Bassem  Youssef was the Egyptian comedian most compared to Jon Stewart, in Stewart’s heyday. Youssef was wildly popular in Egypt; until, the regime called  him in,  for questioning on the one sidedness of his jokes. After that interview, his attorney advised him not to let the sun set on him in Egypt.    He fled Egypt, and now lives with his family in America. He recently gave a poignant ad pregnant interview on British television about the current Israeli/HAMAS war; and how insignificant the lives of Palestinians are, in comparison to seven foreign aid workers, killed in an Israeli drone strike. This Blogger sent a video of that interview to a friend, a Palestinian-American on the cup of celebrity. She was touched, and then asked would this Blogger comment on the current state of affairs in the Middle East? As this Blog is being written, Israel is  suffering a retaliatory attack by the Shiite Muslim nation of  Iran. Why?  Israel attacked the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing seve

  This Blogger has a friend, who is an actor. He played the lead in a Los Angeles production of STEAMBATH. STEAMBATH is one of those plays not produced nearly enough on America’s stages( MARAT/SADE, NO EXIT,SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR and THE BALCONY being others). STEAMBATH is set in an afterlife, in which that afterlife is set in a steam bath;  God is there, as the  Puerto Rican attendant. It is an absurdist play; but, since all of us are living through these absurdist times, it resonates. As the Israeli/HAMAS devolves into absolute absurdity, perhaps God indeed is a Puerto Rican steam bath attendant. The people of Gaza are starving; they need food. Israel, at war with HAMAS, the terrorist overlords of Gaza,  has restricted food supplies; in an effort, this Blogger assumes, to get the emaciated people of Gaza to turn against HAMAS. To alleviate the starvation, a consortium of nations: America, Jordan and Egypt have begun to parachute pallets of food supplies into beleaguere

TIME MAGAZINE has named TAYLOR SWIFT as PERSON OF THE YEAR, 2023. Taylor Swift not Jonathan Swift. This Blogger understands that Taylor Swift has a very important impact on the culture;  in the firmament of Thighs , as the Great White Hope in White Women Thighs; with the goal being to dethrone  Beyonce’s Black Thighs as the thighs non-pariel in American culture. Ms. Swift is a singer, an entertainer, an actor who was notable in that notable failure of a film, CATS. Ms. Swift has been an economic powerhouse and has inspired  America's  wandering and rootless  young people to register to vote. But she has not won a Nobel Prize for Literature, like  Bob Dylan; nor does her political power match the political or social power of  the singer/actor Metrobius, who held sway over Rome; because he held sway over Sulla. Her selection as the  2023 PERSON OF THE YEAR stunningly reflects the bankruptcy of achievement, endemic in Joe Biden’s 2023 America. In 2023, there are two ruinous wars being

  Back in 2009, this Blogger published a Blog which theorized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be best understood, within the context of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Interminable war, events foretold, magic realism turned deadly.   The event foretold, in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, was told to this Blogger, by a Christian Palestinian, over drinks, during the Gulf War, in 1991, in Cairo. This Blogger happened to be in Cairo, on vacation, during that war.   The Palestinian, who was an activist, revealed the Grand Strategy of the Palestinian collective purpose; to wait out the acknowledged brilliant leadership of the Israeli Founding Fathers; then strike when Israel self indulged in stupid leadership.   His theory was that all empires, nations, states, monarchies, autocracies, military juntas, regimes  and peoples, even companies, even artistic disciplines, throw up brilliant clusters of leadership, in a specific period of time. And then, inevitably, stupidity arises t