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Top 10

Our Top Ten Stories of The Year

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This is not a list of the “best” stories of 2022, which would be taking sides. All our writers are excellent, all our stories are spectacular! This is instead a list of the most-read stories. And it’s not technically all 2022, it covers the last year. So the period includes December 2021. But it’ll give you a chance to catch up and to see what tickled our readers’ fancy during this weird year.

10. The Triumphant return of NightMara! (August). The media often overlooks VR’s potential to create immersive entertainment that may one day compete with your home screen and movie theaters. Audere‘s favorite VR show is Nightmara, so the arrival of a new episode in August was cause for some rejoicing, and an interview with the show’s writer/director, Gianpaolo Gonzalez.

9. Alan N. Levy’s Prescient Iran/Russia Warning (February). The late, great thriller writer, Alan N. Levy, once envisioned a future world that looks much like 2022, especially the behavior of Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe. Earlier this year, Alan’s editor reflected on the remarkable predictions embedded in Alan’s great novel, The Tenth Plague.

8. OpenAI: A Less Toxic Chatbot? (January). Because chatbots are just language prediction models, they don’t have a conscience. Some scientists are working on that.  

7. Is the Future Artificial? (July). We looked at all the ways that life is getting less “real,” from VR and AR to women who marry robots, and what to expect next. It’ll only get weirder

6. Defending Sam Wainwright, of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (December). Is Sam Wainwright the real hero of It’s a Wonderful Life? Is Mary Bailey the real villain?

5. An NFT Painting Transformed by Its Owner’s DNA: The Evans Brothers Explain (January). This is exactly what it sounds like. When you buy this NFT painting, your DNA will individualize it. Read on. 

4. What to do on New Year’s Eve (Virtual Reality Edition) (December). In late 2021, with the pandemic still creeping along, some New Year’s revelers chose to party in virtual reality, the safest way to avoid catching a deadly disease. Here are some of the things they did.

3.         The White Goddess: A New Micro-Budget Thriller with an Engrossing Mythological Twist (March). A secluded cabin in the dead of winter, an accident in the snow, a man and a woman stranded. All on a shoestring budget. We love it!

2.         Six Years after Bulletproof Stockings, Perl Wolfe is Still Singing (June). Ah, the joys of an iconic Chassidic girl band! How does one top a thing like that?

1. Smoking Girl (April). In this short story by Steven S. Drachman, the most read of the year, two nighttime co-workers forge a superficial, temporary friendship over a 3 am cigarette break. 

BeFunky-photo6 -cover

Photos of the Day: Smoking

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Look, I am not an advocate of cigarette smoking, if such a person exists in today’s world.

I do not myself smoke cigarettes. I know that big corporations hid the truth for years, and many died for their malevolent subterfuge, maybe millions.

But I am a novelist, and my characters smoke. They smoke and they smoke and they smoke. Smoking is good for drama.

The excerpts below show the uses for smoking in literature. Smoking represents freedom; rebellion; sophistication; a youthful rite of passage; noirish danger. Or buffoonish ignorance. Cigarettes can mean anything.

As Steven S. Drachman notes in his short story, Smoking Girl, as government regulations drove smoking into the shadows, the shadow-dwellers found each other, poignantly. Or as Mark Laporta shows, a cigarette can be shorthand for a sort of idiotic, thuggish villainy. A cigarette sets the scene, almost any scene, perfectly. Smoking says it all.

In real life, smokers are unattractive. They smell bad. They have smoker’s face, yellow teeth. Even their hair, it’s smoker’s hair. But in photographs and and films, smoking is photogenic. Smoking looks good in movies and photos. The hand holding the match, cupped against the wind, as the tobacco ignites; the cigarette between two beauteous lips; a lovely face, engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

These excerpts and photographs are beautiful. It is deeply irresponsible to romanticize smoking. So here we go.

— Alon Preiss

I imagined that Willie, as I liked to call him, since his first name was Cyril, who wore bow ties and smoked dark, foreign cigarettes, was charmingly eccentric, urbane; a modern-day Noel Coward, but more educated.

Extraordinary Means, by Donna Levin

Cigarette me, Cossack!

Mae West, Goin’ to Town

[Eden] remembered waking up, as she had a few weeks ago, to find Roger asleep beside her, the television blaring white noise, a lit cigarette hanging between his fingers. She imagined what would have happened if she had not woken up, if the cigarette had dropped quietly onto the sheets and she and Roger had died in the fire, their skeletons wrapped together like Esmeralda and Quasimodo at the end of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.… She stared through the window, shut her eyes and let the darkness wash over her, felt herself sink into it.

In Love With Alice, by Alon Preiss

Long about 11:30 that same morning, a dark figure skulked toward the Skudderton bus terminal, passing empty lots, stepping over broken concrete slabs — with the stub of a cigarette clinging to his lips…. “Work your ass off for a guy and he goes and clones you,” muttered Blade…. “He’s gonna hear about that,” Blade added, lighting up a cigarette. Cigarettes still made sense, even if he couldn’t remember why.

The Changing Hearts of Ixdahan Daherek, by Mark Laporta

Daniel was smoking, and Susan was holding a lit cigarette between two fingers and taking a puff every once in a while, not inhaling, just looking strangely innocent and beautiful with a cigarette in her left hand, not really smoking, and talking about God.

A Flash of Blue Sky, by Alon Preiss

My fellow soldiers and I sat around in the camp smoking cigarette after cigarette and growing increasingly worried about being in the first wave of soldiers sent into Lebanon, as we had little doubt that Israeli troops would be heading north. We were clearly a second-line infantry unit consisting of older men, not the kind of soldiers that the army brass would want to send into battle. But we understood that we had one advantage for the army: we were already in uniform.

Figs and Alligators, by Aaron Leibel

“You understand what I’m sayin’, don’t you, Mrs. Wolensky?” He released her arm and took out a pack of cigarettes, tapped the pack on his hand and slowly pulled one out with his mouth. He offered her the pack with a questioning look. He shrugged when she didn’t respond and put away the pack. Then he pulled out a lighter and thumbed a flame to life…. He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply and slowly blew smoke toward the stroller. After a few moments, he stood up, tugged at his jacket and turned to stare down at her. “You don’t wanna see me again, now do ya’, Mrs. Wolensky?”

“Oh, please, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then we ain’t gonna have any. S’long as you understand you made a mistake.” ….

Hawkins turned and walked slowly away, trailing smoke.

The Inevitable Witness, by Ed Rucker

Charlotte shed her nightgown and dressed in a shirtwaist and skirt…. Later she would dress her hair in a chignon, how she had worn it for years, despite the changing styles. First, however, she would smoke a cigarette, a less-than-genteel habit for women, but a freedom, Charlotte swore, more important than the vote.… She rolled a cigarette, licking its thin edge, and then lighted it with a match scratched on the sole of her shoe. She inhaled, feeling guilty, because she knew she must quit … but in her guilt, she also felt at home. She exhaled and watched the plume of shame rise toward the ceiling.

Bloomsbury’s Late Rose, by Pen Pearson

Sergio sat across the table from her, and Carly was holding both his hands, playing idly with his fingers. He had a carefully maintained two-day growth of beard, long hair, and a flatteringly and expensively casual wardrobe. His faux-Communist cigarette hung from his lower lip at an impossible cockeyed angle.

In Love With Alice, by Alon Preiss

I am watching Westworld while smoking a cigarette. This is a phase of my life.

Kalyee Srithnam

“We are not monsters,” [he] said at the opening press conference. He was so tiny in this huge room, miles below its towering ceiling with intricate gold leaf. He lit a cigarette. The room was already filled with smoke. Then, to emphasize his point, he repeated himself. “We are not monsters.” He looked angry. The Western reporters began scribbling, and his eyebrows knit crossly. “I know what you will do,” he said. “You will all lead your story in the same way. ‘We are not monsters, said the little man with the cigarette.’ The implication will be ironic.” ….. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, held it in his lungs for just a moment, then blew it out rebelliously.

A Flash of Blue Sky, by Alon Preiss

“Standing here, in the street, in this light rain,” she said, and then she stopped and took a long drag on her cigarette. It was almost done, her cigarette, but she didn’t flick it into the puddle just yet, she stared at it, the little glow in the dimness. “Standing here like this, in the rainy night,” she continued, “it reminds me of one rainy night in the forest, when I was little, behind my house, hundreds of miles away from here. Maybe thousands, I don’t know.”

Smoking Girl, by Steven S. Drachman

I know I don’t smoke. I don’t inhale because it gives you cancer, but I look so incredibly handsome with a cigarette that I can’t not hold one.

Woody Allen, Annie Hall

Jimmy took the hand rolled cigarette, and Rhoda produced a book of matches and lit it. He puffed the smoke tentatively. “You can inhale it,” she told him. Jimmy tried and coughed violently. Rhoda grabbed the cigarette and handed him a glass of water. She took a drag and exhaled the smoke. “Don’t take in so much till you get used to it.” She handed the cigarette back to Jimmy. He took another puff and managed it better the second time. Then Rhoda rolled one for herself, and they sat there, smoking contentedly, and gazing out across the fallow field at the pine woods on the other side.

The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe, by Granville Wyche Burgess

Irina threw her carpet bag into the middle of the living room floor underneath his big TV. She sat down on the floor, and she lit a cigarette. “I will never feel guilty about this,” she said. “Smoking. I will never apologize.” The room filled with smoke. “Just so you know.” The room looked better filled with smoke.

A Flash of Blue Sky, by Alon Preiss

One of the SEALs noticed a lone Iranian soldier standing there smoking a cigarette, for the moment oblivious to the carnage around him. The SEAL adjusted his aim slightly upward and deftly beheaded the man from more than a hundred yards away. “That’s for more than twenty years of Jihadist bullshit, asshole,” mumbled the SEAL….

The Tenth Plague, by Alan N. Levy

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Photos and Art from Pexels and Pixabay, and by Petar Stacevic, Cottonbro, Max Knoxville, Roman Odintsov, Oleg Magni, Masha Raymers, Kam Pratt, Merlin Light Painting, Megan Forbes, Dishan Lathiya, Ukeiri, the Digital Artist, Jessica Nunes, John Mor, Brett Sayles, Steven S. Drachman, Kalyee Srithnam, Kool Shooters, Amir Hashemi, Thais Silva and Hiew Nguyen Trong.

Reading

Our Most-Read Stories … Ever!

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We at Audere had a great summer, and it gave us a chance to reflect on our best and most popular stories. Happily, our “stats” app helps, constantly reminding us which stories you, our readers, loved, and which ones you didn’t care for much at all.

The fifth most-read article was our interview with Torsten Krol. The Dolphin People writer has remained stubbornly anonymous (“Torsten Krol” is a pseudonym) and our interview was something of a “get,” his first interview in over a decade. The extremely diverse topics about which he has written books, he told us, “may have created the impression that I’m several people, and in a way I am, but all those people are located inside the one skull. Having asserted that I’m one person, I feel other questions relating to my identity are irrelevant.” It was an interesting chat.

At number 4: In 2018, the Watt O’Hugh novelist Steven S. Drachman reviewed a film weirdly titled Disney Christopher Robin, which he acknowledged that he had not seen, but which in his view told so many extravagant falsehoods about the life of the real Christopher Robin Milne that it deserved a sight-unseen pan. “[W]hy exactly do our totalitarian overlords at Disney need to tell us this lie about the life of a real man?” Drachman asks. “It is because the real Christopher Robin was not a Disneyesque creature at all; he did not believe in eternal childhood and eternal childishness. He grew up.”

In 2020, author Julie Stamm talked to us about Some Days We…., her blunt yet optimistic picture book about being a parent with multiple sclerosis. “I can say wholeheartedly that diagnosis has changed me,” Stamm told us. “I don’t really remember the old me.” The interview is our third most-read article.

In the second most-read article in Audere history, bestselling novelist Donna Levin remembers her grandmother, Rae Stern, a cheerful but secretly depressed rabbi’s widow. “What she needed, I believe, was meaningful work of her own,” Levin writes, “something that was more than just a holdover from the glory days of Rebbetzinhood.”

At #1, A Big Hand for the Raunch Hands, Drachman’s appreciation of the late Mike Chandler, who headed a raucous and popular rock band in New York in the 1980s, and who died of cancer in 2018, having never become world-famous, in spite of expectations all those years ago. “[H]e really did have a lot of great shows and a lot of fans, back then,” Drachman writes, “and not everyone has that, nights when you rule the audience, nights when you are king. I hope that means he would say he had a good life.”

And an honorable mention: Alan N. Levy wrote our seventh most-read article; as a tribute to his deceased best friend, Levy wrote, “I’d like to describe a moment that I’ll simply label, ‘The Funniest Thing Ever Said.’ ” Alan died unexpected and suddenly a few months before his debut novel, The Tenth Plague, appeared in print. We hope wherever he is now, he is enjoying all his posthumous rave reviews.

(For the record, our least popular piece was a digital painting entitled “Autumn in the City,” which depicted beautiful fall leaves puddled around piles of garbage.)

Happy reading!

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Photo by Sasint / Pixabay

Iran mission

A Mission to Iran: Fiction by Alan N. Levy

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January 1, 2028 … Tabriz, Iran, 0100 Hours

They departed from the Iranian’s modest home near Tabriz shortly after 1:00 AM.

The highway was virtually deserted, and the Israeli felt a sense of relief until their Zamyad Z24 pickup truck stalled and died just north of Avaciq, sixty miles short of their planned destination. It had been sputtering and lurching for the past hour, and finally the rusty Nissan, a relic by any standards, succumbed to old age and exhaustion.

It was 5:22 AM.

To the east, the morning sky was a subtle pink.

The two men exited the truck.

“I told you it was a bad idea to take my truck on this journey! We should have stolen a car. What the hell are we going to do now?” yelled the Iranian.

The Israeli shrugged off the remarks. He removed a small screw driver and a pen light from his pouch and bent down behind the truck.

“What are you doing?” Another question from the Iranian.

“I’m removing the license plates, and then I’ll pry off the VIN plates from the dash and driver’s door. That should delay them, for a while, from realizing this truck belongs to you.”

“And then what?”

“We walk.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

The Israeli stood slowly. He stretched his back and grimaced. Sleeping on a wooden floor for the past three nights hadn’t agreed with the screws and rods in his back, and he replied harshly. He jabbed a finger to the west.

“Turkey is about four miles that way. Or, if you prefer, we can simply sit in the truck and wait for your friends at VEVAK to locate us. I’m sure you’ve been witness to their handiwork at Evin Prison.”

He finished removing the VIN plates. 

“You do realize those snow-capped things in the distance are mountains,” replied the Iranian. He sounded defeated.

The Israeli laughed and started walking.

Colonel Arshad Sassani shook his head briefly in resignation and followed. Their pace quickened, and the only sound in the wilderness they entered was the repetitive crunch of their boots on the impacted snow and its layer of thin ice.

An hour later that morning, at Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence Agency, or “VEVAK,” it was noted that the Colonel had failed to respond to a phone call from his superior officer late the evening before. But since Colonel Sassani was a privileged and respected member of Oghab 2, Iran’s counter-espionage agency chartered to protect the nation’s nuclear facilities from threats, he was given some latitude by those currently on duty at VEVAK. His continued failure to respond to a second telephone call, placed to his residence at 7:10 AM, caused growing concern and immediate action. VEVAK agents were soon dispatched, and they reported the Colonel and his truck were missing.  

Arshad Sassani was a career military man with twenty-six years of service, second in command at Ogbad 2. He was also an agent of Mossad and Israel’s most highly-placed informant in Iran. For the past seven-plus years, Colonel Sassani had dutifully fed the Israelis a stream of useful information about Iran’s nuclear and missile launch technology. But Sassani’s latest revelations stunned the Mossad and Israel’s Prime Minister, Joshua Ben-Gurion, into a highly perilous decision to extract Sassani from Iran and grant him eventual asylum in Israel or the United States. First, of course, Israel’s Mossad would interrogate the Colonel in person.  

The two men trudged on. One mile slowly approached two.

They were in the mountains now, and there were ice-covered walls of granite and dense pine forests in all directions. The Israeli activated his sat-phone and a rapid exchange in Hebrew took place. The wait seemed an eternity, but the light on his phone came on and began flashing. He listened as directions were given.

Tel Aviv would steer them and guide them through the seemingly impassable terrain. The chip imbedded in the Israeli’s left shoulder was all they needed, as he could be pinpointed anywhere on the planet to within a distance of four feet. An ancient goat herder’s path became their precious yellow brick road, and a lone operator at a terminal deep in a bunker at Mossad’s headquarters became their eyes.

Directions were given in periodic, deliberately clipped sentences into the Israeli’s headset, and the two men moved slowly forward, sometimes a bit north, sometimes to the south, but inevitably in a westerly direction.

Their path was a perfect Kipniss landscape, barren and snow-encased. If not for the fear that clutched relentlessly at his heart, the Colonel might have considered it beautiful. But appreciation of their surroundings instead gave way to exhausting footsteps, and the Israeli and the Iranian concentrated on their feet, neither of them hardly ever looking up or around.

The Colonel’s thick black beard became a tangle of icicles.

It was 10:48 AM.

An observant Revolutionary Guard Lieutenant stopped and reported an old Nissan truck parked at the eastern side of Highway 32, between Avaciq and Beyk Kandi to the north. It matched the description of the missing vehicle, and when his second radio report mentioned there were no license plates on the vehicle, concern at VEVAK gave way to panic. Three helicopters with more than thirty VEVAK agents were in the air within minutes, and a Revolutionary Guard contingent was ordered to leave Tabriz shortly thereafter. Their column consisted of ten armored personnel carriers, filled to capacity with a hundred and twenty heavily-armed troops.

At 12:03 PM the helicopters arrived. A brief inspection of the pickup truck revealed the engine was seized up, a result of a massive coolant leak. First, the VEVAK agents correctly surmised there had been no pre-planned exodus from the vehicle on this desolate road. Then they discovered two fresh sets of footprints in the snow.

“Rahim to base. Rahim to base. Over.”

“Go ahead, Rahim.”

The agent named Rahim continued, excitedly.

“We’ve located the vehicle owned by Colonel Sassani, at least we believe this is his truck. The engine has failed, and the truck has been abandoned. We surmise there were just two occupants, because there are two sets of fresh footprints, heading west.”

“What do you mean, Rahim, when you say you believe this vehicle is the one owned by Colonel Sassani? Did you not already trace the registration numbers?”

“We cannot do that, sir. In addition to the license plates being gone, the metal registration number tags have also been removed from the vehicle. But I’ve seen the Colonel stubbornly drive in and out of headquarters for more than three years in his grandfather’s dilapidated old truck, and I can assure you this is the same vehicle.”

“So what do you think is going on, Rahim?”

“I can think of only two possibilities, sir. Either he has been kidnapped, or he is attempting to defect. I’m also assuming that since his truck unexpectedly broke down, those two sets of footprints in the snow give a strong statement that he and his accomplice or his abductor had planned all along to head toward our border with Turkey.”

“He cannot possibly be trying to defect, Rahim. He’s traveled at least a dozen times with our delegations to the U.N. and Switzerland, and it would have been a much simpler matter to seek asylum during any of those visits rather than to now trek over icy mountains toward the Turkish border. So I dismiss one of your two stated scenarios. We must conclude that the Americans or Israelis are attempting to kidnap a man who has extensive knowledge of our weaponry and our plans, and we must prevent him from crossing our border into Turkey.”

“Yes, I understand, sir.”

“Rahim,” the voice added, if you are incorrect, and if this vehicle turns out not to be our faithful Colonel’s ancient Nissan truck and we create an incident with the sovereign nation of Turkey, you do understand this will not go well for you.”

“Yes, General, I understand.”

Twelve minutes later, the General issued orders.

“Rahim, your helicopters are to take up positions at the border and wait for Colonel Sassani and his kidnapper to emerge from the mountains. There is an old goat herder’s path in that area, and our analysts believe that is the only way they can wind their way through the forests and mountain passes. And Rahim, if, somehow, these two men get through the gauntlet we’re preparing and appear to be escaping into Turkey, you have my permission to pursue and kill them. Even, that is, if that means you must violate Turkish air space.”

“Kill Colonel Sassani?”

“His head is filled with our secrets, Rahim. It must be severed from his body to protect our great nation.”

It was 6:40 PM.

All was still. Precise instructions had been given by Tel Aviv for the two men to hide at the edge of the tree line and wait for darkness to engulf the area.

They could hear occasional distant sounds from the forested slopes behind them. The contingent of Revolutionary Guard troops was getting ever nearer, closing in.

There were now eight helicopters at rest ahead, which had landed to disperse more than a hundred VEVAK agents. These agents now formed a well-established skirmish line, and effectively blocked the path to the border.

Directly in front of the two men in hiding was a broad clearing, a perfect killing field. It extended for perhaps three hundred or four hundred yards.

The Israeli mumbled something.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the Valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“What was that you whispered?” asked the Iranian.

“Tennyson.”

Colonel Sassani shrugged at the insufficient reply. This Israeli agent of Mossad was a strange character. He seemed tireless, driven by some unknown force. But “Tennyson,” here and now?

“Absurd,” he mumbled.

An Iranian helicopter suddenly exploded. Then another, and another in quick succession. The night sky was immediately engulfed in bright light, as a wing of American AH-64D Apache Guardian helicopters swooped in from the Turkish side of the border. Their infrared sensors easily pinpointed the Revolutionary Guard troops less than three hundred yards into the forest, and four well-placed AGM-114 Hellfire missiles killed more than half of them instantly, and halted their advance.  

The four Apaches circled as avenging angels, and in less than three minutes all eight Iranian helicopters were ablaze. In the bright torch light that emanated from their burning transports, the VEVAK agents became simple target practice for the Apaches. KMK-42 laser weapons on swivel mounts in both side doors of the Apaches were arced back and forth by their gunners, cutting and slicing through the helpless men and leaving them to bleed out on the frozen ground. 

The Israeli spoke rapidly into his headset and nodded, as though the man in Tel Aviv stood directly in front of him.  

A CH-47 Chinook, illuminated by the flaming carnage below, appeared overhead and landed in the clearing near the two men.

Eight well-equipped Navy SEALs exited the helicopter and moved toward them. A sat-com message was received and obeyed, and the Israeli tapped the Colonel on his shoulder.

“Time to go.”

They raced toward the SEALs and the Israeli shouted the word, “Terrapin” to indicate they were the package to be delivered.

Safely aboard the Chinook and well within Turkish air space, the Iranian Colonel looked at the Israeli and asked a question.

“What is this ‘terrapin’ you shouted at the Americans?”

“It’s a turtle, sir,” replied the SEAL team leader.

“You’re a lot slower moving than your Israeli pal,” added one of the other SEALs, “so your code name for this mission was terrapin.”

The Seals all laughed at that, and for the first time in four days, the Israeli smiled. He then said something, softly.

Half a league,

Half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the Valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“More Tennyson, my friend?” asked the Colonel.

“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” replied the Israeli.

Exhausted, Yaakov slowly closed his eyes and nodded off.

The Iranian studied his savior. The Israeli was perhaps thirty-five and had the chiseled, no-nonsense features of a boxer. At one point in their perilous journey through the mountains, Sassani slipped and fell. The Israeli simply reached down, secured the Iranian under one arm, and dead-lifted him to his feet. Strength, endurance, and dedication were to be respected, thought the Colonel.

He also glanced around at the Navy SEALs. They clearly were all of that same mold.

Less than an hour later, the Israeli and the Iranian arrived at a Turkish military airfield near the city of Çetenli.

They promptly boarded an unmarked Gulfstream G650, were greeted professionally by three agents of the CIA, and the plane immediately taxied toward the runway.

“Happy New Year,” remarked one of the agents to the two men.

The aircraft then streaked toward Tel Aviv.

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lan N. Levy, who died in 2019, was a political columnist at Audere and blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, from which this excerpt is taken, published in 2019 from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.

Design by Steven S. Drachman from an Image by Lenamann/Pixabay.

Fireworks

A Second Look: Why the 4th of July Still Matters

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Two years ago tonight, from Florida, the late thriller novelist and pundit Alan N. Levy, author of The Tenth Plague, wrote, “The fireworks on the 4th were spectacular.  And you already know how much I adore hot dogs.  But I also have a deep respect for our military personnel, whether they are white or black, red, yellow or any shade thereof, whether they are of a particular religion, or they practice none at all.” He went on to remember a few.

Read the whole column here.

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Alan N. Levy, who died in 2019, was a political columnist at Audere, blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, published in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.

Robert E. Lee

Alan N. Levy: Don’t Remove the Confederate Statues

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Let me immediately make it clear that I am vehemently opposed to bigotry and slavery, and no, I’m not a great-great grandson of a plantation owner. I don’t refer to one of my ancestors as “my grandpappy” or “pawpaw” either.

I was born and raised in Chicago, and just the other day when discussing a highly boring Super Bowl, I mentioned to a twenty-three-year-old that I attended the University of Illinois and was there when Dick Butkus played for the Illini in the 1960’s. The young man then asked, “So who’s Dick Butkus?” I instantly knew that Georges Santayana was accurate when he so astutely stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Or perhaps those who aren’t aware of the past may merely wallow in shallowness or mediocrity when analyzing current events. Like that kid with whom I was discussing football. How can he have an even remotely valid opinion of great linebackers, if he isn’t aware of names such as Lambert, Nitchke, and Butkus?

I truly understand why Speaker Pelosi might wish to remove the statue of General Lee from public view. Slavery is an abomination, a blemish on this nation’s history, and as a liberal Democrat, she enjoys the support of minority groups. From the standpoint of supporting her constituency, removing that statue makes sense, and perhaps she missed a momentous photo opportunity by not being filmed kicking the statue or defacing it.

You see, I’m a Jew. I firmly believe that Georges Santayana’s warning must be heeded, and that any action which limits our future generations’ ability to study and comprehend the lessons of the past increases the likelihood that similar, immoral decisions will be made in the future.

The United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. was opened in 1993 and is this nation’s official memorial to the Holocaust. More than 19.5 million people from 238 nations have walked the halls of that museum, and I hope you have been one of them.

We must remember, lest we forget.

And we must be reminded, by teaching, by studying, by having memorials to even the darkest times in our nation’s history. So I am opposed to the removal of a statue of General Lee from the rotunda, just as I would be opposed to either the federal government or the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina embarking on a project to close a Civil War cemetery in Beaufort.

From the Beaufort (South Carolina) National Cemetery website …

“This national cemetery was established in 1863 for the burial of Union soldiers who died during the Federal occupation of Beaufort and for the internment of Union soldiers’ remains from various locations in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. More than 9,000 Union soldiers or veterans are buried here; 4,400 of them are unknown, including 2,800 prisoners of war from the camp at Millen, Georgia. Seventeen hundred African-American Union soldiers are also buried at Beaufort National Cemetery. One hundred and seventeen Confederate soldiers are buried here.”

A cemetery on Southern soil honoring fallen solders of the Union army may be considered by some as a blemish to the landscape of the fine State of South Carolina. But I say the blemish would be its absence. Perhaps her constituents might consider it a moral victory to have graves disturbed and remains destroyed and have all traces of the Civil War removed from that site. But there is an omnipresent danger in decisions of this type. Begin a program to eliminate educational awareness and reminders of that time in our history, and a future generation might consider slavery, or another Holocaust, as a politically expedient alternative.

I don’t have much interest in Germany as a nation. I, for one, will never forget the Holocaust, and I would never visit that country. To contemplate the possibility that some day, as NATO nations may join together to combat Russia and we are fighting side by side with soldiers of the Wehrmacht, is to contemplate the bizarre and incomprehensible. But that’s a topic for a future article. I vividly remember an episode of “Sixty Minutes” many years ago, in which Mike Wallace was chatting with the mayor of a quaint little city in Germany. The cameras panned streets with buildings erected in classic German village architectural style, flowerboxes were everywhere, and the mayor expressed disbelief that tourism statistics were so low. He was perplexed and frustrated that so few appreciated the charms and serenity of this German town named Dachau. I’ll bet rich soil produces award-winning flower boxes. Charming.

Here’s a quote from an article published in Artnet News on May 3rd, 2015.

“Munich’s newest museum, the Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, attempts to address a dark chapter in Germany’s history– the Nazi period.

“The ‘Nazi Museum’ as it is popularly known opened April 30, which was the 70th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s suicide and Munich’s fall to American forces at the close of World War II. Both Holocaust survivors and American veterans of the war were on hand for dedication ceremonies.

“’Munich had a harder time with this than all the other cities in Germany because it is also more tainted than any other city,’ said museum director Winfried Nerdinger of the birthplace of the Nazi party to the AFP. ‘This is where it all began.’

“The museum is housed in a new building constructed amid neo-classical buildings that were once the headquarters of the Nazi party. Hitler opened the National Socialist German Workers’ Party office in Munich in 1930.”

I have to give the mayor and citizens of Munich great credit for the decision to create a “Nazi Museum.” With that decision, they have made a profound statement, something like, “This is our history, this is when we went astray, and this is who we are today.”

Bravo for the people of Munich. I still am not fond of Germany, however, and I admit that holding a grudge against someone, or against an entire nation, isn’t one of my most admirable traits. And I feel that way because I am often reminded of that hideous chapter in the history of mankind. I am taught. We have memorials to the Holocaust, but fewer and fewer testimonials, and in another fifty years, we will only have what has been written and fading memorials to withstand the test of time.

So I am opposed to relegating General Lee to a basement. I am opposed to someone also possibly deciding that slavery was such an abomination that all references to the Civil War be stricken from our children’s textbooks. We must be resolute in our obligation to recognize and teach the past. We honor Thomas Jefferson, a plantation and slave owner, as the principal creator of our Declaration of Independence. But it is also our obligation to teach his shortcomings and misdeeds, as well. We can only remember and be disgusted by the lessons of this nation’s history if we choose to face those moments head-on. We can only learn the lessons of history if we are aware those moments existed, and that is why General Lee deserves to be on display. To replace his likeness with that of Rosa Parks confuses me.

Without reminders, Nancy, without the repetitive study of history and its application to the present and our future, members of new generations will continue to ask, “So who is Dick Butkus?” Or perhaps they’ll ask, “What’s a Nazi?” and “What’s a Holocaust?” Or, “What’s wrong with slavery?” And we would actively contribute to those future challenges by having a statue of a general of the Confederacy removed from where it belonged.

Keep the atrocities of slavery, a tragic event in our history, in the open for all to see, teach those events vividly to our children, and the likelihood those events may reoccur is diminished. Bury them, remove statues and references in journals and history classes, and the likelihood of a reoccurrence is enhanced. Georges Santayana was certainly not a fool, and we all must heed his warning.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

^^^

Alan N. Levy, who died in 2019, was a political columnist at Audere, blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, published in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.

Image of Robert E. Lee designed by Steven S. Drachman. This piece has been edited for accuracy and clarity.

Korean flag

Alan N. Levy: Why I’m Against Socialism (and a Lot of Other Things, Too)

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I’m getting old, and I’m a traditionalist.

I believe that if you decide to call something an apple, it should, in reality be one of those round, normally red, juicy things that grow on trees. To decide to call it something else is folly, because whatever name you may select, it remains by definition an apple.

What is socialism?

So what is a Socialist state?

North Korea proclaims herself one, and if self-proclaimed Socialists in this nation believe they are of that tree, then they must be completely of that tree.

You can’t be half an apple and part tangerine, not when you proclaim yourself to be an apple.

To say you are a Socialist, when you advocate free health insurance, decent education for all, clean air for our grandchildren, a reformed and fairer tax system, and yet you do not advocate the State owning all businesses, then you have failed my crude Apple Test. Call yourselves cucumbers, but not apples. In the dictionary, “Socialism” has a definition, and to say you are one without meeting the demands of that definition simply means you’re not a Socialist, and cannot be one.

The New American Socialists

So what exactly, then are the New Socialists?

I honestly don’t know, because of all things, they are not Socialists unless they advocate all facets of the definition of that term.

Sweden is often pointed to as an example of a successful Socialist State, and one of their most respected historians is quick to point out that when they tried on that full-blown apple for size, Sweden went bankrupt.

So Sweden is not, in fact a Socialist State, and their successes of late are due to the privatization of many of their industries.

If you look around the globe, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a successful, flourishing Socialist nation, a full-fledged apple by definition.

Look East for Socialism

Except in North Korea, where whispers in kitchens by starving citizens are required in order to avoid certain imprisonment and death.

I’m concerned about any party becoming the sole choice in this nation, whether it’s the party of the left or the party of the right, or Centrists professing whatever. And I’ve mentioned North Korea, because that nation is the only one-party non-Leninist nation on the planet. North Korea is the full apple, and that nation, as was Sweden, is nearly bankrupt.

So sure, I am in favor of reshaping Obamacare, and if we can adopt a system of universal healthcare and broader opportunities for all.

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” at its core, means the right to live, the right to grow, the right to learn, the right to work, the right to achieve, the right to excel, the right to pray or not to do so, the right to prosper, the right to provide for your family, and the right to keep that which you have earned. The Founding Fathers, when drafting the Declaration of Independence, meant that those words are about the right to have opportunities.

“All men are created equal” in this great nation means that we each have the right to begin that path, as your personal journey toward greatness.

So does my belief in those words make me a Socialist? Does the desire to have better, universal healthcare in this nation make me a Socialist?

Absolutely not, because Socialism is a specific thing, and liking parts of a pseudo-socialist platform does not entitle you to call yourself a complete apple on the tree of Socialism.

Is Bernie Sanders Really a Socialist?

If Bernie Sanders does not advocate the philosophy that the government owns everything, then he is not a Socialist. Perhaps he aspires to be half an apple, perhaps if I met him, shook his hand, and complimented him for his equestrian skills, he might thank me warmly, as he is a well-known pedestrian. Those terms are not interchangeable, and I sense I’m living in the Tower of Babble.

I cherish language, but when you call yourself a Socialist without living fully to the expectations of that term, I fail to understand who you are or what you believe. And you either vote for a full candidate or you do not.

Imagine they each have segments of their platforms scrawled on their bodies. We, as voters, do not have the luxury of selecting a little left knee, labeled Socialized Medicine and a little right shoulder, labeled a Strong Military. I need to know who a candidate is, what he or she believes, and I somehow need a sense of how that person might perform, situationally. But telling me that someone is a Socialist when he is not only introduces confusion into any logical discussion.

What I am against (and one thing I am for)

So here’s the bottom line, and it’s more what I’m opposed to than what I favor.

I’m opposed to anything that heads us to become a one-party system, of the left or the right.

I’m opposed to the government taking over and owning all businesses.

I’m opposed to right-wing Fascists marching in our streets and breaking windows. One Kristallnacht in the history of mankind was enough.

I’m opposed to Fascists stifling free speech.

I’m opposed to Socialists stifling free speech.

I’m opposed to Donald Trump’s arrogant demeanor, and he is a disgrace to the office of the presidency.

I’m in favor of everything that’s done being done through the legislative process. That’s the only way peaceful change can be accomplished in this nation. It’s up to us to select legislators who can walk and chew gum.

And finally, an American cannot truly be a full apple Socialist, knowing the only nation that has fully embraced that concept is North Korea.

While I’m in that little confessional booth, I’ll also admit I rarely watch Fox News. It’s interesting that Leftists throw those accusations so easily, “brainwashed” Neo-Nazis must be my BFFs, etc.

Look up the roster of those who support UANI, United Against a Nuclear Iran. Those are the guys who play in my sandbox.

^^^

Alan N. Levy, who died in 2019, was a political columnist at Audere, blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, published in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.

This piece has been edited for accuracy and clarity. Image by Geralt/Pixabay

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