Perspective

Charlie Kirk at the 2024 Republican convention (Politico)

24 years later the significance of September 11th is receding from memory, much as December 7th already has for most Americans. Besides, many people don't feel like reminiscing (again) about 9-11; what's on their minds is yesterday's murder of Charlie Kirk.

9-11 does allow us to put some perspective on the events of yesterday, however. "Everything changed" on September 10, 2025, is something I've read repeatedly on social media. No, I'm afraid not; tragic and emotional as it was, the killing of one man pales in comparison to the death of 3,000 people and the destruction of the twin towers in 2001.

Then, as now, some identifiable groups are easy to blame for the horror. However, the principle of individual responsibility is still strongly ingrained in the culture, and most Americans are able to resist condemning entire groups for the actions of a few members.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) are the enemies of rational decision-making, and if we are honest with ourselves, there was a lot more FUD in 2001 about the next terrorist attack than there is today about how many people will get killed because of their politics.

We have the motivation, ability, and character to get through today's problems, if only we can see it.

LOLOCT7 Wasn't What Everyone Thought It Meant

(Photo from KABC LA)

Am antisemitic group complained about a personalized license plate spotted in Culver City:

the advocacy group StopAntisemitism shared a photo of the plate, “LOLOCT7,” spotted at a busy intersection in Culver City (Los Angeles County). The organization suggested that the plate celebrated the deadly terrorist attack [by Hamas on October 7, 2023], which it described as a “vile mockery” of the tragedy...

But the son of the car’s owner, who spoke anonymously to KABC-TV in Los Angeles, explained that the plate’s meaning had been misinterpreted.

He clarified that “LOLOCT7” was intended to reference “Lolo,” the Tagalog word for grandfather, “CT” for the Cybertruck model and “7” to signify the number of grandchildren the owner has.

The Filipino family said this explanation was shared with the DMV when the plate was first requested. The Cybertruck owner is in the process of getting new plates.

For most Americans the plate is likely interpreted as "laughing out loud" re "October 7", the date of a murderous terrorist attack. To the Filipino family the characters were an abbreviation for "grandfather." "Cybertruck," "7 [grandchildren]." The dispute was resolved quickly because the owner agreed to change the license plate.

In a multicultural society these misunderstandings can easily happen. Sometimes the dominant culture says or writes something that offends a minority group; in this rarer case the minority makes an expression that offends the dominant culture and the dominant culture cares. We are used to both sides being intransigent, and it's a relief that the "offending" side agreed readily to modify its material.

Glad They're Not on the Other Side

Downtown Beirut was filled with the wailing of ambulance sirens. (WSJ)

Booby-trapped pagers exploded throughout Lebanon yesterday, injuring and killing members of Hezbollah. (Hezbollah had switched to old-fashioned pagers because of worries that Israelis would hack into their smartphones.)

Within minutes, hundreds of pagers issued to Hezbollah officials in Beirut and around the country exploded, killing 12 people and injuring more than 2,800, Lebanese authorities said. Emergency rooms were flooded with blast victims. Hezbollah’s leaders blamed Israel and pledged to retaliate.

Today a second wave occurred:

Then, on Wednesday, it happened again. This time walkie-talkies and other electronics used by the Shiite militant group began blowing up, sending a second wave of casualties into crowded hospitals and further undermining the Shiite militants’ ability to communicate.

By the end of the day, 20 more people were dead and 450 more injured. The attacks also exposed the identities of thousands of Hezbollah operatives, many of whom worked covertly—a coup for Israeli intelligence and a likely surprise for some Hezbollah members’ relatives and neighbors.

Although some innocents died, this was the least-bad military option to identify and cripple a terrorist organization that had embedded itself with civilians. Israel's strategy was brilliant, and it's a sign of the rot within Western intelligence agencies that no one believes that they could have pulled off a similar operation. I'm glad Mossad is not on the other side.

23 Years Later

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I posted the following, now updated with minor edits, using strikethroughs and italics:

============================================================

(Reuters photo)

I saw it on TV, like almost everyone else. I shuffled to the kitchen table with my cup of coffee and pushed the remote. The TV was set to Channel 11, NBC. It was 5:45 a.m. The Today Show was on; strange, normally it doesn't start till 7 a.m. on the West Coast.

The camera was fixed on the World Trade Center. Black smoke was pouring out of one of the towers. There were no jump cuts or commercials to distract the unblinking eye. Katie Couric's voice seemed dispassionate as she described how an airplane had crashed into the building. Surely it was a small plane and a horrible accident.

Then the second jet hit, another struck the Pentagon, and the towers fell. Other images are seared into our memories--the Pennsylvania field that became hallowed ground, the throngs who lustily cheered the deaths of thousands, flames and smoke everywhere, the weeping, the exhausted searching and the death of hope.

The fear gripped us for a long time. Not knowing has that effect. Who did it and why, how powerful were they, what's next, what should we do, what can I do?

Everyone--even those who were in charge of our government--can list major mistakes in the past ten twenty years. All the criticisms have at least some plausibility: we waged war against the wrong people, maybe we shouldn't have gone to war at all, we mistreated prisoners, we had intelligence that was grossly wrong, we sacrificed too many of our civil liberties, we didn't pay the cost of the wars, and we are no farther only a little further along in being energy independent or securing the safety of Israel.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we will remember the worst of our fears:

1) we would be hit again and perhaps lose a major city; this event coupled with our response, could forever change the character of America;

2) if the attack were biological, we could lose much more than one city;

3) oil supplies would be disrupted, maybe cut off for a long time, and usher in a new Dark Ages;

4) Israel, surrounded by powerful enemies, could be destroyed.

5) A state of war would exist between the West and the Islamic world, which has over a billion people.

Ten Twenty-threeyears and trillions of dollars later none of these fears has been realized, yet victory, which we can't even define, seems as distant as it was in 2001.

I'll take it. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

The Academy Oversteps and Begins to Pay the Price

Bill Ackman, 57, is a hedge-fund billionaire who made his fortune by taking unconventional short and long positions.

He always gives interesting business-related interviews on CNBC, and that, frankly, was the extent of my knowledge about him.

Until he took issue with the December 5th performance of Harvard then-President Claudine Gay before Congress on the subject of anti-semitism and free speech at Harvard, his alma mater.

The scales had fallen from his eyes:

Twenty-four hours after Hamas attacked Israel, Mr. Ackman “saw students supporting terrorists—Harvard students, no less.” With astonishment that hardened into outrage, Mr. Ackman witnessed 34 student groups at his alma mater “come out to say that Israel is solely responsible for the most heinous acts we’ve seen in modern history.”

Harvard wasn’t the only American campus where students railed against Israel and at Jewish classmates. But Harvard was the place to which Mr. Ackman, an “absolutely loyal alum in all respects,” had given $50 million over the years. “I lecture at the university multiple times a year,” he says, adding that he’s on the dean’s advisory board. Observing the protests, and the Harvard administration’s refusal to curb them, he mounted a mutiny of donors, calling on them to help drive Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, from her job. He feared that her continued presence at the helm would lead angry donors to stop giving. “I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” he wrote on Dec. 10.

Ms. Gay’s resignation on Jan. 2 was a result of her maladministration as well as of convincing accusations of plagiarism in her academic writings.

After reviewing Claudine Gay's, as well as MIT President Sally Kornbluth's and Penn President Liz Magill's, testimony before Congress, Mr. Ackman came to believe that their tepid response to student groups' calls for genocide against Jews was attributable to the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practices that have pervaded campuses nationwide. On January 2nd he tweeted: [bold added]

Under DEI, one’s degree of oppression is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression where whites, Jews, and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color, LGBTQ people, and/or women are deemed to be oppressed. Under this ideology which is the philosophical underpinning of DEI as advanced by Ibram X. Kendi and others, one is either an anti-racist or a racist. There is no such thing as being “not racist.”

Under DEI’s ideology, any policy, program, educational system, economic system, grading system, admission policy, (and even climate change due its disparate impact on geographies and the people that live there), etc. that leads to unequal outcomes among people of different skin colors is deemed racist.

As a result, according to DEI, capitalism is racist, Advanced Placement exams are racist, IQ tests are racist, corporations are racist, or in other words, any merit-based program, system, or organization which has or generates outcomes for different races that are at variance with the proportion these different races represent in the population at large is by definition racist under DEI’s ideology.

In order to be deemed anti-racist, one must personally take action to reverse any unequal outcomes in society. The DEI movement, which has permeated many universities, corporations, and state, local and federal governments, is designed to be the anti-racist engine to transform society from its currently structurally racist state to an anti-racist one.

Claudine Gay's resignation on January 2nd was only the first battle in what may well turn out to be a long cultural war between wokeness and traditional values. Claudine Gay not only was criticized for her actions as Harvard President but for alleged instances of plagiarism on her scholarly work.

Neri Oxman (WSJ photo)

The Business Insider then accused Bill Ackman's wife, Neri Oxman, for plagiarism on her 2010 doctoral dissertation at MIT. Ms. Oxman apologized.

Bill Ackman, convinced that the source of the Business Insider report was someone(s) at MIT, vowed to develop AI tools to examine a broad swath of MIT dissertations and publications for plagiarism.

Circling back to the three-presidents testimony before Congress on December 5th, MIT President Kornbluth is the only one of the three who still holds office, Penn's Liz Magill having resigned on December 9th. It would be surprising if she lasts out the year.

After the break is the text of Bill Ackman's January 2nd tweet.


 

'Tis the Season of Sharing and Scamming

We will be making a donation to Al-Ahli hospital, which was
heavily damaged by explosions in Gaza (Guardian photo)

Boston University professor of humanities Joshua Pederson advises us not to contribute to organizations claiming to help victims of natural or human-caused disasters: [bold added]

I’ve become convinced that donations to disaster aid — whether in the immediate aftermath or as part of a nonprofit’s annual holiday drive — often provide only limited relief and sometimes none at all. There are a few main reasons why.

First, the field of pop-up disaster relief is rife with fraud as bad actors prey on the desire of well-intentioned people and bilk donors in the process. As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, many such scammers pose convincingly as employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or well-known charities, tricking even savvy givers. Donations to crowdfunding calls can be an even riskier venture. Notre Dame law professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer suggests that they are “particularly vulnerable to fraud” and urges caution when supporting them. One of the most egregious examples was Katelyn McClure, a New Jersey woman who used GoFundMe in 2017 to wheedle over $400,000 out of givers with a fake story of a homeless man who needed help.

...many would advise us to turn to locals. But even such on-the-ground efforts sometimes come up short. Take for example the Maui Community Power Recovery Fund, one of whose founders is former Hawaii House Rep. Kaniela Ing. It turns out that the fund is actually a political action committee, and while its website indicates that gifts will support “relief, recovery and rebuilding,” donors likely don’t know that donations could be used to fund political candidates.

...the American Red Cross. Its pleas for donations after major disasters are nearly ubiquitous. But as ProPublica revealed in a series of headline-grabbing investigations a few years back, the organization has significant problems with transparency, oversight and follow-through. And there are legitimate concerns about the way it tracks and spends the money it collects.

Immediately after a disaster, when the emotion to do something is at its highest, is the time to be especially cautious. I have made it a personal policy, as well as for charitable organizations over which I may have some infuence, not to rush to help. As you would with any major purchase or investment, do your research first.

Helping Without Taking a Side

The hospital's Cancer Diagnostic
Center before it was damaged.

Every year the now-retired rector of our church requested that we make a donation, always approved, to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. It was his way of acknowledging our debt to the fount of Christianity.

The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem runs the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital that was damaged in an explosion last week. Hamas and Israel are each claiming that the other was responsible.

Militant group Hamas immediately blamed Israeli airstrikes for the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital and said 500 people had been killed. Israel, the U.S. and independent security experts on Wednesday cast doubt on Hamas’s claims, saying the preliminary evidence pointed to a Palestinian militant group. The amount of damage also appears inconsistent with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry’s assertion on Wednesday that 471 people were killed, experts said. U.S. officials said that the death toll so far is likely between 100 and 300.

Images of the site suggest that a rocket, or fragment of a rocket, landed in the hospital’s parking lot, according to the Israeli assessment of the damage left by the explosion. Those killed by the explosion were likely many Gazans who had been camped out in the parking lot, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

Many people have been wrestling with how to help the suffering people of Israel and Gaza without "taking a side," or worse, having their donations go to combat forces and advocacy groups. 501(c)3 organizations that assure us that 100% of the donations will be directed to humanitarian aid in the region are Episcopal Relief and Development and American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.

As individuals and as churches we will be making such donations in November.

The Lines Were Quick

Khaled Meshaal (NY Post/Reuters)

Last month there was a moment's trepidation when I booked a flight on Friday the 13th.

Bah! rational guys like me shouldn't let superstition rule their lives. I clicked the pay-and-submit button.

It was more than superstition that paralyzed some people with fear yesterday. Former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal designated yesterday as the "Day of Jihad":

The former leader of Hamas called on Muslims to stage global demonstrations in support of Palestinians on Friday, and urged Arabs in neighboring countries to take up arms against Israel.

In the Bay Area some schools cancelled classes:

Schools and universities across the Bay Area said they were bolstering security measures — and in some cases canceling classes — amid so-far unsubstantiated threats of pro-Hamas violence.

Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto, Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City and South Peninsula Hebrew Day School in Sunnyvale said they would be closed Friday amid concerns that Jewish institutions could be targeted, Jewish Weekly reported.

Stanford Law School announced it would be holding all of its classes Friday on Zoom in the wake of students’ fears around safety on the “Day of Jihad.”

Just in case TSA had installed extra procedures, I showed up 2½ hours before the 8:20 AM flight. The caution was unnecessary as the lines were quick, and I spent an hour nursing a coffee and croissant before boarding.

We disparage law enforcement, the FBI, the CIA, and other alphabet agencies, but a point in their favor is that there has not been a major terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Because of that record, there is still hope that the agencies can be fixed.

And yes, the flight went well.

Conflagration

The headlines across the country this morning were all about the same subject: the attack by Hamas on the civilians of Israel.

Whatever sympathy the Palestinians may have garnered over the past decade was blown away in a matter of hours by the deliberate large-scale slaughter of unarmed innocents.

More than 700 Israelis have been confirmed dead, and 2,408 wounded, according to Israel’s Army Radio. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed and around 2,300 injured in Israeli counterstrikes on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

700 dead in an Israeli population of 9.2 million is equivalent to 25,000 killed in the U.S.A., eight times the deaths on 9/11. The Israelis have promised to take the war to Iran if evidence is found that Iran is behind the attacks.

And just like that the Middle East is on the brink of conflagration.

Another Reason to be Unsettled

Attendance was higher than normal during the long weekend.

On Friday, June 24th, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The following Monday the Episcopal Church issued a warning to its congregations throughout the United States.

Excerpt:

federal officials noted an emergence of “credible security threats” prior to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and have reached out to faith communities, including The Episcopal Church, to urge increased vigilance.

Canon [C.K.] Robertson says:

“They did not share specific intelligence, but rather asked all of us both to be cautious and to use our platforms to encourage peaceful responses to the decision.

The goal in all this is certainly not to incite panic in any way. But in light of the violence and tragic shootings we have continued to witness throughout the United States—including in one of our own churches—it is appropriate for all of us to be more intentionally alert in the days and weeks to come. This can mean churches connecting with local law enforcement about increased patrols, noting any unusual activity around them, and perhaps creating an emergency preparedness plan, if one does not already exist.

Again, the goal is not panic, but awareness and preparedness. For this reason, we have shared with you information that we received directly from federal authorities, with their request to pass it on to you and your congregations.”

There have been isolated reports about damage done to Catholic churches in other states but none recently concerning the Episcopal Church. Nevertheless, this unsettling news just gives us another reason to disregard the instruction to welcome strangers.

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.----Hebrews 13:2

20 Years Later

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I posted the following, now updated with minor edits, using strikethroughs and italics:

============================================================

(Reuters photo)

I saw it on TV, like almost everyone else. I shuffled to the kitchen table with my cup of coffee and pushed the remote. The TV was set to Channel 11, NBC. It was 5:45 a.m. The Today Show was on; strange, normally it doesn't start till 7 a.m. on the West Coast.

The camera was fixed on the World Trade Center. Black smoke was pouring out of one of the towers. There were no jump cuts or commercials to distract the unblinking eye. Katie Couric's voice seemed dispassionate as she described how an airplane had crashed into the building. Surely it was a small plane and a horrible accident.

Then the second jet hit, another struck the Pentagon, and the towers fell. Other images are seared into our memories--the Pennsylvania field that became hallowed ground, the throngs who lustily cheered the deaths of thousands, flames and smoke everywhere, the weeping, the exhausted searching and the death of hope.

The fear gripped us for a long time. Not knowing has that effect. Who did it and why, how powerful were they, what's next, what should we do, what can I do?

Everyone--even those who were in charge of our government--can list major mistakes in the past ten twenty years. All the criticisms have at least some plausibility: we waged war against the wrong people, maybe we shouldn't have gone to war at all, we mistreated prisoners, we had intelligence that was grossly wrong, we sacrificed too many of our civil liberties, we didn't pay the cost of the wars, and we are no farther only a little further along in being energy independent or securing the safety of Israel.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we will remember the worst of our fears:

1) we would be hit again and perhaps lose a major city; this event coupled with our response, could forever change the character of America;

2) if the attack were biological, we could lose much more than one city;

3) oil supplies would be disrupted, maybe cut off for a long time, and usher in a new Dark Ages;

4) Israel, surrounded by powerful enemies, could be destroyed.

5) A state of war would exist between the West and the Islamic world, which has over a billion people.

Ten Twenty years and trillions of dollars later none of these fears has been realized, yet victory, which we can't even define, seems as distant as it was in 2001.

I'll take it. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

The Decade Past: Remind Me Again?

WSJ montage: I could name about 80% without looking anyone up.

There were no World Wars or moon landings, but the past decade did have its share of memorable events that will have an impact far into the future. The WSJ's Decade in Review shows just how much happened and how much we may have forgotten.

Every year had at least eight such items. Below is your humble blogger's entirely subjective assessment of the top three each year:

2010: 1) iPad introduced; 2) Obamacare signed; 3) Deepwater Horizon explodes.

2011: 1) Arab Spring; 2) Japan quake and tsunami; 3) Steve Jobs dies.

2012: 1) Facebook IPO; 2) Xi Jinping is leader of China; 3) Obama re-elected.

2013: 1) Pope Francis named; 2) Boston Marathon terrorism; 3) U.S. #1 energy producer

2014: 1) Ferguson riots and verdict; 2) Malaysia Flight 370; 3) Trade with Cuba ok'ed.

2015: 1) Gay Marriage legal; 2) Apple joins Dow; 3) Paris Accord.

2016: 1) Brexit; 2) Trump elected; 3) 4 states approve recreational marijuana.

2017: 1) Hurricanes Harvey and Maria; 2) New tax bill passes; 3) Harvey Weinstein resigns.

2018: 11) Tariffs imposed; 2) North Korea diplomacy; 3) Wildfire destroys Paradise, CA.

2019: 1) 737 MAX grounded; 2) Hong Kong protests; 3) Trump impeached (kind of).

There is a possibility that none of the above will be regarded with importance in a few years. It may turn out that we'll all be dead from climate change by 2030 or that life extension science will enable human beings to live well past a hundred.

But very few people are betting hard dollars as if either of those are coming to pass, and neither am I.

Living with No Resolution

9/11 has been called this generation's Pearl Harbor, but unlike World War II the problem wasn't mostly resolved in 3½ years. 18 years later the threats are still active, and we continue to wait in security lines at airports. Whatever anxiety the rest of us feel, however, pales before that of New York City inhabitants:

9/11 Memorial (Architectural Digest)

“What we’ve seen lately, is an unusual amount of propaganda directed at attacks on U.S. soil and an unusual amount of that pointing to New York as a target,” said John Miller, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism...

Rita Katz, the director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors and tracks radical groups online, said New York City remains a top target for terrorists because it “embodies American culture, making it a highly symbolic location.”

The NYPD operates the largest counterterrorism apparatus of any law enforcement agency in the U.S., with hundreds of staff officers and analysts and extensive relationships with outside intelligence agencies.

Like West Coasters who live on a fault line, New Yorkers have learned to live with the threat of a sudden turn for the worse.

One Reason for Living

Tribute in light (WSJ photo)

Memories of September 11, 2001 don't fade much for us who were around that day, but, as with the greatest generation who responded to the Day of Infamy, we, too, will pass.

Terabytes of archival information have been preserved for study, but what will be lost are the emotions of that time, the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

There have been high and low moments since 9/11, but I suspect the importance of some effects have not been appreciated or even revealed. As with the fateful year 1968, historians will know a lot more 50 years later. There are long odds against my being around to share their understanding, but that's one reason for living.

21st Century Headline

In 1999 I doubt anyone foresaw this:

Sex robot expo in venue switch after 'terror threat from OFFENDED Islamic extremists'

Takeaway quote: "Robot sex is against the Muslim religion."

The Non-Power of Words

(Jeff Koterba)

Has it really been 16 years after the worst terrorist attack in American history?

A few months after 9/11 President Bush introduced the Axis of Evil formulation in his 2002 State of the Union address:

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

By 2006 the nation had already become weary of the lack of progress. WaPo:

“Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an ‘axis of evil’ comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.”

Today prospects for peace are in a worse position than ever vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea, and moderately better in war-torn Iraq.

Useful in an Emergency

Facebook information screen for Safety Check

I've been on Facebook since 2007 and have only 116 "friends" on the platform. I check the feed about 2-3 times a week and post about 2-3 times a year. Calling me an infrequent user would be an overstatement.

I'll stay enrolled, however, because of new apps like Safety Check.

"Facebook....is fast becoming one of the world’s most important emergency response institutions."

When a natural disaster or act of terrorism occurs, communications to the affected area are overwhelmed by concerned family and friends. Now loved ones can check in on Facebook and let everyone know that they're okay.

Safety Check begins with an algorithm that monitors an emergency newswire—a third-party program that aggregates information directly from police departments, weather services, and the like. Then another Safety Check algorithm begins looking for people in the area who are discussing the event on Facebook. If enough people are talking about the event, the system automatically sends those people messages inviting them to check in as safe—and asks them if they want to check the safety of other people as well.

Of course, having Safety Check is of little use if there's no Internet. Facebook is also working on drones that will "beam" the Internet to crisis areas.

Facebook drone (Photo from Wired)

while delivering internet access to chronically underserved areas is still the company’s primary aim, the idea that these drones might be useful in natural disasters never left the engineers’ minds.....the company has already discussed the possibility with telecom companies in island nations vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.

Facebook, Google, and other tech giants have been criticized for the enormous amount of data that they have accumulated without users' knowledge or consent. However, it's also true that they provide enormous benefits that don't cost their members a dime. Use with caution.

Give It A Rest

Making conversation after the morning service, I looked quizzically at a fellow parishioner when he asked, "Did you hear about the terrorist attack in Sweden?" No, I didn't. "President Trump said there was." Oh, he was making a joke about another of the President's apparent gaffes. I chuckled, and I changed the subject to the discovery of the underwater continent Zealandia (my friend was born in New Zealand).

Everyone wants to talk about the President, though no one I know voted for him (including me, which I have to repeat endlessly lest I be suspected of racist, sexist, deplorable heresy).

When I got home I had to look up what provoked the latest contretemps ("contre-Trumps"?). In a Saturday rally the President said:

"You look at what's happening last night in Sweden," Trump said. "Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible."

If only he had not said "last night", because nothing happened on Friday. The rest of his statement does have merit, because some Swedes are having second thoughts about the correlation of higher crime and the immigration of "hundreds of thousands" of refugees into their country of 10 million.

But the bigger story to me is how Donald Trump's words pre-occupy the waking moments of so many people who didn't vote for him. You're letting him make your lives miserable, people.

Sunday is the day of rest for your benefit, not God's, so for your sake, not for Donald, the Republicans, and their supporters, please give it a rest.

Sunday Revelations

Two scenes from church today, one unusual and the other (sadly) typical.

Future Collector
As mentioned before, children often are asked to help collect the offering. About half the families don't put anything into the plate (it doesn't mean the church goes without--some write monthly checks, and a few prepay their entire annual pledge for tax purposes). One young helper had been noting who had not contributed, and when we reached the back of the church made a beeline to recalcitrant donors, tapping some on the shoulder and pointing to the plate, sign language for "Did you forget something?" It took a minute to corral him.

As we frantically whispered our explanation, he grew mortified. Switching gears and kneeling at eye level, I shook his hand and thanked him for his service. He brightened. Church can produce indelible memories, and this incident shouldn't be a negative one. Besides, when he grows up we are always looking for people to run the pledge campaign....

A Regular Feature of Announcement Time
During announcement time someone got up to denounce the President of the United States, a seemingly weekly occurrence in the modern Episcopal Church. The source of the ire this time was the Administration claim that the media either under-publicize or don't even identify some incidents as terror attacks. This can't be so, the speaker declared, because terrorists always claim responsibility for their deeds.

Well, I mentally objected, why do we have such a cartoonishly simple understanding of the behavior of Jihadists? Have we forgotten about how the investigation into the 1999 Egyptair crash was diverted for years because no one believed that the Islamic pilot (probably not a terrorist) would commit suicide? Or that terrorists would use women and children to kill innocents? Or that they would attack "soft" targets? Haven't the terrorists evolved, too? No, I don't wholly buy into the President's assertion either, but why are we talking about a media dispute in church?

The speaker sat down to a smattering of applause. The Presidency of Donald Trump---whom I didn't vote for---has been remarkably enlightening about the good people whom I work with, care for, and see every day. During the previous Administration they have viewed themselves as morally superior to the people who were upset by President Obama. Now that the worm has turned, their own reaction has been far angrier and more intrusive than anything I saw in the past eight years. I hope that, after the anger passes, they have time to reflect on what their reactions tell them about themselves.

Cracking It Open: Not All It Was Cracked Up to Be

Sergei Skorobogatov (BusinessInsider)

Remember the brouhaha over the FBI trying to force Apple to unlock a terrorist's iPhone? (Though there were only 10,000 possible four-digit codes, ten false tries ran the risk of wiping the iPhone's memory.)

In March it was revealed that the "FBI paid under $1 million to unlock San Bernardino iPhone". (An earlier estimate had been $1.3 million.) It now looks like the FBI overpaid. Cambridge University professor Sergei Skorobogatov performed the feat using equipment costing less than $100 [bold added]:

NAND mirroring makes a copy of a phone’s memory in its undisturbed state. Using an iPhone of his own, Dr Skorobogatov was able repeatedly to overwrite its memory with the copy he had made before he began his guesses. This caused the instrument to forget that he had made any guesses at all, avoiding any temporary lockouts and ensuring that the data would never be wiped clean. That, in turn, permitted him to brute-force the PIN six guesses at a time, resetting the phone to its original condition between each batch of guesses.

Dr. Skorobogatov first came to popular attention in 2012 when he claimed that a "backdoor" had been built into U.S. military systems' computer chips made in China. These claims were denied by the defense industry. His work, including the iPhone demonstration noted above, since that episode has only enhanced his credibility, while U.S. government systems have proved to be wildly insecure.

On the other hand, why should we believe a Russian-surnamed English guy over the American government?