FinermanWorks

No good deed goes unpunished.  In your conscientious regard for the environment, you may eschew the use of plastic bags–which only end up cluttering landfills for the next three eternities.  Instead, you noble soul will tote from store to store a reusable bag.  And now you wonder why you have food poisoning, allergies, boils, infections and asthma.  Blame the shopping bag.  It may like the environment but it hates you.

According to the Environment and Plastics Industry Council of Canada, those reusable bags are “a breeding ground for bacteria and pose a public health risk.”  And remember this is in Canada, where the climate is the role model for refrigerators.  If mold and bacteria can thrive in shopping bags there, imagine the Petri buffet you are lugging around. 

Of course, you may doubt the Plastic Industry Council’s purely objective perspective.  Nonetheless, it might be prudent if you observe the following precautions:

Do not eat directly from the shopping bag.  It is not intended to be a feed bag–even if the handles fit around your ears.

Do not wear a reusable bag as a hat–even if you are caught in the rain.  At worse, you will only have drenched hair and running hair dye; that is still preferable to the leprosy that is lurking at the bottom of the bag.

Remember to wash the reusable bag every time that you use it for underwear.

Now if you fail to observe these precautions and succumb to something horrible, look on the bright side.  At least you are bio-degradable.

p.s.  And let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2007/05/28/navy-blues/

Today–May 24th– Orthodox Christians honor the Saints Cyril and Methodius.  Roman Catholics would try to be politely indifferent to the hallowed pair, masking a genuine annoyance.  Ecumenicalism has its limits, after all.  Coke does not honor Pepsi. 

In the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, there was a competition between Rome and Constantinople to see who would convert the pagan Slavs to Christianity. The vying missionaries couldn’t always produce miracles on schedule to win converts, so they often used means that we might find nauseatingly familiar.

The Byzantines tried advertising. However, going door-to-door, they noticed that no one would read their Greek Orthodox religious tracts. The Slavs were illiterate and, even if they weren’t, it is not likely that they would want to read a foreign language. A pair of Byzantine marketing wizards, Cyril and Methodius, made their ad campaign more intelligible by modifying the Greek alphabet to the Slavic tongues. (Cyril and Methodius received sainthoods but Cyril got the glory; the Cyrillic Alphabet is named for him.)

Both Rome and Constantinople sought celebrity endorsements. Their respective salesmen appealed to the local kinglets and chieftains, who would then coerce their respective tribes to salvation. In wooing the petty royalty, the Byzantines had the advantage when it came to bribes: silks and crafted goblets, craftsmanship beyond the ability of those benighted western Europeans. To many a Slavic chieftain, the Byzantine luxuries were unearthly delights and easily seemed proof of Constantinople’s superior faith. That approach sold Russia.

Of course, Rome’s missionaries had their unique offers as well. They often could point to an army of Catholic Franks or Germans just across the border, and who were more than eager to proselytize in their own way. That proved very convincing as well, perhaps even more than silverware and a designer wardrobe.

May 23rd:  The Flammable Friar

Alexander VI was the type of Pope whom you would expect to die of syphilis. He was the personification of every vice and most crimes. One could concede that he was a doting father to his illegitimate offspring; unfortunately, those children happened to be Cesare and Lucretia Borgia.

By contrast, Friar Girolama Savonarola was a man of impeccable virtue who sought to restore morality to a corrupt Church and a decadent society. If given the choice between the cankerous Alexander VI and the austere Savonarola, any intelligent person would be writing fan letters to the Pope.

Savonarola was a Dominican, an order of monks that distinguished themselves for fanaticism and bigotry.  (Guess who ran the Spanish Inquisition?)  Hoping to do as much in Italy, he set up a repressive theocracy in Florence.  Much of his social agenda was to drag Florence back to the Middle Ages. His goons went from door to door, collecting or confiscating “vanities”–paintings and books deemed too secular, jewelry and even colorful clothing. These forbidden items were publicly burned in ceremonies called “bonfires of the vanities.” The kindling included works by Botticelli.

Savonarola was a spell-binding orator who exploited fatigue with Medici rule and popular disdain with the conspicuous corruption in the Church. It is remarkable that just two years after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Savonarola inspired and led a popular uprising that would drive the Medici out of Florence.

Although the Medici were pushovers, Alexander VI was not. He deeply resented Savonarola’s attacks. The Pope was a Borgia, so he wasn’t the passive type. Although he could easily have arranged for an accident–say food poisoning–for Savonarola, the Pope was going to make an example of his critic.

Apparently, criticizing a Pope can be heresy and so Savonarola was brought to trial.  The Dominican friar demonstrated his usual tact–none–before the tribunal of Alexander’s appointees.  So condemning him was effortless.  Indeed, one form of execution seemed insufficent.  Savonarola was simultaneously hanged and burned for heresy.   His theocracy ended with him–on this day in 1498.

If Savonarola made any mistake, it was his timing. He knew that the Medici were weak and fumbling, so perhaps he should have waited until one was Pope. Professor Luther did.

From the New York Times (What other newspaper can still afford a stringer in Armenia?):

 According to the pundit chorus, President Obama is likely to choose the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court.  That might have surprised Benjamin Cardozo. His family lived in Spain and Portugal for 14 centuries–even if they never were exactly conspicuous at daily mass. Indeed, the Cardozos likely would have stayed in Iberia for another five centuries but for the decision of a conservative Supreme Court.  The prospect of being burned alive in Valencia or Lisbon made migration to the Netherlands seem a good idea. 

Having been scorched themselves by the Spanish, the Dutch Protestants offered haven to refugees from the Inquisition.  An Ignacio and Maria in Seville were free to revert to being Isaac and Miriam in Amsterdam.  So the Cardozos became Dutch.  Nonetheless, the Cardozos never lost their Spanish identity.  When they settled in the British colony of New York, they joined the local Sephardic synagogue.  (The alternative would have been the German synagogue–where any Yiddish would have completely lost on the Cardozos.)   

This is not to say that Benjamin Cardozo would have identified with the Sharks in “West Side Story” but you cannot deny his Hispanic history.  His ancestors were in Iberia three centuries before King Juan Carlos’ Visgothic folk showed up.  Why didn’t a Spanish Jew tell Ferdinard and Isabella, “No, you leave.  We were here first.”  Obviously, chutzpah is more Askenazim. 

So Sonia Sotomayer might have to content herself with being the second Hispanic on the Supreme Court.  And, depending on her Spanish ancestry, there is at least a ten percent chance that Ms. Sotomayer might also be the second Jewish woman on the Supreme Court.

p.s.  From last year, here is a reminder of this day’s historic significance:

https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/05/21/louis-louis/

If you believe William Donohue of the Catholic Legion of Decency,  Hollywood hates the Church.  It is true that Friar Tuck is never as handsome as Robin Hood.  However, in “Angels With Dirty Faces”, I never suspected Father Pat O’Brien of molesting Huntz Hall or or burning alive Leo Gorcey.  Indeed, Hollywood usually dilutes and sanitizes any criticism or embarrassing history of Holy Mother Church. 

The 1947 film “Captain From Castile” takes place in 16th century Spain but the Inquisition is renamed “the brotherhood” and portrayed as just a nasty private club;  imagine the snobbish frat in “Animal House” with capital punishment.  The best-selling novel “The Golden Compass” was also rendered on film to an ecumenical blandness.    In the book, the world was controlled by a totalitarian theocracy with excellent artistic taste.  That obviously rules out Mormons, Southern Baptists and Moslems. You can bet your Bernini who that leaves.

Of course, “The Da Vinci Code” also was a target of Bill Donohue’s wrath.  He was outraged by the film’s premise that Jesus would have dated a Jewish girl, a scandal hushed up by the Church’s version of Neo-Cons, Opus Dei. For all of Donohue’s fulminations on the talk shows, he did not harm that film’s popularity. Neither did the contemptuous reviews of the critics.  The “The Da Vinci Code” was ridiculous. But that is exactly how Opus Dei planned it. If the nefarious organization couldn’t suppress its scandalous secret, at least it successfully conspired to have the worst possible director make the movie.

Opus Dei would have preferred Ed Wood, but his cryogenic chamber beneath the Vatican failed. The Society nearly picked Garry Marshall; he would have transfigured the sinister plot into a puerile comedy. But there was the fear that the public would love Julia Roberts as Mary Magdalene.

The French members of the Society wanted Woody Allen to do the film. His Jesus would be an elderly Jewish neurotic who fancied himself being pursued by attractive and much younger shiksas. No one would see the film because they had already seen it a few dozen times before.

The more enlightened members of the Opus Dei–the ones who concede Galileo was right–actually wanted Peter Jackson to make “The Da Vinci Code.” Yes, the film would be a hit–but no one would believe it. Furthermore, the Treasury really would have benefited from the commercial tie-ins (McDonald chalices, Da Vinci jeans with codpieces.) Cardinal Ratzinger (he would later be promoted) warned this faction, “Stop thinking like Jesuits.”

No, “The Da Vinci Code” required someone who could turn any plot into a catatonic muddle. And, when every other director in Hollywood was threatened with excommunication or another 2000 years of persecution, Ron Howard was offered the film.

Unfortunately,”The Da Vinci Code”  was so popular that Hollywood had to produce a sequel, and once again Ron Howard is perpetrating it.  According to the reviews, “Angels and Demons” has the same comatose pace but without the provocative interest of the first film.  (A cult of killer Phi Beta Kappas just is not as sensational as the thought of Jesus having a mother-in-law.) 

If the studio wanted an interesting plot for the sequel, I could have offered these possibilities:

The Ameche Code: When read backwards in Latin, the script of “Heaven Can Wait” reveals that all of the moguls of Hollywood were descended from the Virgin Mary’s older sister Marla.

The De Niro Code: Forming Greek letters, Martin Scorsese’s ear hair reveals the truth about Jesus’ death. He was not crucified but shot in the head six times and His body was left in the trunk of a chariot.

The De Grassi Code: The discovery of Jesus’ high school yearbook shows the picture of a Messiah who couldn’t cure his own acne. You can see why He was not picked to be His homecoming’s King of Kings.

And I can guarantee that Bill Donohue would have hated any of them!

How should we celebrate the anniversary of Edward Jenner’s introduction of cow pox vaccine against small pox?  A cake covered with buttercream pustules?  (You know me: any excuse for frosting.)   

It is a tribute to English tolerance that Edward Jenner was merely vilified for his dangerous notion about vaccination…and not hanged or exiled to Australia.  The English were not just intimidated by medical innovation; they had developed a sentimental attachment to small pox.  The disease had proved extremely helpful in clearing North America of its natives.  (The Spanish were just as grateful for the same reason.)

However, the French–ever contrary–did not seem to like small pox.  Of course, they would prefer the great pox–and even earned the honor of having syphilis renamed the French Disease.  And small pox did not behave itself in France. 

It is the reason that Louis XIV was succeeded by his great-grandson.  So, what happened to Louis XIV’s dauphin and grand-dauphin? In 1711-1712, there was an outbreak of smallpox at Versailles. The mortality among the Bourbons would have made a Jacobin jealous. The future Louis XV was the third son of the Duc of Burgundy. By the time the epidemic had ended, he had lost both his parents, his two older brothers and his grandfather. The two-year-old had been fifth in line to the throne; he now was the heir.

Indeed his survival was due to the diligence of his nurse; she quarantined herself and the child–isolating themselves from any other contact. But for her zeal, the succession might have passed to the Orleanist branch of the royal family; and who would want intelligent, progressive kings of France?

I wonder whether my wife gets more satisfaction from making our yard bloom or making me work.  Over the last weekend Karen fully exploited my vanity, docility and cheapness.  Even at 57, I still have delusions of virility, which I manifest by mowing the lawn.  In the suburbs, any status-conscious homeowner is expected to delegate that chore to a lawn service. While I have a liberal’s sense of shame over the Mexican War (and since the 2000 election would gladly return Texas to its original owners), I don’t intend to pay $50 a week merely to atone for the Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo.

I now get dirty looks from the passing lawn crews and my neighbors regard me as subversive.  Indeed, some of the local children can’t believe that a homeowner would mow the lawn.  Once, teenagers were going door-to-door to raise money for a high school methadone clinic or some other fringe benefit that my exorbitant property taxes don’t completely subsidize.  I was toiling in the yard, pushing the mower.  The teenagers walked past me and rang the front door.  I didn’t say a word; after all, I wasn’t presumed to speak English.  If someone should ever address the mowing peasant in Spanish, I am ready with this reply, “I am sorry, but I had to read Cervantes in translation.”

My husbandry is not limited to mowing because my wifery is not limited to lawncare. Karen is an obsessed gardener.  I imagine that she read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” only for landscaping hints.  Of course, in creating a garden Karen needs to cultivate me. She cannot simply order me to rake, dig and lug; I am too fond of the French Revolution to tolerate that.  No, Karen’s stratagem is to ask my opinion. “Do you think that we need to dig up this flower bed?  Do you think that we should weed the lawn?” My opinion invariably is that I have no choice, but serfdom always is more cheerful when you pretend to volunteer.

I must confess to an embarrassing relationship with weeds.  One of them seduced me. Several years ago, I noticed a pretty plant with a brocade of white flowers growing in our lawn.  Karen identified it as Queen Anne’s Lace and she must have assumed that I would mow the weed to oblivion.  However, I let it survive.  More than the plant’s charming look, I felt such sympathy for the original Queen Anne. The Stuarts usually were stupid but attractive: imagine a dynasty cast by Aaron Spelling.  Anne, however, was begrudged the good looks and cheated in every other way too.  The dull, miserable woman outlived her children, was exploited by politicians and betrayed by every friend but her brandy.  I could not remedy 18th century medicine, politics or morality, but I could spare the plant that bore Anne’s name.  Unfortunately, in a month, Anne had spread throughout our lawn.  Her namesake had never been that prolific.  I found myself yanking two-foot stalks to atone for my knowledge of history and ignorance of weeds.

My compassion has never extended to dandelions and, like any other homeowner, I wage eternal jihad against the yellow intruders.  The war has steadily escalated.  I began with personal combat, using a knife to dig up each weed.  The sight of me squatting on the grass and stabbing the lawn may not been a testimonial to my sanity.  I ended up with a lawn pitted with knife wounds, but it was dandelion-free.  Of course, my morbid satisfaction didn’t last.  Any surviving tendrils would resurrect the weed, and the dandelions would sprout back, thicker and surlier. 

In the next phase of the war, I resorted to a socially responsible herbicide.  Its all-natural, biodegradable, holistic ingredients were supposed to persuade or shame the dandelions into leaving our lawn.  Tibet has used the same approach in dealing with China, and with the same results.  So, this year I abandoned all regard for the Geneva Convention and bought a 48-pound bag of death.  Its advertising could have been translated from a Nuremberg Rally, promising me a solution to all alien seeds while nourishing a race of super-grass. 

My herbicidal euphoria ended when I took the time to read the back of the bag.  The warnings were much longer than the instructions.  Skin grafts and amputations were possible consequences, and users should expect to remove dead pets from the lawn.  Karen began to think that the lawn was not worth the dangers; where is Lady Macbeth when I need her?  According to the warnings, the herbicide was dangerous to touch or smell, and it could corrode metal and concrete; yet, it was also good for grass.  How could it be, unless it was grass’ vengeance on mankind? 

Of course, I still used the herbicide.  Captain Ahab would have understood.  I did make a few concessions to survival by wearing a safety mask, gloves suitable for handling uranium, and two sets of work clothes. For all these precautions, the product may still kill me, but at least it will get the dandelions first.  While awaiting my demise, I can keep busy with pruning, raking, digging and more mowing.  And Karen has been asking my opinion about the mildew in a shower stall.  Husbandry is not limited to yardwork.

May 7th

On May 7, 1915, U-boat Kommandant Walther Schwieger had to make a difficult choice.  Would he want 4,200,000 rifle bullets  to reach his English enemies or would he prefer 100,000,000  Americans to join the war against Germany.  Deciding that the bullets were a more immediate danger, Schwieger sank the ocean liner transporting the bullets–along with 1900 passengers and crew.  The ship was the Lusitania.

One torpedo was sufficient to sink the British ship.  Even Schwieger admitted that it was a lucky shot.   The Lusitania sank in only 18 minutes.  It took even less time for 1198 people to drown.  The victims included 128 Americans.  Schwieger also succeeded in sinking any neutrality in American public opinion.

Up until that time the Americans dismissed the Great War as just as another elaborate, convoluted European opera except that the main characters really were trying to kill each other.  The public consensus had no preferences.  Yes, Kaiser Wilhelm did seem repellent but so did the British Empire.  Just ask the large number of Irish-Americans.  Among the growing Jewish population in America, Tsar Nicholas II was not fondly remembered; pogroms rarely are.   Furthermore, many Americans were of German descent and felt a certain nostalgia for the Vaterland; they had no wish to see their new country fight their old one.

The sinking of the Lusitania ended America’s indifference.  Popular sympathy was now with the Allies, and many were ready to act on that sentiment: fight the Hun!  Responding to America’s outrage, the Germans attempted to justify the sinking of Lusitania by offering desiccated legalese.  The German government had publicly announced its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against any enemy shipping; it had placed ads in American newspapers!  Obviously, the passengers of the Lusitania should have known better.  The Teutonic jurisprudence did not satisfy the public outrage.  Indeed, within a few months the German government decided to refrain from sinking passenger ships.  (In the meantime, Lieutenant Schwieger sank the R.M.S. Hesperian–a hospital ship; the Second Reich did have some standards and apologized for that.)

America was ready for war, but President Wilson was not.  He had two reservations.  The first was political:  he wanted to be reelected in 1916 and he couldn’t be sure how all those Irish-American Democrats would feel about a military alliance with Britain.  (The American Jews would be placated and gratified by the appointment of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, and the German-Americans tended to vote Republican anyway.)  His second reservation was philosophical, and our only Ph.D. President took his philosophy very seriously.  If America was to go to war, there had to be a nobler reason than revenge for the Lusitania or a visceral dislike of the Kaiser and German brutality.  America needed an aspiration to justify war.  If this were a war between democracy and autocracy, then Wilson would have committed our nation to the fight.  But the Allies included Tsarist Russia–a tyranny far more repressive than Germany.  While the Tsar reigned, President Wilson would maintain America’s neutrality.

But the Tsar fell in March, 1917 and Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany the next month.  The American victims on the Lusitania at last would be avenged.

As for Lieutenant Schwieger, in 1917 he finally had the misfortune to confront an armed ship.  Attempting to flee, he piloted his U-boat into a minefield.  In his last moments, he knew what it was like to be on the Lusitania.

Napoleon Bonaparte was history’s most aggressive liberal.  (Bill Maher is a distant second.)  The French Revolution and its chief champion swept away the laws that exalted one religion or persecuted another.  From France to Poland this spirit of Emancipation–supported by French bayonets–tore down the ghetto walls of a 1000 years.

Of course, when Napoleon fell, the old prejudices and laws returned. The emancipation of the French Revolution and then the restoration of the Old Order had a profound effect on one family in Trier, Germany. When the French army conquered the Rhineland, it abolished the laws that had restricted where Jews could live and how they could earn a living. A rabbi’s son named Herschel Marx now had the freedom to become a lawyer. Unfortunately, after Napoleon’s defeat, Prussia took control of Trier. Prussian law in the early 19th century did not permit Jews to be lawyers. Herschel Marx had a choice: he could abandon his career and return to the ghetto or he could convert. Since he was a lawyer, there is no reason to think that he had principles. He became a Lutheran named Heinrich. The newly christened Heinrich Marx was starting a family and, although his wife Rachel refrained from converting, their children were duly baptized.  But for that, Trier Germany might have had a very dyspeptic rabbi named Kalman Marx.  Instead, history ended up with a self-proclaimed prophet called Karl.