November 18, 1959: "Ben-Hur" Premieres

Stephen Boyd (left) and Charlton Heston

November 18, 1959: Ben-Hur premieres, directed by William Wyler, based on the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace. It had previously been filmed in 1925, starring Mexican actor Ramon Navarro in the title role, and Francis X. Bushman as the villain.

That was in black & white, and silent. This was in Technicolor, in full sound, and filmed in Italy with the largest budget ($15.175 million -- about $152 million in 2022 money), and the largest sets built, of any film produced at the time.

The story takes place in Jerusalem, in the early 1st Century AD, in the years immediately before, during, and after the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston, already the preeminent performer of "historical epics," is a wealthy Jewish prince and merchant.

A childhood friend, Messala, played by Stephen Boyd, becomes commander of the nearby Roman fortress. While Judah has remained Jewish, Messala has totally bought into the Roman Empire's way of doing things. One thing leads to another, and Messala throws Judah into slavery, leading to the famous rowing scene.

After 3 years as a galley slave, Judah is assigned to Roman Consul Quintus Arrius' flagship. Arrius (Jack Hawkins) notices Judah's determination and self-discipline, and, after Judah saves his life in a battle with Macedonian pirates, Arrius petitions Emperor Tiberius to free him.

In Rome, Judah becomes a champion charioteer, driving the horses of Sheik Ilderrim (Hugh Griffith), and reunites with former girlfriend Esther (Israeli actress Haya Harareet). He enters a chariot race against Messala, in front of the new Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate (Frank Thring), resulting in one of the most spectacular scenes ever filmed. Messala attempts to cheat, but, in response, a move by Judah results in Messala's method resulting in his own wreck and death. With his dying breath, Messala tells his friendy-turned-enemy that his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott), and his sister, Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell), are alive, and where to find them.

Judah hears about a prophet he seeks who preaches love and forgiveness and urges Judah to cast off his consuming hate and vengeance. Judah and Esther attend the Sermon on the Mount. Soon afterward, Judah meets Pilate, who warns him against using his victory to lead a rebellion against Roman rule. Judah renounces his Roman citizenship. He finds out Tirzah is dying, and seeks Jesus to heal her.

But he is too late, and is a witness to the walk down the Via Dolorosa. History repeats itself: He recognizes Jesus (Claude Heater, uncredited) as a man who once tried to give him water as a galley slave, and tries to return the favor; but, as in the earlier incident, the gift is prevented by a Roman soldier (not the same one). After witnessing the Crucifixion, Judah walks through a storm to the cave where Miriam Tirzah and Esther are hiding. As the storm ends, he sees his mother and sister cured of their maladies, and accepts the miracle and forgives his enemies.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer spent $14.7 million, almost as much as it cost to make the film in the first place, to market it. It worked: Ben-Hur became the highest-grossing film premiering in 1959, and the 2nd-highest grossing film in history to that point, behind Gone with the Wind (also an MGM film). It became the 1st film to win 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wyler, Best Actor for Heston, and Best Supporting Actor for Griffith.

Cathy O'Donnell (Tirzah) married Robert Wyler, brother of Ben-Hur director William Wyler. She died of cancer in 1970. Haya Harareet (Esther) died in 2021, and was the last surviving credited member of the film's cast.

Also premiering on this date was A Summer Place, based on the previous year's novel by Sloan Wilson. It starred Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire as lovers reunited after 20 years, with Sandra Dee as the former's daughter and Troy Donahue as the latter's son, who begin their own affair.

The film was pretty steamy by the standards of the time. But now, it’s best known for its theme song, conducted by Percy Faith, which held the Number 1 spot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart for 9 weeks in the Winter and Spring of 1960.

*

November 18, 1959 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. No games were scheduled in the NHL. There were 3 games scheduled for the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 106-105 at the Minneapolis Armory.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 138-103 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Detroit Pistons beat the Cincinnati Royals, 110-93 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

November 13, 1974: Yassir Arafat's Speech to the United Nations

November 13, 1974: Yassir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been invited by the United Nations to do so, addresses its General Assembly in New York.

It was the most disgusting speech that Assembly has ever heard, and the most dishonest.

He was born in Cairo, Egypt, with the name Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, in August 1929, although the exact date is in dispute: Sources disagree as to whether it was August 4 or August 24. His family were Arabs from Jerusalem, and when Israel declared independence in 1948, he aided Arab rebels against them by smuggling weapons. He adopted the name Yassir Arafat, after Ammar ibn Yasir, an early companion of Muhammad; and Mount Arafat, near Mecca, a site associated with Muhammad.

He became a civil engineer, and aided both the Egyptian Army coup of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk and installed Gamal Abdel Nasser as dictator; and the Egyptian cause in the Suez Crisis of 1956. That year, he began wearing a solid white keffiyeh, different from the fishnet-patterned one he adopted later, which became his personal trademark.

Arafat was elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on February 4, 1969. The 39-year-old Egyptian turned the third-rate advocacy group into a first-rate terrorist organization, feared all over the world. They hijacked airliners, and killed 9 Israeli athletes and 2 of their coaches at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

On November 13, 1974, as the closest thing the movement for a Palestinian nation had to a head of state, he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. He congratulated 3 new nations on their independence and their admittance to the UN: The Caribbean island nation of Grenada, the Africa nation of Guinea-Bissau, and the South Asian nation of Bangladesh. He addressed the deteriorating situations in "Indo-China" (not just Vietnam, but also Cambodia) and Cyprus. He denounced the worldwide arms race.

And he compared his cause to those of other "liberation movements":

The question of Palestine belongs in this perspective of emergence and struggle. Palestine is crucial amongst those just causes fought for unstintingly by masses laboring under imperialism and aggression. It cannot be, and is not, lost on me today, as I stand here before the General Assembly, that if I have been given the opportunity to address the General Assembly, so too must the opportunity be given to all liberation movements fighting against racism and imperialism.

In their names, in the name of every human being struggling for freedom and self-determination, I call upon the General Assembly urgently to give their just causes the same full attention the General Assembly has so rightly given to our cause.

He addressed Americans, invoking some of their national heroes:

I cannot now forgo this opportunity to appeal from this rostrum directly to the American people, asking it to give its support to our heroic and fighting people. I ask it whole-heartedly to endorse right and justice, to recall George Washington to mind, heroic Washington, whose purpose was his nation's freedom and independence; Abraham Lincoln, champion of the destitute and the wretched; and also Woodrow Wilson whose doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our people.

These comparisons were completely ridiculous. Neither George Washington nor Woodrow Wilson committed, nor advocated committing, acts of terrorism against their enemies. Nor did Abraham Lincoln, though his General William Tecumseh Sherman was accused of it in his "March to the Sea" across Georgia.

Arafat spread lies about Israel, and Jews in general:

Just as colonialism heedlessly used the wretched, the poor, the exploited as mere inert matter with which to build and to carry out settler colonialism, so too were destitute, oppressed European Jews employed on behalf of world imperialism and of the Zionist leaders. European Jews were transformed into the instruments of aggression. They became the elements of settler colonialism intimately allied to racial discrimination.

Zionist theology was utilized against our Palestinian people. The purpose was not only the establishment of Western-style settler colonialism, but also the severing of Jews from their various homelands, and subsequently their estrangement from their nations. Zionism is an ideology that is imperialist, colonialist, racist. It is profoundly reactionary and discriminatory. It is united with anti-Semitism in its retrograde tenets; and is, when all is said and done, another side of the same base coin.

This is complete bullshit. "Their various homelands"? The Jews have only ever had one homeland, in what became the State of Israel, and the Arabs had occupied it from AD 638 until 1948, including "the British Mandate of Palestine" that was in place from 1920 to 1948. And calling Zionism "racist" is a lie: In Israel, Arabs can vote. Here are the nations generally considered to be both ethnically Arab and democratic, as of 2022: Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, and, at least officially, Egypt. That's it.

Arafat said, "The Jewish invasion of Palestine began in 1881." That was 1,243 years after the Arab invasion of Israel. The Jews did not "invade" "Palestine." They returned to their historic homeland. He denounced the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which was the first step toward re-establishing a nation for Jews; and the 1947 offer of a partition of the Mandate, knowing it would run out on May 14, 1948, offering it as a compromise. The Jews were willing to be reasonable and accept it; the Arabs were not.

Arafat also accused Israel of being an aggressor nation: "In addition to the many instances of aggression committed by this entity against the Arab States, it has launched two large-scale wars, in 1956 and 1967, thus endangering world peace and security." It was Israel's Arab neighbors -- Egypt, Jordan and Syria -- that started the war in 1956. And in 1967, they already had troops massed on their side of Israel's border when Israel struck first, so Israel cannot be called the aggressor in that one, either.

And just the year before this speech, on October 6, 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, Egypt, Jordan and Syria invaded again. Again, Israel won, and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Jordan's King Hussein I both finally got the message, both beginning a peace process. Syria and the Palestinians did not, and continued to threaten Israel, including infiltrating Lebanon and attacking over its border with Israel.

Arafat continued to lie through the speech, accusing Israel of "acts of,barbarism and terrorism. And yet, the Zionist racists and colonialists have the temerity to describe the just struggle of our people as terror. Could there be a more flagrant distortion of truth than this?" Yes, this very speech was one, because of the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics and other acts of terrorism by Arabs against Jews over the last few years.

He called Israel "those who usurped our land, who are committing murderous acts of terrorism against our people and are practicing racial discrimination more extensively than the racists of South Africa." And for nearly half a century, people all over the world have lapped these lies up.

He cited the PLO having "earned its legitimacy because of the sacrifice inherent in its pioneering role"; and repeatedly called the land of the State of Israel "our homeland." This was a lie. The people of the West Bank are ethnically Jordanians. Jordan didn't want them, and still doesn't. The people of the Gaza Strip are Egyptians. Egypt didn't want them, and still doesn't. Why? Because Jordan and Egypt know these people, and of what they are guilty.

He said, "I am a rebel, and freedom is my cause." This was a lie: The PLO did not believe in democracy, at least not until after their defeat in the 1987-91 Intifadeh, which ultimately led to the Oslo Accord with Israel in 1993.

He closed by saying, "Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

The United Nations could not stop Arafat himself from letting the olive branch fall from his hand.

*

November 13, 1974 was a Wednesday. This was also the day of the "Amityville Horror" murders, and the death under mysterious circumstances of Karen Silkwood. I have separate entries for those events.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The Washington Bullets beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 118-81 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 98-91 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Bob Lanier had 40 points and 24 rebounds.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 105-100 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Charlie Scott scored 41 for the Suns.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 108-103 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Kentucky Colonels, 132-129 in double overtime at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Julius "Doctor J" Erving scored 44 points and grabbed 18 rebounds. But it wasn't enough, as Louie Dampier led the Colonels with 32.

* The Spirits of St. Louis beat the Memphis Sounds, 97-92 at the St. Louis Arena. Marvin "Bad News" Barnes scored 31.

* The Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 114-103 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* And the Denver Nuggets beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 132-108. Travis Grant scored 35 in defeat.

There were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-6 at the Montreal Forum. René Robert scored 3 goals and an assist. Guy Lapointe had 3 goals and 2 assists for the Canadiens.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 7-4 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Kansas City Scouts beat the team that was meant to be their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Blues, 5-3 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. But the Scouts went just 2-8 against the Blues, failed after just 2 seasons, and the Blues' arch-rivals remained the Chicago Black Hawks. The Scouts became the Colorado Rockies in 1976, and the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The California Golden Seals beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Indianapolis Racers, 10-3 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Houston Aeros beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 8-5 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 5-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. This was only the 2nd game the Oilers played there, following their November 10 opener, a 4-1 win over the Cleveland Crusaders. They had played their 1st 2 seasons, and the start of this, their 3rd, at the Edmonton Gardens.

* And the Toronto Toros beat the Vancouver Blazers, 5-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

November 8, 1956: "The Ten Commandments" Premieres

November 8, 1956: The Ten Commandments premieres, produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, in big, splashy color, and with over-the-top dialogue.

DeMille had previously made a film with that title in 1923, in black-and-white, and silent. This was his last film (he died in 1959, age 77), and he got lucky on the timing: He got to film at the actual locations (in Egypt, including Mount Sinai) before the Suez Canal crisis began later in the year, at which point filming on location would have been harder than parting the Red Sea.

It was, up to that point, the most expensive movie ever made, costing $13 million -- about $141 million in today's money, which doesn't sound like the big deal it would have been even at the turn of the 21st Century. It made more money than any movie released that year, including My Fair Lady, Around the World In 80 Days and The King and I.

ABC has aired it in connection with the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian Easter season, every year since 1973, except in 1999. In theaters, it ran 3 hours and 40 minutes. With commercials, it runs 4 hours and 44 minutes, so it has to begin at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, and pushes back the local 11:00 news. It was usually aired on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday, but since 2006 has aired on Easter Saturday.

The film tells the story of the Bible's book of Exodus, from the birth to the death of Moses, played as an adult by Charlton Heston. Yul Brynner (who also starred in The King and I) plays the main antagonist, the Pharoah Rameses II (as his name was spelled in the film's credits). The real Ramesses II (as it's usually spelled in English) reigned 66 years, 1279 to 1213 BC, and may not have been as vindictive as Brynner's portrayal; and the Exodus, if it happened at all, may have preceded him.

(An estimated date of 1300 BC has been suggested. This would put it at about 100 years before the Trojan War is said to have been fought, and about 300 years before the time of King David. However, it has been suggested that the loss of hundreds of thousands of people would have been noted in Egyptian records, and the surviving records make no such mention.)

The film is star-studded: Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, John Derek, Cedric Hardwicke, Nina Foch, Judith Anderson and Vincent Price.

In the 1980s, Billy Crystal, himself Jewish, developed a comedy routine about the film, based largely on the campy dialogue, including his belief that Robinson, best known for his gangster roles in the 1930s, should never be in a biblical movie.

I guess he forgot that Robinson was Jewish, born Emanuel Goldenberg. (And, like Price, he was an amateur painter and a major art collector.) What's more, Robinson had been not quite blacklisted, but "graylisted" for alleged Communist activities. The virulently anti-Communist DeMille's casting of him restored his career.

In the years to come, Heston would become a gun rights activist, and it was said by his detractors that he acted as if he thought he really was Moses, bringing the Word of God, and treating the 2nd Amendment like it was one of the Commandments.

In a 2012 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Santa Claus, with "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played 3 different elves, against rapper Snoop Dogg as Moses.

A movie like The Ten Commandments could not be made today. Not because it would cost so much, or because it reminds us that the Jews were oppressed, but because it reminds us that people believing the lies of a demagogue and worshiping a golden idol look like the bad guys.

*

November 8, 1956 was a Thursday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. Although the NBA season had begun, there were no games scheduled for this day.

But the NHL's entire "Original Six" was in action.

* The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2 at the Montreal Forum. 

* The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 5, 2024: Donald Trump Is Returned to the Presidency

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

November 5, 2024: On his 3rd try, Donald Trump finally gets what he really wants: The Presidential election, winning the popular vote, an actual majority of it, and, thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States, immunity from criminal prosecution for the next 4 years.

I had hoped that women would come through and save us. But, as is so often the case, "It's the economy, stupid." Too many women put the price of supermarket eggs over the price of their own "eggs." The Democrats did very little to point out that Trump has a record on the economy, and it was horrible.

The Hispanic men who decided they couldn't vote for a woman? Wait until they discover that the Republicans don't consider them "white."

The young, first-time-voting Arab-Americans who couldn't vote for Harris because she was a part of the Biden Administration that supported Israel over Gaza? Many of them were too young to have paid attention to the news in 2016 and 2017, and don't remember the Muslim ban, and haven't considered that Trump is a lot closer in policy to Netanyahu than Biden is. If they expected me to have sympathy for their people and their plight before, they can forget it now. Because of their votes, or non-votes as the case may be, more Americans will die than Gazans who have already died.

Trump and his Vice Presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, won 31 States for 312 Electoral Votes. The Democratic Party nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, won 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, for 229 Electoral Votes.

But that popular vote? Trump got 77.3 million votes, for 49.74 percent. It's his best performance, but, for the 3rd time, he did not get a majority of the popular vote. Harris had 75.0 million, for 48.27 percent. Harris' total was 6.2 million short of Joe Biden's total in 2020. Trump's total was 3.1 million more than 4 years earlier.

The Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, got 861,000, for 0.55 percent, a gain of 452,000 over her 2020 total. The Libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver, got 650,000, for 0.42 percent, a loss of 1.3 million for his party. (In 2016, Stein got 1,457,000, for 1.07 percent; and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson got 4,489,000, for 3.3 percent. This was enough to cost Hillary Clinton some States.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., still on the ballot despite dropping out and endorsing Trump, got 756,000, for 0.49 percent. Other candidates got 834,000, for 0.54 percent.

Put it all together, and about 155.1 million people voted, compared to about 158.4 million in the COVID-affected election of 2020. That's about 3.3 million people who voted last time, but not this time. Where did they go? Why haven't we heard from them?

Something isn't right here. Above and beyond the result. If anything, population growth, alone, should have given both Parties more votes than they got in 2020. It's happened many times before, including a few times where the nominee of the party finishing 2nd got more votes than any previous winning nominee.

Where was this "record turnout" we kept hearing about, all year long? Where are all these "newly registered voters" we kept hearing about? Where are all these "people who've never voted for a Democrat before"?

Where were all these millions of young women that Taylor Swift supposedly registered to vote at her concerts? Did they decide that their false perception that the economy was bad -- or their equally false perception of their white privilege being enough to overcome their status as women, and thus as second-class citizens in a Trump society -- was more important than any of the many reasons not to vote for Trump? Did they betray their beloved Tay-Tay, who was very open about her feelings about Trump, and her endorsement of Harris?

Maybe a lot of them went to Trump. If he did get them, it wasn't a big chunk of them, which might well have been too suspicious.

Did they register, or maintain their registration, and simply not vote, because they didn't like either candidate? If that was the case, they should have sucked it up and voted for Harris, anyway, because she's not a Fascist, a rapist, a felon, and an idiot, who sent terrorists to try to sabotage the last election, while Trump is all five of those.

Harris conceded at 4:22 PM the next day. In a speech lasting 12 minutes, outside Frederick Douglass Hall at her Alma Mater, Howard University in Washington, she told her supporters to accept the result, but to not give up the fight.

In the Congressional elections, the Democrats gained 2 seats in the House of Representatives, not quite enough to take control. The Republicans gained a net 3 seats in the Senate, to take control. Trump now controls all 3 branches of the federal government.

Three Democratic incumbents fell: Jon Tester lost to Tim Sheehy in Montana, Sherrod Brown lost to Bernie Moreno in Ohio, and Bob Casey Jr. lost to David McCormick in Pennsylvania. The Democrats got a little good news in the Senate, as promoted from the House were Adam Schiff of California, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Andy Kim of New Jersey. Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks of adjoining Maryland, defeating former Governor Larry Hogan, gave the Senate 2 black women for the 1st time.

Small gains for the Democrats aside, Trump and his fans got what they wanted. They own it all now. Whatever happens over the next four years, it is all on them.

They have bet their lives, and they have bet everybody else's lives, on Trump having a successful second term. Even though his first term was, by any rational measure, a complete disaster. The day he left office the first time, the country's economy was in tatters, it was causing the inflation you blamed on Joe Biden. Over 1 million people died from COVID, when he could have saved the vast majority of those had he taken it seriously. The crime problem had gotten worse. And he hadn't come close to solving the border problem you care so damned much about.

They decided that his first term, his various failures, his various crimes including impeachable offenses, his various bigotries, and the other evidence of his low character don't matter. They also decided that, whatever virtues Harris has, they don't matter, either. Whatever I might think of such an attitude, it is their right.

But he is now 78 years old, older than Biden was when he was elected, and he is morbidly obese. And even though that they also know that, if, for whatever reason, he can't complete this term, the Presidency will fall to J.D. Vance. I'm sure that not one of them was undecided, heard that Vance was the choice, and chose Trump on that basis. They're so ignorant that, aside from those actually from Ohio, most of them had probably never even heard of Vance before that.

But it's all on him Trump, and it's all on his voters. Whatever happens over the next four years, it's because they chose this guy.

If it works out in their favor, they are well within their rights to gloat.

If it doesn't -- if Trump crashes the economy a second time, if crime gets worse, if the immigration problem is not fixed, if there is a foreign-policy disaster, if there is another pandemic -- I am well within my rights to tell you that I told them so.

Given history, we know that a President needs to avoid a "Depression," a "Vietnam," a "Watergate," an "Iran Hostage Crisis," and a "COVID." Trump already had a "Depression," a "Watergate," and introduced "a COVID" into the discussion, all in his first term. Now, he has to avoid all of them in his second term. He could, if he had learned things.

Donald Trump is not the kind of person who learns things. Did you choose him?

Whatever happens, as was said in the first Joker film, you get what you fucking deserve.

Right before the election, the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Trump, and actress Kimberly Michelle Vaughn playing Harris.

As they usually do with the winner of the Presidential election, Time magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2024, as they had for 2016. They had named Swift Person of the Year for 2023, largely for her voter registration efforts. If those efforts had been successful, she would have been a legitimate candidate for Person of the Year, although it still should have been Harris. But Trump's win makes her selection for 2023 look dubious.

*

November 5, 2024 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA purposely scheduled no games for the day, to promote voting. There were 11 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 in a shootout at the UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island, New York.

* The Calgary Flames beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 in overtime at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Matthew Coronato scored the winning goal, just 7 seconds into overtime.

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-4 at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-1 at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Minnesota Wild, 5-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-2 at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Utah Hockey Club, 3-0 at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg.

* The Colorado Avalanche, 6-4 at the Ball Arena in Denver.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-1 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 in overtime a the SAP Center in San Jose. Alexander Wenberg scored the winning goal, 1:49 into overtime.

November 4, 1995: Yitzhak Rabin Is Assassinated

November 4, 1995: I got home from watching the football team at my Alma Mater, East Brunswick High School, defeat neighboring Sayreville, 36-29, at Jay Doyle Field in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey. I turned on the TV, to ABC, and began watching a college football game: Michigan State ended up defeating arch-rival Michigan, then ranked Number 7 in the country, 28-25 in East Lansing.

At around 5:00 PM, U.S. Eastern Time, the game was interrupted by a Special Report from ABC News. There was no music over the announcement. I knew from experience that such a report was not going to be one of good news.

The announcer, Kevin Newman -- apparently, anchor Peter Jennings hadn't yet gotten to the studio -- announced that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel had been assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

Rabin, a 73-year-old native of Jerusalem, was one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel in 1948. He was Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister, Abba Eban was Foreign Minister, Moshe Dayan was Minister of Defense, and the leading General was Ariel Sharon.

Rabin then served as Israel's Ambassador to the United States, and as Minister of Labor. In 1974, upon the retirement of Golda Meir, he was named to succeed her as Leader of the Labor Party, and thus as Prime Minister, but fell into a corruption scandal, and lost the 1977 election as a result.

Slowly but surely, he returned to influence. He was named Minister of Defense in 1984, serving until 1990, and then became Labor's leader again. In 1992, he led them to victory, and returned to the Premiership. He served as his own Minister of Defense, and negotiated the Oslo Accords with Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat in 1993. The following year, he negotiated a peace treaty with King Hussein I of Jordan, ending an official status of war (though not a continuous shooting) between those nations that had lasted from Israel's independence.

The process of implementing the Oslo Accords was not going well in 1995, so he called the rally in Tel Aviv, hoping to show the nation that the peace process should be supported. But at 9:30 PM -- 2:30 PM, U.S. Eastern Time -- he was shot by Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old extremist who was part of a right-wing movement that considered any concession to the Palestinians, no matter how small, to be treason. He remains in prison 30 years later, serving a life sentence, and both he and the leaders of the movement remain unrepentant.

Israel has never fully recovered. Most of its governments since have been conservative and belligerent. There is some justification for this, but not nearly as much as the conservative parties would have you believe.

*

November 4, 1995 was a Saturday. The baseball season was over. In addition to the Michigan vs. Michigan State game I mentioned, these other noteworthy college football games were played:

* Number 1 Nebraska beat Iowa State, 73-14 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. They won the Big Eight Conference title -- the last one, before the league took on half the Southwest Conference and became the Big Twelve -- and went on to win their 2nd straight National Championship.

* Number 3 Florida beat Northern Illinois, 58-20 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida. They went on to beat Number 6 Florida State, which had played 2 days before the Rabin assassination, and lost, but still went on to win the Atlantic Coast Conference title. Florida then beat Georgia in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game, rising to Number 2 in the country, but got walloped by Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, 62-24.

* Number 4 Ohio State beat Minnesota, 49-21 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. But they blew the Big Ten title by losing to Michigan, and then lost the Citrus Bowl to Tennessee..

* Number 6 Northwestern beat Number 12 Penn State, 21-10 at Dyche Stadium (a.k.a. Ryan Field) in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern won their 1st Big Ten title since 1936, and made their 1st Rose Bowl since the 1948 season.

* Number 8 Notre Dame beat Navy, 35-17 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. They ended up losing to Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

* Number 13 Texas beat Number 23 Texas Tech, 48-7 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. They won the last Southwest Conference title.

* Number 14 USC beat Stanford, 31-30 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC went on to win the Pac-10 title, and beat Northwestern in the Rose Bowl.

* Number 16 Alabama beat Louisiana State, 10-3 at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

* Virginia Tech beat Number 20 Syracuse, 31-7 at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia. This got Tech into the Top 20, and they won the Big East Conference Championship, and then beat Texas in the Sugar Bowl.

* Rutgers lost to West Virginia, 59-26 at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* And Princeton beat Penn, 22-9 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. They went on to win the Ivy League title.

There were 10 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 84-71 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 100-89 at the USAir Arena (formerly the Capital Centre) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 119-108 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Orlando Magic, 124-91 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Miami Heat beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 85-71 at the Miami Arena.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Golden State Warriors, 99-84 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the expansion Toronto Raptors, 97-89 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Boston Celtics, 107-85 at the United Center in Chicago. Michael Jordan only played 21 minutes and scored 15 points, while Scottie Pippen led all scorers with 21.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Denver Nuggets, 116-108 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Sean Elliott scored 32.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 103-89 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 9 games played in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-2 at The Forum in Inglewood, California, outside Los Angeles. The Stanley Cup holders got 2 goals from Neal Broten, and 1 each from Mike Peluso and Captain Scott Stevens. Stevens, Martin Brodeur, and the rest of the New Jersey defense held Wayne Gretzky to an assist and no goals.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1 in one of the last games at the Montreal Forum. Within a few weeks, it was replaced with what's now named the Bell Centre.

* The Hartford Whalers beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-4 at the Corel Centre in Ottawa. (It's now named the Canadian Tire Centre.)

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 7-4 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Dallas Stars, 5-1 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames played to a tie, 4-4 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Edmonton Oilers played to a tie, 3-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-3 at the San Jose Arena. (It's now named the HP Pavilion at San Jose.)

Also, Arsenal beat Manchester United, 1-0 at Highbury in North London, on an early goal by new signing Dennis Bergkamp.

November 2, 1917: The Balfour Declaration

November 2, 1917: Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, writes a letter to Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the country's Jewish community, to give to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It was published on November 9:

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Whether the British government truly did "use their best endeavours," what becomes known as the Balfour Declaration was a big step forward in the process that led to the establishment and the independence of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the day the British Mandate of Palestine ran out.

Arthur Balfour served in the House of Commons from 1874 to 1922. He had previously served as Prime Minster from 1902 to 1905, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915 and '16 (succeeding a young Winston Churchill). He left the House of Commons upon being named First Earl of Balfour in 1922, and served in the House of Lords for the rest of his life, until 1930.

*

November 2, 1917 was a Tuesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. Hockey season hadn't started yet. And professional basketball barely existed. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 29, 1956: The Suez Crisis

October 29, 1956: On the orders of dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt closes the Suez Canal, triggering a crisis that could have blown up into World War III.

However, President Dwight D. Eisenhower refuses to take sides, hoping that isolating Britain and France will prevent war, and also prevent the crisis from affecting Israel. "Ike" turns out to be right, and this is often seen as the end of Britain and France as true world powers. The Suez Crisis was a major factor in the fall of France's Fourth Republic, and its replacement with the Fifth Republic, in 1958.

But stuff like this is why the rest of the Middle East doesn't trust Israel. Since 1974, even though it is on the continent of Asia, Israel's national sports teams have been denied entry into Asian tournaments, because Muslim countries in Asia refuse to allow Israeli athletes onto their soil. Since 1992, they have competed in European tournaments.

The Suez Crisis was a huge regional boost for Nasser. A key figure in the coup that overthrew King Farouk in 1952, he set the standard for Middle East dictators to follow, with his cult of personality, his prominent mustache, and his willingness to wear whatever was required for the occasion, be it business suit, military uniform or religious attire.

But he lost the next war with Israel, the Six-Day War of June 1967. And his health was poor: He was a heavy smoker, and by this point had arteriosclerosis and diabetes. He died in 1970, only 52 years old. He was succeeded by his Vice President, Anwar Sadat, who would launch yet another war against Israel in 1973, lose it, and then do something unthinkable to Nasser: Make peace.

Also on this day, NBC debuts its new evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report. With the Suez Crisis beginning that day, the Hungarian Revolution, and a Presidential election campaign entering its final stages, the timing was excellent.

*

October 29, 1956 was a Monday. Baseball season was over. There was no Monday Night Football in those days, nor were any college football games played. The NBA and NHL seasons had just started, but there were no games scheduled for this day in either league. So there were no scores on this historic day.

Boxer Wilfredo Gómez was born on that day. The Puerto Rican known as "Bazooka" was the Super Bantamweight Champion from 1979 to 1983, the Featherweight Champion in 1984, and the Super Featherweight Champion in 1985 and 1986.

October 7, 2023: Hamas Starts a War With Israel

October 7, 2023: Palestinian militant groups, led by Hamas, launch a large-scale invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

It began with an early-morning rocket barrage of over 3,000 missiles, killing at least 1,200 people in one day. It was the largest murder of Jewish people in a single day since the end of the Holocaust, 78 years earlier. It included a massacre at the Re'im Music Festival, 6 miles in from the border with Gaza, in which over 260 people were killed.

To put this in perspective: As of 2023, Israel is home to 9.8 million people, about 1/34th that of the U.S. Proportionally, 1,200 times 34 = 40,800. Not only is that proportionally equivalent to over 13 "9/11s," but it's about 2/3rds of what the U.S. lost over 8 years in Vietnam -- in one day.

The Gaza Strip is about 25 miles long, and about 4 miles wide. Not that Israel is a large nation: They are about 300 miles north-to-south, and 43 miles east-to-west from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Jerusalem traffic is notoriously bad, but, theoretically, a driver can cross Israel in less than an hour.

Because Israel has limited the Palestinians to Gaza, and to parts of the West Bank, people all over the world accuse Israel of being an "apartheid state." This is a lie. Arabs living in Israel have more rights there than they do in countries where they are the overwhelming majority.

But the Arabs living in Gaza, which Israel willingly gave up in 2005, elected Hamas to lead them the following year. The Arabs living in the West Bank subsequently elected a Palestinian government without Hamas.

"Hamas" is an Arabic word meaning "zeal," "strength" or "bravery." It is also an acronym of the Arabic phrase "Harakah al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah," meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement." The terrorist organization with the name was founded in 1987, with the First Intifada. They are Islamic fundamentalists, and have no interest in the freedom of anyone: Not the Palestinians, and certainly not the Israelis.

It has long been said that if the Arabs laid down their arms, the would be no more war; but if the Israelis laid down their arms, there would be no more Israel. Hamas, and their affiliated groups like the Iranian-backed Hezbollah (meaning "Army of God"), have long wanted to "drive them into the sea." Which is ironic, because, if Israel really wanted to, it could do that to the people of Gaza.

With the war that began on October 7, 2023, it became clear: The Israeli position is, "This is our land, and as soon as you begin to leave us alone, we will do the same to you": while the Hamas position is, "This is our land, and we are going to kill you all until those of you who are left leave it." Hamas has released videos showing what the BBC called "ISIS-level savagery."

Why did Hamas act now? It has been suggested that it was because Israel was moving closer to a diplomatic agreement with Saudi Arabia, the capital of the Islamic world, and Hamas couldn't handle that.

Benjamin Netanyahu, in his 3rd go-round as Prime Minister, and the longest-serving -- and most corrupt -- holder of that post, had made Israel's security his reason for staying in office. He failed in a spectacular way. Yet he had the country convinced that only he could protect the country from then on. Americans had seen this before, with George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

The Saudis stayed quiet. The only nation openly on Hamas' side was Iran -- the government, that is. The people of Iran, as they demonstrated at a soccer game, were not. Most of the world has sided with Israel. Even the Federal Republic of Germany, the successor state to the perpetrator of the Holocaust, has expressed support, putting a hologram of the Israeli flag on the Brandenburg Gate in the capital of Berlin.

Israel, of course, retaliated. For the 1st time since the Yom Kippur War, 50 years to the week earlier, the nation declared war on an enemy. At the time of this writing, the war was in its early stages.

UPDATE: Eventually, the propaganda campaign launched by Hamas convinced much of the world that the Palestinians were innocent victims of acts of genocide -- not the guilty perpetrators of them, as they were on October 7, 2023.

The world turned against Israel, and a wave of anti-Semitism swept over America. Millions of people refused to support first Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, in the 2024 Presidential election, because they "supported genocide," which was a pernicious and stupid lie. It probably cost Kamala the election, and led to the re-installation of Donald Trump.

Back in office, Trump announced plans for the redevelopment of Gaza, to do to it what he couldn't do to Atlantic City: Turn it into a personal fiefdom. Netanyahu was not willing to go along with this. But Netanyahu wanted to launch a war against Iran, and Trump was willing to go along with this, to distract Americans from the declining economy and the Epstein Files scandal.

On February 28, 2026, with most but not all of the hostages having been returned -- some alive, some dead -- and the Gaza War having no end in sight, Trump and Netanyahu started a war with Iran. Over its 1st month, it had done neither country any good.

It has never occurred to the people who refused to vote for Harris that they bear some responsibility for this. They loved the Palestinians more than they loved their fellow Americans, but Trump was far worse for both peoples than Harris would have been.

*

October 7, 2023 was a Saturday. Baseball began all 4 of its Division Series. In the American League, the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore; 

and the Houston Astros beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-4 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston. In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Truist Park in the Atlanta suburb of Cumberland, Georgia; and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 11-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Some of the notable college football games that were played that day:

* Number 1 Georgia beat Number 20 Kentucky, 51-13 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* In the rivalry known as, with a trophy named, the Little Brown Jug, Number 2 Michigan beat Minnesota, 52-10 at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

* In the Red River Rivalry, Number 3 Texas were upset by Number 12 Oklahoma, 34-30 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* Number 4 Ohio State beat Maryland, 37-17 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 5 Florida State beat Virginia Tech, 39-17 at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida.

* Number 9 University of Southern California (USC) needed overtime to beat Arizona, 43-41 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 10 Notre Dame were upset by Number 25 Louisville, 33-7 at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium in Louisville.

* Number 11 Alabama won a hard-fought contest against nearly-ranked Texas A&M, 26-20 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. As good as Nick Saban's Crimson Tide have been the last few years, the Aggies are one of the few teams to regularly give them trouble.

* Number 13 Washington State were upset by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 25-17 at the Rose Bowl in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California.

* Number 17 Miami were upset by Georgia Tech, 23-20 at Hard Rock Stadium in suburban Miami Gardens, Florida.

* Number 21 Missouri were mildly upset by Number 23 Louisiana State University (LSU), 49-39 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.

* And Rutgers lost to Wisconsin, 24-13 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.