Impromptus

Allying with Papua New Guinea, &c.

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Remote islands off New Ireland in Papua New Guinea (Velvetfish / iStock / Getty Images)
On our superpower competition with China; pronouns, pronouns, pronouns; Salman Rushdie; cheatin’ hearts; McDonald’s; and more

‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” That truism — chilling — is usually attributed to Trotsky. Well, you may not be interested in another cold war, but, unfortunately, another cold war is interested in you.

I thought of this on reading this headline: “US signs new security pact with Papua New Guinea amid competition with China.” Oh, geez. Here we go again. We’ve got the Papua New Guineans. And the PRC, evidently, has the Solomon Islanders. The article under the headline says,

Last year, nearby Solomon Islands signed its own security pact with China, a move that raised alarm throughout the Pacific. The U.S. has increased its focus on the Pacific . . .

I’ve long said that China cannot compete with us on the level of values. We have freedom, democracy, human rights. They have — a one-party police state with a gulag. Still, such moves as we are making with the Papua New Guineans are important. We may be tired of “superpower competition,” but . . .

I think of Leopoldo López, the Venezuelan democracy leader, whose slogan is, “El que se cansa, pierde” — “He who tires, loses.”

Tire not.

• I am really, really tired of this kind of thing: “Using ‘he/him,’ ‘she/her’ in emails got 2 dorm directors fired at small New York Christian college.” (Article here.) The war over Bud Light is almost edifying compared with our pronouns war, which I hope will not prove a “forever war” . . .

• A young woman of my acquaintance recently became a “they.” I can’t help thinking of a line from the Bible: “My name is Legion: for we are many.”

• As I have noted before, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running in the Democratic presidential primaries, but every positive word I have ever heard about him has been uttered by a Republican. The news comes now that Kennedy’s campaign manager will be . . . Dennis Kucinich.

Which is perfect.

You can laugh or cry over this country’s ongoing political realignments, and some days I choose to laugh.

• For an example of the wit and wisdom of today’s GOP, try the following:

Back when I was a Republican, we prided ourselves on such things as fostering economic growth, reforming welfare programs, and standing up to the Kremlin’s aggression and lies. It has been a steep descent.

• This was really good:

Writer Salman Rushdie has made a public speech, nine months after being stabbed and seriously injured onstage, warning that freedom of expression in the West is under its most severe threat in his lifetime.

For the article, go here.

Rushdie criticized, among other things, the practice of Bowdlerizing or otherwise tampering with books that might offend modern sensibilities, such as those by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming. Rushdie said that publishers should allow books “to come to us from their time and be of their time.” And if a book is “difficult to take, don’t read it. Read another book.”

Hear, hear, Rushdie. (Incidentally, for my review of his latest novel, go here.)

• An Impromptus column of mine last week was headed “Cheater! Cheater! &c.” I led with cheating in baseball. Players were putting communications devices in their helmets. That was at the community-college level, mind you.

Okay, got something else for you:

Two men who admitted stuffing fish with lead weights and fish fillets in an attempt to win thousands of dollars in an Ohio fishing tournament last fall were sentenced Thursday to ten-day jail terms and other penalties, including the forfeiture of a boat valued at $100,000.

Good golly, Miss Molly. (Article here.) Their cheatin’ hearts.

• A slice of America in 2023:

I think of many things, including an old expression: “There’s a difference between what you got a right to do and what’s right to do.” (Bill Bennett once stressed this, in my hearing.) There is such a thing as human consideration. Civic responsibility.

Does the letter of the law say that you may show up, repeatedly, at a bus drop-off for elementary-school kids with an AR-15? Yes? But isn’t there a consideration beyond that? Like being a halfway decent person?

For crying out loud.

• When I made these points on Twitter, a tribal type admonished me, saying, “You work for National Review. How can you be so unaware of what your base is?”

Just to be clear: I am not a politician. I don’t have a “base.” I am a writer. I owe readers — whoever they are — my best judgment (and best style, though different styles apply to different journalistic tasks). Bill Buckley felt exactly the same. So have other writers I have greatly admired.

Filings in the recent Dominion suit were instructive. I’m talking about the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. One of the network’s hosts was angry when someone else at the network had fact-checked claims made by President Trump about the 2020 election. Said the host, “You don’t piss off the base.”

That is not journalism, as you know. It is something very different.

More and more, the public treats journalists like politicians. And it’s not the public’s fault. It’s the fault of journalists who act like politicians.

To be continued . . .

• I heard a new McDonald’s slogan — at least new to me: “Where you start stays with you.” This has to do with working at McDonald’s. Getting your first job there.

Immediately, I thought of Thomas Sowell, the venerable economist and author. In the ’80s, Democrats were knocking available jobs as “McJobs.” Get it? Sowell emphasized that first-rung jobs were very important. It is important to have a chance to get a foot on the ladder. From there, you can rise. Businesses such as McDonald’s had unlocked opportunity for a great many.

So true, so true. Free enterprise is a godsend. In my view, the Left needs to learn that, and the Right needs to relearn it.

• On Inside the NBA, the panelists were talking about Ja Morant, the brilliant young Memphis Grizzly, who had gotten into trouble — again. They said the following (and I paraphrase): “People have to stop saying his friends are the problem. No, he’s the problem. After a while, you can’t say that your friends are the problem. It’s you.”

I thought of Anthony Daniels, a.k.a. Theodore Dalrymple, the British writer-doctor, and a friend of mine. For years, he worked as a prison psychiatrist. “I met many people who had fallen in with the wrong crowd,” Tony says. “Strangely, I never met the wrong crowd.”

• Martin Amis has died — and I thought of David Pryce-Jones. In 2002, Amis published a book called “Koba the Dread,” about Stalin: about Stalin, the Soviet Union, and Western attitudes toward the same. Excellent book. Some conservatives snorted, saying, “A little late to discover the evils of Stalin, don’t you think?” But DPJ had a different response: When someone such as Amis — a cool, popular novelist — joins your side, say, “Hurray.”

I appreciate Martin Amis a great deal. (For his obituary in the New York Times, go here.)

• Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk, has died. He was a New York celebrity. Another important and celebrated New Yorker, Manuela Hoelterhoff, has written an obituary of him. Typically, wonderfully Hoelterhoffian. Enjoy.

• Stick with animals for a moment, to consider an Associated Press report out of Traverse City:

A city in northern Michigan has a new Mother’s Day memory: A 350-pound bear was in a tree for hours, watched by dozens of people, before it fell asleep and dropped onto mattresses below.

“It’s like the best block party ever,” Annette Andersen said.

Yup — first-class entertainment, for us Michiganders.

• Care for a picture? This is from an art exhibition in New York — freaky-deaky:

• Let’s turn to music. For a review of The Magic Flute, at the Metropolitan Opera — in a new production by Simon McBurney — go here. The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) is by Mozart, as you know. Maybe I could paste my final paragraph:

It is a great work, The Magic Flute (in case anyone forgot). Years ago, I had the privilege of sitting at lunch with Andrew Porter, the venerable musicologist and critic. I said, sheepishly, “I know this is a dumb question, but do you have a favorite opera?” Almost before I could get the words out of my mouth, he said, “The Magic Flute.”

For a review of Benjamin Appl, a German-British baritone, in recital, go here. He was accompanied by James Baillieu, a South African pianist. Toward the end of his program, he sang two songs by Ilse Weber, who was murdered at Auschwitz. In remarks to the audience, he said that, “as a German-born man,” he felt a responsibility to perform such music.

To learn something of the life and death of Ilse Weber, have a look at the Wikipedia entry, here. A great woman. There are no words, for greatness of that type.

Appl sang one encore, by another composer murdered at Auschwitz, Adolf Strauss. That song is “Ich weiss bestimmt, ich werd’ dich wiedersehen” (a tango, incidentally). The words mean, “I know for sure I’ll see you again.”

I’m glad that Benjamin Appl is singing those songs. A mensch, he is.

Hope you’re having a good week, my friends. Later on.

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