Jay, regarding the ridiculous "Department of War" you write that it is "as of old," but I have been pushing back on this falsehood wherever I can: it was never so.
The former Department of War is the ancestor of the Department of the Army, not the Department of Defense. After WW2 it was clear that having the Army (and Army Air Forces) and the Navy (and Marine Corps) under two cabinet-level departments with no coordination below the level of the commander-in-chief was far from ideal, and during the war an early step towards joint leadership was taken with the appointment of Fleet Admiral Leahy as chief of staff to the commander-in-chief, a unique position that was the forerunner to the later chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The National Security Act of 1947 was an attempt to correct these issues, and among other things (such as creating the CIA), it split off the Army Air Forces to become a new service under a new Department of the Air Force, renamed the Department of War to the Department of the Army (the same secretary changed his title), and placed the both, along with the Department of the Navy, under the new Secretary of Defense, who ran... something called the National Military Establishment. After two years of hearing people complaining about the "NME" in Washington, that was wisely renamed to the Department of Defense.
Again, there was no lineage connecting the Department of War to the Department of Defense. The former has a successor, and it's the Department of the Army, even if the current leadership is too ignorant to know it. It certainly wasn't changed because of 1940s woke leadership that wanted to be less warlike. Rather, it simply made sense for the department in charge of the Army to be named for it, especially as it was about to be demoted to be subordinate to a new cabinet-level secretary.
I'm Officer Candidate School, not West Point Protective Association. We don't have an alumni group devoted to promoting our careers. If we did, I'm wondering what D-list celebrity we'd end up honoring. Pauly Shore? Former Patridge Family drummer Danny Bonaduce?
Prognosis not very good for your recovery after a tough Wolverines or Lions loss.
Three years ago AARP:The Magazine published an eyewitness to history section. One 87 year old eyewitness saw Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” in the Polo Grounds in 1954. He and his Brooklyn buddies played hooky, traveled to Coogan’s Bluff, scored some tickets, and witnessed their Dodgers carry a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, only to see Ralph Branca serve up the fateful pitch. He made it home “feeling like I’d been struck by lightning”. His Dad consoled him “Someday you ‘ll get over it”. In 2022 the eyewitness mused “Maybe someday I will”.
Kansas lost to eventual NCAA champion Texas Western in double OT in the 1966 Midwest Regional Final; after the referee ruled that Jo Jo White had been out of bounds when he appeared to have sunk the winning bucket for the Jayhawks at the end of the first OT. Not over it yet, but it’s only been 59 years.
I maintain a thin, perhaps naive hope that we will somehow find our way through this mess. I maintain it to prevent my already broken heart from shattering completely.
I used to follow the Texas Aggies (I grew up in Bryan/College Station) until they did away with the Southwest Conference. Now I tend to say, "They're playing who? WHY!?"
I'm beyond embarrassed about our government. I never thought to see the USA aligned with Putin's Russia, North Korea, and Red China. Regime change can't come soon enough.
There are so many things that no one is mentioning. I should have my own column!
You wrote about the BRAVE Thom Tillis, who is leaving office and might murmur some minor disagreement with the current regime's actions. One loud silence comes from the Justice Department, which, rather than worry about Musk's car dealerships and flying sandwiches and your friend Rosie O'Donnell, could issue a severe warning to the public about harassing and threatening congressmen and women about their dissenting views. It's appalling that we've had ZERO "emergency proclamations" about this growing problem, and that this fear and ultimate lack of action is now accepted as predictable and barely noteworthy. Any former President would have condemned this ever-increasing problem without hesitation, regardless of which party's representatives are receiving the threats.
I suspect that this is part of the plan, an administration that acts with arrogance and disdain for MOST (not just half) of the population, thinks we aren't watching, knows that many don't understand what's happening, that doesn't even take the time to explain why we don't need to fund cancer research, or support traditional allies, or use American soft power through USAID or Voice Of America. They are not planning to keep power by enacting laws and influencing the voters. It's all brute force, and threatening elected officials fits perfectly into the bigger plan.
Tom Tillis is my senator and I have written to him and applauded him for occasionally standing up to Trump and I believe was the only one who voted against the Big Beautiful Borrow Bill.
He picks the occasional fight yet refuses to do what a principled conservative should, and that is speak the truth as is here, go full Liz Cheney and leave the Republican Party, which is no longer the party of conservatives but of populism and the cult of Trump.
I was very disappointed also to get a fund raising letter from congressman David Valadao, R CA, who I donated to because he stood up to Trump over the election and the Capitol riots. Yet the fundraising thing was full throat MAGA and only praised Trump. This next term I will donate to his opponent.
You can't just pick the occasional fight but then keep quiet the rest of the time. That might be the case of any leader of one's party who one might disagree, but Trump is about destroying our traditions and basic human civility, and silence in the face of that is complicity.
I used to think the fate of the free world depended on Indiana winning the Big Ten Basketball Championship. Last year I watched maybe one or two games and not all the way through. Still passionate about the Pacers. So the boring old answer-It depends.
I am dumbstruck at the current administration’s position on Russia and China. Simply awful.
I especially like Stanford's voice and piano setting of 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' and his part song setting of Mary Coleridge's 'The Blue Bird,' but he was so prolific, there is so much music of his I don't know at all and that I would probably greatly appreciate. Thanks for reminding me.
I pay some attention to sports, but have become fairly emotionally disengaged about outcomes.
Jay, regarding the ridiculous "Department of War" you write that it is "as of old," but I have been pushing back on this falsehood wherever I can: it was never so.
The former Department of War is the ancestor of the Department of the Army, not the Department of Defense. After WW2 it was clear that having the Army (and Army Air Forces) and the Navy (and Marine Corps) under two cabinet-level departments with no coordination below the level of the commander-in-chief was far from ideal, and during the war an early step towards joint leadership was taken with the appointment of Fleet Admiral Leahy as chief of staff to the commander-in-chief, a unique position that was the forerunner to the later chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The National Security Act of 1947 was an attempt to correct these issues, and among other things (such as creating the CIA), it split off the Army Air Forces to become a new service under a new Department of the Air Force, renamed the Department of War to the Department of the Army (the same secretary changed his title), and placed the both, along with the Department of the Navy, under the new Secretary of Defense, who ran... something called the National Military Establishment. After two years of hearing people complaining about the "NME" in Washington, that was wisely renamed to the Department of Defense.
Again, there was no lineage connecting the Department of War to the Department of Defense. The former has a successor, and it's the Department of the Army, even if the current leadership is too ignorant to know it. It certainly wasn't changed because of 1940s woke leadership that wanted to be less warlike. Rather, it simply made sense for the department in charge of the Army to be named for it, especially as it was about to be demoted to be subordinate to a new cabinet-level secretary.
I'm Officer Candidate School, not West Point Protective Association. We don't have an alumni group devoted to promoting our careers. If we did, I'm wondering what D-list celebrity we'd end up honoring. Pauly Shore? Former Patridge Family drummer Danny Bonaduce?
Try reading Winifred Letts's soundful poem while listening to Kathleen Ferrier sing Stanford's setting of the poet's word-music.
A Soft Day
A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honeyed mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elder-flower and thyme
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.
A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.
Jay,
Prognosis not very good for your recovery after a tough Wolverines or Lions loss.
Three years ago AARP:The Magazine published an eyewitness to history section. One 87 year old eyewitness saw Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” in the Polo Grounds in 1954. He and his Brooklyn buddies played hooky, traveled to Coogan’s Bluff, scored some tickets, and witnessed their Dodgers carry a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, only to see Ralph Branca serve up the fateful pitch. He made it home “feeling like I’d been struck by lightning”. His Dad consoled him “Someday you ‘ll get over it”. In 2022 the eyewitness mused “Maybe someday I will”.
Kansas lost to eventual NCAA champion Texas Western in double OT in the 1966 Midwest Regional Final; after the referee ruled that Jo Jo White had been out of bounds when he appeared to have sunk the winning bucket for the Jayhawks at the end of the first OT. Not over it yet, but it’s only been 59 years.
!! Great.
Perhaps the advice vendor could set up shop in the vicinity of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
!
So agree with so much of what you say, and worry....
On another topic, will you interview John Gilhooly at Wigmore Hall -- he's an old friend and I was on their Board for a decade. A magical place.
I’ve met him! Impressive guy. Thx, dear Cita.
I maintain a thin, perhaps naive hope that we will somehow find our way through this mess. I maintain it to prevent my already broken heart from shattering completely.
Beautifully stated, Gary.
I used to follow the Texas Aggies (I grew up in Bryan/College Station) until they did away with the Southwest Conference. Now I tend to say, "They're playing who? WHY!?"
I'm beyond embarrassed about our government. I never thought to see the USA aligned with Putin's Russia, North Korea, and Red China. Regime change can't come soon enough.
Spot on as always, Jay! Thank you!
Thx so much, Ted.
"Again, this can serve as a test for America. Do you like it? Approve it? Chuckle over it? Thrill to it? Is this what our country should be?"
Should our country be renaming the DoD the Department of War, seemingly for the purpose of making war on our own cities?
Rather obviously not! But I'm not surprised these chuckleheads choose to.
"Do you know the song “A Soft Day,” by Stanford? (Charles Villiers Stanford.)"
Not yet, but I am fond of his Stabat Mater (and the choir cartoons that comically brandish a knife at a tomato – stab-at 'mater).
There are so many things that no one is mentioning. I should have my own column!
You wrote about the BRAVE Thom Tillis, who is leaving office and might murmur some minor disagreement with the current regime's actions. One loud silence comes from the Justice Department, which, rather than worry about Musk's car dealerships and flying sandwiches and your friend Rosie O'Donnell, could issue a severe warning to the public about harassing and threatening congressmen and women about their dissenting views. It's appalling that we've had ZERO "emergency proclamations" about this growing problem, and that this fear and ultimate lack of action is now accepted as predictable and barely noteworthy. Any former President would have condemned this ever-increasing problem without hesitation, regardless of which party's representatives are receiving the threats.
I suspect that this is part of the plan, an administration that acts with arrogance and disdain for MOST (not just half) of the population, thinks we aren't watching, knows that many don't understand what's happening, that doesn't even take the time to explain why we don't need to fund cancer research, or support traditional allies, or use American soft power through USAID or Voice Of America. They are not planning to keep power by enacting laws and influencing the voters. It's all brute force, and threatening elected officials fits perfectly into the bigger plan.
Tom Tillis is my senator and I have written to him and applauded him for occasionally standing up to Trump and I believe was the only one who voted against the Big Beautiful Borrow Bill.
He picks the occasional fight yet refuses to do what a principled conservative should, and that is speak the truth as is here, go full Liz Cheney and leave the Republican Party, which is no longer the party of conservatives but of populism and the cult of Trump.
I was very disappointed also to get a fund raising letter from congressman David Valadao, R CA, who I donated to because he stood up to Trump over the election and the Capitol riots. Yet the fundraising thing was full throat MAGA and only praised Trump. This next term I will donate to his opponent.
You can't just pick the occasional fight but then keep quiet the rest of the time. That might be the case of any leader of one's party who one might disagree, but Trump is about destroying our traditions and basic human civility, and silence in the face of that is complicity.
I used to think the fate of the free world depended on Indiana winning the Big Ten Basketball Championship. Last year I watched maybe one or two games and not all the way through. Still passionate about the Pacers. So the boring old answer-It depends.
I am dumbstruck at the current administration’s position on Russia and China. Simply awful.
Thx, Kevin.
I especially like Stanford's voice and piano setting of 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' and his part song setting of Mary Coleridge's 'The Blue Bird,' but he was so prolific, there is so much music of his I don't know at all and that I would probably greatly appreciate. Thanks for reminding me.
I pay some attention to sports, but have become fairly emotionally disengaged about outcomes.
I, too, share your shock at where we seem to be.
Jay, on sports outcomes…my team has lost 4 Super Bowls, this builds heart muscle which makes later losses easier to take (even though it still hurts).
👍