansky, wife of Natan Sharansky, who was a guest of the Gulag for nine years. In other words, Ensaf did everything she could to win the release of her husband. She did everything she could to make his release a cause — to acquaint people around the world with the case.
By the way, Sharansky told me that the biggest mistake the KGB ever made was to let Avital out of the country. She was so effective, in campaigning for him.
Though Raif Badawi has now been released, he is forbidden to travel — presumably because he would talk about his experiences. Why did they release him from prison? Why now? This is unclear, at present.
Regardless: good. And on to the release of other political prisoners — perhaps starting with Waleed Abulkhair, whose crime was to run a human-rights organization.
• Some more news — of a dog-bites-man nature:
Former president Donald Trump’s company is angling to host events at his golf courses for the controversial Saudi golf league, according to three people familiar with the matter, potentially handing Trump a lucrative business partnership with an oppressive regime he defended as president.
(Full article here.)
• Throw a little music at you? Here’s a review of Beatrice Rana, the young Italian pianist, in recital. Here’s a review of a piano trio in concert — a trio whose members are Emanuel Ax (piano), Leonidas Kavakos (violin), and Yo-Yo Ma (cello).
The last two sentences of the first review: “Many of us have worries about the future, in any number of areas. But one thing not to be worried about: they keep coming, these brilliant pianists.” And the final sentence of the second review: “A satisfying evening, thanks to Beethoven, and these three friends (of the composer and one another).”
• In a recent piece, I wrote about The Leopard, the novel by Lampedusa, which became a movie, and has now become an opera (an American opera). I will quote a sentence: “The Leopard takes place during the Risorgimento (mid 19th century), when Garibaldi, Mazzini, and their people were trying to unite Italy, casting aside the old kingdoms and fiefdoms.”
Well, whom did I encounter in Central Park, just the other day? Giuseppe Mazzini.
Here’s a flash of yellow — a streak of yellow — from that same park:
And don’t you think this tree, or bush, has an almost bridal look?
• Madeleine Albright has died, at 84. She was Bill Clinton’s second secretary of state, as you remember — in his second term. During his first, she was ambassador to the United Nations. I was sharply critical of her. I wrote a long piece, pointing out her faults (as I saw them). This was so long ago, the piece does not exist on the Internet, as far as I can tell.
What was my problem with her? Well, she was a Democrat, for one thing, and I was a Republican. I was a Reaganite (still am, of course), and she had worked with Mondale and every other Democrat who had come down the pike.
But the differences between people like her and people like me are small — dinkissimi — in light of where we are now. I mean, she was an American: who believed in freedom, democracy, and human rights; who believed that America had a vital role to play in the world; who understood, deep down, the conflict between freedom and tyranny, democracy and dictatorship — a conflict that will never end, until the world does.
She lived a classic American life. She was born abroad — in Prague, on May 15, 1937. Her father, Josef Korbel, was a diplomat. The family fled the Nazis to London, where little Madeleine — or Marie, as she was then called — experienced the Blitz, along with everyone else. She never forgot it. Later in life, she learned that 26 of her relatives had been murdered in the Holocaust. These included three of her grandparents.
After the war, the Korbel family returned to Prague — only to flee again, when the Communists came to power. This time, they went to America. Josef Korbel taught at the University of Denver. You remember who his star student was, right? A future secretary of state — not his daughter, but Condoleezza Rice. Madeleine earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University. Among her teachers was Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The longer I go on, the more I appreciate anyone who appreciates what we have: our constitution, our system, our way of ordered liberty. I appreciate anyone who will stand up for freedom in the world and see tyranny for what it is. More and more, I want, not so much red and blue, as red, white, and blue.
Our project — our American project, our American experiment — is threatened by illiberals from left and right. They would wrench our democracy from us, if they could. May they cry tears of frustration.
And I’ll see you later.
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