Category: Uncategorized

An Open Letter to the Lumpenproletariat of the MAGA Movement

In Marxist theory, the Lumpenproletariat (German: [ˈlʊmpn̩pʁoletaʁi̯ˌaːt] ⓘ; /ˌlʌmpənproʊlɪˈtɛəriət/) is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces[….]—from the Wikipedia entry for “Lumpenproletariat”

Dear American Lumpenproletariat,

It has recently come to my attention that the current mess we’re in is all my fault.

That is because I am evidently among the “elite.”

My membership in the “elite” came as a surprise to me. I don’t summer in Martha’s Vineyard and I have a hard time remembering which is Monet and which Manet. But still, I’m flattered. It’s cool to be called elite!

I’m elite, you tell me, because I have a college degree. I’m elite because I read the New York Times and watch the PBS Newshour. I’m Jewish, which gets me halfway to elite all by itself. I don’t live on a coast, but I do live in Austin, which is even worse. I use words like “lumpenproletariat.”

According to your prophets, Donald Trump has been inflicted on this country because of me, and people like me. For too long I ignored your concerns. I gave little kids autism by making them get vaccinated against measles and COVID. I freely let vicious drug terrorists into this country so they could take over your jobs cleaning restrooms and fixing roofs. I have blighted the American landscape with windmills and solar panels where once glorious American smokestacks belched giant plumes of 100% American coal smoke instead of relying on cheap imported sunshine, or wind that comes from God knows where.

Even worse, I allowed men who changed into girls to fight and die for their country, just like regular men. And I wouldn’t shut up about stuff like race and gender discrimination, which makes innocent white men feel guilty, or like they’re supposed to do something about it. And on, and on.

Boy, you really nailed me! I only wonder why you let me get away with it for so long! But you finally won. You must be so relieved!

Actually, I’m kind of relieved, too. I’m no longer responsible for defending the weak, healing the ill, seeking justice for the oppressed, protecting the planet from fire and flood, speaking truth to power. Because you’re in charge now. You won! You have the White House, the Department of Justice and all of the federal law enforcement agencies that go with it, and for the moment, both houses of Congress. And with Republican state legislatures apparently free to custom-make congressional districts every election cycle, you’re likely to be in control of that chamber…forever.  And the Supreme Court? 3 of the 9 justices were appointed by Trump, 3 more by previous conservative presidents. There goes that last annoying check and balance!

And haven’t you been busy! Deporting day-laborers first, asking questions (or not) later. Renaming military bases back to generals who betrayed their country and slaughtered as many American troops as they could in defense of slavery. Firing scholars and scientists and yanking funds for cancer research. Opening investigations on anyone who so much as hinted that maybe Donald Trump is a poopy head. Must I go on?

You won! You should be so happy! But I don’t see a lot of happiness. More like continued anger and anxiety about the Deep State. Why is that, since…you now are the deep state?

You got all three branches of government. Your man is now commander-in-chief of the mighty armed forces of the United States of America. Big business? The grotesquely wealthy tech magnates are almost all on your side. Coca-Cola turned on a dime when Trump mused aloud about corn syrup vs. cane sugar. Mainstream media? They have mostly caved, from The Washington Post to CBS. And anyway, no one reads The Washington Post or watches “60 Minutes” anymore. There’s no deep state left…except for yours.

The intelligentsia? You’ve got them running scared, scrambling to wipe out any trace of “woke” and “diversity” and “critical race theory” at our colleges and universities. And anyway, who cares about them? To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the intelligentsia command?

So my question for you is…now what?

I predict you’re going to be sicker than ever before, given cuts to Medicaid, reduced support for vaccines, reduced environmental regulation, less medical research, and an ever-hotter planet. RFK Jr. suggests you walk more. Prayer is also fine.

I predict you’ll be poorer, what with inflation and tariffs. And with the Trump tax cuts made permanent, the federal budget deficit will continue to grow explosively. Who knows when that bubble is going to burst?

I predict you’ll be dumber, particularly with respect to your own history and culture, given the elimination of a scholarly treatment of those subjects in our public schools and museums, and less support for public education, period.

I predict you’ll be less free than before, when you find out the hard way that if you start to complain too loudly, the police forces of our nation can be turned in your direction, too.  

Oh well. You’ll always have duck hunting and golf.

I’m not worried about the future. It’s going to hurt everyone, but it’s going to hurt you a lot worse than me. I’m elite. And I’m not worried, because I can’t do anything about it, except to say what I think, which I already am. Beyond that, this country, and your future in it, are your problems now.

What are you going to do about it?

And if it seems like I’m dripping with condescension, it’s because…I am. I’m elite, baby…Dig it!

Mass Murder on the High Seas

The current presidential administration is impressive. Just when it’s done something that seems unimaginably appalling, like, say, accidentally shipping the wrong person to a brutal prison in a foreign country and then claiming there’s nothing they can do about it, they do something…even more appalling.

Now we see that our president is bragging about “U.S. Military Forces” obliterating a tiny speedboat in the middle of the Caribbean ocean, along with 11 souls on board. (I haven’t seen any mention of survivors, and having seen the video clip, my guess is that there weren’t any.) According to Trump, they were killed for being “Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists” bringing drugs to the United States.

How do you, my fellow Americans, feel about this?

I find it disturbing for so many reasons. From a practical angle, I can see how one might need to pre-emptively blow up a speedboat armed with a nuclear weapon about to reach the shores of Miami. But drugs? And where exactly was this boat? In “international waters,” according to Trump, which means…just about anywhere on the planet…and at worst, still several miles from American shores. If we knew the location of this craft precisely enough to hit it with pinpoint accuracy, why couldn’t we track it and arrest its crew the moment they landed on American shores? Or use the awesome power of our navy, air force, and/or coast guard to interdict the vessel on the open sea? Since we’re Making America Great Again, what’s wrong with the traditional shot across the bow? From an investigatory perspective, wouldn’t it have been useful to have the crew in custody? And then we could have verified that the boat was carrying actual…drugs.  Because it was carrying dangerous drugs…right?

And what about the 11 former…people on the boat? Trump and his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have repeatedly called them “terrorists,” as if this designation alone is enough to explain their extrajudicial execution. (If you’re a Trump supporter, I should explain that “extrajudicial” means “they didn’t get a trial.”) But what does “terrorist” mean here, exactly? Terrorists, like Al Qaeda 9/11 type terrorists, this time using drugs as part of a scheme to slaughter thousands of Americans and terrify the rest?

I’ll take the administration at its word for the moment, and assume this boat was practically spilling over with something like heroin or fentanyl. My guess is that these 11 souls were at best low-level lieutenants trying to make a quick buck, or following orders they couldn’t refuse.  And there’s a good chance that some of them were juveniles under U.S. law.

Now in my opinion, there’s a warm place in hell reserved for anyone peddling poisons like fentanyl for other than legitimate medical purposes. But we don’t execute people for selling drugs in this country, not even actual bigtime drug lords like the Sacklers. And that is because we, the American people, don’t believe that dealing drugs is a capital offense. And when we do suspect someone of peddling drugs, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt and prove it in court, before we punish them.

So why did our armed forces blast this boat out of the water, along with its occupants?

Because to some sad portion of the American public, it looks cool. Because once you call someone a “terrorist” you can do anything to them. Because it’s a cheap, dramatic substitute for the difficult problem of actually fixing drug abuse in this country. Because state laws don’t apply on the high seas, and U.S. law is murky. Because no power in the Western Hemisphere is going to seriously oppose the U.S. military, and we know it.

This was a P.R. stunt that only cost 1 missile and 11 human lives.

How many more will there be, and who’s next?

Update (9/4/25): A New York Times article yesterday quoted “A former senior federal law enforcement official” as stating that “it was unusual to have 11 people manning a vessel that could easily be crewed by two or three, especially since traffickers are always trying to maximize the amount of cargo space devoted to carrying drugs, not human beings. In the former official’s opinion, it was more likely that the vessel was carrying migrants on a human smuggling run. It would be impossible to know for sure, however, given that any evidence of drug smuggling was destroyed in the attack.”

Oops.

The Interview

President Trump dialed into “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning and revealed his newest and truest motivation for brokering an end to the war in Ukraine: He’s worried he might not get into heaven after he dies.

“I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he explained. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.” —”I Want to Try and Get to Heaven’: Trump Gets Reflective on ‘Fox & Friends’,” New York Times, 8/19/25

Place: Pearly Gates

Time: Eternity

Donald John Trump: Nice place you got here, Pete! Your clouds aren’t very classy, though, could use a little gold trim. I think I’ll put in a golf course over there….  

Saint Peter: Heh heh, sure, we just need to get through some formalities first. Let’s see here…did you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

DJT: [Looking around] Well sure, I’d be sucker not to, the other place is for losers! This is much nicer, but you really need to be more careful about who you let in, they’re not sending you the best people….

SP: I mean, did you accept Christ before…

DJT: Oh yeah, accepted is the right word, not crazy about His outfit though, it’s a little disrespectful to show up in a bathrobe all the time, even after all the nice things I did for Him…

SP: [to himself] Christ Almighty, does this guy ever stop?

Christ Almighty: No, he does not.

SP: So you consider yourself a good Christian?

DJT: Not good, the greatest! The Bible’s my second favorite book after The Art of the Deal, which you should read, Pete. I love the Bible so much I even came out with my own version, very classy…

SP: Yes, we’ve seen it, your “God Bless the USA Bible”…

DJT: That’s it, the cover has the American flag and…

SP: And so you give it away, to spread the holy Word?

DJT: We practically give it away, it’s only $59.99. Or you can get a signed copy for $1000…

SP: Signed by The Author? That’s a real bargain!

DJT: Well, signed by me, actually, and then we have….

SP: Yes, yes, actually we know all this, we just needed to hear you say it….

DJT: My favorite one is The Day God Intervened edition,* which we made to thank you for the time you saved my life…

SP: Actually you were never in danger, the whole thing was a setup to make you stop and think about how lucky you were and to make you treat humankind with mercy and forgiveness…. Boy, did that work out well. I almost got fired….

DJT: Say, how much longer are we gonna be here, Pete? I need to talk to Roy Cohn today about suing the ghost of John McCain for…

SP: Ah, well, Roy isn’t…here right now, but you might see him a little later on. Don’t worry, just one or two more questions…[unravels a scroll of infinite length] Let’s see, we got the mass deportations, looking the other way on Gaza, extorting and publicly humiliating Zelenskyy, persecuting honest civil servants, killing clean energy programs…Oh, and groping of young women, the assaults, and then the character assassinations….Good Lord, where do we start?

The Good Lord: Ask him about the executions, that’s a good one…

SP: Ah yes! Now, towards the end of your first term in office, it seems that you re-started the execution of federal prisoners on death row, which your predecessor had stopped, even though they were of course incarcerated and presented no danger to anyone….

DJT: Do you have any idea how much it costs the taxpayer to keep those criminals alive?

SP: Good point! And based on the timing of these executions, it appears you did this in order to enhance your popularity in time for the 2020 election….

DJT: Which I lost anyway, so the executions don’t count, right?

SP: Sure, right, that’s exactly how it works…now if you’ll just take this form downstairs, the staircase is right over there. And watch that first step, it’s a doozy!

image generated by chatGPT

* yes, it’s a thing

In Which We Are Defeated By A Stupid Piece Of Software

I’m considering just abandoning this blog. It’s become superfluous. After all, if you want to read something short, insightful, and/or amusing, now you can just chat with a bot.

See, I had this idea for a cute post: I would use famous song titles to pose questions to ChatGPT. Then I would grade the AI bot on accuracy, creativity, and humor. Neat idea, right? This is how I imagined the conversation might go:

Me: Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?

ChatGPT: Are you asking whether or not I feel affectionate towards you? If so, sure!

Accuracy: A

Creativity: F

Humor: F

But it didn’t work. The AI engine was too knowing, it wouldn’t be so easily baited. Here’s an example of how the actual chat played out:

Me: Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?

ChatGPT: That’s a famous old line — the title of a jazz standard written by Louis Jordan and Billy Austin back in 1944. It became one of Jordan’s signature songs, and lots of greats have recorded it since: Bing Crosby, Dinah Washington, B.B. King, Tom Waits, and even the Muppets.

It’s usually delivered playfully — asking in a teasing way whether someone’s still devoted or not.

Do you want me to tell you more about the song’s history, or are you using it more as a flirtatious question?

(Goddammit!) Me: Just answer the question

ChatGPT: I is.

Me (gritting my teeth): Good answer!

ChatGPT: Glad you liked it 😏

I guess I’ll just quit trying to be clever, and use my brain for what it was designed to do, like not bumping into walls and ordering useless gewgaws on Amazon.

(Image generated by ChatGPT. Of course.)

On Stockton Rush and Donald Trump

A few weeks ago I watched the fascinating and horrifying Netflix documentary Titan: The OceanGate Disaster. It deconstructed the history of the Titan, a tiny submersible vehicle designed and built by the entrepreneur-inventor Stockton Rush, for the purpose of taking wealthy tourists more than two miles from the surface of the North Atlantic down to the seabed to view the wreck of the Titanic, at $250,000 a pop. It had an experimental carbon-fiber hull, and was navigated with the use of a modified video-game controller.

It all worked for several trips until, on June 18, 2023, it didn’t. It imploded partway through its descent, killing its occupants, including Mr. Rush.

The craft was not “ill-fated” in the sense of being unlucky. The event is more accurately described as a tragedy, in the classical sense. The ocean, the craft, and Mr. Rush’s colleagues and crew had all been telling him that something was wrong and that disaster was just a matter of time. But Rush was determined not to listen.

Boeing Corporation, initially a partner in the project, prudently backed away out of safety concerns. More than one expert questioned his use of carbon-fiber as the hull material instead of the standard titanium, as well as its oblong shape instead of the more durable sphere. Rush ignored the acoustic evidence his own staff carefully documented: the pops and cracks which indicated a microscopic fraying of the carbon-fiber material, which got louder as the capsule went deeper and was subjected to more pressure. To passengers in his craft, he dismissed the scary-sounding pops as a normal “seasoning” process. He conducted a lab experiment in which a model was subjected to a pressure equivalent the ocean at the depth of the Titanic. The model collapsed. Steps were taken to improve the material…but it was not retested to see if those improvements worked. Most importantly, whenever members of his own staff raised issues, he responded by firing them or bullying them into quitting.

Rush had several motives for ignoring the truth. A submersible built of carbon fiber is much cheaper to build and transport than one made of titanium. Starting over with a new design would have meant having to confront unhappy investors, and postponing those $250k-a-seat excursions for years. And it would have been a blow to the man’s pride. He was the maverick, the genius who had no time for the establishment’s experts. He knew better than they.

The Titan story crossed my mind this week when I read about Donald Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He fired her because the Bureau had reported an unexpectedly weak job market for this past June. He claimed that those statistics were “rigged,” without providing any evidence. Of course, the bad news was necessarily rigged, since Trump is president, Trump is a genius businessman, and therefore any bad economic news must be false news.

Now, I’m not an economist and I don’t know what’s going to happen to our economy. So far it’s been a sturdy little craft, holding up surprisingly well to the rough seas of absurdly steep tariffs applied (then lifted, then re-applied) to capriciously selected nations and products, and the gutting of longstanding federal institutions charged with keeping an eye out for financial malfeasance.

But the firing or bullying of bona-fide experts like Ms. McEntarfer and Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, makes me very nervous. They are economists, and appear to know what they’re doing. I don’t trust Donald Trump, a businessman who has grown rich by making real-estate deals, raking in the profits where there were any, and expertly playing U.S. bankruptcy law to leave someone else holding the bag when there weren’t, to understand reality and act in a way that won’t lead to a global economic implosion.  

Of course the comparison between Stockton Rush and Donald Trump is imperfect. Rush believed in his version of reality enough to put his own life on the line, and he paid the price for it. I can’t figure out whether Trump actually believes what he says and tweets, or whether he cares, or whether he even bothers to make a mental distinction between fact and his own fiction. This is, after all, the man who praised the use of “truthful hyperbole” as a sales tactic in The Art of the Deal, and whose one-time press secretary Kellyanne Conway memorably coined the phrase “alternative facts” when confronted with, well, lies about the attendance figures at Trump’s first inauguration.

Another difference is that, unlike Rush, Trump won’t have to suffer the consequences of his recklessness. No matter what happens, he’s never going to have to worry about where his next meal is coming from. But as jobs disappear and prices of imported products and materials rise, millions of Americans and billions of people around the world might.

Photo of Stockton Rush provided by OceanGate via Wikimedia, license available at OceanGate, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, photo available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stockton_Rush_(cropped).png

Photo of Donald Trump provided by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

For subscribers: listen to A Silly Old Story

Dear subscriber to Garden of Eaton: Yesterday we published a post about our audio book(let) of Gerolamo Rovetta’s short story “A Silly Old Story,” but for some reason the little “play” button didn’t make it into the post, or into the email that went out with it. But now it’s there, and we invite you to listen at https://gardenofeaton.home.blog/2025/08/02/listen-to-the-latest-episode-of-verbal-exchange-a-reading-of-gerolamo-rovettas-a-silly-old-story/ . Thanks for your interest! — Steve Eaton

Listen to the Latest Episode of Verbal Exchange: A Reading of Gerolamo Rovetta’s “A Silly Old Story”

In the latest episode of our podcast Verbal Exchange, we read our translation of Gerolamo Rovetta’s hilarious story of a reluctant duellist, “A Silly Old Story” (“Storiella Vecchia,” 1898). Listen to it here, or wherever you stream your podcasts from.

It’s also available in print form, here:

latest short stories

Either way…enjoy!

The musical theme for this episode is “L’inno di Garibaldi” (“Garibaldi’s Hymn”), words by Garibaldi-Luigi Mercantini, music by Alessio Olivieri, sung by Edoardo Ferrari Fontana. Provided for non-commercial purposes by the Canadian government archives at https://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/m2/f7/17139.mp3. License at: https://web.archive.org/web/20250620161232/https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/Pages/terms-conditions.aspx#a1

The Absurd Man of Alcatraz

Can you believe that President Trump wants to convert Alcatraz back into a federal prison?[….]It is possible that Mr. Trump had “Escape From Alcatraz” on his mind when he declared on social media on Sunday that he had directed federal agencies to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz to serve as “a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”—”Alcatraz as a Prison? Tourists Say Trump Is on His Own Island.” New York Times, May 5, 2025

EDITOR’S NOTE: Quantum physicists on our staff have discovered the particular parallel universe (#8,217) where everything turns out exactly the way we want it. Our reporter on the Ideal Universe desk filed this transcript of Donald Trump’s inspection of the newly restored Alcatraz penitentiary.

Place: The new federal prison, Alcatraz Island

Time: the near future

PARK RANGER: Welcome to Alcatraz, Mr. President! We’re so honored to give you and Melania an exclusive preview! I hope you like what we’ve done…

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Don’t worry about me, Warden, I won’t make any trouble! I just want to serve my time all peaceful-like so I can go back to my family.  Ha ha, I always wanted to say that, I should have been in the movies! Actually, maybe you saw it…Home Alone 2….

RANGER: I’m not the warden sir, actually I’m with the Park Service…

POTUS: What Park Service? I thought we eliminated…

RANGER: Yes sir, Alcatraz used to belong to the park service. Technically I’m a former park ranger since DOGE cut my position…Now if you and Melania will just follow me through these extra-heavy cement-filled steel doors, I want to show you where the most dangerous felons will be housed…

POTUS: Hey, what happened to my Secret Services?

RANGER: Oh, don’t worry, sir. They’re in the visitor’s lounge enjoying our signature cocktail, “The Nightstick.” We’ll call an Uber to make sure they get home safe. Now here you see an example of one of our maximum security cells….

POTUS: For the worst of the worst!

RANGER: Exactly right, sir. I’ll just slide open the bars so you all can step inside and get a closer look…

MELANIA: Eww…I’ll just stand outside…

POTUS: Nice! They got their own toilet, a cot, some kind of steel shelf or something…better than they deserve, really! Kind of cramped though, it looked bigger when Clint Eastwood was here…hey, they even got books! The Holy Bible and the Art of the Deal, my favorites! Does everyone get these?

RANGER: Well, not everyone, no…Now I’ll just show you how these locks close…[CLICK]

POTUS: You don’t scare me, you lousy screw! They ain’t built the joint yet that can hold me! Ha ha, I always wanted to say that, too! Hey, when do we get lunch around here, I’m getting hungry…

RANGER: Lunch is at one o’clock, sir. I believe today we’re featuring baloney sandwiches, skim milk and…canned peaches for dessert.

MELANIA: Eww…

POTUS: Don’t wait for me, doll. I’m just no good, see? Find someone who can treat you good, like you deserve, ha ha!

MELANIA: Whatever! Are we done yet? I’m supposed to try on an outfit at 2:00…

RANGER: Yes, Madame First Lady, the exit is right this way…

POTUS: Hey guys, where are you going!? Let me outta here!

MELANIA: You worked for the Park Service? I bet you can tell me all about rescues and wildfires and grizzly bears and exciting stuff like that!

RANGER: Yes, I loved that job…

POTUS: Lemme out! I’m innocent, I tell ya! I been framed! Oh, why doesn’t anyone believe me!? [The sound of footsteps recedes into the distance] So where’s my baloney sandwich?

My Favorite Jack London Story … Story

Consider Jack London’s “A Piece of Steak” – you’ve probably read it. It’s the one about the old boxer vs. the young boxer. It’s not my favorite Jack London story. It’s well-written, of course, but it seems to me that it suffers from predictability. Jack London really telegraphed his punches in that one, you might say. If I had to pick a favorite Jack London work, it would probably be his non-fiction around-the-world-in-a-sailboat tale, “Cruise of the Snark”. If you haven’t read it, check it out. It’s great fun.

So “A Piece of Steak” is not my favorite Jack London story, but my favorite Jack London story story is one about “A Piece of Steak”.

Before I proceed, I want you to do something. Assuming you’ve read “A Piece of Steak”, I want you to bring it to mind. It’s a story without very many characters in it. Try to remember who they are, and what part they played in the story. Retell the story to yourself as best you can … I’ll wait.

Ready?

Something like 35 years ago, I was in the break room of the office where I worked, eating lunch with a couple of my coworkers—let’s call them Alice and Bob (We were all computer programmers, after all). For some reason I have long forgotten, I mentioned the Jack London story. Alice said she’d never read it. Bob said he had read it in high school, and proceeded to recap the story for Alice, as follows: On the night before a big match, the old boxer makes a terrible mistake. At suppertime, there is one small piece of steak that his wife has cooked for him—the rest of their meager fair consists of bread and gravy. The old boxer, seeing the hungry look in the eyes of his three small children, cuts the steak up into three pieces, and gives a piece to each child. The terrible consequence of the old boxer’s selflessness is that in the ring the next evening, he doesn’t have the strength to stand up to the merciless pummeling of the young boxer, and he loses the match.

That’s how I remembered the story, sort of. The thing was, I didn’t remember the boxer and his wife having any children, nor did I remember there being any actual steak at all in the story.

Curious as to whose memory of the story was right, I went to the library a few days later and looked it up. Turns out, Bob and I were both wrong, though my recollection was perhaps somewhat more accurate. The boxer and his wife do have one child, a son, but there is no steak, as the family can’t afford it, and as there is no steak, the boxer doesn’t give his steak to his son. In fact, the boy is sent to bed without any supper, and the boxer eats all the bread and gravy himself as his wife looks on. It is not an act of selflessness that condemns the old boxer to defeat—it is simply his circumstances.

Here’s what I knew about Bob at the time: He had recently married a divorced woman with three children.

I ran into Alice a decade or so later, and asked about Bob. She said the last she’d heard, he was living in Florida under an assumed name, on the run from the IRS.

So maybe “A Piece of Steak” is not my favorite Jack London story—but it is a story that people relate to in different and interesting ways, which is pretty great. How did you remember it?

What to Give the Summer that Has Everything

Summer is made for running away, and this summer in particular is made for running away in mind as well as body. Tariffs? What tariffs? Deportations? What deportations? Here are the perfect accompaniments for the beach, picnic table, plane flight, or motel room:  

What’s an indolent, pleasure-loving Italian baron to do when the money runs out? Find out in The Priest’s Hat, Emilio De Marchi’s granddaddy of all crime thrillers, first published in 1887, now translated into English by Steve Eaton and Cinzia Russi, available on Amazon ($9.99 Kindle, $20.00 paperback). And then listen for free to our podcast about the true crime that inspired the novel. (Search for “the Priest’s Hat podcast” to find it on your platform of choice).

What happens when an idealistic young man, railroaded into jail for a crime he didn’t commit, shares a jail cell with a hardened criminal who provides him with a way out? Get the inside story from the lawman who tracks him down in Jonathan Eaton’s new western adventure, Peter Pegg, Outlaw, by One Who Knew Him, ($4.99 Kindle, $14.99 paperback).  And listen to the author read selections from the book and discuss his period research in our recent podcast (search “Peter Pegg Outlaw podcast” to find it on Spotify, PodBean, YouTube, TuneIn, or Apple podcasts.)

 You’re the sheriff responsible for protecting a tiny Western postapocalyptic town from roving bandit armies, gigantic people-eating ticks, and autonomous orbiting nuclear weapons. But those dangers are nothing compared to the beautiful stranger who appears from nowhere.  Find out who she really is in Jonathan Eaton’s sci-fi epic The Prairie Martian, ($4.99 Kindle, $12.99 paperback).

Pick one, or all three. We guarantee you’ll reach September a happier person!

In Which We Interview an Outlaw Author

My brother, the author Jonathan Eaton, recently released a new novel, Peter Pegg, Outlaw, by One Who Knew Him. This uproariously entertaining tale completes the trilogy of ‘Outlaw’ novels, along with A Good Man for an Outlaw, and Outlaws and Worse.

Jonathan was kind enough to visit the Verbal Exchange studio located somewhere in the Garden of Eaton (okay, it was actually our mom’s house), where we had a wide-ranging conversation about the novel and the series. I invite you to listen to the podcast of our conversation on tuneIn, Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, or podbean, as part of my Verbal Exchange podcast series. We talk about how to gain admission to a frontier circus if you don’t have any money (or scruples), how to get shot by a dead man, how to negotiate with a stubborn editor, and how a perfectly nice kid becomes a deadly outlaw. Enjoy!

(And a shout out to our longtime loyal reader Bette, who is recovering from an operation. Hang in there, kid!)

Never Again, or Again and Again?

The time is long past to argue over the semantics of terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.”

You can call what is happening now in Gaza by whatever term pleases you. The terminology doesn’t change the fact that the Israeli Defense Forces, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, are herding the Palestinian population back and forth within the narrow borders of the Gaza Strip, as they turn entire cities, hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings included, to rubble. Forty or fifty thousand people have already been killed. Aid–food, water, medicine–has been shut off and children are starving and dying of preventable diseases.

And all of this is carried out under the now ludicrously phony aim of “getting the hostages back.” Netanyahu is now speaking of an even more aggressive ground campaign, with military occupation to follow. He seems to lack either the desire or the intellectual capacity to formulate any course of action other than inflicting more death and suffering on the Palestinian people, using all the 21st-century weapons and technology at his disposal.

This is becoming one of Western civilization’s great atrocities. It will be compared by historians to events like the massacre of Armenians by Turkey in 1915–with the difference that this time, it is being carried out by a close ally of the United States, and with the whole revolting spectacle graphically exposed to the world, day after day. But the historical perspective is no consolation to Palestinian parents watching their child starve to death, or to a Palestinian child whose parents lie under the rubble of an apartment building.

Every Israeli, every Jew, every Christian, every American, every human being with eyes and a heart should be appalled at what is happening in Gaza at the moment. It is absolutely wrong. And it is unnecessary. The IDF’s current strategy has no plausible rationale other than to keep Benjamin Netanyahu in power, out of jail, and to forestall the consequences of his own corruption and his security forces’ bungled handling of the horrific October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians.

A permanent, just solution aside, Israel can pull out of Gaza now, let humanitarian aid and humanitarian workers in, use its abundant military and logistical resources to seal off its border with Gaza, and employ its vaunted intelligence services to keep an eye on Hamas and to continue to pick off its leadership, without blowing up entire hospitals and residential communities.

What Israel is doing is wrong, and no accusations of antisemitism or anti-Zionism, whether valid or self-serving, make it right. The United States should use all of its economic and diplomatic resources to make Israel stop. And we the American people must make it politically unfeasible for our government to do anything else.