John Brown's Notes and Essays

As domestic pressures mount inside homes, we could see an uptick in more breakups, separations and divorces. Credit...Francesco Ciccolella  By Danielle  Campoamor, The New York Times, Published Aug. 26, 2020 Updated Aug. 28, 2020; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/parenting/breakups-divorces-relationships-coronavirus.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces_desk_filter&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=100771828&impression_id=7c757822-eaa8-11ea-a5c0-6f507b4693d7&index=2&pgtype=Article&region=footer&req_id=296604542&surface=home-featured  ;  original article contains links   “I can’t take it anymore,” I told my partner of seven years and the father of my two children. “Maybe we should start looking for separate places.” Then I stormed out of our 700-square-foot apartment and took off down our quiet tree-lined street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Tears dampened the corners of...

" The Republican convention included  video glimpses  of 'Biden’s America,' with a scary scene of fire raging in the streets. But those streets  turned out  to be in Barcelona, Spain."  image from BuzzFeed, " RNC Video Showing Rioters In 'Biden’s America' Is Actually Spain,"   https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-08/26/23/asset/b8ac59c43a18/sub-buzz-17390-1598484817-11.png?crop=1386%3A550%3B32%2C134&downsize=700%3A%2A&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&downsize=360:* From:  "T he Lawbreakers Trump Loves He uses scare tactics about 'law and order.' But what distinguishes this White House is its ties to criminals."  --Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2020, 2:39 p.m. ET  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/opinion/sunday/trump-protests-law.html

 via email August 28, 2020 Ross MacDonald Dear Reader, This month is the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, marked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then on Aug. 15, 1945, V-J Day. As is so often the case, publishers have released over the course of the last few months a number of books by historians and other writers re-examining the events of the period and their enduring legacy. In this special themed issue, we review the most noteworthy of those titles. Several reviews stand out in particular. William Langewiesche, a writer at large for The Times Magazine, reviews the new book by Lesley M.M. Blume,  “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.”  The book traces the story behind John Hersey’s enduring work of investigative narrative journalism  “Hiroshima,”  which Blume joins me on  the podcast this week  to discuss. Timothy Snyder, the best-selling author of  “On Tyranny,”  among o...

The first family serves up a malarkey buffet.  Her personal pronoun is I, for Ivanka. Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times By Maureen Dowd, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2020, 10:01 a.m. ET  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/opinion/ivanka-melania-trump-2020.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage   Excerpt:  Ivanka must realize now that she and Jared can never go back to their life as New York society darlings. So why not double down on Washington and lay the groundwork for a presidential run of her own?  Now that her father has turned the Republican Party into a political machine bearing her last name, she must feel entitled to jump into the driver’s seat when papa is done with it.  Her speech Thursday night was about him but it was also pointedly about “I.”  “Four years ago, I introduced to you a builder …” “Tonight, I stand before you …” “When Jared and I moved with our ...

  Primoz Roglic, right, with his Jumbo-Visma teammates. Roglic, of Slovenia, is one of this year’s race favorites.Credit...Thibault Camus/Associated Press from:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/sports/cycling/virus-tour-de-france.html

Ian W. Toll brings his three-volume history of the war in the Pacific to a close in a story of long-distance bombings and desperate island battles. image from Google Play By Jonathan W. Jordan, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 28, 2020 10:10 am ET  https://www.wsj.com/articles/twilight-of-the-gods-review-a-blood-soaked-peace-11598623808?mod=opinion_major_pos10 Excerpt: "The author’s strength lies in teasing out vivid details of the complex air and naval operations. Describing a line of B-29 bombers preparing for a bombing raid on Tokyo, he writes: 'The Wright Duplex-Cyclone engines began firing to life. They coughed, caught, whirred and backfired thunderously, expelling clouds of exhaust smoke. Then the doors, hatches, and bomb bays were slammed closed, and the lead planes began inching out of their hardstands and trundling down the taxiways. . . . The commingled roars of so many great engines caused the air and ground to vibrate. One witness was reminded of the Indianapolis 500....

Makers of the seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ want crossing for a stunt, but locals say it’s a landmark  By Drew Hinshaw and Natalia Ojewska, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 27, 2020 2:08 pm ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/mission-impossible-convincing-a-polish-town-to-let-tom-cruise-destroy-its-bridge-11598551736?mod=hp_featst_pos5    WLEŃ, Poland–The mission seemed improbable, if not impossible: Convince the residents of a Polish town to let Tom Cruise blow up their bridge. It was January, and a Hollywood location scout had slipped into the town of Wleń (population: 1,759) on an assignment to secure Mr. Cruise an explodable structure for his next and seventh “Mission: Impossible.” The scene would involve tossing a train going 60 miles an hour into a lake. An abandoned rail crossing on the town’s edge fit the specifications. Paramount Pictures would repair it, then blow it up. Afterward, it would help finance a new bridge, whose trains would bring in cinema fans, the scout, ...