There are some questions with no easy answers. Why am I opening with this bromide? I am looking at a press release from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. It is headed, “Yad Vashem Expresses Concern over Covering of Holocaust Memorials and Monuments.” According to reports, such covering is taking place in the U.S. and the U.K. Evidently, the authorities are trying to protect the memorials and monuments from defacement and other vandalism.

Says Yad Vashem, “By concealing these historical reminders, we are only addressing the symptoms while ignoring the root cause of the issue.” And that root cause is “hatred and antisemitism.”

Sure. But the addressing of root causes — well, good luck uprooting them, some of them.

In any event, what would you do? What would I do? Would you or I let the memorials and monuments be defaced or otherwise vandalized? Or would we cover them until the current spasm of antisemitism subsides?

My inclination would be to leave them uncovered, come what may. The covering of them sickens me, somehow. Yet I am unsure. This is one of those vexing questions, with which people in responsible offices, right now, have to deal.

• From Reuters: “The Arabic-language spokesperson of the U.S. State Department has resigned, citing her opposition to Washington’s policy related to the war in Gaza, in at least the third resignation from the department over the issue.” (For the rest of that report, go here.)

You know, I can respect a resignation on principle (whatever I think of the issue involved). I think back to Clinton days — to Lewinsky days, in particular. A lot of us said, with dismay and condemnation, “No one is resigning!” The only people who resigned from the Clinton administration, as I recall, were two people from the Health and Human Services Department, who resigned in objection to welfare reform. (One of them was Peter Edelman, husband of Marian Wright.)

• From our Radio Free Asia: “Whistleblowing Uyghur surgeon speaks truth to horror: Enver Tohti has helped to expose China’s dark secrets about organ harvesting and cancer in Xinjiang.” (Article here, if you can bear it.)

I first wrote about this issue in 2006, I think: “A Place Called Sujiatun.” Let me quote one swath:

And I recall what Robert Conquest, the great analyst of totalitarianism, once told me: The world has seldom wanted to believe witnesses. Ten, 20, or 30 years later, maybe, but rarely sooner.

Testimony out of the early Soviet Union was scoffed at; these were “rumors in Riga.” Tales of the Holocaust were Jewish whining. When escapees from Mao spilled into Hong Kong, they were “embittered warlords.” When Cubans landed in Florida, they were “Batista stooges.” And so on.

In 2014, Ethan Gutmann wrote his stunning book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem. (I reviewed it here.) The temptation to look away from this matter, this horror, is strong. But it should be resisted. The unspeakable should be spoken.

• Jimmy Lai is the foremost political prisoner in Hong Kong. A great man. (For a piece of mine about him, published last year, go here.) Two U.S. congressmen have proposed a bill to name the area outside the American office in Hong Kong “Jimmy Lai Way.”

Symbols aren’t nothing.

(One of those congressmen is Chris Smith, the veteran New Jersey Republican, and the other is Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat. Smith has been in the forefront of virtually every human-rights issue for something like 40 years. He has set a rare example.)

• From the Associated Press: “Burkina Faso suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio stations for their coverage of a report by Human Rights Watch on a mass killing of civilians carried out by the country’s armed forces.” (The rest of that report is here.) Good for the BBC and the VOA.

• You may recall Donald Trump, live-tweeting the Oscars: “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.” Etc.

Well, the national entertainment critic has struck again:

• Jeff Jacoby, the longtime conservative columnist at the Boston Globe, has written about William F. Buckley Jr. He says, “Trump represents not the final flowering of the Buckley vision but its final defeat.” He also says, “The movement Buckley nurtured flowered, grew, and triumphed during his lifetime. But it didn’t outlast him.”

Some of us speak of a “remnant.” And I wish to relate (again) something that I learned many, many years ago. When people think of a remnant, they tend to think, “The end of the line. The last of the Mohicans. That’s all she wrote. Curtains. Lights out.” But a remnant is a swatch by which the whole, one day, may be reconstituted.

Like Motel 6: Leave the light on.

• Last week, I had a post in which I noted that, for the third presidential cycle in a row, we would not have a debate over the national debt, the federal budget deficit, entitlements — that whole issue. Why? Well, the Democrats have seldom been disposed to talk — talk seriously — about the issue. And for three cycles in a row, the Republican nominee will be Donald Trump. The populist Right doesn’t do fiscal responsibility, from what I can see. Conservatives, yes (in theory) — but populists, of any hue?

Romney and Ryan were big on fiscal responsibility. The latter has been out of office for years, and the former will be soon.

Anyway, let me commend a column by David Brooks — a superb column: “Why Are We Gambling with America’s Future?” I will quote a little bit:

Pretty soon, you’re staring at Ferguson’s Law. This is the principle enunciated by the historian Niall Ferguson that any nation that spends more on interest payments on the debt than on military spending will slip into decline. It happened to Hapsburg Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, and prerevolutionary France. Will it happen to us?

Some years ago, I was podcasting with George F. Will, who said, “My great conservative is Lincoln. Lincoln’s great virtue was prudence, and prudence is the signal conservative virtue.”

Brooks, in the last paragraph of his column, writes, “Prudence is a boring virtue, but the prudent course is to get the United States on a more sustainable course.”

Prudence is boring — but vital. And you know what’s not boring? What is very un-boring? Financial disintegration. In politics and society — and often in personal life, you might agree — boring is good.

• A little language? I was reading an article, which said, “In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app” — whoa, now. I would say “bade” (pronounced “bad”). Yet I would also say, “Last week, Jeff bid on a vintage Rolls-Royce.” (Jeff must be pretty well off.)

• A little music? For a review of Matthias Goerne (the German baritone) and Evgeny Kissin (the Soviet-born pianist) in a joint recital, go here. For a review of El Niño, by John Adams, staged at the Metropolitan Opera, go here.

• Of interest is this listing for a guitar. A friend writes, “I don’t know if they’re any good, but my favorite brand name for electric guitars is definitely ‘MofoAmerican.’ I thought that you, as a MofoAmerican, would appreciate the name.”

Highly. And I’m flattered.

• In a bookshop, the cashier was a young woman whose name tag said “Monet.” “Named after the artist?” I asked. No, she said. “I was named after my mom’s best friend, who was named after the artist.” Nice.

• Walking past a heliport in New York, on one of the rivers, I saw a woman waiting for a car. Stunning. All in white. Head to toe (hat to high heels). She looked like a glamorous dancer. A ballerina. And she was: Misty Copeland. Uncouth as I am, I did not take a picture — but wanted to.

• On Saturday, it was the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant. At his tomb, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, they held a ceremony — in which the participants came from the military and other vital organizations.

The more I learn, the more I regard Grant as one of the greatest men or women in our history. We owe a lot to this man, not least for the defeat of the Confederacy and the saving of the Union. (An extraordinary writer, to boot.)

Did he have flaws? I think of an old expression: “No one is perfect but thee and me, and I’m not so sure about thee.”

In any case, God bless General/President Grant. Grateful for his service.

• Flora and fauna in Riverside Park:

• A burst of blooms, in Central Park:

• Not so bad, these purple jobbies (as the expert horticulturalists say):

• A scene of serenity, in the midst of the big bad city:

Have a good week, y’all. Talk to you soon.

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