Amid the items in my Impromptus today is one on Alan Gershwin. Who? A man who claimed to be George Gershwin’s son, who has just died at 91. The resemblance is striking.
Here in the Corner, I’d like to add one thing. In 1959, Confidential magazine came out with a big article on Alan Gershwin and his claim. I was rather touched by the words accompanying the article:
“America’s greatest composer was a bachelor. Now, 21 years after his death, CONFIDENTIAL finds his son!”
I was touched by that word “bachelor.” There was a time when you assumed that those who were unmarried did not have children.
The headline over the article was “‘I Am George Gershwin’s Illegitimate Son.’” Ages ago, there was a saying: “There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.” A wonderful saying, un-modern as hell.
In my column, I also have an item on Emmanuel Macron, the president of France — who is waging a holy war against the country’s public-sector unions, in an effort to modernize and liberalize the economy. There are mass demonstrations in the streets. And he’s hanging tough.
Last night (after I wrote my column), I was talking with a French businessman, an old friend of mine. He is amazed that Macron is touching one “untouchable” after another — in particular the railway unions.
This reminds him, and me, of what Reagan did in the first half of his first term. What Macron is doing with the long-entrenched, and very powerful, French unions makes the PATCO affair look like kindergarten.
But from the Right in America, you hear scarcely a good word about Macron. You’re more apt to hear sneering. Why? Mainly, I think, because the heart of the Right belongs to the illiberals: the Le Pens, Farage, the AfD, Orbán, the Polish government, and the rest of that crowd. Hovering over all of it is Putin.
Further in Impromptus, I cite the editor-in-chief of RT, Putin’s television network, who made a fascinating statement: In the recent Russian “elections,” people had rallied to “conservative-patriotic, communist and nationalist ideas.” There is a lot of that going around, in Europe and elsewhere.
Did you see this news item?
The United States’ largest owner of television stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, mandated that its outlets run a segment on the so-called deep state that was produced by a former reporter for the Russian propaganda outlet RT, according to a new report.
It’s always a good time to keep our wits about us — but now may be an especially good time.