Impromptus: No class, etc

National Review Online ^ | 12/19/2006 | Jay Nordlinger

[Utah Girl]

I was reading about John Kerry’s trip to the Middle East, during which he knocked the policies of the president. (The headline over this report is “Kerry Criticizes Bush in Egypt.”) I thought of JFK’s alleged putdown of Nixon: No class.

Yes, no class.

I also noticed that, about the time Kerry was sitting down with the Syrians, Bush was slamming Damascus for its imprisonment of dissidents. I wonder whether Kerry, in his talks with the regime, raised political prisoners.

I wouldn’t bet the ranch.

Do you remember when the Democrats — thanks mainly to Jimmy Carter’s rhetoric — were known as “the human-rights party”? Been a while.

John Kerry, along with many others, is pushing “dialogue” with the Iranians and Syrians. I have no doubt that the Middle East’s dictators would prefer Kerry to Bush as president. But, to get a Kerry type, they’ll just have to wait a couple of years — minimum.

~~ I mentioned JFK. Last week, I saw Caroline Kennedy on the street in New York. Was early in the morning, and she was dressed plainly, wearing a baseball cap. Had just gone to get coffee or something. And, I swear, she looked exactly like the president. It occurred to me that she’s about the age he was, when he was killed. I don’t detect any Bouvier in her; she is pure JFK.

If the president had had no children, and you saw Caroline Kennedy, you’d think, “Hmm: This is weird, but she looks just like a female John Kennedy.”

Anyway . . .

~~I thought you would be deeply interested in this letter from Michigan:

Jay,

I just wanted to share a quote with you from an article in the Grand Rapids Press today. A bus driver refused to pick up a Muslim woman who was wearing a veil over her face. It seems there was a rule against picking up masked passengers.

Of course, the woman is making a big fuss with the ACLU, which is to be expected. They want money. But what caught my attention was the quote. Discussing the incident in which the bus driver refused to pick her up, she said, “I didn’t tell my family members. I didn’t tell anyone at first. But I have a daughter and I don’t want her to be ashamed to cover her face.”

Yes: “I don’t want her to be ashamed to cover her face.” It’s a strange world we live in.

You can say that again.

~~The other day, President Bush was asked what he thought about Mary Cheney and her baby. I imagine that Bush’s views are “traditional,” let’s say. But he said how wonderful it was.

Sheer class, that man has. Sheer class.

~~One of the world’s funniest people — and brightest — is Michael A. Walsh, the all-purpose writer. We were talking recently about Castro, and how the world loves him (meaning liberal opinion-makers). He said that, when Castro dies, the New York Times will devote the entire front page to him. (Which is fitting, seeing as the Times virtually installed him as dictator anyway.)

Michael said, “If he were gay, he’d be perfect.”

Bingo.

By the way, remember the famous cartoon in National Review? The Times used to run advertisements for its classified section, picturing people who said, “I got my job through the New York Times.” Well, our cartoonist showed Castro saying the same.

~~By the way, did you read what happened in Havana on International Human Rights Day? Here’s the lead from the AP report: “Dozens of government supporters broke up a silent march by a small group of dissidents . . ., roughing up participants and accusing them of being mercenaries of the U.S. government.” The goons shouted “Long live Fidel and Raúl!” and “Down with the worms!”

That term, in Spanish, is “gusanos.” That is the word used by Cuban Communists to describe democrats, liberals, and others who oppose the regime. The Communists’ supporters in the United States use the exact same term.

Miriam Leiva, of the Ladies in White, said, “They [the dissidents] should have the right to protest, just like anywhere else in the world. It’s pitiful that this happened on Human Rights Day” — or any day.

By the way, the Ladies in White are “a group of wives and mothers of political prisoners who walk down one of Havana’s main streets every week following Roman Catholic Mass to demand the release of their loved ones.” (I’m quoting from the AP.)

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Ladies won the Nobel Peace Prize, or some other international recognition? Don’t hold your breath.

Oh, one more thing: Did you catch that “Long live Fidel and Raúl”? That marks a turn.

~~Speaking of the Nobel Peace Prize: The daughter of this year’s laureate is now singing the role of Papagena in Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. She is the soprano Monica Yunus, offspring of Muhammad, the Bangladeshi micro-loaner.

Just so you know.

~~The word is that Prince Turki al-Faisal resigned his post as Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in order to return to the kingdom and “spend more time with his family.” That made sense: because the government is his family, and his family is the government.

You know?

~~The time may be fast approaching to turn the lights off in Europe. Get a load of this article in the Brussels Journal, confirming everything Mark Steyn and others have been telling us. (No one has told us more vividly than Mark.)

The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.”

Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. “I am too old,” he said. However, he urged young people to get out and “move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable.”

Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder’s advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in.

Etc.

Ah, well: Will sharia allow the Rijksmuseum, or the Louvre? Guess we’ll find out.

~~I was looking at the great Reaganite publication Ideazione, from Italy. And there was this ad for an Italian paper much praised by American conservatives: Il Foglio. (I can’t comment, not having read it.)

The ad said, “The others give you the facts; we explain the why.”

I’m thinking, “Geez, there are papers that just give you the facts? How I long to have such a paper, myself!”

~~Remember, back a few months ago, I had an item on “Construction Spanish”? Apparently, “Construction Spanish” is Spanish related to the construction trade; they teach it in various institutions — so that you can communicate with workers who have no English.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I wonder whether any readers have experience with “Construction Spanish.” I am interested in the subject, as a modern American phenomenon. If you’d like, please e-mail me at the address given at the top of this column (on the right).

Hey, “On the Right”! That would be a good name for a column.

~~Friends, you may remember that, about three years ago, I wrote about my friend George Sgalitzer. He was a doctor living in Seattle. But he didn’t start out there — he started out in Vienna. And his life was magnificent. George died a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to remember him a bit here.

He was the senior patron of the Salzburg Festival (where I’ve done some work the last several Augusts). He attended the very first performance at Salzburg: of Jedermann, on August 22, 1920. Jedermann is the play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of the festival’s founders. George was seven years old at the time. He was taken by his grandparents, who liked theater; interestingly enough, they didn’t like music all that much.

George attended every Salzburg Festival from then on, except for the war years, which is understandable.

He went to China as a medical missionary, where he met and worked with Americans. He liked them. And he soon emigrated to America, becoming a citizen. I once asked him, “Why did you want to go to America?” He looked at me like it was the stupidest question in the world. “Because America is the greatest country in the world!”

Oh. You don’t hear that much in Salzburg.

George spent his career as an Army doctor, rising to the rank of colonel. He said that the Army allowed him to practice “honest medicine.” I asked what he meant by that. He said, “You know, medicine can be a dishonest profession — the way people want pills and shots and so forth.” In time, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.

He attended over 1,000 performances at Salzburg — and over 250 at Bayreuth. He also attended the Lucerne Festival, and watched plays at Stratford (Canada). He was sharply critical of what Salzburg has done in opera and theater over the last 15 years or so. Unlike many other patrons, he wasn’t afraid to call trash trash, when it appeared onstage.

I can just see the look of revulsion, injury, and anger on his face when he spoke of what Salzburg had done to The Abduction from the Seraglio (Mozart’s opera).

I had dinner with him last August in the Sacher Hotel, where he always stayed (same room, too). I asked for many of his stories, and many of his opinions. After dinner, some people sitting near us beckoned me over. “Who is that fascinating man?” I told them.

And then George and I walked across the bridge to the Felsenreitschule, for a concert performance of Mozart’s Betulia liberata. I’m not sure I saw him again; I can’t remember.

But, in four summers, I talked to him for hours, and even interviewed him once, in public: his reminiscences and so forth. I think I began my introduction by saying to the audience, “Where were you on August 22, 1920?”

His favorite conductor was Toscanini, followed by Karajan. His favorite pianist was Richter; his violinist Huberman. His favorite sopranos were Lehmann and Callas. Favorite mezzo: Thorborg. Favorite tenor: Alfred Piccaver (obscure but great). Baritone or bass: Schorr.

He was married to Hana for 61 years; they had two children, four grandkids.

I can just see him, sitting on a bench, watching the Salzach River go by. Such a gentleman, such a prince. I would say that they don’t make them like that anymore, but the world usually manages to supply fine people, doesn’t it?

~~Let me throw a couple of New York Sun reviews at you: For a review of the Met’s Magic Flute — the one with Monica Yunus in it! — go here. And for a review of the New York Philharmonic, under David Robertson, go here.

~~And were you able to see yesterday’s Impromptus? They pay tribute to the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, Presidential Medal of Freedom awardees Paul Johnson and Natan Sharansky, and maybe a couple of others.

~~Oh, I forgot to tell you about the Christmas Show at Radio City! Next Impromptus, guys — gotta run. Have a good one.