From what I know about the speech President Obama will deliver on Thursday, he does not need the U.S. Congress as his venue — SEIU headquarters will do. But, of course, Obama is addicted to grandiosity. At the convention in Denver in 2008, he had his “Styrofoam Greek columns,” as Sarah Palin put it.

Here is a fearless prediction: The 45th president, whoever he (or she) is, will be less pompous than the 44th. You can’t run for president — or be president — without a healthy ego, maybe even a whopping ego. But, holy Moses, Obama takes the cake.

I would say, “He’ll die in his own arms,” but he’ll have the mainstream media at his disposal, too.

‐The Castro brothers are ticked. What now? Did another wretch manage to escape on a raft, in a hail of gunfire? No: “Cuba has announced the withdrawal of its ambassador and diplomatic mission in Libya and reiterated that it does not recognize the rebels’ transitional government.” (For the rest of that article, go here.)

My, did Fidel Castro love Qaddafi. Even more than British, and other, business did.

‐Let us examine the state of American political discourse through one sentence. That sentence is as follows: “Rick Perry is a theocrat.”

Who spoke or wrote that sentence? An MSNBC host? A sociology professor at UC-Santa Barbara? Maureen Dowd?

No — Dana Milbank, who, as far as I know, is one of the leading political analysts at the foremost newspaper in America, where political reporting and analysis is concerned: the Washington Post. (For the article in question, go here.)

“Rick Perry is a theocrat.” We see how words and concepts mean nothing. Time to fold up shop, y’all. Lights out.

‐From time to time, I write about the singling out of Israel: the attempt by the world at large to render it illegitimate, to make it a pariah state. The world is very good at this.

Everywhere they go, Israeli musicians are harassed, Israeli athletes are harassed. They are not allowed to participate in the normal affairs of life.

The latest example occurred at the BBC Proms in London, when the Israel Philharmonic was not allowed to proceed. Last year, the Jerusalem Quartet was not allowed to proceed at Wigmore Hall (also London).

People sometimes ask me, “Why do you care so much about Israel? Why are you so hung up on Israel?” Leave them alone — let them live — and I won’t be.

‐Memo to itchy-fingers: True, British people say “the Wigmore Hall.” But I’m not British.

‐Several readers have sent me this article, in which Jane Fonda is quoted as saying, “My biggest regret is I never got to f*** Che Guevara.”

Gee, and for most people the T-shirt is enough!

‐A reader writes,

In my job at a small state-supported college in South Carolina, I found myself talking with a student whose shirt featured the Korda photo of Che, looking off into the future perfected. I quietly said to the lad, “You know, he really liked killing people, and he ran Cuba’s political prisons and personally finished off a bunch of people.” The kid’s response: “They were imperialists who had it coming.”

I always quote the great Oscar Hammerstein II: “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” And we are, here in this falsity-stricken country.

‐Back to Jane Fonda: In my view, she is one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. She had her life warped by the worst political ideology. It seems that more recent stages of her life have been better than earlier ones — a relief.

‐I was kind of tickled by this letter, and I hope you will be, too:

Dear Jay,
. . . I got a coupon in the mail for a liquid weight-loss product. It boasted that it contained an all-natural appetite suppressant. I thought about that for a moment and decided, “You can keep your carrot-juice cocktail. I will stick with my favorite all-natural appetite suppressant: a cheeseburger.”

‐Let’s do some language. A reader writes,

Hello, Jay,
. . . please give me your thoughts on the phrase “went missing.” I hear it constantly on the local news channels when they report a missing person: “So-and-so went missing on Wednesday evening.” I can’t put my finger on it, but something about it just doesn’t seem right. Am I just being picky?

Well, this is an American idiom, or English idiom, and I think it’s one of those things that flavor the language. That make the language homey and distinctive.

I also like “near miss.”

‐On a recent visit to my homeland, the Midwest, I heard some words that made me smile: “acrosst,” for “across,” and “heighth,” for “height” (goes with “length”). I do love this American language, from Maine to California, and Minnesota to Florida.

‐I e-mailed an address to a friend of mine, giving the abbreviation “Conn.” She said, “Isn’t it ‘CT’ now?” Well, you can do the ugly, clipped, curt two-capital-letter abbreviations. Or you can do the older and more elegant ones.

Guess which I prefer!

‐Shall we have some music? In the current issue of National Review, I have a piece on the Salzburg Festival. And I mention Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, an organ piece by Bach (BWV 731). I call it “merely the most beautiful and perfect piece of music ever written.” And I recall that Alicia de Larrocha used to play it, in the piano arrangement by Harriet Cohen.

Did you ever know about Cohen? A brilliant English pianist, a pupil of Tobias Matthay, same as Myra Hess.

Anyway, I would like to supply a YouTube clip of Liebster Jesu. This is not an organ recording or a piano recording, but one by the Swingle Singers, a group that was famous 40 years ago, and is still in business, I understand. The clip.

Don’t say I never did anything for you.

‐A little more music? A friend of mine — a paleface from Michigan — married a beautiful Indian-American girl. And they danced to “Zoobi Doobi,” a hit song from the blockbuster 2009 Bollywood movie, 3 Idiots. Seldom has a piece of music been more infectious.

Check out the stars of the movie, doing their thing — here. But I swear, my friends were better. Swear. Wish I had a video of that. (Maybe there is one?)

‐The other night, I was in an ice-cream parlor, and I was struck by just how happy the people were — how happy they were to be getting and eating ice cream. They were people of all ages and several colors.

I thought of the slogan of an ice-cream parlor in Waterville, Maine, long ago: “Ice cream is happy food.”

Truer words were never spoken.

‐I’m going to leave you with a definition of perfect weather — perfect weather, as I conceive it. You leave the windows open. There is no need for air conditioning, and no need for heat. Just the air from outside — that is heavenly weather.

And if the weather is no good outside — well then, all the more reason to work on the “mental weather.”

Thanks, friends, and I’ll see you.

#JAYBOOK#