Photo of the Day: Young Readers Sculptures, Maywood Public Library, NJ

I took the image accompanying this post more than a week ago, when snow from the late February blizzard was not only still on the ground but obstructing walkways. That meant that I couldn’t get close enough to read whatever inscription appears on the base of these outdoor sculptures, so I don’t know the name of the artist or the date when this was installed. The next time I return to the library, I’ll see if these exist.

But I couldn’t help but smile when I saw these figures. They evoke what so many of us—including current and former librarians like me—know: that the best time to foster a love of reading is when children are young.

Nowadays, it’s even more urgent that we realize this, as so many digital distractions exist, far beyond what our parents and grandparents feared with the rise of television.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The In-Laws,’ With an Intro to a Nutty New Relative)

Dr. Sheldon Kornpett [played by Alan Arkin]: “You were involved in the Bay of Pigs?”

Vince Ricardo [played by Peter Falk]: “Involved? That was my idea.”—The In-Laws (1979), screenplay by Andrew Bergman, directed by Arthur Hiller

Quote of the Day (Mike Royko, on an Earlier War Over an Oil-Rich Mideast Nation)

“In two or three years, Kuwait will be close to looking as it did before Iraq looted and plundered it. But I guarantee that the West Side of Chicago, much of the Bronx, and the slums of Newark, Gary, New Orleans, and other American cities will be the same mess they are now. That’s because Kuwait sits atop an ocean of liquid gold. It can hire the giant Bechtel corporation and other globe-hopping companies to perform a miraculous rehab job. Unfortunately, nobody is drilling gushers on the West Side of Chicago or in Detroit or the Bronx. And Bechtel doesn't take our IOUs.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist Mike Royko (1932-1997), “Kuwait’s Future Brighter Than Ours,” originally published in the Chicago Tribune, Mar. 12, 1991, reprinted in One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko (1999)

Operation Desert Storm concluded 35 years ago this past Saturday. The outcome made a national hero of General Norman Schwarzkopf, briefly boosted President George H.W. Bush’s approval rating, and even now retains something of a retrospective glow: a conflict with comparatively few American casualties, with a limited objective—Saddam Hussein’s occupation forces thrust out of Kuwait.

But every war has unintended, often deleterious, consequences, and the 1990-91 Gulf War was no different. To ensure that Saddam would not threaten a key oil-rich ally, Bush stationed American forces in Saudi Arabia, which Osama bin Laden saw as an “infidel” offense against Islam’s holiest sites. He launched al Qaeda in an attempt to drive them out.

Right on the anniversary of that first Gulf War, another Mideast war of choice was launched. Already there are casualties, and sites have been hit not only in Iran, but elsewhere in the Mideast.

Even if the war concludes with an outcome that President Trump proclaims favorable, we won’t know for years—as also with the replacement of a prior leader with the Shah of Iran in 1953—whether this will be in long-term American interests.

The region has a long memory, and you can bet it’ll remember that Trump told The New York Times back in 2016 how his policy for fighting the Islamic States would differ from Barack Obama’s: “I’ve been saying it for years: Take the oil.” It’s impossible to ascribe good motives to a country that’s elected a leader who so unashamedly proclaims self-interest.

I wish Mike Royko were alive to comment on all this. Long ago, when Trump was only a tabloid fixture, the columnist, in a hilarious February 1990 piece, informed readers, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that Marla Maples was not the aspiring mogul’s mistress but, according to “a very high-ranking source in the Trump Organization,” his personal laundress:

“And that, pure and simple, is the reason Mr. Trump kept her nearby, in a hotel room one floor below his, and brought her to Aspen and took her on his yacht and had her accompany him to parties and other social events.”

But in this “Quote of the Day,” Royko got serious, pointing out what remain American problems: neglect at home while millions are spent on foreign conflicts. 

(Though progress has been made in some neighborhoods in the areas mentioned, too many remain symbols of urban decay. And before long, the pain spread beyond the inner city: from 1980 to 2016, the Great Lakes region lost ground economically, with Michigan, Wisconsin, and western Pennsylvania performing particularly badly, according to Indermit Gil’s 2019 analysis for the Brookings Institution.)

Much like “Make America Great Again,” the notion of “America First” was a chimera, a propaganda slogan conceived to create a scapegoat—aid going to foreign governments or, worse still, foreigners coming to this country—for this nation’s underinvestment in its own material and human resources.

Don’t imagine for a moment that this situation will be redressed in that den of scorpions, the Middle East. Even the quick takeover of Venezuela ended up costing $3 billion for its late August-to-early February military buildup, according to Becca Wasser, a military strategy expert at the Centre for a New American Security, a think-tank.

The Iranian campaign is already longer than that, even beyond the walkover stage, courtesy of an administration equally lacking competence and conscience. We’d better hope that this conflict won’t devolve into the quagmire that the Second Gulf War became under George W. Bush.

Quote of the Day (Anton Chekhov, on Russia)

“Russia is an enormous plain across which wander mischievous men.”—Russian playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Note-book of Anton Chekhov, translated by S.K. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf (1921)

The trouble is, a mischievous man ends up the ruler of the country, with similar men as his minions.

Photo of the Day: Mountain of Snow, Veterans’ Memorial/Depot Square Park, Englewood NJ

I took the image accompanying this post two days ago, after rising temperatures had helped melt some of the 27 inches of snow from earlier in the week. To clear space in the large parking lot just north of our city’s downtown, a tractor moved all that white stuff into a mammoth pile.

Make that two mammoth piles. The one seen here was in the park. Another was in a single spot in the parking lot.

Believe it or not, these piles were even wider and higher when the tractor finished its work. I’m just hoping that Mother Nature will take care of the rest in short order and reduce it all to large puddles.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Maude,’ In Which She Praises a New ‘Hit Single’)

[Maude Findlay is alarmed as she comes into her living room to find daughter Carol dancing “The Hustle” with lecherous middle-aged married businessman Randy Cutler, who’s about to buy a store from Maude’s husband Walter.]

Maude Findlay [played by Bea Arthur] [turning off the record, picking up another one]: “Randy, Randy, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but you must hear the new album Walter just bought: “Charlton Heston and ‘The Ten Commandments.’ That's the one that has that hit single ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.’” —Maude, Season 4, Episode 12, “Walter’s Ethics,” original air date Dec. 1, 1975, teleplay by Arthur Marx and Bob Fisher, directed by Hal Cooper

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Renee Roden, on the Continuing Memory of the Transfiguration)

“The Eucharist—the community’s shared anamnesis or remembering of Christ’s sacrifice and Christ’s revelation of himself in glory—makes Christ truly present in our world. Rather than building a monument in response to holiness, we are called to become the living stones. Our lives, our hearts, and our communities are called to become a testament to the transfiguration we have seen. The church is not real estate. We don’t need to pitch a tent. We just have to go out and share the memory.”—Journalist and author Renee Roden, “A Reflection for the Feast of the Transfiguration,” www.USCatholic.org, July 31, 2023

The image accompanying this post, The Transfiguration, was created by the Italian Renaissance painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, a.k.a. Raphael (1483-1520).