Done with my article on walking, I rewarded myself by heading to the local Popeyes. Yes, there’s one in District 6, within walking distance of my mosquito netting. Though any Saigon lunch beyond two bucks will cause me infinite, enduring pain, florid self-recrimination and post-traumatic stress disorder, I manned up and handed the young, angelic cashier $3.50 [82,000 đồng], then patiently and humbly waited for this ethereal, merciful being to somehow yield to my disgusting, pitiful self two pieces of fried chicken, plus a jivey biscuit that was vaguely coated with something distantly related to honey, a Coke and, what I so shamelessly craved, some mashed potato!!!

I manhandled that mash alright, dove headfirst right into it, to make up for all those mashless months. Just give me that mash! Give it up!

In my Tri-Cities Postcard, I quoted a Vietnam vet, Pablo, “When I came home, my father asked me about Vietnam, and I said, ‘It has become a part of me!’ Every place you go becomes a part of you, so Vietnam has become a part of me. It’s inside me!”

Very true, so Tacoma, Salem, San Jose, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Certaldo, Norwich and Leipzig, etc., are my ingredients, to be stirred up as a craving for a certain dish, and it’s always something very simple, such as mashed potato, which I was introduced to at elementary school cafeterias in Tacoma, Washington. Even at age 55, I distinctly remember mispronouncing it as “smashed potato,” to my classmates’ amusement.

My first two months in Tacoma, I lived in a house owned by an American colonel and his Vietnamese war bride, who was actually half British, half Chinese. Her dad had been my English tutor back in Saigon. My father, brother and future stepmother were also in this home.

A native of Montana, the colonel was a thin, wiry man who usually wore a red plaid shirt and blue jeans. He was twice his wife’s age, and Annette was so young, he enrolled her in Lincoln High School. She was petite, pretty and often looked bemused. This marriage didn’t last. Annette ended up with a Vietnamese man.

During my stint in the colonel’s house, I often saw him eating canned baked beans or canned chili con carne. Trying both, I found the chili OK, but the baked beans, I thought preposterous. In Philadelphia, however, I always had baked beans in my cupboard.

In 2015, I visited my friend, Daniel Kane, in Hove, England, just down the beach from Brighton. (Daniel is the author of All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s.) Daniel told me about a guest who stayed in his house, alone, for a weekend. When Daniel came back, he found his trash bin filled with cans of baked beans, and nothing else, “So the guy ate nothing but baked beans for the entire weekend! Can you imagine that?! It’s, like, he gave up on life!”

The guy’s a Brit, and that’s his comfort food, obviously. Towards the end of his life, Duchamp ate nothing but spaghetti with pats of butter. Even if that’s not entirely true, I like the thought.

In Philadelphia during the late 80’s, I had a chemist friend from Thailand, Somchai, who ate a Wawa Italian hoagie for just about every meal, and this was no bizarre self-punishment or performance art. As a Philadelphian, Somchai just loved Wawa Italian hoagies.

Marty told me that, after an evening of drinking at the Friendly Lounge, all he wanted was a roast pork sandwich from Pat’s, three blocks away, so he had had hundreds of them. Still working as a plumber and electrician at 75, Marty deserved a $10 sandwich at the end of the night. He started his working life dressing corpses.

Relating these tepid nonstories, I’m suggesting that it really doesn’t take much to make a man content. As long as he’s free from immediate danger, pain, strife, stress or hunger, even a can of Budweiser or Miller, basically the worst beers in the world, will make him happy. All too often, though, a poor, simple man can’t be left unmolested to enjoy his falafel.

This morning, I emailed Chuck Orloski, “It sure looks like the Jews will get the world embroiled in another war. I’m still hoping it won’t happen… If only life could be as simple as enjoying a Coney or Chinese food on Main.”

Chuck answered, “I miss you, & Keystone Restaurant & the Chinese Restaurant on Main are regular stops, mighty fine. Am very afraid for what ZUS has planned for Iran.”

For just $5.25, you can get a lunch special at New Foliage, and though its hot and sour soup, egg roll and sweet and sour pork will probably be spat at by any New York Times food critic, it’s mighty fine to sit in there, like Chuck said, and stuff your face with so much homey comfort. Done, you can mosey down to the Lounge on Jackson, and knock down a few with some of the finest folks anywhere.

Since we’re in the endless war era, another war for Israel is on the horizon, but hardly anyone seems alarmed, least of all Americans, for they’ve come to see themselves, quite casually and indifferently, as only asskicking agents of war, and never its victims. Conditioned by Hollywood, many Americans also find mass violence exciting, so as another bloodbath looms, some joke that they’re getting out the popcorn to enjoy the fireworks.

Not even two decades ago, an American war still needed elaborately concocted justifications, but now, any throw away lie will do, for hardly anyone is paying attention, preoccupied as he is with selfies, duck faces and hazy, indeterminate genitalia, and where to gently tuck them without incurring wrath and censure.

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So let me get this straight: As the Japanese Prime Minister was visiting Iran, two Japanese tankers were supposedly attacked by Iran. This is like sending your son out to scratch up your buddy’s SUV while he’s inside your living room, drinking a friendly six pack with your sorry ass.

Discounting Muslims, Japanese have the absolutely lowest opinion of Israel, with one poll showing 55% negative, and only 3% positive, so is someone sending a message here?

Getting out the popcorn, we want to see explosions and hear reports of mass casualties, for the thought of so many people being blown up can’t help but cheer us up, for we’re not in harm’s way, and since these people are so evil, as our televisions relentlessly tell us, they fully deserve this destruction. Plus, this war will give us another viewing option, for just a baseball game each night can get a bit tedious.

Above, I named Jews as the instigators of war against Iran, which made some readers cringe, I’m sure, for you’re only supposed to point a finger at Israel or Zionists, at most, and never say anything negative against Jews, though it’s fine to accuse, say, whites, Russians or just men, as a sex, of numerous sins. Thanks to the gaseous Holocaust’s swarming shadow, the worst ism ever is anti-Semitism, so a Jew’s feeling is much more inviolable than, say, a Muslim body.

In 1941, Charles Lindbergh opposed the Jewish push to get the United States into World War II, and for this, he was “attacked on all sides—Administration, pressure groups, and Jews, as now openly a Nazi, following Nazi doctrine,” as noted by his wife, Anne, so she concluded, “I say that I would prefer to see this country at war than shaken by violent anti-Semitism. (Because it seems to me that the kind of person the human being is turned into when the instinct of Jew-baiting is let loose is worse than the kind of person he becomes on the battlefield.)” She identified and was concerned with the agents of war, not its many more victims.

So even millions of deaths, hundreds of cities pulverized and dozens of nations dragged through hell are preferable to Jews being scrutinized and held accountable. Again, Anne may just get her wish.

Lindbergh’s key point was that the United States and whites in general should look out for their own interests, not Jewish ones. Jews, however, will insist that Jewish values are universal, and what’s good for Jews is perfect for humanity.

Jews’ hatred of Persians has only been festering for two millennia and a half, ever since a Persian vizier Haman informed Persian king Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them […]” (Esther 3). Though the Jewish concubine, Esther, got Xerxes to impale Haman and his ten sons, on top of allowing his Jewish subjects to annihilate all their enemies, Jews won’t let this thwarted and amply revenged threat be forgotten. (Germany, then, can count on several more thousand years of Jewish hatred.)

On March 31, 2019, the Jerusalem Post asked the American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, “Today being Purim, a celebration, Jews worldwide and here in Jerusalem are talking about the fact that Esther 2,500 years ago saved the Jewish people with God’s help from Haman. And now, 2,500 years later, there’s a new Haman here in the Middle East who wants to eradicate the Jewish people like just like Haman did: the state of Iran. Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”

Pompeo answered that it was quite possible that Trump is the new Esther. Though without the curves, he’s indeed a Jewish whore.

Genocide is at the heart of the Jewish consciousness, you see, but it’s usually done on their behalf, as recounted in Exodus 12:12, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” Exodus 23:23, “My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.” Deuteronomy 20:17, “Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.”

In our era, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran have been in the Jewish crosshairs, and much of the world has gone along with this genocidal plan, because to cross Jews is much worse than to have oceans of blood on your hands.

Masters of inversion, Jews accuse everyone else of a racial hatred they epitomize, but it’s all fine, for their genocidal Yahweh has assured their ancestors, “This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

Linh Dinh’s latest book is Postcards from the End of America. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog.