Nobody can live in Auschwitz

On October 6 last year, the kibbutz of Beeri marked its 77th anniversary, and dozens of former residents came back to the "shady, flower-filled oasis of tidy frame houses" to celebrate the commune's success.

Then came October 7, when the "men in black" murdered 132 people and dragged 30 others to captivity, making Beeri "one of the deadliest places on Israel’s deadliest day," writes Steve Hendrix in the Washington Post today.

With the same sort of courage that built the kibbutz in 1947, during civil war and before the British left Jews and Arabs to fight it out, some of Beeri's residents have now returned to their homes. One of their goals is to lessen the number of shrines that people have set up to honor the dead and kidnapped. “We need to have a memorial, absolutely,” one woman says. “But not on every street. Nobody can live in Auschwitz.”

Forever takes just a moment these days

I left my TULSI sticker on the Subaru's bumper until a few weeks ago, despite Ms Gabbard's complaints about "forever wars." Because yeah, the unpleasantness in Iraq and Afghanistan had gone on for a rather long time. But now it seems that "forever," in the case of Ukraine, is a couple of years, both on the dreamy left (see Noam Chomsky) and on the hillbilly right (see JD Vance).

As for the "Zionist entity," situated uneasily between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Mr Chomsky has had less to say, but his acolytes in our better universities are speaking for him. What is it about Americans, that we have so little staying power? Where were Mr Chomsky, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia when we were showering incendiaries and bunker-busters German women and children? I don't recall any pleading for ceasefire now! in 1944. Apparently we can afford to be noble only when it's Ukainians and Israelis who are dying on our behalf.

More drones, cheap drones, quickly!

David Petraeus, the now-retired general who did so much to shape the US Army's war-fighting style in this century, urges us in today's Wall Street Journal to return to the 1940s, when we churned out weapons in huge quantities and at bargain prices. (Adjusted for inflation, a WW2 Jeep cost $14,818, a third of what you'd probably spend today.) Ukraine should be our model: while the Pentagon hopes to deliver a $100,000 loitering munition at some time in the future, Kyiv intends to build a million drones a year, costing between $300 and $1000.

Very bad of me, I know, but still ...

Wow. Several Hezbollahs were killed and thousands injured by their pagers yesterday. Remember pagers? Obsolete technology, long ago supplanted by smartphones, but the Hezbollahs bought a shipment of them so they could message one another without the Israelis' listening in. And the pagers exploded. No fitter rebuke could be imagined for the lads who've rained eight thousand missiles onto Israeli homes since Oct. 7. Lets hope they got the message!

Elon does it again!

Congratulations to Elon Musk, to SpaceX, and to the four astronauts who earlier today soared into high orbit and accomplished history's first space walk by civilians. Since a Russian cosmonaut became a human satellite for a few minutes in 1965, space-walking has until this morning been the province of governments in competition with one another.

A sad day for the Ivies

The Wall Street Journal published its college rankings today, and the Ivies took a terrible hit, as did MIT. Only Harvard and Yale are still in the Top Ten, at numbers 4 and 7 respectively. This is largely, I suspect, the result of the pro-Gaza riots mounted by our best and brightest youngsters. My own alma mater is number 175, very good for a state university not situated in California. No encampments at UNH, at least not yet!

Ukraine builds a long-range missile

According to a video posted on X.com by President Zelensky, the home-built "rocket drone" was designed and put into combat in 18 months, with a range that puts more than 20 Russian airfields within striking distance. The US and Ukraine's other allies won't allow the country to target those airfields with missiles they have provided, even as Putin blasts Ukraine with weapons supplied by his chums in Iran and North Korea. So the Ukrainians took matters into their own hands. Slava Ukraini!

The stupid, expensive penny

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, I immediately subscribed to the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Review to plump out my information about the world. (My go-to newspaper is the Wall Street Journal.) Today well repaid the cost of the first of these, in a wonderful article by Caity Weaver in the NYT Magazine: "America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny". Omigosh. I have been throwing away pennies for many years. But I had no idea that to mint a penny costs us 3 cents, nor that we have to mint tons of these useless objects at a cost of $45 million every year. Well done, Ms Weaver! Perhaps you will next turn your attention to the nickle and the dime....