Léanne's Story - from the French novel

This is a chapter well into the as yet unnamed post-modern French novel. These two characters, Léanne ad Gilles, have found each other recently and moved in together. They are learning about each other, making a life together. But other characters have discovered, at first tentatively but now rather conclusively, that they are not "real" people, but characters in a novel. All the characters have therefore realized that a prime task is to keep the author interested in them, so that they will not be left stranded, doing nothing, barely existing. What to do, to keep his interest? They are feeling their way forward.

“And here it is, Gilles,” said Léanne. “My short fairy tale is finished. Here it is.” She put the pages in his hands.

“Is it a real fairy tale?” he said, scanning through the three pages.

“That’s for you to decide, my sweet.”

“But, are there really fairies in the story?”

”You don’t want to read it? Do you want me to read it to you? That’s always such an intimate act, for you to read to another. You are so romantic, Gilles? Sometimes, you make me lose my breath.”

”He smiled. “No, no, I want to read it, I’m very intrigued to see what you imagination has created.”

“Oh, I see, she said. You’re afraid that you won’t like it, is that the problem?”

“Oh, yes, maybe that’s it. You are prompting my in my lines. I needed that.”

”No problem. Don’t worry. It’s just a little thing. It’s not my specialty, even though as you know, we sociologists, we write.”

”I’m sure that it is excellent, Léanne, really.”

”Oh, good! If you’re sure, I’m going to read it to you.” She grabbed the papers from his hands, arranged them primly in her hands, sat up straight, cleared her voice, and started to read aloud.

Mathilde

Once upon a time there was a girl named Mathilde. Mathilde was a good little girl. She was very polite to her step-mother and to her father, and she took care of her little brother Jacob in just the right way. She didn’t smile much, but she was very pretty, and she was very tender with her words and the way she touched people so that no one criticized her for not smiling. Silence is a gift, they said, because that’s what their mother had told them. That was the culture.

But there was one thing that they didn’t know, because Mathilde had never told anyone. Mathilde saw the world in a way different from other people. The material world was, for Mathilde, at a distance. You could say that sounds were like an echo, and that what she saw was, in a mysterious way, also at a distance from her. Sights and sounds couldn’t penetrate her. What was the most real for her were numbers. Ever since she had learned her numbers, they had become her internal reality. Numbers jumped in her brain, the combined in amazing and unprecedented ways. So she learned math easily, and her knowledge quickly rose to a level higher than her teachers. Nevertheless, that wasn’t a problem, because she could work by herself. Numbers were her friends and neighbors, you could say.

However, even though she was gifted with numbers, she was awkward with words, and of her own cares and thoughts and feelings, as well as those of others. What could she do, when she could respond to questions easily? What to do, when she preferred to be alone rather than have someone with her who wasn’t right for her?

She had to find a solution to that problem, and she found one. She adopted a default mode. This default mode was to always say no. To all the invitations, her response was, “Thank you, no.” She was a pretty woman, but when someone asked her out, her answer was always, “Thank you, no.” She preferred to be alone with her numbers.

Her life, then, was quite full of numbers, but empty of people. Her parents didn’t know anything except to say, “Silence is golden.”

One day, though, a man arrived in her city to meet Mathilde. Mathilde had written a letter to a mathematics journal. She hadn’t considered the letter of any consequence, just a slightly shorter proof of a theorem. In fact, her proof was half the length of the other proof, and the other proof was done by a great professor of mathematics in Paris, and Mathilde didn’t even live France, and she didn’t even speak French. This great man in a suit and tie in a city in a foreign country was the very professor who had given the longer proof. He had dedicated himself to bringing Mathilde to Paris to be a professor of mathematics there. You already know that she was a genius, and it was the great professor who had the humility and the wisdom to know that.

It was impossible to refuse this offer. So, a short time later she found herself in Paris in the process of learning French. Her teacher was a woman in her seventies, who had also been a young genius. She had livd in Mathilde’s native country, and she knew the customs of that country. In the course of teaching the language to Mathilde, she was able to give her many tips. One of these tips was this: ‘In your country, Mathilde, the default mode for a young girl is to say no. But in Paris, the default mode is to say yes.’

Being a young girl of great intelligence, Mathile was able to understand the well-meaning of this good woman, and although she still heard sounds like an echo, and although she still saw events in the city as though they were at a great distance, and despite the fact that her primary language was in fact mathematics, she was able to benefit from the advice, and she changed her default mode from “no” to “yes.”

Not to unduly prolong the story of this woman, she was soon affianced and not long after was married to a banker who was talkative enough for both of them, and after that she was a mother five times in the next seven years, and she was very close to her children as a mother, and although she didn’t speak much, because she was sweet adn she had learned to smile. She took care of the house and the children during the days, and she slept with her husband at night, and she dreamed of numbers every night. Every two or three months she wrote another letter to the French Journal of Mathematics, each time with another short proof of a theorem previously unresolved or awkwardly proved. She became a legend in her field. Among her husband’s friends, she remained a mystery, because she talked so little. But because her children we so gentle adn polit, and because her husband was such a good man, and because her friends were such good people, eery in her life went fine.

”What a good tale!” said Gilles. “Not much danger, not much tension, but without any doubt interesting. But what is the moral of the story?”

”Yes, I took out the points of tension, so as not to scare the children. It’s not a thriller. The moral is this — Say yes, very simply.”

”And the objective with respect to the author? Is this going to influence him not to abandon us?”

”Yes. We know he writes badly. He needs our help. We need some stories where the characters aren’t normal and rational. His characters are always reasonable and banal. Except Laura, of course.”

”Yes, I agree. But with the next one, we have to invent some really scary characters, or crazy, or panicked. You think?”

”I think you have just set your project!”

”Oh, good! Maybe I’ll also retell a classic tale. I didn’t know until just this moment that Cinderella was autistic, and that the King was a professor of mathematics, and that the fairy godmother was a French teacher, and that her prince was a banker!”

And now, in the original French:

— Et voilà, Gilles ! dit Léanne. Mon court conte de fée est fini. Ça y est ! Elle lui mit les pages dans les mains.

— C’est un vrai conte de fée ? dit-il, en fouillant les trois pages.

— C’est à toi à décider, mon cœur.

— Mais, il y a vraiment des fées dans le conte ?

— Tu n’as pas envie de le lire ? Tu veux que je te lise le conte? C’est toujours un exercice très intime, de lire l’un à l’autre. Tu es si romantique, Gilles ! Parfois, tu me fais perdre le souffle.

— Il sourit. Non, non, je peux le lire, je suis très intrigué de voir ce que ton imagination a créé.

— Ah, je vois, dit-elle. Tu craignes que tu ne l’aimeras, c’est le problème ?

— Ah, oui, peut-être c’est ça. Tu me suscites mes répliques. J’en avais besoin.

— De rien. Ne t’en inquiète pas. C’est seulement une bagatelle. Ce n’est pas mon métier, bien que comme tu sais, les sociologues, nous écrirons.

— Je suis sûr que c’est excellent, Léanne, vraiment.

— Ah, bon ! Si tu es sûr, je vais te le lire. Elle arracha les pages de ses mains, les arrangea d’une manière guindé dans les mains, se tint droite, s’éclaircit la voix, et commença à lire en haute voix.

Mathilde

Il était une fois une fille qui s’appelait Mathilde. Mathilde était une bonne petite fille. Elle était très poli à sa belle-mère et son père, et elle s’occupa de son petit frère Jacob exactement comme il faut. Elle ne sourit pas beaucoup, mais elle était tellement joli, et elle était tellement tendre avec ses mots et ses touchers que personne ne le lui reprochait. Le silence est un cadeau, disaient-ils, parce que c’était ce que leurs mères leur avaient dit. C’était la culture.

Mais il y avait une chose ce qu’ils ne savaient pas, parce que Mathilde n’avait jamais le dit à personne. Mathilde vit le monde d’une façon différente des autres. Le monde matériel était, dans l’esprit de Matilde, à distance. On pouvait dire que les sons était comme un écho, est les choses qu’elle vit était toujours, d’une manière mystérieuse, un peu à distance d’elle. Les bruits et les visions ne purent pas lui pénétrer. Ce qui était le plus réel pour elle, c’étaient les nombres. Dès qu’elle avait appris les nombres, ils étaient devenus sa réalité interne. Les nombres sautaient dans sa tête, ils se mélangeaient en combinations inouïs et inédites. Donc, elle apprit facilement les maths, et elle atteindrait très vite à un niveau plus avancé que ses professeurs de la ville. Néanmoins, ce n’était pas un problème, parce qu’elle pouvait travailler seul. Les nombres étaient ses amis, ses voisins, pour ainsi dire.

Cependant, bien qu’elle soit douée pour les nombres, elle était maladroite avec les mots, et les soins et pensées et sentiments de soi-même, et d’altrui. Quoi faire, quand elle ne put pas répondre facilement aux questions ? Quoi faire, quand il préféra être seule qu’être mal accompagnée ?

Il fallait trouver une solution à ce problème. Et elle la trouva. Elle adopta un precédure par défaut. Cette procédure était de dire toujours >. À toutes les invitations, la réponse était, merci, non. Elle était une joli femme, mais quand quelqu’un l’invita à sortir, sa réponse était, merci, non. Elle préféra d’être seule avec ces nombres.

Sa vie, donc, était assez pleine de nombre, mais vide de gens. Ses parents ne savaient rien de dire que la tranquillité est d’or.>>

Un jour, néanmoins, un homme arriva a sa ville pour rencontrer Mathilde. Mathilde avait écrit une lettre à un journal de mathématiques. Elle n’avait pas considéré cette lettre d’aucune conséquence, juste une méthode un peu plus corte pour prouver un théorème. En fait, sa preuve était à moitié moins que l’autre preuve, et l’autre preuve était fait par un grand professeur de mathématiques à Paris, et Mathilde n’habita pas même en France, et elle ne parlait pas le français. Ce grand homme en costume-cravate dans son ville dans un pays étranger était le même professeur qui avait offert la preuve la plus longue. Il s’était consacré à emmener Mathilde à Paris pour y être professeur de mathématiques. Vous le savez déjà qu’elle était génie, et c’était le grand professeur qui avait l’humilité et la sagesse de s’en rendre compte.

C’était impossible de refuser cette offre. Donc, peu de temps après elle se trouvait à Paris en train d’apprendre le français. Sa enseignante était une femme septuagènaire, qui avait aussi été une jeune génie. Elle avait vécu dans le pays d’origine de Mathilde, et elle connaissaient les habitudes de ce pays. Au cours d’enseignant la langue à Mathilde, elle pouvait lui donner des astuces. Un de ces astuces était ceci: Dans votre pays, Mathilde, le mode défaut pour une jeune fille est de dire non. Mais à Paris, le mode défaut est de dire oui.>>

Étant une jeune fille de grande intelligence, Mathilde pouvait comprendre la bienveillance de cette bonne femme, et bien qu’elle resta à entendre les sons comme un echo, et bien qu’elle resta à voir les événements de la ville comme à une grande distance, et malgré le fait que sa première langue était en fait les mathématiques, elle put profiter de l’astuce, et elle changa son défaut de > à >

Pour ne pas prolonger l’histoire de cette femme, elle était bientôt fiancé et pas trop longtemps après ça mariée avec un banquier qui était assez bavarde pour les deux, et après ça elle était mère cinq fois en sept ans, et elle était une mère très proche de leurs enfants, bien qu’elle ne parlait pas trop, parce qu’elle était douce et elle avait appris à sourire. Elle s’occupa de la maison et des enfants les jours, et elle dormait avec son mari les nuits, et elle rêvait chaque nuits des nombres. Tous les deux ou trois mois elle écrit un autre lettre au Journal de Mathématiques Français, chaque fois avec une autre courte preuve d’un théorème auparavant non résolu ou résolu maladroitement. Elle devint une légende dans son domaine. Parmi les amis de son mari, elle resta une mystère, parce qu’elle parlait si peu. Mais parce que ses enfants étaient si doux et poli, et parce que son mari était un tel bon homme, et parce que ses amis étaient des gens si bons, tout allait bien dans sa vie.

— Quel bon conte ! dit Gilles. Pas beaucoup de danger, pas beaucoup de tension, mais intéressant sans aucun doute. Mais quel est la morale du conte ?

—Oui, j’ai enlevé les points de tension, pour ne pas faire peur aux enfants. Ce n’est pas un conte thriller. Le moral est ceci — Dire oui, tout simplement.

— Et l’objectif vis-à-vis l’auteur ? Ça va l’attirer afin qu’il ne nous pas abandonne ?

— Oui. Nous savons qu’il écrit mal. Il a besoin de notre aide. Il faut des contes avec des personnages pas toujours si normal et rationale. Ses personnages sont toujours raisonnable et banals. Hormis Laura, bien sûr.

— Oui, d’accord. Mais avec le prochaine, il faudra inventer des personnages vraiment effrayants, ou fous, ou affolés. Tu le pense ?

— Je pense que tu viens d’établir ton programme !

— Ah, bon ! Peut-être que je raconterais aussi un conte classique. Je ne le savais pas jusqu’à ce moment-là que Cindrillon était autistique, et que le roi était professeur de mathématiques, et que sa marraine était enseignante de français, et que son prince était banquier !

Intelligent American Citizens Discuss The Iran Crisis

One of the great additions to my life has been the birth of an email group of 6, old friends and new friends, 2 doctors, 3 lawyers (one of whom is a psychologist), and a business person with deep economics knowledge. Here, we take on the Iran Crisis, at this exact point in time.

Correspondent #1

I am torn between agreeing with Lindsey Graham and bombing the nuclear facilities and Marjory Taylor Greene and not bombing them. I suspect Trump wants to do enough to provoke Iran into attacking a US base and having his Pearl Harbor (or Gulf of Tonkin) to justify giving Israel bunker busters and a green light. I think Israel may have a superduper intelligence operation but it seems led by a man with the most shriveled of humanistic fellow-feelings. As for Trump, I followed a few minutes of his Q&A this morning, via closed captions, and don't understand how everyone doesn't realized he is insane.

Correspondent #2

I'm equally disoriented: I find myself in agreement with Netanyahu on something really important; I am encouraged that Trump is ready to drop the bunker-buster on the Asshole-tola.  What's wrong with me?  Not even the fact that it's Marjorie Taylor Greene voicing the opposing view gives me comfort. I'm in the camp with Bibi and the Orange Monster. God help me.

I have believed for 50 years now (really, since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, followed by the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the attack on the USS Cole, and the endless acts of terror since) that the only thing really authoritarian governments respect is force. That's been especially true of Arab dictators forever. It was certainly true of Hussein, Assad, Gaddafi, a slew of Egyptian leaders (with the notable exception of Sadat, and look where that got him) et cetera ad nauseam.   We've been played for decades by these cancerous zealots, and nowhere has that been more true than in Iran and its puppet states. (It's not just Arabs. Putin has played us the same way, and he, too, only respects force.

There's no morality play here for me — as there was in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We invaded sovereign countries there, and it was indefensible.  But we're not invading Iran. We're making sure that one of the most diabolical, fanatical, anti-Semitic, dangerous regimes in the world doesn't get a nuclear weapon. Let's do it, and let's do it now, when the Israelis have weakened Iran in every strategic way.

If this does end up in "regime change" (what a euphemism), so be it. I won't lose a drop of sleep over that, either.  That said, I imagine there will be terrifying chaos, death and suffering in Iran if the current crew goes away, but it's better than the alternative — just as it's proving to be in Syria. 

Correspondent #3

I’m pretty much agree that fanatical religious governments in the ME are a danger to us all. 

Correspondent #1

Does that include the present Israeli one?

Correspondent #4 (me)

I am by nature muscular.  I like the dramatic, the definitive, the bold.  I am suspicious of quivering liberals.  I thought that Israel's takeout of Syrian and Iraqi nuclear installations by air raids was justified and smart.  I can understand the attraction of disarming enemies like Hamas and Hezbullah, and I share it, although with familiar reservations about methods and aims in Gaza and the West Bank..  They have vowed Israeli destruction - a country can't live with that, if groups like that have real power.  You can't make deals with groups like that.

I think the government of Iran is despicable and dangerous in ways both foreign and domestic.  I understand the need to make sure they don't become endowed with nuclear weapons.  I support efforts to ensure they don't get them.  Iran is now at a low point of power, and I understand the idea of the military option, similar to Syria and Iraq, but 10 times or 100 times more difficult.  Still, allowing them to titter around with diplomacy while the production goes into overdrive is not wise.  They are untrustworthy.

But, there is so much we do not know.  I never expect truth to emerge from either Netanyahu or the current American government.  Netanyahu is an extremist, egged on by other extremists.  He can't wait to pull the trigger.  He is full of hate.  It makes me queasy to be on his side.

It is a wonderful thing to imagine an Iran under new leadership.  But who's to say it would be any better?  The Iranian people certainly have the potential for a good country -- more so than the Arab countries - try to find one to praise, I can't.  But we have enough experience to know that dramatic decapitations can lead to hell, even when it's an interior decapitation, as with Russia as Putin has emerged from the rubble.

If we could say for sure that a few bunker buster bombs could destroy the nuclear installations in an uncomplicated fashion, maybe that would be warranted.  It's a big step for the US to take, and you never know where it goes.  Much of the world would be against it.  If it went well, Europe would be for it.  If it were clean.

Does Israel really need it?  I believe that no matter how awful the Israeli government, Israeli nukes will always be defensive.  We used to have to take that as a matter of faith, but with the current government and other governments yet to come, it's just a hope left where there used to be certainty.  Who's to say where the limits are?  An emboldened power can do unexpected things and have unexpected ambitions.

Can we say that about Iran as well?  We brand them as extremists, theocrats who might be immune to death threats.  I have believed that.  I don't believe in the equivalency of Iran and Israel, I believe in the Muslim threat to the Jewish state which on doesn't see in reverse from Israel.  But I am also humbled by seeing so much idiocy in the world, real idiocy.  I am humbled by my own inability to predict and to analyze correctly.   I guess that I believe that yes, nukes are defensive, and what is achieved by conventional force is then ensured against retribution by the possession of nukes.  Roll into a neighboring country and take it over, and if challenged, say it was my right to do so, and don't do anything against me because I have nukes.  I guess I'd just go back to a simple belief in non-proliferation.

What would happen if the bunker-busters were successful?  What would be the effect on the US policy in the future.  "Muscular" might understate it.  More aggressive support to MAGA?  Neoconservatism unleashed?  Domestic coup solidified?

I guess I'd only have faith in the raid on Iran if it were backed by NATO.  It's one thing for Israel to act -- understandable.  I worry about my judgement even there, though.  My reflex is always Jewish pride, that's our boy, so smart and brave!  I guess I can stick by the thought of it's being in essence defensive.  But it would be quite another thing for the US to act.  I would distrust the end.  Emboldened Trump.  Ensuring safety to Israel in this way might be one of the worst things that ever happened to the US.

So, at the end of this muddle, I guess I'm happy for Israel's success -- I don't want Israel to be under threat.  But unless we could get international support from Europe, which Trump won't seek, I guess I come down against the bunker busters.  And I'd hope for Iranian regime change, but that will have to come internally.

Sorry not to be definitive.  Actually, I haven't been following it closely so I don't know what smart commentators are saying.  I love to deliver the last well-reasoned word, but I guess I don't have it today.  Just a muddle of thoughts.

Correspondent #1

"Muddle" seems to be the default position. And I've been listening to the experts.   Kind of quiver-making that the keen-thinkers who will be making the final decision are Trump, Netanyahu, and that mullah with the big beard.   Chips will fall where may.

Correspondent #2

When I was in law school, I had a very erudite professor from Germany named Maximillian Pock, educated in England, who sounded like Abba Eban when he spoke.  He taught us that, when one is faced with two difficult choices, "always take the least incisive alternative".  He meant that you opt for the choice that moves you the shortest distance, preserves your future options and avoids what might be a big mistake.

I'm not sure his wisdom applies here, but he, too, would come down on the side of NOT bunker-bombing at this point.

I see the risks on both sides, but I'm in the Netanyahu camp on this one — a place I never, ever thought I could be.

As I said yesterday, there is no negotiating with Iran and its Mullahs. There's delay and obfuscation on their part, but they will not be deterred in their quest for nuclear weaponry.  All the history so far tells us that.  They have been the primary sponsor of world terrorism for nearly 50 years. They are a rogue state, passionately committed to the annihilation of Israel — and the Great Satan, the United States.  Now — right now — there is a unique opportunity to knock out their nuclear progress.  It's not an attack on their population or the initiation of a larger war.  (And if it does result in regime change, bravo!)

Of course, things could go wrong.  But this is not the same sort of risk we took when we put American troops into Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.  We can fly this mission and then only get sucked in deeper if Iran attacks us somewhere else (if, indeed, they even possess the ability to do so). 

Notice that no one — not the Russians, not the Chinese, not even the key Arab states — is warning us not to do this.  Everyone gets that Iran is a threat to the rest of the world as long as it's governed by religious fanatics.  (And though I smiled at Big Bob's rejoinder yesterday in that context, suggesting that Israel might also be governed by religious fanatics, it plainly is not.  It's still a robust democracy, for better and worse. It suffers from a very powerful right wing, but so do we.) 

On balance, I say, let's go for it.  Professor Pock would be disappointed in me, but I'm sure that's not the first time. 

Correspondent #3

You make a strong but not a new or unusual case for Trump to enter the fray with our bunker buster bombs - why now, what has changed?  Our DNI Tulsi Gabbard stated, on March 26 in the Annual Threat Assessment, that as of now..” IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”. 

It may seem ironic that I quote this particular loathsome DNI, with her reported ties Putin & Assad, but her Intelligence report is a collective, effort not just hers.  Putin & Xi are hanging back, as we once again get political advice by the usual suspects to eliminate an existential threat to ZIsreal & US. Our two greatest existential threats, Russia and China must be smiling & waiting. 

As Winston Churchill stated “it’s better to jaw jaw than war war.” 

Now in real time Netanyahu has ‘pillars falling’, as Thomas Friedman worried about recently,  on hospitals in Israel and Bibi’s corruption trial continues. 

Correspondent #4 (me)

I'm with you on the malign intent and actions of Iran - and there abuse of women, etc.  I'm all for regime change.  I'm not sure what to make of the immediacy of the nuclear threat, but the UN has countered the DNI assessment.  I do think your professor wa quite wise in his advice.  In public policy, a rather conservative voice was Lindheim from Yale who wrote about "Muddling Through," rather than solving something once and for all, and gave real intellectual heft on why that was a wise path.  It's not just kicking the can down the road, it's one step at a time and see how things seem then.

It's also useful to think of the efficacy of threat rather than taking action.  That was the great lack of appreciation of the Neoconservatives.  They said, let's move into Iraq, set them up as a thriving modern capitalist country, and the whole ME will fall without out having to involve ourselves in each little step - every country will want it.  Then the US revealed itself as a paper tiger, and forces that Bush was ignorant about, instead taking the word of Chalabi, raised their heads and boom -- the US was revealed as powerful but incompetent in planning and follow up.  Better to have wielded influence by having the threat of intervention in their back pocket.

Imagine now if we used the bunker busters as threat, rather than take a chance and who knows what happens, here in the US or abroad, to our ME bases, our worldwide reputation (already in tatters), the fear our forces can inspire in enemies.  What if we said we will not use it now, but we won't forswear it, either.  What if we just would squeeze the regime more.  Would that give internal forces more time and hope to organize?  Could they envision the US coming to their aid by recognizing them if they took a few provinces, or something?  I learned in acting class -- a great teacher of life, acting -- ask a son of yours! -- I learned that as soon as you lose your temper you lose your power.  The threat is the thing.

Not using the bunker bombs is not the end of it.  It's important to think more subtly about the future, I think.  And you never know what can go wrong.  As they say in the stock market, very often the way to win is not to lose.  Minimize mistakes, minimize risk.

And as always, don't listen to Bibi.  Bibi's greatest interest is Bibi, and he's as big a power grabber and liar as Trump

Hold your fire, but keep your guns cocked.

Correspondent #4 (me)

Here's one case for not going ahead, citing unknown unknowns.  It doesn't cover the positive's I've cited for waiting - more than avoiding mistakes, it's hoarding continuing power.  The definitive strike is for those who are losing -- as Japan was losing its empire to the oil embargo prior to Pearl Harbor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/us/politics/us-bomb-iran-risks.html

Corresondent #2

What has changed? Two things, both momentous, in my view:

Israeli intelligence — surely better (especially on Iran) than anyone else's — contradicts the American assessment pretty fundamentally. (By the way, there have been reports as recently as this morning that Gabbard is not accurately or completely quoting our intelligence, and that would be no surprise.) The Israeli's say that nuclear weaponry is now imminent in Iran. And, yes, they've said that many times before, but they are acting on that intelligence in the most dramatic, intense and sophisticated way.

Iran has not been weakened this badly in the nearly 50 years that the fanatics have rules their country. This is an opportunity literally like no other.

So, to me, everything has changed in terms of timing, and much has changed in terms of risk.

Corresondent #2

I hear you loud and clear in general, but I think Iran is sui generis, and it's a huge mistake to let our deep wounds from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan dictate nonfeasance when this one opportunity presents itself in Iran.

We are not committing boots on the ground here. Nothing close. We're providing our ally with a weapon. We've been providing weaponry to that ally for decades, with great effect. We cannot harm our relationship with Iran by doing this; we have no relationship with Iran, which has consistently sponsored terrorist attacks against us for 50 years, while we try to reason with them.

There was a chance to stop Hitler, until there wasn't. There was a chance to stop the North Korean monsters, until there wasn't. There was a chance to stop Putin, until there wasn't. Reasoning with these maniacs is a fool's errand. Iran is a rich, powerful, well-educated country, and the mullahs have made it one of the most feared and impregnable in the world — until today, thanks to the Israelis. This is the moment to bring that regime down, and it might happen — without a single American in the country. If it doesn't, at least we've eliminated a nuclear threat in the hands of devils for many years.

If Trump doesn't use the bunker buster now, why would anyone ever believe an American threat in the future?

Correspendent #2

You're right. One thing we haven't discussed is the question of what happens if the bomb doesn't work. But I think these are the risks you take when you confront terrorists.

Do you think Obama was wrong to take all the huge risks inherent in going after bin Laden in Pakistan?

Budd Shenkin

Three Cases In My First Month Of Internship

It was 1967. I had just graduated from Harvard Medical School where I had had maybe three months of pediatrics. I had had other clinical experience, sure, but still, I had been a student. I knew next to nothing.

I had moved here to San Francisco to do my internship in pediatrics at UCSF. I was the first Harvard student they had had for this program. UCSF had been a non-elite medical institution but they had decided to change that, and part of the change was to hire a first class Chairman, Mel Grumbach, from Columbia. I think my pedigree might have been what impelled them to schedule my first rotation over at the old Children's Hospital in the Richmond District of San Francisco, which wasn't part of UCSF, but they rotated interns through there to get a general middle class children's hospital experience. I think they figured, let the Harvard guy deal with it, and we'll let the others go over there after they've had some supervised training at the big hospital first.

So I was there on the ward with a resident. He was a tall and already balding guy named Jerry, who later opened a community practice in the area. He was the one who was supposed to know what he was doing and to guide me. I remember three cases especially.

Soon after I got there, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon and Jerry told me that a girl with meningitis was coming in. Meningitis is a life-threatening very severe illness. She was coming up to our ward. Jerry told me, “You should be able to handle this. Stick an IV in here and give her antibiotics. I'm going home.”

I had put in some IV's at school, but I don't think I could say I was skilled at it, and I think so-called triple antibiotic therapy was the standard then, and I had a vague idea of the doses. I must have relied on the nurses for help, and I was successful at the end, but it was a bit hair-raising. The kid lived and recovered.

One day we were on rounds and there was a middle teenaged girl in the hospital, a pretty blond middle-class girl with straight hair who was sitting up with the back of the hospital bed raised when the two of us came in for our morning rounds. Jerry told me that she was being worked up for possible TB. It involved some procedures, like putting a nasogastric tube down into the belly and aspirating to see if some TB could be recovered there, and other procedures that I don't remember. Jerry addressed her formally with me at his side and must have asked her if she knew what she was in for. She tried to compose herself and smile and said, “Because I have tuberculosis?” Then she broke down crying. Jerry looked at her and said, “We'll come back when you've pulled yourself together,” and left the room with me at his tail. He made some remark about hysteria and teenaged girls. A little later I came back alone, without informing Jerry, and explained to her that she was only possibly infected with TB and we were doing all this just to make sure she didn't, but that if she did we could cure it with medicines.

The third case was a late teenage boy with cystic fibrosis. CF is an inherited disease once called mucoviscidosis, a name I liked because it described the condition well just in the name. Patients with CF have very viscid mucous – it's thick and sticky – and it accumulates in their lungs and they can't clear it and it gets infected and eventually they die. At this time our patient had lived longer than expected already. His lips were blue. He was in for an exacerbation and was on IV antibiotics. I sat down with him and asked what it was like for him to have CF. He told me that it was OK much of the time, but then he would have these episodes and have to be cleaned out – the therapist came a couple of times a day to clap him hard on the back and try to mechanically mobilize some of that mucus and have it drain out his mouth. When it came out it was all green. He seemed like a normal kid when I was talking to him; he wasn't much younger than I was. Later on I came back and he had a super high fever and was unconscious and shaking, due to the infection. He survived that episode and I left the service after at the end of the month so I never knew what happened to him. Or rather, I did know, I just didn't know the details.

Being a young doctor can be kind of a shock.

Budd Shenkin

How Bad Is It?

This is all 10 times worse than Watergate and we'll never recover to where we were, never.  Like a catastrophic accident where you're in the hospital bed for months and years, you might eventually get out, but you'll never be the same. It wasn't just Trump.  It was the Federalist Society, Kochs and associated Mercers and other dark right wing money, Leonard Leo, McConnell, Murdoch.  The heritage of the unwon Civil War.  They have come back and won, like a fire in the Oakland hills or Lahaina not quite put out.  It will never be the same, and the fire is still raging, in fact, it's just entered a new stage of conflagration.  Where will the firestop be?  Certainly not Big Law.  Not Columbia.  Maybe the courts?  We don't even know who the firefighters are yet, and who is part of the fire -- let me have my little house and I won't join any fire brigades.

So it's important for public figures to constantly point out the extent of the devastation, and the ongoing nature of it. So far, it's Bernie and AOC. They understand the moment. The rest have to join in, emulate the energy and the alarm. Beat them back, mobilize the country, don't bring cupcakes to a gunfight. Don't allow the ill-taken prisoner, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to languish in San Salvador, without massive resistance, shutting down the Senate and having massive strikes throughout the country.

I don't have to cite chapter and verse of what has happened, it's so clear. Everywhere, it's that bad.

Budd Shenkin

Tariffs and Trump - My View

A friend asked me for my view of what's going on with tariffs, and how Trump will profit from them. I wrote him:

I think his overall scheme is to remove the income tax.  If he can reduce the government's functions, as he's doing, and increase government income from tariffs, which will be like a national sales tax, or even value added tax, then to his thinking he can abolish the IRS.

Trump also glories in destruction and cruelty.  He likes it, and it's easy to do if you hire the right people.

Trump is also inspired by the mafia, whose organization resembles medieval Europe or Asia.  Lords gain land by force and acquire vassals - lesser lords - who are allowed to govern their fiefs by pledging fealty to the lord. When he has the threat of tariffs, the subservient laws of industry, or the leaders of other countries which he views as less powerful, come to him personally to beg favors, and to pledge loyalty and to give payoffs in hidden ways.

Don't worry, he is out to monetize his position, with Putin being his model.  I've heard it said that Putin demands from the Russian oligarchs a personal 50% share of their businesses, in order for them to continue alive and in business.  As a result, he might be the richest man in the world.  That's Trump's ultimate model. 

Trump's political model is Orban, who took a democracy and overturned it into tyranny.

Trump's view of national social structure is of a small number of aristocrats at the top, subservient to him as king, a reduced middle class, and a very extensive starving class.

That's all.

Budd Shenkin

Big Law Phones It In

When Trump started bullying the large law firms and Paul, Weiss and Skadden Arps and other folded, I turned to my good friend anonymous, a former longtime managing partner of a very prominent DC firm. He jotted down his thoughts, which I thought was very valuable. Here it is.

I've watched with disgust — but not surprise — as one big law firm after another has caved to Trump's extortion.  I spent decades in management in "Big Law", not only helping to run my own multi-billion dollar law firm, but spending lots of time with managers from other major firms, too.  So, again, I'm revolted, but not surprised, by what's happening. 

About 30 years ago, I heard the head of the Law Firm Division of Citibank's Private Bank give a speech in which he said, "the law firm business is fast separating into two wholly distinct industries: there's the top 20 law firms, which are hugely profitable, growing rapidly, largely impervious to economic trends and able to raise rates almost without limits, because they handle the big deals, the big financings and the big litigations, none of which are particularly price-sensitive to legal fees;  and then there's everybody else.  And the gap between these two groups is going to grow and widen indefnitely."

The term "Big Law" hadn't been invented then, but he was presciently observing that this privileged group of law firms was indeed in a different business from all other law firms, and that they were real economic juggernauts.  I rode that gravy train myself for 30+ years.

These law firms were manic about just one thing: making sure each year was more profitable than the last. That was true 30 years ago, and it's still true today.  They had (and have) the luxury of jettisoning smaller clients in favor of major corporations and private equity firms; they turned the concept of "partnership" on its head and got comfortable firing partners who had spent their lives there, but who were not able to run fast enough on the hamster wheel of business production. They admitted proportionately fewer and fewer associates to the partnership, helping the Ponzi scheme to endure forever. And they create a class of faux-partners (usually called "Income Partners" or the more boorish "Contract Partners"). while still keeping the lowest class of senior lawyers, the "Counsel", too. 

The profits the Big Law firms made over the last few decades were obscene by any sane comparative measure, and that's more true today than ever.  The rest of the legal industry struggles for profitability and endures really intense competition and rate pressure.  Not the big boys.

I share all this because Big Law is facing this unexpected assault on its domain — Trump's extortion — through this narrow, hard-wired perspective.  One needs to appreciate how sacred they hold the principle that every year's profits must go up, no matter what the social or morale cost. Only then can one understand this pathetic, irresponsible, depressing rush to pay Donald Trump his blood money. 

Big Law is in perhaps the best position of any industry to stand up to Donald Trump.  His threats to cancel their security clearances is more optics than dangerous: very few Big Law partners have security clearances, and in almost no cases are those clearances necessary for those firms to do their business.  Similarly, the threat to ban them from further government work sounds mighty scary, but most of these firms don't represent the federal government. The feds are usually represented by government lawyers within their own agencies and departments, and when they do hire outside counsel, the feds usually won't pay $1,500 an hour for a lawyer's time. 

To be sure, Big Law stands to lose some clients whom they represent before federal agencies and tribunals, and that makes them nervous. More seriously, major clients who are themselves worried about maintaining good relationships with Trump no matter how rich they are (Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and Patrick Soon-Shiong are notable examples, and there are many more)  may find that Big Law firms in Trump's crosshairs could be radioactive, and they will want to run from them.  I'm not minimizing the worry that Big Law has about such a dent in their revenues if and when major, multi-miliion dollar clients depart, but really, when you're grossing $2 billion a year on 60% profit margins, you've got a whole lot buffer to get you through.

In short, these firms are the best-protected, best-suited, strongest and most buoyant businesses in the country, and their apoplexy about  what Trump can do to them financially is based on cultural fears, not economic ones: they don't want to slip way down on the AmLaw 100 list in profitability, no matter what. So instead of leading the fight against Trump's excesses, they're complicit. 

Of course, you'd like to believe that these firms also uniquely embrace their ethical, moral and professional commitments to the rule of law. If lawyers don 't take that seriously, who will?   What Skadden, Paul Weiss, Milbank and others are doing in caving to Trump — and giving him $100 million in free legal services to boot — is a wholesale abdication of everything every lawyer should believe about his professional obligations. 

In short, I am in no way surprised at their lack of character or courage.  I'm only surprised at how short-sighted these firms are: I believe that Trump's extortion will be tossed aside by the courts (including the Supreme Court, if the cases get that far). All that will be left, then, is this indelible stain on the reputation of all these craven wussies, and I don't see that stain washing off very easily.  These firms do compete intensely for young talent, and there will be many among our best and brightest law graduates who will choose firms that did not sell their souls in this way. There will be clients, too, who, in choosing a law firm to represent them, may think twice about hiring a firm with so little backbone, when there are many others who did stand tall.

Very well said!

Budd Shenkin

Catch 22, the Movie

I just watched Catch 22 again. I had read the book in med school, I think, primed by my roommate, Ollie Korshin, who loved it. Ollie had a weird sense of humor, but interesting. He was also a prime devoté of all the Donald Duck comics, especially those featuring Scrooge McDuck. I think the common thread must be over the top characters. I don't know what the genre is, but there are movies and books where the characters are caricatures, “a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.”

I had seen the movie before, of course, and hadn't really liked it, although I was sharp enough to realize that the repetitive flashbacks to Yossarian in the plane where Snowden is dying in his arms, feeling cold as shock sets in, and Yossarian is reduced to reassuring him that everything will be OK, is the underlying motif. But now it has just rocketed up to my number one anti-war movie – that question of what is the #1 anti-war movie recurs frequently. I think Dr. Strangelove, which shares a genre with Catch 22, whatever that genre is named, is #2, or maybe you could switch them around. Since movies stay as they are and since movies are a conversation between the print and the viewer, it must be me who has changed.

Pretty much everyone in Catch 22 is a caricature except Yossarian, the only sane and normal person, except maybe Luciana, the whore he wants to marry but who dies when the supercilious pipe-smoking Aarfy throws her out the window after he fucks her because it would tarnish his preppy image if the truth got out. In Dr. Strangelove, Mandrake is a normal human being, and maybe the President, but that might be it. The normal vs. the crazy others in the world, I guess that's the description.

Catch 22 has PTSD before PTSD had a name, or at least an acronym. That's the point of Yossarian and Snowden, how it recurs – that's PTSD. And then there is moral injury, in spades, shown but not named, because the name came in the 1990's, invented by my high school and undergrad classmate, Jonathan Shay, in his book Achilles in Vietnam. You can see the impulse to throw faux medals over the White House fence, because here in World War II the officers are doing the same obscene shit as we heard about with Vietnam, when soldiers are ordered to do unholy acts that are perversions of war, which upsets them deeply, and then they are given medals with the hope that the medals will obscure the sins.

What a strange term, perversions of war. It's OK to kill soldiers but not civilians. Why is it OK to kill soldiers? Because they will kill you if they can, or they will take important things from you. OK, OK, what's the alternative? I can't think of any. But still, perversions of war. Wow.

The irony that pervades it heightens the sadness rather than undercutting it, I think. It's the irony that lifts it above the other anti-war movies, I think. More than Paths of Glory, for instance. Such an anti-official movie, completely appropriate for the 60's. The insistence on true human relationships in one man, and the bureaucracy and of course, capitalism, and common social conventions and the ignorance of most people. All the perversions of society visited upon war.

Catch 22 has unspeakable tragedy, dressed up with irony, which is hilarious, but can you really laugh? Can you really laugh at Strangelove? The sadness, craziness. Irrational idiocy of bureaucracy. The good war, they say, WW II. Of which there is not one true example in history. Justified war, that there is. But not good. And crazy personal lives that keep going on. Crazy. Irony, irony. You have to hold the concepts in your mind at the same time. The absurdity that is both hilarious and tragic. Maybe Kafka, maybe that's the antecedent. Maybe Vonnegut, with all that craziness from PTSD, living on Titan and being watched by aliens as you procreate – Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were friends, which is so appropriate.

How can you laugh at tragedy and malignant craziness? It's more like gaping at it, maybe. I wonder if it's in Cervantes. We invent new names for things, which is good, but it was always there, lurking somewhere.

Budd Shenkin