Updated 4/9/2012
Well, maybe not so much viral as bacterial, we're not exactly taking over, but a piece of mine from last January is suddenly rocketing into the... umm, low dozens of hits (at the time of writing).
It's evidently related to today's front-page New York Times story by Michael Barbaro on the heartwarming friendship between Binyamin Netanyahu and Willard Mitt Romney, two [jump]
kindred spirits with the "same profoundly analytical view of the world," which they developed as colleagues at the Boston Consulting Group, where both worked a while before Willard moved up to Bain and B.B. to the Jonathan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, the personal neocon think tank through which he was to propel himself into the ranks of such other profoundly analytical individuals as Ronald Reagan and Sheldon Adelson.
The Times article naturally mentions the name of Fleur Cates Netanyahu Harlan, the PM's second wife (1981-84), who worked at Bain around the same time as Romney started there and remains a friend and supporter (the Times doesn't note this, but she's in for $2500 to Romney for President, Inc.; h/t Israel Matzav).
This is where the Rectification of Names comes in. Some months ago I stumbled, in one of those surrealistically unprepared transitions for which this page is noted, into Fleur's name myself: I was mentioning the billionaire dickhead John Castle, who registered his dissatisfaction with the restaurant service by breaking the waiter's finger, and discovered to my delight and amazement that Castle's business partner, Len Harlan, was married to Netanyahu's former wife, which, since the post itself was sort of about the PM (it's mainly about the dilemma of the leftist Jewish or Jewish-Identified American in confrontation with Israeli fascism), I could not refrain from mentioning.
Now I guess Ms. Cates is a reasonably private person, whose activities are not splashed all over the press; with the bizarre result that when you Google her, this humble bloglet is one of the first places you land on. Hence all the attention.
The original post ended up with the semi-frivolous denunciation of Netanyahu as "not Jewish", in the sense of his having the faith of the psychopath and the special polytype ethnicity of the 1%—the people who break the waiter's finger or tie the dog to the top of the car. The new Times story fills that out some in the picture of Romney-Netanyahu interactions:
Anyway, hi, folks...
As you can see, I'm not actually very interested in Fleur Cates. I am extremely interested in Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. Not to pimp myself too relentlessly, but as long as you're here, my own favorite thing I've written about him was a joke, from last January, just before the Likud primary (which makes some of the references dated). The famous map of the vanishing West Bank is there too.
Well, maybe not so much viral as bacterial, we're not exactly taking over, but a piece of mine from last January is suddenly rocketing into the... umm, low dozens of hits (at the time of writing).
 |
| H1N1 flu virus. From University of Wisconsin-Madison News. |
kindred spirits with the "same profoundly analytical view of the world," which they developed as colleagues at the Boston Consulting Group, where both worked a while before Willard moved up to Bain and B.B. to the Jonathan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, the personal neocon think tank through which he was to propel himself into the ranks of such other profoundly analytical individuals as Ronald Reagan and Sheldon Adelson.
The Times article naturally mentions the name of Fleur Cates Netanyahu Harlan, the PM's second wife (1981-84), who worked at Bain around the same time as Romney started there and remains a friend and supporter (the Times doesn't note this, but she's in for $2500 to Romney for President, Inc.; h/t Israel Matzav).
This is where the Rectification of Names comes in. Some months ago I stumbled, in one of those surrealistically unprepared transitions for which this page is noted, into Fleur's name myself: I was mentioning the billionaire dickhead John Castle, who registered his dissatisfaction with the restaurant service by breaking the waiter's finger, and discovered to my delight and amazement that Castle's business partner, Len Harlan, was married to Netanyahu's former wife, which, since the post itself was sort of about the PM (it's mainly about the dilemma of the leftist Jewish or Jewish-Identified American in confrontation with Israeli fascism), I could not refrain from mentioning.
Now I guess Ms. Cates is a reasonably private person, whose activities are not splashed all over the press; with the bizarre result that when you Google her, this humble bloglet is one of the first places you land on. Hence all the attention.
The original post ended up with the semi-frivolous denunciation of Netanyahu as "not Jewish", in the sense of his having the faith of the psychopath and the special polytype ethnicity of the 1%—the people who break the waiter's finger or tie the dog to the top of the car. The new Times story fills that out some in the picture of Romney-Netanyahu interactions:
The men reconnected shortly after 2003 when Mr. Romney became the governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Netanyahu paid him a visit, eager to swap tales of government life.
Mr. Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel’s finance minister, regaled Mr. Romney with stories of how, in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions, reduced taxes and privatized formerly government-run industries, reducing the role of government in private enterprise....
Mr. Netanyahu told him of a favorite memory from basic training about a soldier trying to race his comrades with a fat man atop his shoulders. Naturally, he loses.
“Government,” Mr. Romney recalled him saying, “is the guy on your shoulders.”
As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various agencies, reminding them that their job as regulators was to “catch the bad guys, but also to encourage the good guys and to make business more successful in our state.”
And my favorite,A few years later, Mr. Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, in central Jerusalem, where the two spent hours discussing the American and Israeli economies. When Mr. Netanyahu informed Mr. Romney of a personal campaign to persuade American pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Mr. Romney offered up his Rolodex.
Mr. Netanyahu was startled in January by an article exploring why Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino executive and outspoken supporter of Israel, was devoting millions of dollars to back Mr. Gingrich. It described Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Adelson as close friends.
(Adelson and Romney had a quiet little meeting on Friday.)
Mr. Netanyahu’s office quickly relayed a message to a senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor: the prime minister had played no role in Mr. Adelson’s decision to bankroll a Romney rival.
Anyway, hi, folks...
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, une fleur pour une fleur!
UpdateAs you can see, I'm not actually very interested in Fleur Cates. I am extremely interested in Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. Not to pimp myself too relentlessly, but as long as you're here, my own favorite thing I've written about him was a joke, from last January, just before the Likud primary (which makes some of the references dated). The famous map of the vanishing West Bank is there too.
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