As college students settle into this semester’s final exams, and seniors contemplate graduation, far too many have squandered their studies for death dirges like this:

No sooner had the name of the actor who will inherit the iconic role as the next James Bond been announced, Bond’s obligatory evil nemesis was simultaneously revealed—but in a most unexpected way.

The good news: Israel’s air defense systems—Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, and its vaunted fighter pilots—assisted by the United States, Jordan, England, France and Saudi Arabia, performed brilliantly in intercepting the 300 projectiles (100 of which were ballistic missiles) that Iran launched against Israel on Saturday. Except for an Israeli-Arab child seriously wounded by shrapnel, the nation didn’t suffer a scratch.

A United Nations fact-finding mission, charged with investigating Israel’s war against Hamas, concluded in a widely disseminated and exploited report that the Israeli Defense Forces deliberately target Palestinian civilians.Jewish

THROUGHOUT the 20^th century, the America depicted in Hollywood Westerns and projected onto screens around the world was one of self-reliance and independent thought. A cowboy saddled up alone and ventured off with beans and a blanket. The solitary life of riding a horse for days on end left a lot of time for contemplation—keeping an open mind on the open range.

Beware the Ides of March. Not that Ides! This past Ides of March—give or take a few days. The infamy of that earlier Ides lives on, 2,068 years later, with a similar drama of betrayal, and one not without biblical significance. Today, however, it’s not Julius Caesar asking, “Et tu, Brute?” but the nation-state of Israel, a large knife lodged in its back, wondering, “Et tu, Bide?”