Monthly Archives: December 2023

TORAH TORAH TORAH by Peter Nolan Smith

TORA TORA TORA was one of my mother’s favorite films. The infamy of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor burned bright in her memory. Her friends from Jamaica Plain enlisted in the Marines, Army, and Navy by the scores. Many of them failed to return to Boston. Their bodies rest on islands across the Pacific. […]

12/7/1960

Seventy-SIX years ago Japanese aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet. Nearly every capital ship in Pearl Harbor was sunk of severely damaged by bombs or torpedoes and the Pacific Ocean became a Japanese lake until Midway. The next day President Roosevelt declared before Congress, “December 7th shall live forever as a day of infamy.” This […]

November 28, 1978 – East Village – Journal Entry

Alice is busy with the play again. Two dates at Irving Plaza scheduled for December and I have been employed as the bouncer. That’s all I am good for thanks to my wicked smile and speedy fists. Alice’s only reason to be with me is as her protector, but never her pimp, although she denies […]

No More Peace For Christmas

On Friday the truce between Hammas and the IDF ended with an intense aerial bombardment by Israeli F-16 with little regard for civilians in the Gaza ghetto. The IDF ordered Palestinians to vacate the North to the Strip to South increasing the population density to 13,000 per square kilometers. Leaflets accompanied the attacks telling the […]

With My Bare Hands – Anthony Bourdain

I have always admired Anthony Bourdain, but never more than when he wrote in A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines, “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that […]