As New Year Approaches, Will Finley Be Taller?

At six feet, zero inches, my stature as tallest member of the Forseter clan may be in its waning days. Coupled with a body’s natural tendency to shrink as one ages, our grandson Finley’s unstoppable ascendancy is all but certain. He has already passed his father’s 5’ 10” standard and is roughing out at six feet. 

We will stand barefoot, back to back, when Dan brings his family to White Plains for Rosh Hashanah Wednesday evening. 

Finley is not following my growth pattern, the one Dan inherited. Dan and I were below average height at our respective bar mitzvahs. We sprouted to our ultimate height during our late mid-teen years. 

When Finley turns 15 in November I expect to be officially dethroned as tops in our family, assuming I retain my prominence this week. 

Visual evidence as to who is now, or still, top of the clan will be available on my next posting. 

Meanwhile, to all, 

shana tovah umetukah

שנה טובה ומתוקה 

Sharing Posts Worthy of Sharing

Everyone’s Facebook feed is different, so here’s a handful or two of posts worthy of passing on:

It’s simple. Anyone who cheats his customers, vendors, and partners is going to cheat you. Anyone who betrayed his wives will betray you. Anyone who lies all the time will lie to you. Wise up.

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I had a beeper in high school, and a good way to make sure it never explodes is to not constantly fire rockets and drones at the people capable of making that happen. It’s an important lesson to learn.

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When a 78-year-old man repeatedly rants about dog-eaters rampaging through Ohio, you have him evaluated by a geriatric neurologist. You don’t hand him the nuclear codes.

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How sad it must be believing that scientists, scholars, and journalists have devoted their entire lives to deceiving you, while a reality TV star with decades of fraud and exhaustively documented lying is your only beacon of truth and honesty.

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“If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason’s and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.” — Ulysses S. Grant, September 29, 1875

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Why are 100+ year old buildings classified as “heritage” and illegal to tear down, yet it’s legal for 100+ year old trees to be cut down every day?

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“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means” — Nye Bevan, 1948, founder of Britain’s National Health Service

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Jews against Trump - because we’ve seen this before.

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Never Forget: Not one Republican officeholder who objected to Biden’s victory has objected to their own win on the same day, on the same ballots, using the same election systems.

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“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” —Voltaire

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He doesn’t need more Secret Service agents. If thoughts and prayers are enough for our children, it’s good enough for him. 

A Tale of Eggs and Their Electoral Impact

Yesterday at my local supermarket I bought a dozen large eggs. The least expensive carton cost $4.69, about double the price two years ago. Which got me to thinking, the coming election will be decided by which pain affects voters to a greater degree—the pain in the wallet for a dozen eggs or the insidious pain to a woman’s womb as Republicans try to control all aspects of a fertile woman’s egg-producing years. 

Which reality will motivate voters? Today’s egg prices, or tomorrow’s “Handmaid’s Tale” future?

Inflation is only part of the reason egg prices are up. Another outbreak of bird flu has shrunk supply, spiking prices. Yet, that reality will barely penetrate the psyche of voters who choose to blame Democrats for inflation. 

Eggs of a different kind—the kind that can be transformed into human embryos—are at the center of the debate over reproductive freedom, the origin of when life begins, the status of equal rights for women, along with access to quality, affordable maternity and child care. 

Without giving details of his programs Donald Trump promises a utopia of lower regulation, lower taxes, lower prices, lower inflation, better health care, more empowered women, lower crime, higher tariffs to stimulate more American manufacturing jobs, fewer immigrants, massive deportation of illegal migrants, expansive child care, and an end to international wars. 

He is beyond loose on specifics on how he would achieve those goals, especially ones that require congressional action, such as providing better health care. He does not address how consumers could see lower prices if immigrant and migrant labor is sharply reduced on farms and in food processing plants, how home costs could go down without their presence in the construction industry, how landscaping and home cleaning/maintenance jobs could be filled. Trump ignores history and the view of economists that tariffs drive prices up for consumers and, if too high, could result in retaliatory tariffs or cancelled trade.

Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has not “dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s” in her multi-pronged economic stimulation program, either. Her plans, as well, depend upon a compliant legislature. But her keynote appeal revolves around healthcare, specifically women’s reproductive rights.

On the economy people have no or little comprehension of why prices go up, or down. They just blame a current administration for a lousy economy even if it was inherited. Thus, too few Americans have given Joe Biden props for what he did to salvage the economic shambles left by Trump. 

So Harris has to change the narrative away from the economy to reproductive rights and other medical issues that affect women and their families. She also has to emphasize how Trump and JD Vance are bullies and liars which women/mothers find repulsive. It doesn’t hurt her cause that Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno and North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson reinforce the GOP’s outrageous positioning toward women. 

Women, especially black women, college coeds and yes, women over 50, will be key to a Harris victory. 

At the same time, let’s be clear that it is in the best interests of men to support a woman’s right to choose, to their access to great health care and child care, to protect in vitro fertilization. Returning women to a role of dependency a la The Handmaid’s Tale would undercut our country’s standard of living, dismiss their contributions in medical, financial, business, education and other fields, and thrust the United States onto a path of Third World status. 

A Sadness from Betrayal, Loss of Trust

When you talk with Israeli women from Ashkelon, Israel’s largest city closest to the Gaza Strip, when you listen to them recite the horrors of October 7, you hear overwhelming sadness from a collective feeling of betrayal. 

Palestinians employed by Israelis, some brought into their homes, some even transported to medical services deep inside Israel, these Gazans were at the forefront of the barbaric attack, pinpointing specific homes and families to brutalize and kill, even to the absurd result that one kibbutz family with plans to be away that day escaped the terror their neighbors endured because they had postponed their trip without telling their Palestinian worker, so he told fellow terrorists the house was empty and need not be attacked. 

The betrayal cannot be forgiven. Severed, possibly forever, is a measure of trust that will take perhaps generations, if ever, to resurrect. 

Who will lose out? Israel will find replacement workers for their fields and factories, for workers and caregivers in their homes. The country is nothing if not resourceful. 

But from whom will Gazans, even the ones who reject Hamas, find relief? Income? Medical services not available in the Gaza Strip, surely not since much of it has been reduced to rubble? The bridge between cultures has been destroyed. 

For the last 10 days six women from Ashkelon were guests of Shalom Yisrael of Westchester, a reward for volunteer work they do in their community along the Mediterranean coast. They enjoyed an ever so brief respite from the sounds of war, the impact of missiles evading Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. 

A slight correction. Even touring New York they were reminded of the war. New Yorkers are used to seeing helicopters, in the air, taking off, landing. But to Israelis, helicopters along the Hudson and East Rivers were associated with military activity, with emergency crews bringing wounded to hospitals. 

Before October 7 Yona had left her home to visit family. October 7 was not just the sabbath. It was a holiday, Simchat Torah. Until she returned days later she had no idea a rocket had hit her home. Ashkelon has the unenviable distinction of being the Israeli city most targeted by terrorist rockets.  

Clara’s overnight nursing shift was to end at 7 am. But many emergency room nurses and doctors did not show up that morning, so a call came in to her upper floor station for help. Clara spent the next 24 hours attending the wounded. 

She had served as a nurse during combat in 1984. She was familiar with seeing wounded soldiers. But these injured were different. They were mostly civilians, poring into the ER not singly by ambulance but in droves, sometimes six to ten stuffed into any vehicle that could rush them to the hospital. 

Since 2010 I have been involved with Shalom Yisrael, a 35-year-old volunteer organization that strives to build lasting bonds between Israelis and Americans through annual visits by deserving Israelis, not because they are heroes but rather because they tirelessly, unselfishly, give back to their communities. 

This year’s six guests predominantly volunteer for an organization, Haken, that counsels women from families in distress. Indeed, one of our guests received such counseling and now provides it to other needy women. 

During their 10 day visit they toured New York, took a Circle Line cruise, saw a matinee of “Water for “Elephants,” ate in Chinatown, rode the subway and Metro North, and, most importantly, told their stories to teenage students at Westchester Hebrew High School, the Leffell School and Temple Israel Center of White Plains, and to staff of Westchester Jewish Community Services. 

They went home today. Clara, Yona, Malka, Leah, Valerie and Sigal will arrive back in Israel Thursday full of memories, knowing they imparted memories in all they met. 

At 75, Finally Learning to Swim, I Hope

With autumn officially beginning today, another summer has gone by and I still have not learned how to swim. 

Not that I didn’t try for so many years. I did go for 15 years to sleepaway camp where instructional swim was mandatory for campers. Okay, those last six years I was a counselor and could evade any swim instruction. 

Speaking of evading instruction, for one of my summers I almost earned an intermediate instruction certificate (I would have qualified if I had mastered treading water). 

My instructor told me to dive into deep water, swim underwater for 10 yards then tread water. I didn’t want to as I was not certified to dive into deep water, but as he was much larger than I, I reluctantly complied. 

My dive was decent. I swam underwater. But as I surfaced I spouted I could not tread water. I sank, only to be raised above the surface by the head of the waterfront who, when I responded to his inquiry in the negative if I knew how to swim, admonished me never to enter deep water again before successfully learning to swim. 

My instructor had pity on me so he gave me the Intermediate card with the proviso that I truly earn it next year. 

How convenient. Armed with that card I evaded the mandatory swimming requirements at my high school and college. 

I am not proud I do not know how to swim. I made sure our children learned. Dan even became a certified life guard, one summer working at FDR State Park’s public swimming pool where he alone recorded a dozen saves out of the more than several hundred that season.  

My antipathy towards swimming is deep seeded. In two videos taken when I was younger than five, I can be seen struggling to get out of the water. In one, my mother is holding me in the pool of the Takanassee Hotel in Fleischmann, NY., where our family spent several weeks each summer. In the second, we are at the shore, probably Rockaway Beach, and Meyer Engelstein, a close friend of my father, is struggling not to drop me as waves break around us. 

Much the same way I never learned to ride a two wheel bike as a youngster because my father let go and I fell hard on the pavement, I must have had some traumatic early childhood experience that has prevented me from feeling, from breathing, comfortably in water. 

Eventually, when 40, I learned to bike. Despite attempts to teach me to swim, I never learned.  

I am constantly surprised by friends and acquaintances who sheepishly admit they too cannot swim. A few months ago David G. suggested I join him at Westchester Community College’s beginners swimming class for seniors. 

I agreed, but when it was time to sign up, somehow our communication got scrambled. I have no doubt it was my subconscious fault. Given another chance, as David masters advanced beginners on Sunday, I enrolled in the beginners’ class. Friday was my first lesson. 

Asked by Angela, the instructor, what I hope to accomplish, I unhesitatingly said I wanted to learn how to tread water. 

Firing Away at His Competency

During Tuesday’s debate with Kamala Harris, Donald Trump boasted about all the people he fired during his administration. 

Context: A main task of a president is to appoint qualified men and women to command all aspects of the executive branch of government. Trump say many of his hires were incompetent and disloyal. So he fired them. Dozens of Trump administration appointees now say he is unfit to be president again.

Conclusion: If Trump is right, it proves he lacks the ability to select qualified executives while lacking the talent to lead them. 

If they are right in saying he is unfit to be president again, it is a cautionary warning not to be dismissed. 

Don’t just take my word. In case you missed it, here’s a compilation posted weeks ago by Lloyd Eisenberg of comments from 24 Republicans who worked with Trump under the heading, “Stop listening to Democrats! Listen to Republicans:” 

 

1. Former vice president, Mike Pence: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution. … Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

2. His second attorney general, Bill Barr: “Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

3. His first secretary of defense, James Mattis: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”...”We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”

4. His second secretary of defense, Mark Esper: “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”

5. His chairman of the joint chiefs, retired Gen. Mark Milley, seemed to invoke Trump: We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or a dictator,-“We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator”.

6. His first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson: “(Trump’s) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”  (quoted in 2021) “We’re in a worse place today than we were before he came in,” Tillerson said, “and I didn’t think that was possible.”

7. His final chief of staff's aide, Cassidy Hutchinson: "I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history."

8. His presidential transition vice-chairman, Chris Christie: “Someone who I would argue now is just out for himself.” "What he wants ... are people who will just nod their heads, say yes and execute whatever his next rant will be. And so, one, it'll be a huge personnel problem of people who have no business being in senior positions in the federal government," "And then secondly, I think we have to take him at his word. This is gonna be the vendetta presidency. This is gonna be, 'I am your retribution.' And I think he will use the levers of government to punish the people who he believes have been disloyal to him or to his approach."

9. His second national security adviser, HR McMaster: “We saw the absence of leadership, really anti-leadership, and what that can do to our country.” The reasons for (the January 6th) criminal assault on our Congress and election process are many. But foremost among them is the sad reality that President Trump and other officials have repeatedly compromised our principles in pursuit of partisan advantage and personal gain,”“Those who engaged in disinformation and demagoguery in pursuit of self-interest abdicated their responsibility to the American people. It was, in every sense of the phrase, a dereliction of duty.”

10. His third national security adviser, John Bolton: “I believe (foreign leaders) think he is a laughing fool.” "Trump is unfit to be president." "If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse.” “Everything is episodic, anecdotal, transactional. And everything is contingent on the question of how this will benefit Donald Trump.”

11. His second chief of staff, John Kelly: " (He) is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about."     “A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”

12. His former acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who resigned as US special envoy to Ireland after January 6, 2021: “I quit because I think he failed at being the president when we needed him to be that.”

13. One of his many former communications directors, Anthony Scaramucci: “He is the domestic terrorist of the 21st century.” “My observation was, OK, he’s not listening, and good leadership requires delegation and listening, and he’s too defensive and too insecure to actually take in input,” “I found that when I was briefing him, I had to put pictures of him in the briefing. When I put the pictures in, it was a good sign, and when I didn’t put the pictures in, you couldn’t get him to focus on it.” “Even if you got him to focus on it, he wouldn’t listen to you anyway because he’s so maniacally narcissistic.”

14. Another former communications director, Stephanie Grisham: “I am terrified of him running in 2024.”

15. His secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, who resigned after January 6: “When I saw what was happening on January 6 and didn’t see the president step in and do what he could have done to turn it back or slow it down or really address the situation, it was just obvious to me that I couldn’t continue.”

16. His secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, who resigned after January 6: “At a particular point the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy.

17. His first secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer: “…the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”

18. His first homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert: “The President undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he’s culpable for this siege, ( January 6th) and an utter disgrace.”

19. His former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen: “Donald’s an idiot.”

20. His White House lawyer, Ty Cobb: “Trump relentlessly puts forth claims that are not true.”

21. A former director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah Griffin, “We can stand by the policies, but at this point we cannot stand by the man.”

22. A top aide in charge of his outreach to African Americans, Omarosa Manigault Newman: “Donald Trump, who would attack civil rights icons and professional athletes, who would go after grieving black widows, who would say there were good people on both sides, who endorsed an accused child molester; Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness.”

23. A former deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews, who resigned after January 6: “I thought that he did do a lot of good during his four years. I think that his actions on January 6 and the lead-up to it, the way that he’s acted in the aftermath, and his continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office every again.”

24. His first ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley: “He used to be good on foreign policy and now he has started to walk it back and get weak in the knees when it comes to Ukraine. A terrible thing happened on January 6 and he called it a beautiful day.” "You've got a Donald Trump who's unhinged, and he's more unhinged than he ever was.....  “he is not the same person he was in 2016.” "Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief.” 

Con Man Exposes Himself

Perhaps the biggest and longest running con game of all time was exposed by none other than the con man himself. Donald Trump has admitted he lost the 2020 election. 

After four years of claiming he won, after raising hundreds of millions of dollars to fund legal challenges and appeals of election denial, after inciting a riot at the Capitol that resulted in five deaths, more than a thousand arrests, hundreds of trials, guilty verdicts, incarcerations and ruined lives, as well as an assault on our Constitution, Trump has finally, publicly, confessed his election denial was a ruse. 

“I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, ‘You would win. You can’t not win.’ And I got millions more votes than that and lost by a whisker,” Trump told Lex Fridman in Fridman’s podcast released on Tuesday (https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/ifv2ReSz). 

He didn’t lose “by a whisker.” Joe Biden got seven million more popular votes, 81.2 million vs. Trump’s 74.2 million. And, in the decisive Electoral College tally, Biden trounced Trump 306 to 232.   

With the debate next Tuesday with Kamala Harris in mind, Trump may be trying to soften his image, much as he has flip-flopped on women’s reproductive rights, in the hope of appealing to undecided independent voters. 

It will be up to ABC’s David Muir and Linsay Davis to force him to set the record straight, not on some obscure podcast but in front of tens of millions who will view the debate. 

The first question and plenty of followups should be on the false narrative Trump advanced. For her part, Harris must sharply rebuke him as her training as a prosecutor should instruct her. Indeed, his con duping the public into sending money for his deceitful cause may well have constituted an illegal act. 

Trump’s rally cry to “Stop the Steal” of an election should be turned on him—he should be charged in federal and state courts with stealing money from supporters who were led by Trump to believe that he won the 2020 election. 

Forget border security, the economy, Israel, Ukraine, energy—all those important issues and more are inconsequential compared to the rot Trump has implanted in our country, his rejection of the peaceful transfer of power, his bilking millions into believing in his honesty, fleecing them of hundreds of millions of dollars, corrupting the integrity of a political party, hollowing out its soul and replacing it with zombie-like allegiance. 

Yes, the whole 90 minute debate should be a deep dive into Trump’s malfeasance in his final days in office and the ensuing nearly four years. Do not let him soft pedal his actions. Expressing remorse would not be sufficient for his attack on democracy.