It’s the Fourth of July. I’m glad to be back in the U.S.A., though my last real conscious activity outside of the cabin of an airplane was driving a minibus around the wintry, smoky, coarse-asphalted streets of Jo’burg.
As I write this — crossing the Canadian border at high altitude — It’s 7:23 p.m. in the time zone I had just gotten used to. I already miss waking up at the Vineyard Hotel, even without power, before the dawn.
There’s something special about these family trips. You spend more time with your kids than you would in any other circumstance. And you can’t do them too often; it’s really expensive to travel in a large group.
It’s always fun to come home to L.A. I can’t say that about too many other places. Coming home to Chicago from abroad always felt like returning to something cold and plain; coming home to South Africa felt lonely.
Still, when my son told me he didn’t really want to go home yet, I understood what he meant. We had an incredible trip together. We made a plan and we executed it, and it mostly worked out the way we hoped.
Positive things: we gave Rhoda Kadalie the memorial she wanted and deserved. We introduced my son to his grandfather, and my kids to other relatives. We gave them a sense of where they came from. It’s theirs.
At the Gardens synagogue, we showed my children the full beauty of their tradition, both architecturally and musically. At Boulders Beach and Aquila Game Reserve, we showed them a glimpse of the beauty of nature.
I met with the publisher of my forthcoming biography of Rhoda, and I visited many of the places I love. I didn’t see all of my friends and relatives, but I saw many of them — including some I hadn’t seen before.
Negative things: we saw South Africa at its worst, in “load shedding,” unable to keep the lights on. There is hope for political change in 2024, if the Democratic Alliance can beat the ANC and lead a new coalition.
But the likeliest coalition is the ANC and the radical EFF, which would doom the country. South Africa is one miracle away from turning things around, and feels like it’s one or two more crises away from total collapse.
My daughter caught a cold; I stepped on a seashell and the wound became infected; my wife and I have spent a fortune on the whole affair. We’re going to be exhausted — and we’ll struggle to get to fireworks.
But regardless, this was a really special trip. I’m amazed, in a way, that I was able to replicate, on a family scale, much of my trip from earlier this year. There’s been a mission each time, and we’ve fulfilled it.
Let me turn my thoughts to the U.S.A. A trip to South Africa invariably makes one grateful for America — and you wonder what people are thinking about in Johannesburg or Cape Town as they see you go back again.
I’m grateful that we will have electricity when we land — or we should, anyway. That’s not a given in South Africa these days. I’ll also be grateful to arrive in midsummer, with warm air and long days and even fireflies.
What makes South Africa and the U.S.A. different? We both have free market economies; we both have bad governments; we both have all kinds of challenges that we don’t exactly know how we are going to face.
South Africa has the gilded cages in which people live — the homes surrounded by electrified fencing, the fear of being robbed, raped, and murdered. But it also has the sense of being part of something important.
What makes the U.S. different: a large middle class, and a conservative media, and an entrepreneurial spirit, and a celebration of the individual; and an inherent reluctance to be forced in any particular ideological path.
I guess that’s what I’ll celebrate tonight, with the fireworks at the local high school, and the hoodlums who shoot firecrackers at my house, and the warmth of the whole place. We’ll rest, and be grateful, for it all.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
