Necessary preparations for freedom and responsibility

Because they don't have to make their homes kosher for Passover (two sets each of dishes and flatware coming up and going down from basements or attics) Christians miss an essential element of Passover, the opportunity for a fresh beginning, at least symbolically. Yes the back aches; yes the period between a chumitzdic household and one that's ready for Passover is complex, (and if anyone know the answer to the kosher for Pesach pet food conundrum, please send me a letter) but when the process is complete, when the house is prepared, when the Seder is ordered, when the guests arrive for the annual re-telling, ironically there is within that ancient repetition a concurrent renewal.

Christians believe that Jesus, the lamb of God, sacrificed himself so that his community would be relieved of the burden and not have to perform the sacrifice ever again. Ironically Jews don't perform sacrifices any more either but unlike Christians we don't believe that the Messiah has been here and is on the way back, real soon. When Christians celebrate Easter they are marking the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. For Jews, Passover is the commemoration of the resurrection of the children of Israel, freed from the moral death of slavery. But were they ready? Does one have to be prepared for redemption?

My Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, its binding showing the stress of decades of perpetual breaking defines “redeem” (and hence its offspring “redemption”) as buying back, freeing by payment, and then more religiously, as deliverance from sin. On my 31st day my father redeemed me by paying $8.00 to a cohen, but as I was very young at the time the process seems not to have been entirely complete as now I'm required to fast on the day of the first Seder or listen to the conclusion of a unit of study. Why I do these things escapes me, but do them I do, continuing traditions in which I have no faith. Do we really need the ten thousand Passover nitpicks of ancient (and medieval and modern) rabbis? Is that redeeming?

The redemption price of our ancient ancestors was an unusual one—it was the Egyptians who paid dearly to release their captives, an O. Henry story set 3,200 years before the birth of Red Chief. It was a sudden rescue (pagan writers later claimed it was an expulsion, but what do they know) without preparation, not only sans leavened bread, but worse, minus the moral preparation for dealing with freedom. The books of Exodus and Numbers reveal this. Our sainted ancestors came to the Sea and complained; (maybe slavery in Egypt wasn't so bad); they complained in the desert; (maybe slavery in Egypt wasn't so bad); they built themselves a golden calf; (who needs Shacharit and Minchah/Maariv? Those Egyptians really knew how to pray. Party, party, party); they rejected the advice of Joshua and Caleb that with God's help they could conquer the powerful Canaanites. Given the opportunity to err, they invariably did.

What Moses seemed not to have realized (or perhaps Someone even higher than Moses?) was that freedom takes practice. It's like a spring trap, hard to open, fast to snap shut and break an unwary finger. The great 19th century Zionist Ahad Ha'Am knew this. You can't just take a bunch of Russian Jews and dump them into the wastes of Palestine without first getting them ready for the task. Yes, establish agricultural training centers, but more importantly, prepare the culture of the immigrants; teach them what it means to be a Jew outside the ghetto's walls, teach them the roots of Judaism including, but not exclusively, the Hebrew language. Herzl, for all his genius, thought the Jews transplanted from Europe would speak German and live bourgeois European lives. Ahad Ha' Am taught that there was more to establishing a Jewish presence than the need to flee persecution. To be a Jew in Israel, doing God's work (man's work—it's often the same thing) was what mattered, not merely rescuing someone from cossacks. Nobody seemed to anticipate the resentment of Arabs—who are not ready for freedom either, as witness their slaughter of each other in Gaza whenever given the opportunity.

That ancient Seder song Dayenu has it all backwards; it shouldn't be, if You only had given us this it would have been enough. It should be, it's never enough prep time. Is that the academic in me? Resurrect Moses; ask him what he thinks.

Iran's nuclear capabilities and Israel

Iran. Gevalt! Does anyone know what is happening in Iran? It's the story that refuses to go away despite our inclination to put our collective head in the sand and hope it will go away. We don't know what is happening there. Are nuclear weapons aborning? Or are the Bushies crying Wolfowitz again the way they did with the non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and if they are, why should we believe them this time? Certified liars are, after all, certified liars. But just as paranoids occasionally have real enemies, liars sometimes tell the truth—even if inadvertently. Is this such an occasion? For the sake of argument, let's pretend that whether the administration is lying or not, that crazy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk are really trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Word out of Israel is that he is. Israel is in rocket-range of Iran. Its opinion counts. What is Israeli reaction? It's divided. (All those who are surprised, raise your hand. Seeing none, I will proceed.)

There are those Israelis who say UN sanctions ought to be imposed to force Iran to give up its ambitions. (Stop laughing, this is serious, no, really it is, chuckle, chuckle snort hoot.) Then there are those who advocate a preemptive launch on Iran's nuclear facilities the way in 1981 Israel struck at Saddam's Osirak bomb making factory. Quick in, drop bombs, fly home. The problem is that Iran is not concentrating its efforts in a single location and knocking out sufficient targets is beyond Israel's capabilities given the added distance Israeli bombers would have to travel. Could these sites be hit by missiles? Maybe, but Israel seems not to be in the business of advertising its missile capability. Does Israel have a nuclear bomb and a missile capable of delivering it in a preemptive strike? Same answer. Let's pretend that Israel does nuke Iran. Then reality raises its ugly head, as it is wont to do.

In this scenario Israelis are divided between minimalists (“hawks”) and maximalists (“doves”). Minimalists argue that with its anti-missile defenses, the few rockets Iran could launch in counter-attack would be shot out of the sky except for maybe one or two. Maximilists say Iran has a lot more missiles, too many to be destroyed, and that will would be destroyed is Eretz Israel. Ahmadinejad has already said that he would be content to lose half his population to Israeli nuclear attack if it meant destroying all of Israel. Is he serious? Do you want to find out?

The theory of Mutual Assured Destruction that many of us remember from the '60s and 70s was mad enough, but it proved correct. It was based on the presumption that the Commies of Moscow (A) believed that eventually they would win, so why destroy, and (B) that they wanted to wake up the next morning. With Ahmadinejad and his ilk neither of these necessarily apply. Like many of the mentally challenged of all religions, the guy seems enthralled with eschatologal visions of the end of the world brought about in the Middle East by some kind of horrific fire next time as predicted in (insert here name of some holy book). And even if he dies in the process, the world will be spared the horror of Jews and Christians polluting it as all will be gone (he to his 70 virgins, we to Gehenna). Or is he another kind of crazy, the type typified by Saddam, the type who doesn't have weapons of mass destruction but wants the world to think he does even if that means attack by outside forces? Look up Misughanah in the dictionary and you'll see these two enemies smiling at each other.

Oh, and if religious Shiite Iran gets the bomb, you can bet that Secular Sunni Jordan and secular sunni Egypt will start clamoring for one (or more) too, not so much to use against nearby Israel, but to prevent attack from the Iranians. And if they get one, can Syria be far behind, Syria which wants back the Golan, Syria that while secular and Sunni is allied to Shiite Iran through their mutual support of Hezbollah? So what is Israel to do? Attack? Or hope sanctions will be effective? What a choice. Neither will work. Probably Israel's only hope is either prayer—that Iranian leaders will be overcome by a tsunami of reason, or to engineer a coup. Bring back the Shah!

March 2- Baseball in suite L7, Fenway Park

This is a story that begins at a Purim ball. A couple of years ago, a hastily thrown-together consortium consisting of myself and three chums bid on four tickets to a luxury box at Fenway Park. Bidding was spirited, but we prevailed. The tickets were for a game against the Oakland A's. We had just lost the last 5 out of 6 games. The masochism that is Red Sox Nation was grumbling, the seismic readings were setting off alarms. Panic was raising its ugly head, its yellow fangs dripping slime, its eyes blood red, its beating wings fanning ever more fear and anguish. "The team has no heart"; "the manager has no brains." "All is lost"; "the curse continues." And now we face the mighty Athletics of Oakland. "We're doomed!"

Typical Red Sox stuff.

Into this malaise we four intrepid fans entered the Park by an obscure gate tucked away in the corner of the building. Up we walked, higher and higher until we came to a long corridor lined with framed enlargements of "Sports Illustrated" covers depicting Red Sox players and history. The air was hushed and fresh, the floor carpeted, not the concrete slab slippery with beer, smelling vaguely of yeast, which is what greets most fans entering the Park. This was the entrance to Olympus, after all. We stopped in at the Red Sox Hall of Fame, a room bearing bronze tablets of heroes of the remote and immediate past. It was the anteroom of a fancy restaurant with windows overlooking the playing field. We did not linger but moved on for another 50 feet until we came to Suite L7, ours for the night.

L7 has its own clean private bathroom-what else would you expect? It is, in essence, a large foyer with a kitchen, the refrigerator stocked with beer and soda, wine and bottled water; it has three steam tables, (treyf meat); a table of cheeses and crackers, sliced vegetables and dip; it has a comfortable leather couch facing a TV tuned to NESN; bowls of chips, bags of Cracker Jacks, and a glass wall from which the field seems to pour forth below. Our seats were just beyond the glass walls; Frank, our personal attendant, showed us to them and took care of our needs. (One need I had was that when the pizza arrived, it was doused with pepperoni. Couldn't eat it, of course, so Frank arranged for a plain cheese.) At one point he announced that the cookies had come in. At another we saw that in the adjacent suite a woman was dispensing Ben and Jerry's ice cream. We were stuffed, of course, but eagerly awaited our turn, which, tragically, never came. But the view! We were up above the masses, between home plate and third base. No obstructions-no venders, no poles, no other patrons could interfere with our view. I felt like a Republican. As the sun was setting, we looked out over the right field bleachers and saw the skyscrapers of downtown Boston turn a glorious burnt umber until the color slowly faded over several innings. The sight of those buildings alone was nearly worth the price of admission.
Oh, and there was a baseball game, too. We won, 11-0 but we always kept a nervous eye on the scoreboard, as all true Sox fans do, to see what the Yankees were doing in their game at the Stadium. Ha, ha! They were in the process of losing to the then lowly Tigers of Detroit. The suite, a triumph! The view, a triumph! The victory, a triumph! The Yankees losing while we were winning, a triumph triumph! The fact that our checks had cleared three months before so that we had the feeling that all this was free, another triumph!

The problem, of course, is that we were all so spoiled by L7 and the ambrosia and the nectar to which we knew we would never return, that leaving was no less a forever exile from Olympus than Adam's and Eve's (to mix my mythologies). Being in the suite was not quite comparable to seeing the Kotel for the first time, but for baseball lovers, it was a pure delight. It was perfect luxury. As it all began on Purim, we all brought our groggers and as their batters went down one by one, we generated a "smother-out-the-sound-of-Haman's-name" noise. That is, when we weren't stuffing our faces.

On Arabs who feel persecuted by Jewish symbolism in Israel

An article in the Times caught my attention. “A group of prominent Israeli Arabs has called on Israel to stop defining itself as a Jewish state and become a ‘consensual democracy for both Arabs and Jews.’” Commissioned by Israeli-Arab mayors, “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel” was the product of efforts of some 40 Arab academics. “They call on the state to recognize Israeli Arab citizens as an indigenous group with collective rights” arguing that Israel “inherently discriminates against non-Jewish citizens in its symbols of state, some core laws, and budget and land allocation.”

Immediately I wrote to Prime Minister Helen Clark, President Pervez Musharraf and Governor Rick Perry demanding that they rename, respectively, Christ Church, Islamabad and Corpus Christi. So far, no response. By my very unofficial count, 8 national flags fly a version of the star and crescent of Islam, 18 some form of the cross or other symbol of Christianity.

Recently nationalists were incensed when an Arab, Ghaleb Majadele, of the Labor Party, was offered and accepted a position in the Israeli cabinet. Jewish nationalists don’t trust Arabs, and Arabs don’t want other Arabs to join mainstream Israeli parties, preferring instead the martyrdom of marginalization. Yet even Majadele said that he was “uncomfortable with national symbols like the flag...and the anthem, which speaks of the ‘Jewish soul’ yearning for Zion.”

According to the Times, “most Arab Israeli politicians have rejected the document as unrealistic, exposing divisions within the Arab community.” This attitude of the politicians reflects the general Arab mood. According to a recent poll, only 14% of Israel’s Arab population think Israel should remain a Jewish state as currently constituted; 25% want a Jewish state that guarantees full equality to its Arab citizens, and 57% want a bi-national state. What this all means, from the Arab intelligentsia and the Arab street, is, at best, a rejection of the two-state solution propounded by moderates on both sides.

Yasser Arafat (may soon he have many interesting conversations with his pal Osama in a hell unimagined even by Dante) used to claim that the Palestinians were what their name purports them to be, descendants of the Philistines who were living in the land when the Jews first dared show their faces back around 1250 BCE. This, of course, is historical nonsense, but it’s convenient nonsense, the sort that people who want to believe will believe. I don’t. Even Arabs don’t believe it. Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO Executive Committee said in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in March 1977: “The Palestinian people does not exist... In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism ... The moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.’” That was thirty years ago. Muhsein (who was the Fatah commander of the Palestinian forces which massacred over 300 Christians in the town of Damour, Lebanon the year before) is dead. In their hearts do Arabs still believe that there is but one Arab nation? Are the Palestinians part of the whole or independent? Do they want peace with Israel or haven’t they figured it out yet.

What is Israel to do in this circumstance of ambiguity? Preserve its will to exist; preserve the intention of the founders that Israel be a state dedicated to “full equality in social and political rights to all inhabitants,” Jewish, Muslim, Christian. Arab jihadists and intifadists have that will for their people. It is not now the time for Israel, the Jewish state, to surrender its identity to those whose parents wanted to destroy it aborning. In the 1948 war some Arabs were killed, some fled, some fought. Those who stayed, stayed as citizens of a republic that assures them autonomy—they don’t go to Jewish schools unless they want to; they don't serve in the Jewish army, but they do vote in Israel’s elections and they do elect their own people as mayors and Members of the Knesset. Israel has since 1967 had problems with the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. Is this survey the opening shot in a campaign to weaken the internal relations between Israeli Jews and Arabs? I wish I knew.

A pagan friend on monotheism

Some don't disbelieve me; others mock me. The one camp thinks that somewhere deep within the bowels of my home or office there's a computer upon which I write. The scoffers say things like: “Josh, [I've asked them to call me 'Excellency' but to no avail] I just hit the 'send' button and whoomph, my letter is received.” Maybe, I mentally concede, but I'm a Luddite because I know that when the Postal Service mail arrives at my door, there's more than just bills, circulars and occasional invitations. There are letters from friends and relatives, long epistles I can open, and read, and savor. The joy of receiving real mail trumps the speed of truncated missives. Over the years I've collected hundreds of letters from correspondents who took the time and trouble to write to me. I suppose you can save E-mail as well, but it's not the same. You don't get the tactile sensation of holding the paper, the same hint of the sender's fragrance lingering.

One fellow I've known since before high school recently came out of the closet. Not gay, pagan. This surprised me. I didn't think there were pagans in my old neighborhood, but he assures me that there were and are. I tease him about sacrificing goats to mythical beings long since discredited; he denies the goats but insists that paganism is much to be preferred to monotheism. What follows is recently received:

“Excellency:

“Do you really think your god is the only one? Pshaw. I don't know if any god exists but to play it safe I'm worshiping Zeus this week. What harm can it do? Look at the universe. It's 14 billion light years from here to wherever. That's roughly 5 trillion miles times 14 billion miles of space. Do you really think there's one god who not only created it all, but governs the life of every creature within it? Double pshaw. OK, maybe there's one god per planet, but even that's a stretch. (Can you imagine the despondency of the poor schlub of a god who created Pluto? Barren, cold, and now not even a planet!)

“And what benefit is there to humanity to impose the one god theory? When we pagans ruled the roost we had wars, and you have wars. Our wars, however, were never to impose a religion on anyone else; yours are often enough just about that. Muslims conquered the Middle East and North Africa and imposed their religion; Christians launched a series of Crusades to kill infidels (and Jews). And if that's not bad enough, within the monotheistic religions, but never amongst us polys, people kill each other over the proper belief and practice of the one true religion. Christians used to massacre other Christians over such arcane questions “as is god the son equal or inferior to god the father,” and “does the bread become the body of Christ, or not?” Barrels of blood flowed over these questions. Have you seen pictures out of Baghdad recently? Sunnis are killing Shiites and Shiites are killing Sunnis and then if they remember, almost as an afterthought, they kill Americans. We pagans never imposed our beliefs. We're immoral, you read? And the proof of that is condoning homosexuality? Pshaw. Just ask your Reform and Conservative rabbis about that one!

“You might point to the bible and say, 'see, here are examples of pagans persecuting Israelites.' Ah, verily, I say unto you, not so. Pharaoh didn't try to impose his religion on his slaves, he just wanted them to work harder. He didn't deny your god, he just didn't know about him until Moses showed up—and neither did the Hebrews, if I remember correctly. The Amelikites didn't try to impose their religion, they fought to prevent illegal immigrants entering their territory. Canaanites didn't impose Baal, they were interested in re-conquering land. The Greeks didn't impose paganism on the Jews, Some Jews thought pagan practices would get them in the good graces of their conquerers, at least until the fanatics stepped in and went to war against both the Hellenists and the Hellenized Jews. Until that nut Nero, the Romans didn't persecute Jews and yes, they did persecute Christians, but Christianity was illegal and subversive—the way Communism was seen to be here in the '50s, and persecuted.”

I wrote back and asked if I could use his letter in my column. A week later I received his response:

“Sure, why not. God willing it will provoke some intelligent discussion.”

On taking the oath of office using the Koran

Back in the day (which is, I gather, au courant for “Once upon a time” or “A long time ago” or simply “Once”) there was a kingdom that was the master of the world. Or so it seemed. Upon it the sun never set. Or so it seemed. Within this bastion of proper Victorian behavior there was harbored a small community of interlopers, people whose ilk had been expelled in 1290, returned in 1656 and a hundred years later were demanding equality.

In 1753, Parliament granted the small sect complete equality with Anglicans but popular opinion would not countenance such an action, and it was quickly revoked. In another hundred years, by 1858 to be exact, two prominent members of the sect, David Salomons and Lionel Rothschild, had each been often elected and as often denied permission to sit in the House of Commons. This because they could not take the required oath “on the true faith of a Christian.” They were finally seated when Parliament voted to strike the clause when Jews were inducted.

Somehow the empire managed to survive this assault on its ancient traditions yet another hundred years. Remarkable.

We have a similar issue. The voters of Minnesota's 5th congressional district elected Keith Ellison to Congress. Let me check my constitution. Yes, that seems to be their prerogative. One Virgil Goode, the Republican representing the 5th Congressional district of Virginia (no relation) has a problem. Not only is Ellison a peacenik, calling for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, he's also (gasp) a Muslim. Gevalt. Goode sent a letter to constituents which reads in part: “When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on [severely limiting] immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.” Oh, right, I forgot to mention it. Ellison had announced that when sworn in he'd have his hand on a copy of the Koran. Will troubles never cease?

OK, one thing at a time. The least important is that Emerson was born a Christian in Detroit and converted to Islam in college. (I've just checked the constitution again, and apparently this is legal.) Immigration is clearly not an issue here. It's beyond being a red herring. This particular fish is scarlet. More to the point, Goode either has not read, or he choses to ignore, the words of the constitution to which he is swearing, hand on Bible. Unfortunately for Mr. Goode's position, it reads in part: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Damn! What it does not say is that Members of Congress, or any other federal official, have to take an oath on the Bible. It also fails to make the Bible the one book upon which one may (or may not) rest one's left hand while raising his right. Double Damn!! Oh, those atheistic founders. Curses be on them.

We are, I hasten to remind, Mr. Goode and others, A SECULAR REPUBLIC. (As in, “What part of 'secular republic' don't you understand, Mr. Goode.”) Here's a nasty little secret that I share with Mr. Goode and with my readers: Islam is no more absurd than any other so-called revealed religion. That, at any rate, is what we can draw from reading the constitution.

Cleverly, Ellison took his oath on an English language Koran that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, of course, was an atheist who had such little respect for revealed religion that he truncated the New Testament by removing all references to the miraculous.

That sound you may just have heard was Mr. Jefferson rolling over in his grave. Not because Ellison borrowed his old Koran, but because Goode's district includes, of all places, the area in which Jefferson lived. Oh, the irony. And the swearing in on Bible or Koran? It's all for show, a photo-op. The real oath is with hands on the constitution.

The real danger to the republic is not Muslims pretending to swear on a Koran; it's fundamentalist bigots who have abandoned the principles for which the founders fought and later wrote the Constitution.

On distortions of history

People ask me, “How do you get your ideas? Issue after issue, there’s ‘The Old Olivetti’ like clock-work.” The short answer is that I don’t get ideas, I just turn on the machine and start typing. Ollie does the rest. Other people say, “Don’t you have a computer? Do you really use an old electric typewriter? How do you correspond with your editor?” The answers are “no” “yes” and “by carrier pigeon, sometimes by phone.” Then they usually look at me oddly and question the carrier pigeon part. “Nu, so what‘s not to believe?” I ask. “Well, you gotta admit, they rejoinder, carrier pigeons in this day and age are a bit archaic, almost anachronistic, virtually Luddite.” So, “Yes,” I admit, but ask, “So what?” “So why not come live in the modern age?”

Live in the modern age? When I’m not being a shaper of opinion (usually my own) I‘m an historian. “The modern age” is like a stream. Go stand in the river, drop a feather at your feet, feel the water flow by you. By the time you‘ve gotten over your numbness, that feather is out of sight, beyond the bend or simply beyond sight. You have been left behind. Live with it; you’ll never catch up. What’s so great about the modern age? It's already someone’s past. It’s the past that is permanence, no matter how people pervert it. Things happened. Along come historians who try to tell what it was and understand it, impart meaning to it; along come exploiters who either twist it, deny it or make it up.

It’s twisted by Bush who makes Kerry (the war hero) the villain while he (the shirker) emerges conquering hero.

It’s denied by the likes of David Irving, David Duke, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Neturei Karta. Whos Neturei Karta?” You ask? It’s not a who, it’s a what, and don’t ask. It is a group of self-proclaimed “Guardians of the City” a small but vocal Chassidic band of Shabbas-protecting rock-throwing brothers who believe that the establishment of a Jewish national home without divine authorization is a shanda! Members don’t exactly deny that the holocaust happened, but they do deplore using it as an opportunity to create the State of Israel which they see as “a poison, threatening true Jews” and they pray “that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle east, namely the state knows as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved.” So much for a two-state solution. Oh, and the Holocaust was the divine will. “The Zionists,” their spokesperson told the Tehran anti-Holocaust conference, “with their secular pompous approach behave in complete opposition to this philosophy and dare to say ‘Never Again.’ They have the audacity to think that they can prevent the Almighty from repeating a Holocaust. This is heresy.” Nu, so call me a heretic. Can we arrange for a steel cage grudge match between these fellows and those other religious zealots who want to tear down the Dome of the Rock to build the Third Temple? I'd pay money to see that show of piety.

Then there are those who make up history. Parson Mason Weems comes to mind. Do you know of him? Johnny-on-the-spot, when George Washington died, he published “A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington” which is as close to fictionalized hagiography imposed on the American public until the more recent exploits of Karl Rove. “I cannot tell a lie, I cut down the cherry tree” Washington, or Weems? Weems. Washington praying on his knees in the woods at Valley Forge? Weems, not Washington. Washington asking all to leave his death bed, praying, lifting his feet onto the bed and gently expiring, his soul lifted up to heaven? Weems. In an op-ed piece in a recent New York Times I was reminded of the fact that Washington illegally claimed land west of the line the Brits said should be reserved to the Indians, fought a war to invalidate British land policies hemming in the settlers (amongst other things) and then protested when squatters squatted on his land now legally his. (Not Weems.)

So I use an old Olivetti and carrier pigeons. It’s more honest that way. Oh, wait, a bird just few into the coop bearing a message. It’s from fearless editor. Let me read it. “Josh: Stop telling people we correspond by pigeon; it’s a lie.”