The Bombing in Syria and Mr. Trump's Newly Discovered Compassion

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS PIECE IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE RECORD, A BERGEN COUNTY NEWSPAPER

There are many complicated pieces to the puzzle that is Syria. While the motivation of this administration must be questioned and challenged in the light of its past statements and policies, their actions last evening, at least on their face, indicate that we are still a nation invested in others, that we have a moral compass and that we can and will respond when the worst abominations are committed, even if they are not committed upon us.  But I am skeptical until this change in attitude is further demonstrated.

Mr. Trump must translate his sudden apparent compassion for the suffering of innocent Syrians into a seismic shift on his executive order on immigration.  He may have now finally, far too belatedly,  recognized that the dead and injured in Syria are not enemies but victims. That these are not criminals, not terrorists, but terrified human beings, bombed and gassed into lives of unimaginable horror and pain.

If there is any good to come of this latest and starkest tragedy, let it be that Mr. Trump stops behaving like an unfocused, unhinged, uncaring lout. Let him show not by word but by deed, respect and open invitation, that those whose only sin is living in the wrong place at the wrong time are welcome here.

RSN

PS

Earlier this year, a piece I wrote on Mr. Trump's insistence that there was no evidence to connect Russia to the hacking of our election  (remember the comment - it could have been some 400 pound guy sitting on his bed). This piece was approved for publication by the NY Times but, after appearing online was summarily placed in the "do not use" bin after Mr. Trump 'modified' his stance later that same day.

Now, barely two months later, it has happened again. This time, my letter on Mr. Trump's dismal performance in his interview with the Times made the online page late yesterday (and also the print pages in the national edition) But the significance of the strikes by the US in Syria rendered my thoughts less important or relevant. Instead, the reflections on the letters page (in todays New York  print edition) included a response to what had transpired early last evening. My letter was left on the cutting room floor.

President Trump Opens Up to the New York Times

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS POST IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES


("Partial Transcript: Trump's Interview With The Times")

Well that was very enlightening. In case we were wondering about the specifics of a revised health care bill, the infrastructure plan, tax reform, our response to the most recent atrocity in Syria, Susan Rice or any other matter of consequence we certainly learned chapter and verse of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from Mr. Trump's interview.

This was the President doing what he does, offering not one shred of actual information, hiding his ignorance in his "I can't tell you the specifics now but it will be great" manner of explanation. Pretending there is substance when there is nothing but shadow, truth where there is only his version of rumor, nonsense (like his attributed quote of Elijah Cummings) when his every day in office is contradiction to his assertions.

What does the President think he accomplished yesterday? That he persuaded us that he has a serious grasp of policy, or maybe just that the New York Times will stop it's relentless criticism of him? If that was his intent, did he think his performance warranted praise and appreciation? It was, simply stated, a joke. Only it wasn't funny.

Assad's Weapons of Mass Destruction

("A New Level of Depravity from Mr. Assad")

We have been caught in a terrible tug of war between turning a blind eye to the morally reprehensible conduct of Mr. Assad and committing our nation to combat such atrocity. We lost our will for the use of military might after enduring far too many years of mid-East debacles. We were initially led into battle by President Bush under the rubric of destroying those with, we later discovered, non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

For all it has cost us, both economically and in lost lives, we could not even pretend we had accomplished our stated mission. Our efforts have proven woefully ineffective.

It was not merely that Mr. Obama did not hunt down the brutal Syrian leader after he crossed that famous red line with the use of chemical weapons on his own. It was  that Congress and the American people did not support or authorize such an incursion.

And now President Trump, woefully unprepared, must answer the same question that haunted the last administration. Mr. Trump is not cut from the same cloth as President Obama and may well feel less of a moral imperative to intervene. 

But whatever his ultimate decision, it is likely not to lead to a permanent resolution of an imbroglio that will continue to cause aftershocks not only in Syria but around the globe. 

Morality, it seems, is a negotiable commodity.

The Heart of a Champion

("Half-Inch Error and Four-Stroke Penalty, Give L.P.G.A. Major Tumultuous Finish")

One of the most compelling sporting events I have ever witnessed was Lexi Thompson's courageous effort after notification of the imposition of a four stroke penalty while in the middle of playing the final round of a major.

Forget that she clearly had zero intent of cheating, turning what appeared to be a one foot putt into an eleven and a half inch putt. Disregard the absurdity of there being a universe of people somehow invested with the authority to enforce golf's regulations on the tour players. Don't account for the fact that Ms. Thompson knew she was being eyeballed by the officials, the gallery and the entire television audience around the globe as she marked her ball and then placed it back down.

Just remember that in a moment where all of us would have broken into a million pieces, Lexi Thompson played the last six holes two under par and came within an eyelash of making an eagle putt on 18 to turn adversity into glorious triumph.

Long after the winner of yesterday's LPGA championship is but vague recollection, the greatness that Ms. Thompson displayed will be feted.

This is what the heart of a champion looks like.

Aftershocks

Like the tentacles of an earthquake, the aftershocks of a death come unexpectedly and with a randomness hard to fathom.

Yesterday,  I was stopped in the lobby of my building by a neighbor, who spent a moment offering condolences on the loss of my mother. After finishing the conversation, I walked away and suddenly thought to myself  "can I leave work a little early to get to mom's today."

When I related that tale to my sister, we both began to cry. She told me that the day before she had picked up a big chocolate chip cookie and decided she would, as she had for so many years, split it with mom when she visited.

Starting to go through my mom's apartment, finding her second grade photo, the letters from my dad written during the war, before they were even married, ruminating on his longing for the end of conflict and a safe and secure return home to his beloved and dreaming of the life that lay ahead, the letter from my sister at the end of 10 weeks in Europe pouring out her heart in thanks to our parents for the gifts they had given her, not only that summer but every year of her life, all of these buried treasures bring out more emotion in me than I ever anticipated.

There is a well of sadness that has not reached bottom,  a wound tender to the touch, a heart that is hurting.

This weekend I will head up to the Berkshires, a trip I have taken on literally hundreds of occasions during my mom's decade long descent. And on each one of those journeys, there was a part of me worried about her well being and anxious to return to New Jersey early enough on Sunday to be with her before she went to bed. But not this weekend. And it is a strange and uncomfortable sensation knowing that there is one less reason to leave Massachusetts, one less weight on my shoulders. I have been carrying it with me for so long, even as it is no longer there, I can still feel it. Like someone who has lost a limb but swears the phantom sensation is real.

Most of each day is unimpacted by her passing. I returned to work to face the same petty annoyances, the same daily rituals that greeted me before. But, in the lunch area of the office, I left a picture of my mom and me, without statement. It generated many responses and insinuated my mom's presence into everyone's conscience. Yesterday, I moved the picture back to its rightful place near my desk. 

I know the residual signs of an earthquake soon disappear, any damage is repaired and life, at least on the surface, returns to an earlier, more tranquil state. But nothing is really ever fully unaffected by that earthquake even long after it's last tremors have dissipated.

My mom is gone and the world is, to the untrained eye, no different. Until the next aftershock.

The Eulogy

Yesterday was my mom's funeral. I was preternaturally calm in a way that was shocking to me. I had envisioned myself, exhausted by a decade of pain and sadness, having spasmodic episodes of grief. My sister was in an emotionally fragile state and I felt if she wobbled I might fall.

But she was valiant in her effort and, with the exception of a moment or two of difficult reflection, she held together unbelievably well. 

As for her eulogy, and those of her husband, her children, my children and finally me, I think they were uniformly remarkable. One more touching, humorous, insightful, soaring than the next. Each part of a beautiful tapestry that, woven together, provided a wondrous portrait of my mom. 

I was fortunate enough, or maybe unfortunate enough, to be the last of the seven family members who spoke. Having to follow such brave and meaningful tales was, in some respects, an unenviable task as the audience may have been wrung a little dry emotionally.

But my words seemed eagerly accepted and when I concluded by singing a Sinatra song, Young at Heart, to my mom, it turned out to be the perfect closing number.

In analyzing my words, and those of all the others, with the assembled mourners later in the day, it struck me that funerals are in some manner, like a Broadway show. "Ben Brantley of the New York Times raved: "It was the equal of Hamilton. I laughed, I cried. I was swept away in a tidal wave of emotion. The portrait of Dorothy Nussbaum was spectacular, as this woman who lived to almost 100, seemed brought back to life by glorious tales of her splendor. She was a marvelous woman and you will end your evening longing for more. If you have but one funeral to witness this season, make it hers."'

Funerals can thus be hits or flops, the perfect blend of emotions,  the right mixture of happy and sad, or merely a messy jumble, unforgettable and a little unwatchable, like a performance not ready for the bright lights.

I would like to believe that my mom made our work incredibly easy, that the glow from her existence radiated on its own and that we were but conduits, vessels expressing her magnificence. She was surely a special person, filling all those she touched along her journey with a wondrous awe. Maybe all we had to do was not screw it up and she would take care of the rest. 

But the truth is we could have fallen flat on our collective faces, for a life must be portrayed with the right hues and impeccable tone to be appreciated like the finest of paintings. And my mom had the great good fortune to have been the matriarch of a family who paid attention to detail, who understood her essence and who could convey its meaning with all the grace, dignity, laughter and tears it so richly deserved.

With every fiber of my being, and with the blessing of my mom, I thank you. Thank you to my spectacular sister Gail, my brother in law Jim, my nephew Brett, my niece Lindsay, my son Richie and my daughter Alex for being brilliant storytellers. Thank you for showing the world that the heart of Dorothy Nussbaum still beats in all of us. Thank you for making this day one that I will look back upon not with unrelenting sorrow, but with lasting joy that all of you gave Mom a perfect sendoff. Thank you for bringing those gathered to their emotional feet, with a silent standing ovation for the magnificence that was Dorothy Nussbaum.

Thank you for making this day a hit. Mom deserved nothing less.

Saying Goodbye (My Mom, Dorothy Nussbaum, passed away yesterday, March 25, 2017)

The rabbi was a big, burly figure and he took up almost all of the space by the side of my mom's bed. I was annoyed because I was unable to reach my mom to greet her, to give her a kiss.

My mom is dying, the hospice nurse advising my sister earlier in the day that it looked as if she would pass away in the next day or two. She lay in her bed, still and placid. I wondered if the heavier dose of morphine had been responsible for softening the look in her face, bringing a gentle calm before my mom decided it was to be time to finally let go.

After spending almost a decade mourning the loss of the person who once was my mom, watching in pain as the dementia caused her to recede further and further away until there was almost nothing left except the body that housed her, I thought that this moment would come as one of relief. Finally, finally, finally she could rest in peace.

But though the mom I once knew had long since vanished from this planet, the thought that my physical connection to this living being would soon end, filled me with a sudden wave of uncontrollable sadness. My belief that I had long since finished grieving was a mere lie. Saying goodbye is really hard.

The rabbi began to explain the meaning of what he was about to recite to my mom, but I could absorb little of his words. I had been standing shoulder to shoulder with my sister, both of us staring intently towards the bed. I moved several feet away now, hoping the distance would somehow keep my tears from flowing down my sister's face.

This bed was the only home my mom had known for the past six weeks or so.  She was unable to even be lifted into her wheelchair to sit in the dining area and feel the warmth of the afternoon sun on her face. This bedroom had been her entire universe, two hospital beds pushed next to one another, a third bed, hers so many years ago, now housing her incredible caretaker.  I had been in this room thousands and thousands of times during my mom's long day's journey into night and each atom it contained had been forever etched into my head.

I watched my mom's breathing intently to see if it was reporting any news to me.  The sheets moved gently up and down, in perfect rhythm. No, there was no clue here of anything imminent. There was talk of the physical signs on my mom's body that she was shutting down. But neither my sister or I could pull the covers back, even ever so slightly, to verify the details. It seemed a gruesome task, with no purpose other than to multiply our sorrow.

As the rabbi finished his prayers and his explanations, he moved back, allowing the space I needed to reach the top of the bed and my mom's face. As I have for nearly ten years, I asked her how her day had been, if there was anything new she wanted to report to me, if she had made any plans. I thought I saw her eyes open, just briefly. I even made myself believe she was trying to talk to me, that her mouth was forming a shape to speak. Over the next few minutes, as the room emptied, I would once more sing to her, in my nasal most peculiar voice that only a mother, only this mother could love.

It was time for me to say goodbye, the longest of all goodbyes now finally so near. I kissed my mom on the forehead for what could be the last time, and walked out of the bedroom to the rest of a world that today held no meaning for me.

Behind me, my mother lay calm, blissful and unaware of the meaning of the tear that had just fallen on her face.

Crazy Like a Fox or Just Crazy

("Tweeting Toward Oblivion")

Mr. Bruno writes as if Mr. Trump is in full control of his faculties and assumes he can turn off his tweets as easily as one turns off the water to a flowing tap.

The reality is we have elected a man who is filled with paranoid delusions, who many would suggest is crazy like a fox, but whom I perceive as just crazy. His tweets are not principally a manifestation of attempted political maneuvering but rather evidence of a mind unable to be at rest, unable to find a stasis, unable to work through the clutter to determine where his thoughts end and the truth begins.

Mr. Trump stop his lies, stop his obsessive compulsion to arise in the middle of the night and put forth yet one more damaging, reality denying 140 character heat seeking missile? This spigot is broken and the water will continue to gush, unchecked and unmoored.

This Land's Not Your Land, This Land is My Land

This land's not your land, this land is my land
From Mar-a-Lago to the high rise I've planned
From denuded forest to my Gulfstream ordered
This land was made for only me.

As I went walking round 1600
Have trouble sleeping, must get a new bed
Thought "this is my place, I'll decorate it"
This land was made for only me

And I went slashing,  get rid of dead wood
Cut out those damn arts, cause I said I could
And then I'll chop down all regulation
This land was made for only me

I'll build that big wall and they can't stop me
I'll call it Trump's wall, no one can top me
And they'll all shut up, they can't say nothing
This land was made for only me

My son comes asking, how did you do it
I say to Barron, I'm a great steward
That smog descending is just illusion
This land was (cough, cough) made for only me

This land's not your land, this land is my land
From Mar-a-Lago to the high rise I've planned
From denuded forest to my Gulfstream ordered
This land was made for only me.

Questioning the Question

("Trolling the Press Corps")

What could be more perfect complement to fake news than real news conferences with fake reporters?

Mr. Spicer's tongue is tied up in knots every time he has to provide cover for one of President Trump's off the cuff or off the rails remarks. Seemingly confused of his own accord, Spicer is clearly no Kellyanne Conway, the master at misdirection and deflection. He is overmatched and overwhelmed. And he is in desperate need of help.

The pure glee that Mr. Wintrich and Mr. Hoft exhibited as they contemplated best how to distance themselves from any shred of journalistic integrity is but unadulterated extension of Mr. Trump's avowed intent to destroy forces aligned against him. On the campaign trail, some "adversarial" press corps members,  like Katy Tur, were maligned and scorned, treated more like enemy combatants than people taking a serious job, seriously. 

Mr. Trump's press conference had the feel of a mockumentary, a satire of what a Trump press conference would look like. But at a moment in time when the line between fake and real is blurred almost to the point of extinction, when Melissa McCarthy sounds more like Sean Spicer than does Sean Spicer, the President of the United States can, without hint of irony or self-recrimination, look for a question from a "friendly reporter."
 

Your reference to the President's exchange with Jake Turx, the Jewish reporter, is perfect example of what we may expect now and in the foreseeable future. "See, he said he was going to ask a very simple question, easy question and it was not." Contending that the inquiry on how he intended to respond to the rash of anti-Semetic activity around the nation, was not a "fair question" Mr. Trump twice requested Mr. Turx to "sit down."
 

And to that response, those like Mr. Wintrich and Mr. Hoft, rise to their feet to applaud, ready, willing and able to play the required game of softball with their leader.