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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Eric Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Jennifer Mendelsohn

the breakfast table
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from: Daniel Mendelsohn

Bichon, Schmichon--Be a Dead Dog!

Posted Tuesday, March 14, 2000, at 1:45 PM ET

Hi Jen and Er,

Since I really don't like dogs at all, I didn't have a strong reaction either way to the bichon frisé murder story, except--and this is my usual reaction to bichon frisé stories in general, I feel compelled to admit--that I am struck once again that a dog species should sound so very much like the name of a salad green. This is surely a taxonomical error that will be duly corrected by the appropriate scientific authorities. Not a bad story, in fact, for next Tuesday's "Science Times" ...

I have now read the entire "Gay Today" Newsweek story and am not particularly moved by it, either. It's fine as far as it goes (I don't usually read any of the "newsweeklies" and so there's always an issue of adjusting to that sort of "canned" style they all have; it's like eating pre-chewed food), although one senses a certain weariness setting in to national coverage of gay life, for the very good reason that things are (generally, although you invariably get into trouble for generalizing) less explosive than they have ever been; it's old news, to some extent--or perhaps better, like covering a war that, if not over, has clearly been decided. These articles now follow a fairly predictable pattern: There's the gay-parents piece, the gays-in-the-military piece, and the gay-religion piece, and they're all fine and thorough, but one has a dim sense of having read it all before. For my part, I think if anything proves the gays-are-just-people-like-you-and-me line of argument (which of course many don't buy), it's the statistic, reported on Page 52 of the article, that whereas only 46 percent of gays say marriage is a priority, a whopping 79 percent say that inheritance rights are a "critical" issue. Laff. (It would be interesting, incidentally, to know the breakdown of percentages by gender on these questions--are gay men more or less interested in marriage than gay women?)

I have always hoped that, as a parting gesture of an entirely uncharacteristic moral and temperamental vigor, President Clinton will, before he leaves office, do the thing that has always needed to be done and issue an executive order ending the military ban on gays, lesbians, etc., in the military. (I'm not optimistic.) This, it seems, is clearly the only way this mess will ever get cleared up. There is no evidence whatsoever that the presence of gays in the military has a deleterious effect on either the gays or the military (more likely the former, one would think); all that's needed is some moral backbone. Which is, of course, a part of the musculoskeletal system that Clinton signally lacks. I'm struck, looking back, at how his terror-stricken backing off on this promise at the very beginning of his presidency turned out to be a taste of things to come, and completely of a piece, indeed, with everything else that has marked his bizarrely equivocal behavior: The half-assed "don't ask, don't tell" policy (ultimately, and ironically, far more destructive than the outright discrimination had been) was so typical of his yes-but-no way of doing things: "I smoked but I didn't inhale" "I had sexual-relations-but-not-sex"--this is a man who lives in a fantasy world of actions without consequences, of eating your cake and having it, too. The irony, it furthermore seems clear, is that if he'd just issued an executive order to his Joint Chiefs and stood by it at the very beginning, they'd have swallowed it (however unwillingly): These are people who respect and obey authority, after all. But as soon as the generals (and everyone else) smelled blood--smelled Clinton's profound inability to commit, to risk disapproval, to decide to be in just one and not always two places or positions at the same time--it was all over. I sort of hope he'll come around and surprise us all (ha) because by now you'd think he'd have had enough experience of having strange people prying inappropriately into his personal and sex life, in ways that don't at all impinge on his ability to complete his job, to have some sympathy with the gay men and women who are trying to do their jobs and are instead being harassed by so many uniformed Ken Starrs (who are prying into these innocent people's lives at the taxpayers' [i.e., my] expense, of course). The difference, of course, is that gay people trying to serve in the military aren't doing anything morally or ethically wrong in being gay--they're not committing adultery or harassing their junior employees or any of the oogie things Clinton was doing, and about which he was being harassed. But then, you can see why the indeterminate and incoherent "don't ask, don't tell" policy must have seemed so appealing to Clinton: It's clearly worked for him and his wife, even if it ain't working anywhere else.

Sorry to pontificate at this length, but this has bugged me for a long time.

As for reactions to our conversation about the pope, and particularly the accusation, quoted by Jen (I can't believe you read those things, Jen! Why would you want to see how you've been graded on your table chitchat by people you don't know?) that "Jews have had more gangsters, thugs, and killers than the Catholics ever will," I've checked with some pretty authoritative sources and have it on fairly good authority that there have been, over the last 2,000 years, precisely 2,056,762 Jewish gangsters, thugs, and killers, as opposed to (and I must say, who knew it'd be this close?) 2,875,368 Catholic gangsters, thugs, and killers. So I'm afraid that that person was quite demonstrably wrong.

More later. Eric and I are gonna meet downtown to look at postcards that might make a good cover for the paperback of my book. Fun! Serves you right for living in D.C., Jen.

love Dan

the breakfast table
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from: Daniel Mendelsohn

Bichon, Schmichon--Be a Dead Dog!

Posted Tuesday, March 14, 2000, at 1:45 PM ET
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Eric Mendelsohn is the writer/director of the film Judy Berlin, currently in theaters and starring Madeline Kahn, Edie Falco, Barbara Barrie, and Julie Kavner. Daniel Mendelsohn is a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review, and the New York Observer, a lecturer in classics at Princeton University, and the author of The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity (click here to buy it). Jennifer Mendelsohn is Slate's Washington, D.C.-based "Keeping Tabs" columnist.
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Highlights from The Fray:


Don't the Mendelsohns remind you of J.D.Salinger's Glass family of precocious children?

--Patti

(To reply, click here.)

[Eagle80 was of the opinion that the Mendelsohns were in fact The Sopranos of the literati. Stacy Grover asked How did so much cleverness end up in one family? and this brought the Missing Mendelsohn brothers to The Fray: Andrew said I often wonder that myself. And you haven't even heard from the rest of us yet!
And Matthew responded:]
I have to agree with my brother Andrew. I've been feeling like Zeppo Marx all week. I think Slate should host a Breakfast Table with the forgotten Mendelsohn brothers. Jennifer, Eric and Daniel can host a discussion about gay culture while Andrew and myself discuss biotech stocks. You'll learn more with them but you'll make more with us.

(To reply--or to follow the thread in more detail--click here.)


Thursday's entry: As for Jennifer and marriage, I believe she is the star of an upcoming Fox special called, Who wants to Marry A Mendelsohn? Should be good.

--Bill Watrous

(To reply, click here.)

[If you want to read the marriage proposal for Jennifer (and her response) click here. Yet another member of the Mendelsohn family, Jay, entered The Fray here. Marriage proposal for Dan is here. Sorry, Eric, no proposal, but lots of Fraygrants did like your film and one of them liked your photo.

But there were also Fray readers who wanted to discuss serious issues, or at least give a short, thrilling history of religion down the ages:]

Typical drivel from the pseudo-intellectual phenoms. Here's some of my drivel. Let's see: there were 12 tribes waiting for the Messiah, He comes, they kill kill him because he wanted to give Caesar what was Caesar's, they wanted power, all he wanted was your faith and devotion to a Greater Good. The various churches spring up, (no-one mentions the Orthodox Churches and the atrocities they committed), Popes are killed, moved to France, etc., they offer forgiveness of sins for money, and kill, all for power using the popular religion of the time. Then we have Protestantism, (no one mentions the 2.5 million Catholics Cromwell killed and the killing that has gone on since then in Ireland) Let's leave for the New World, Puritan brothers, so that we the church leaders can have the power over every bit of your life (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Al Sharpton, Pat Buchanan, et al) Oh yeah, you're a witch, die! (You also had a piece of land I wanted...)I am going to skip a century or two now... lets see Joseph Smith, ex-con, sees an angel called Baloney, no Maloney, no, Moroni... yeah that's the one. Yeah, Yeah, that's my wife...Morgan Fairchild...all 11 of them...God told me I could, I swear!

Well enough of this. People are the problem, not God, not Jesus, no matter what religion, faith, creed.

--St Pat

(To reply, click here.)


Is it possible that the pope's "doctrinal rigidity" and "gestures of expansive humanity" [Monday's entry] are of a piece? As I understand John Paul II's thinking, the humanity Mendelsohn admires arises almost entirely from the pope's dogmatic beliefs about God, man's nature, and the consequent requirements for living a good life. Liberals (and I don't intend that as a lazy epithet) should consider the possibility that the "humanity" they praise must rest either on certain irreducible truths or on a collection of insubstantial, albeit attractive, sentiments.

--Michael Pollard

(To reply, click here.)


Many have decried the pope's apology as a political ploy. I doubt it, if only for the reason that if it were, he would have vaguely referred to the Crusades and Inquisition as "youthful indiscretions" of a church that is now much more mature and therefore knows better as a result of the important lessons it has learned.

G Wiz

(To reply, click here.)


1. Gays (yawn). How over. How '90s.
2. Catholics. "Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual."

--P.J.O'Connell

(To reply, click here.)


To P.J.O'Connell: Let's jump back in time to 1960...
Negros (yawn). How over. How 50's.
2. Jews. "Just ignore them and they'll go away."
It ain't over by a long shot!

--Dave

(To reply, click here.)


I'm glad Eric Mendelsohn cleared up the confusion over Beauty and the Beast. But I'm still not sure which Psycho he had in mind. Perkins or Vaughn? Or Christian Bale? I hope he clears this up before the Breakfast Table is wiped clear of bagel crumbs, the dishes go in the dishwasher, and he goes off to film The Magnificent Mendelsohns.

And, by the way, the poet Catullus [see Wednesday's entry] was really the Matt Drudge --or maybe Fray contributor--of his times. How low can you get?

--Eagle80

(To reply, click here.)

[The Catulluses of the modern age also discussed dogs, names, the Oscars, The Sopranos and many other Breakfast Table topics in The Fray this week.]

(3/17)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Topic A: Obama's Speech
| Pundits and diplomats respond.
Robinson: Sunshine in BerlinToles: The World ?'s ObamaTelnaes: Meanwhile, McCain