Thursday: Healy's Dialogue

Welcome to Thursday, March 21, 2024, and National Crunchy Taco Day, a national holiday in the USA. As you may know, crunchy tacos, or "hard-shell tacos," are an example of cultural appropriation in cuisine, invented in the United States. I prefer soft shells and don't understand the popularity of this dish. But, as they say, it is what it is. Besides that, today is also International Tiramisu Day, National French Bread Day, National Vermouth Day, National California Strawberry Day, World Poetry Day, National Flower Day, Freedom of Education Day, International Color Day, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, International Day of Forests as proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, Rosie the Riveter Day in the USA, World Down Syndrome Day, and World Puppetry Day.

Despite the fact that Norman Rockwell created the vibrant painting of Rosie the Riveter for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post (see the Wikipedia page for Rockwell's image), this photograph, mistakenly referred to as "Rosie the Riveter," is much more well-known. According to later information, the photograph that was previously thought to be a shot of Rosie the Riveter actually depicts worker Naomi Parker (later Fraley) from the Alameda Naval Air Station in California. The "We Can Do It!" poster was shown only to employees of the Westinghouse company in the Midwest for two weeks in February 1943, after which it disappeared for nearly four decades. During the war, the name "Rosie" was not associated with this image, and the poster's purpose was not to recruit female workers, but rather to serve as motivational propaganda aimed at workers of both genders already employed at Westinghouse. It wasn't until later, in the early 1980s, that Miller's poster was rediscovered and became famous, becoming associated with feminism and sometimes mistakenly referred to as "Rosie the Riveter."

As for me, I believe this is a federal issue, and states cannot create their own laws on this matter at their discretion. This is immigration, which is a national problem, and the same rules apply to all immigrants. On the other hand, I think something needs to be done about it right now. A bipartisan bill was formulated, but who rejected it? Trump, who is no longer in government, but his followers are still following his directives. However, that bill wasn't all that great either. The Washington Post reported on the possibility of Trump's dementia and that his father also suffered from it (although most forms of dementia have weak heritability). Donald Trump invited his large family to Mar-a-Lago in the mid-1990s. At that time, his father, Fred Trump, was suffering severely, and according to his niece Mary L. Trump, he did not recognize two of his children at the party. And when he finally recognized Donald, the head of the family approached his son with a picture of a Cadillac he wanted to buy, as if he needed his son's permission. The incident, according to Mary L. Trump, left Donald visibly upset about his father's decline into dementia, which had been diagnosed a few years earlier. In a Playboy interview in 1997, Trump expressed his outrage and sorrow over his father's descent into Alzheimer's dementia, posing a rhetorical question about the meaninglessness of life. There are grounds to believe that Trump suggests Biden is also suffering from dementia, in the absence of medical confirmation. However, these attacks are part of the former president's persona, who has insulted his enemies for years, portraying them as mentally weak while boasting to the public about how well he performed on cognitive testing. While the White House refuses to provide the results of these tests, and Trump's press secretary states that the test was taken once in January 2018, neurologist Ziad Nasreddin, the creator of the test, says that results from less than two years ago would be outdated. Why doesn't Trump's campaign provide the test results or clarify when they were last taken? All of this, of course, is not that important, since Trump already suffers from some mental disorders, such as narcissism and borderline personality disorder; and if you add dementia to that—what difference does it make? The country is in trouble if he is elected again!

Three news items about the war, which seems to be escalating. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel killed five senior Hamas officials in Rafah. Israeli Defense Force fighter jets struck five high-ranking members of the Hamas organization in Rafah, the Israeli Ministry of Defense reported on Wednesday. The military aircraft acted based on data provided by the Israeli Armed Forces and Shin Bet. Those killed included Seyed Kateb Alkasash, Osama Hamd Zaher, Muhammed and Aud Almelalahi, who were heads of the Hamas Emergency Bureau in northern and eastern Rafah. Also killed was operations operator Hadi Abu Alrus Qasin. As part of their operations, they controlled Hamas in humanitarian zones and were responsible for coordinating with Hamas operators in the field. Additionally, Nidal Alid, the head of the Hamas Emergency Bureau in Rafah, who oversaw all its operations in the area, was reported killed last week.

Only some journalists in Rafah remain non-working days. After reading the sacrifice files from the Israeli-Hamas war, Elder of Ziyon concludes that the number of civilian casualties is likely significantly exaggerated, and that at least half of the casualties claimed by Hamas were actually terrorists. However, it is worth remembering that Elder of Ziyon's estimates are subjective. Hamas simply provides fictitious figures from some Arab sources. As we saw with the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital, they repeatedly exaggerate the number of dead (by five times or more). And the media knows this, but none of them report on the higher number of casualties among Palestinian shooters in Kuwait. Still, the UN relies on information from Arab sources about the number of women and children killed, as well as the total number of casualties provided by the Ministry of Health, which includes Hamas's figure of 13,000 people, and then the UN data is reported by the media as fact. This means that the 13,000 casualties claimed by Hamas are seriously questionable.

The only thing I'm sure of is that HAMAS is exaggerating the number of civilian casualties, as this is a way to gain support for their cause. And it works. The U.S. is coming up with a new and even more foolish plan to eliminate HAMAS, as they don't want Israel to go into Rafah, which is clearly necessary to destroy this organization. (For some reason, Biden doesn't want to storm Rafah.) The U.S. will present alternative plans on how Israel can continue to pursue HAMAS without a major ground operation in Rafah (during the upcoming meeting with the Israeli delegation in Washington), two senior American officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. "It's not just our 'no.' We are saying that we are ready to work with you on viable alternatives that will help you achieve your goals," one of the senior American officials told The Times of Israel on the condition of anonymity. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan touched on this idea on Monday when he announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted President Joe Biden's request during their phone call earlier that day to send a delegation of interagency committees to Washington "to hear the U.S. concerns regarding Israel's planning for Rafah at this time and to outline an alternative approach aimed at weakening key elements of HAMAS in Rafah and ensuring the security of the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground operation." Expanding on the idea proposed by the Biden administration, a second senior American official said that Washington is suggesting Israel focus on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphia Corridor. The official avoided placing blame for the smuggling on the Egyptian government, which is partially responsible for arming HAMAS during successive flare-ups of conflict with Israel over the past 15 years. However, he stated that reaching new agreements with Cairo and creating the necessary infrastructure to block the smuggling route would be far more significant for dismantling HAMAS than a major ground operation in Rafah. This is absolutely unreasonable; it means that U.S. authorities, who are supposed to "think," have a disconnect between their forehead and the base of their skull. Stopping the clandestine movement of weapons and ammunition between Egypt and Gaza will end HAMAS? Who are they trying to fool? Do they really think that HAMAS already has a huge stockpile of weapons and can obtain them from other sources besides Egypt? Did Tom "I don't know much, but I try" Friedman come up with this policy? It's frustrating that a microbiologist like me, who is not a military expert, can see through these clever plans.

And finally, the most important news today (according to the NYT): Pattie Boyd, the model for the song "Layla" (my favorite rock song), is selling, among other things, love letters she received from Eric Clapton while she was still married to George Harrison. In one interview, Boyd recalls that at the time she thought the letter was from one of the "crazy fans" and showed it to her husband, Beatles guitarist George Harrison. A few hours later, the phone rang. It was Eric Clapton, the rock guitarist and one of Harrison's friends. "Did you get my letter?" Clapton asked. More than 50 years later, Clapton's cognitive letter has attracted public attention. On Friday, Christie's auction sold over 110 items from Boyd's archive, including the letter (estimated to fetch up to £15,000, or about $19,000), as well as photos of Clapton and Harrison and signed songs by both great rock musicians. Boyd said she is parting with this personal correspondence because she has moved on from that stage of her life. "Eric wrote beautiful, divine letters, and I no longer want to read them," she said. "It hurts." In the absence of the opportunity to receive responses from subscribers or even indicate the date they were received?

I'm not worried about whether he has dementia or not, because he already suffers from narcissism and borderline personality disorder. Well, what does it matter if he also develops dementia? In any case, the country is doomed if he gets elected!