In reports, Trump is said to have decided on the Iran attack in part because he felt Israel was getting such “good press” for its attacks against Iran (not surprisingly, he fixates on Fox News coverage, which was all-in for Netanyahu’s attacks). U.S. military intelligence says the attacks on Fordo, Iran’s primary nuclear-enrichment site, only delayed a possible creation of a nuclear weapon by months. Why generate such ill-will for such a temporary advantage?

Of course, would we even be in this mess if Trump hadn’t scuttled the hard-won negotiations of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal framework. Even at the time it seemed like Trump was mostly acting out of jealousy that a long-term solution had been the result of his predecessor’s work. There doesn’t seem to be any overarching logic to any of this. It’s all for the TV coverage (the rest of the world’s leaders seem to have figured this out). Is there a really an end-game to Israel assassinating so much of Iranian leadership, including some of the very people who were negotiating deals? And in the midst of this, a real solution to the Palestinian—Israel conflict seems further away than ever.

Peaceful conduct is the best way to set up peaceful resolutions. Iran has always been a country with potential. Encouraging it to give up nuclear and terroristic ambitions, promising it lasting safety, and slowly integrating it back into the world economy is really a win-win for all sides. So why all this theater? What’s the end plan anyway? Or is that such a naive thing to even ask in 2025?

Quakers have a saying, that we ‘hold in the light’ those we are acting in solidarity with. This weekend we need those movements we’re part of to hold us in the light. Only when we are working on ourselves can we work with others. 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/tim-gee/of-quakers-and-deep-democracy-is-it-time-to-renew-quaker-book

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As A List Hollywood stars come out to tell their Harvey Weinstein couch harassment stories, I have to wonder about those who didn’t make it through after saying no—actresses who saw their roles evaporate and left acting. The New York Times headlines profiling Weinstein accusers touts Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie but also introduces us a woman who is now a psychology professor in Colorado. How many better actresses and strong-minded women would there be in Hollywood if so many hadn’t been forced out?

I thought of this after reading by a tweet from the actress Rose Marie. She’s best known as one of the jovial sidekicks from the 1960s’ Dick Van Dyke Show. Not to diminish the rest of the cast, but Rose Marie is one of the best reasons to watch the show, especially during those rare moments she’s allowed to step out from her character’s wisecracking spinster persona and sing or act. On Twitter, she shared that she lost a music contract in the 1950s because she wouldn’t sleep with a producer.

What if a talented actress like Rose Marie had been given more opportunities and wasn’t just known for a supporting part in a old sitcom? What if the psychology professor had gotten the Shakespeare in Love lead? (Imagine a world where Paltrow was only known to 800 or so Facebook friends for too-perfect family pics and memes from dubious health sites.)

Disclaimer: This is a minor point compared with any actresses who weren’t able to deal with the harassment and the industry silencing machinery. I’m sure there are tragedies that are more than just career pivots.

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Friends don’t have a particularly good track record with regards to controversy. There’s no reason we need to pretend to be talking historically. We’ve had two major yearly meetings break up in this summer (meet Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting and North Carolina Fellowship of Friends), with at least one more “at bat” for some future long hot summer.

Controversies flare up in many places. Friend Sa’ed Atshan just broke his media silence to talk about the cancelation of his talk at Friends’ Central School in February and the subsequent walk-outs, firings, and litigations. The controversy around Avis Wanda McClinton’s disownment by Upper Dublin Meeting continues to incense large numbers of Philadelphia Friends, with fuel to the fire coming from the role that the Undoing Racism Group does or doesn’t have in the yearly meeting structure. Last year a majority of Friends of color boycotted public events at the FGC Gathering over frustration at the site selection process and the underlying issues extend to other Quaker venues.

The most-commented recent article in Friends Journal is “It Breaks My Heart” by Kate Pruitt from the online June/July issue. Many readers related to her sense of alienation and loss. Two comments that hit me the hardest were:

Not all Friends are found in Quaker Meetings. You’re better off without your meeting.

Gone now is the hope… of finding community among Quakers. To be frank, why bother? There’s plenty of brokenness right where I am.

And I get enough “Why I’m leaving Friends” manifestos in my email inbox every month that I could turn it into a regular Friends Journal column.

It seems to me that are a number of underlying issues that tie these controversies together. What do we do when a group of Friends starts acting in a manner that seems contrary to our understanding of Quaker testimonies and practices? How do we balance love and judgement when conflict arises among us? When do we break out of Quaker niceness? Maybe even more challenging, how do we maintain our integrity and accountability when controversy breaks us into camps willing to engage in exaggeration? And just what do we say when the outside public only gets half the story or thinks that one side is speaking for all Friends?

So this is a plug for submissions for December’s Friends Journal.  The theme is “Conflict and Controversy” and the submission deadline is September 9. We’re not looking for blow-by-blow accounts of being mistreated, and we’re not terribly interested (this time) in manifestos about Quaker cultural norms. I’m less interested in specific issues than I am the meta of discernment: How do individuals or small groups of Friends move forward in the heat of controversy. What do we do when the easy solutions have failed? How do we decide when it’s time to break out of Quaker niceness to lay down some truth—or time to kick the dust off your sandals and move along?

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The movie is 1966’s Torn Curtain. The plot is driven by a classic Hitchcock MacGuffin: a suspense story where we don’t fully understand (or even care about) the objective over which everyone’s fighting. In this case it’s a formula for some sort of anti-missile defense rocket, something called the Gamma Five (umm, sure Hitch, whatever you say).

There’s a rare alchemy needed to cast famous stars in dramatic roles. Do it right and the stardom melts into the character. Hitchcock can pull it off. We love watching a surprisingly complex Cary Grant in North by Northwest, partly because so much of his later comedic acting had becoming self-referential (he was almost always playing Cary Grant playing a character). Somehow Hitchcock used Grant’s familiarity to turn him into a quick-witted modern Everyman with whom the audience could identify.

But the magic doesn’t work in Torn Curtain. From the moment I heard Andrews’ familiar chirpy clipped voice from under the bedcovers I wondered why Mary Poppins was engaging in post-coital pillow talk with The Hustler. I could not muster enough belief suspension to see Paul Newman as a brilliant math nerd and I certainly couldn’t imagine him as a lover to prim and fussy Julie Andrews.

The story revolves around personal and national betrayal and defection but we never really understood why Newman’s Michael Armstrong would defect or why (as we later learn) he has gone into a kind of freelance espionage behind the Iron Curtain. The defection of practically perfect Julie Andrews, who as Sarah Sherman we now know to be particularly determined and loyal, feels even more inexplicable. As I watched the movie bounce aimlessly from one close call to another my mind drifted away to imagine the Hollywood board room where some mogul or another must have strong-armed Hitchcock to cast two up and coming stars for roles which they didn’t really fit.

Then the plot. It meanders. But even more damningly, it focused on the wrong lead. Newman’s Michael Armstrong is predictably linear in his objectives. The most interesting plot turns all come from his assistant/fiancée, Andrews’ Sarah Sherman. She is full of pluck and intelligence. It’s Sherman who insists on coming along on the initial cruise to Copenhagen and it’s her sharp eyes that spot the mysterious actions that tip off the coming betrayals. She notices Armstrong’s tickets, picks up the mysterious book, ferrets out the true destination, and then has the chutzpah to board an East Berlin flight to follow her lying and erratic boyfriend. Her tenacious improvisation reminded me more of Grant in North by Northwest than anything Newman did.

There are some intriguing scenes. The struggle with Gromek in the farmhouse is fascinating in its length and has the kind of brilliantly bizarre camera angles that could only come from Hitchcock. The theater scene was legitimately nail-biting (though I found myself imagining Cary Grant ’s face as he realized how hopeless their escape had become). One of the most mesmerizing scenes was the bus chase—will they have to stop for a passenger?!? It’s the the kind of Hitchcock twist we all love.

After reading the spoilers from WIkipedia and IMDB, I see that many of my complaints have good sources.

• The basic plot was Hitchcock’s idea, inspired by husband/wife defectors Donald and Melinda Maclean and In the fall of 1964, Hitchcock unsuccessfully asked Vladimir Nabokov to write the screenplay.
• The original focus was on the female lead (I was right!) The first screenplay was written by Brian Moore, a screenwriter known for strong female characters. After Hitchcock critiqued the script and hired new writers, Moore accused him of having “a profound ignorance of human motivation.”
• For casting, Hitchcock had originally wanted to reunite North by Northwest’s Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Grant told him he was too old; Hitchcock then approached Anthony Perkins. But…
• Lew Wassermann was the Hollywood exec who insisted on bankable stars. Hitchcock didn’t feel they were right for the roles and he begrudged their astronomical salaries and constrained schedules. How is it that Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t secured total control over his projects at the point in his career?
• The actors and directors were indeed from different eras: Newman’s method acting didn’t fit Hitchcock’s old school directing style. Hitchcock used his casts as chess pieces and expected the directing and editing to drive his films. When Newman pressed the director for Armstrong’s motivation, Hitchcock reportedly replied “motivation is your salary” (can’t you just hear him saying that in his famously arch tone?)
• Hitchcock didn’t like the way the movie was unfolding and shifted the attention to Newman’s character part-way through. It’s always a bad idea to tinker with something so fundamental so late in the game.

I think Julie Andrews could have stepped up to the challenge of acting as the main protagonist. If Hitchcock had treated her as the Cary Grant “Everyman” character—and made Newman stand in as the dumb blonde!—it would have brilliantly turned Hitchcock on his head. As it is, this movie rates a middling “meh” rating, more interesting for what it could have been than for what it was.

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