Michelle, ma belle…
she’s at it again...and I quote:

Richard --

Every night in the White House, I see Barack up late poring over briefings, reading your letters, and writing notes to people he's met.

He's doing that for you -- working hard every day to make sure we can finish what we all started together.

This week, I need you to have his back.

Will you donate $3 or more to support Barack before Saturday's critical fundraising deadline?

https://donate.barackobama.com/Support-Barack

Thank you.

Michelle


I know she's a busy woman and has more important things to attend to, but they're putting her name on this stuff so she could at least consider for a moment if this is the best way to communicate. Especially since this administration goes out of its way to promote itself as plain-speaking, straight talking types. Would it be less effective if it just said "we need your support." and pretty much left it at that. And if they must dress it up with false intimacy, least they could do is avoid the silly guilt tripping stuff about Barack staying up late burning the midnight oil...all because he cares about...me?


Okay, I know. G.K. Chesterton was an anti-semite.
Or was he?
Adam Gopnik (in the course of praising him and celebrating his accomplishments) says he was, but qualifies that with a lot of wonderings and wanderings into G.K’s life and times and assorted other avenues and back alleys in order to come to grips with his own dilemma regards his high regard for the man’s work and less than high regard for some of the things he said. I came across a few things in the little I’ve read that sent mild chills down my neck (or is that up my spine?) –but I let it go because he generally seemed to use the word “jew” as a descriptive in reference to the behavior of specifically identified characters who were money manipulators and usurers.





"Look at them with their hooked beaks," Becky said, getting into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in great glee. "They're like vultures after a battle. Vanity Fair—W.M.Thackeray



Thackeray, Dickens, Even Shaw had much to answer for when it comes to stooping to ignorant stereotype. Not exactly a new story there.



And the fact that G.K.'s younger brother (who subsequently died during WWI) was a whistle blowing journalist who exposed insider trading schemes of top government officials and was then sued by the corrupt (and jewish) stock manipulator (see: The Marconi Scandal) for slander did little to soften Chesterton's views.








In turn of the century England, the issue wasn't just ethnicity, it was the immigration of foreigners of all kinds. Ethnic diversity was not an appetizing addition to the Prix Fixe menu of Victorian England.
But reading Chesterton when he’s talking about The Jew, or the The Jewish Problem or the Jewish Issue is like listening to a pastoral passage from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and suddenly hearing a blast of Wagner horns blaring out a militaristic march.




What is most disturbing is realizing that if a man of Chesterton’s depth of understanding and generosity of spirit could be so infected with such a prejudice, then what does that say about how deep and poisonous that plague of prejudice was throughout the rest of the world. I remember having the same thought when I read Jack London’s virulent attacks against Jack Johnson and all African Americans. And nothing Chesterton said came even close to London's race baiting that verged on incitements to riot.

But history is always seen through the distorted prism of hindsight and there’s never a dearth of those seeking to find loose strands of scandal, even among the graves of those who in their own lifetime did more to heal humanity than hurt it. Chesterton died in 1936, but not too soon to see what was on the horizon. And he spoke out often and early, and was among the few who didn’t pull any punches, saying he was “ appalled by the Hitlerite atrocities…” and “…that I am quite ready to believe that (Hilaire) Belloc and I will die defending the last Jew in Europe.”

Now, let's talk about Ezra Pound...not.