In my Impromptus today, I have a variety of issues, starting with a biggish one: politics as entertainment; politics as a show. I was spurred by something that George Santos said (about the need for “content,” which he has certainly provided). Other issues include, believe it or not, milk. (Three cheers for whole?) Toward the end of my column is a deep bow to Guy Stern, who has died at 101. He was a “Ritchie Boy” — a Jewish refugee to America who returned to Europe to interrogate Nazis.
Some mail — starting with a response to a column on Monday, which touched on the issue of Donald Trump and dictators:
Hi, Jay,
Your Impromptus today reminds me of one of the reasons that I am no longer a Republican. Before Trump, I was able to say to my Democrat friends, “Hey, at least Republicans know who the bad guys are. No Che Guevara T-shirts on them.”
A reader from Michigan is another ex-Republican — who still gets the state party’s newsletter nevertheless. He forwards to me the latest, which touts a documentary:
COMING SOON: Let My People Go is a modern-day deliverance story that presents two distinct but interrelated forms of enslavement in America. The first is achieved by the Deep State’s use of proprietary “black box machines” and rigged election software: altering perceptions and resulting in the selection — not election — of swamp candidates. The second is lived out as real-life consequences for hundreds of thousands of Americans who gathered and protested the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, many of whom are imprisoned this very day.
Last week, I wrote about Boston, and its holiday party for “elected officials of color.” There is one party for some officials, another for others — on different dates in the same place. I was calling for desegregation, which is a little weird in 2023.
A reader writes,
Hi, Jay,
I’m a born and bred Bostonian, or rather born in Somerville, a close neighbor to both Boston and Cambridge. We called it “Slummerville.” I lived in Boston’s South End most of my adult life before moving to sunny and warmer Southern California six years ago.
Boston was a strange city in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s: ultra-conservative in many ways. “Banned in Boston” was indeed a fact, and the top enforcer of purity when it came to what was presented on the theatrical stage was a guy whose surname was “Sinnott.” The Roman Catholic Archdiocese published a list of forbidden movies in its weekly newspaper, The Pilot. Needless to say, that became my movie guide for all the wrong reasons.
Blacks lived in Roxbury and Mattapan; Irish in South Boston and Charlestown; Christian Arabs (Syrian and Lebanese) and gays in the South End; and Italians in the North End. Beacon Hill and Back Bay were where the rich, white Yankees lived. There was also the West End, a mostly Jewish and Eastern European enclave that was literally destroyed in the disastrous “urban renewal” era.
Race issues slowly bubbled to the surface, and by the ’70s there was forced busing, which facilitated the decline of the neighborhood schools. The Irish control of the city ended with the election of Mayor Thomas “Mumbles” Menino, an Italian with a flair for words that matched Yogi Berra’s.
We looked down on the American South for its race issues until busing made us look more closely at ourselves.
Anyway, the old Boston has disappeared, replaced by a different kind of segregation, which is sad. It’s still one of the more livable and vibrant cities in the U.S.; it’s a young city where you can hear a dozen languages while walking on Newbury Street. It saddens me to see Mayor Wu’s approach to leading a city. It smacks of a return to Boston’s not-so-nice racial-separation past.
A reader from Hawaii writes,
Back in 2020, I worked for the Census Bureau. It was very interesting, and I had a lot of fun. I also had a lot of exasperation, as rural Hawaii is a place that has very poor street signs, addressing, and GPS availability — and few people visible.
The questionnaire asked people about their race. This made lots of people very uncomfortable. But I soon saw that an option in the drop-down was “American.” Whenever somebody hesitated, I said, “You can choose ‘American.’” And they almost always did. Regardless of their appearance.
I felt very proud.
End with some Napoleon? The wars over him never end (which is rather fitting, actually). I had a post on this subject. And a reader writes,
Admire him or no, there’s no doubting Bonaparte’s genius. Most folks do not realize, for example, how much our own Marine Corps has borrowed from him. You’ve heard Marines say “improvise, adapt, overcome.” Napoleon famously said, “I never had a plan of operations.” Battles are fluid, and adjustments must be made with alacrity. Napoleon also invented the Corps d’Armée system, with independent combined arms, rather than three distinct masses of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. These units of combined arms could be rapidly moved about the battlefield and did not need to rely upon other branches for support. That is how our Marine Corps operates — tank battalions, airwings, and artillery are assigned to work with infantry divisions as a single combat unit, fit for rapid deployment.
Very interesting, and I thank one and all.