The other day I attended a talk hosted by Greater Boston Humanists on "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds" given by a Melanie Trecek-King, an associate professor at Massasoit Community College.

I shan’t rehearse her argument here, but there are two points from her talk I wanted to pickup on: (i) the conspicuous avoidance of using the simple word opinions in referring to what she calls ‘subjective beliefs’ and (ii) there is an equivalence relation between one’s identity and certain opinions — nay, “subjective beliefs” they hold.

For clarity according to her, subjective beliefs are claims that cannot be proven false; and she tosses in a few examples few examples, "cats make better pets than dogs," and "[kittens] are cuter than babies," both with which I agree and any who disagrees are wrong and evil for thinking otherwise. 😁

At the time of writing, my blog post is doing a disservice for those who need a review on Trecek-King’s argument to which I hope and trust the GBH will upload the recorded video of her talk accessible to the public at some later date.

Going off Trecek-King’s claim about the equivalence relations between certain held opinions and particular people’s group identity, I want to push further toward realizing the danger when ‘subjective beliefs’ dominate.

It is not the case that the exchanging of facts fail to persuade because facts are ignored or contradicted but rather facts are devalued compared to opinions.

Sometimes opinions do map onto reality as in "my team will win the next game," which either is true or not when the game happens. Such instances and (a Western cultural mindset, do I want to attribute?) reenforces the misapprehension that all statements have a truth value. An implicit premise people hold is opinions must be either right or wrong when in fact opinions are neither.

Second, the opinions one holds are 'right', 'good', 'correct', or whatever whereas contrary opinions are ‘bad’, ‘wrong’, or stupid.

More recent is the egregious examples in which subjective beliefs attain inflated value to the extent of superseding facts and history

When opinions influence public policy, opinions gain a moral force which has implicit an excluded-middle disjunctive truth value.

Opinions used as the basis for social or political policy necessarily pits opposing opinions, and by extension according to the talk, those whose identities subscribed to one subjective belief or another against each other. Well enough for anyone having an opinion or not on topic X but when X becomes a central political issue all the sudden what was one innocuous opinions become a matter or life and death. Our democracy permits everyone has input, of equal weight, regardless if anyone’s opinions is ‘bad’, misinformed, or irrelevant.

Until recent, politics was downstream of culture; now the current runs in reverse. Politics has infective so many aspects of people's lives creating derision within innocuous, apolitical camps, for example the Knitting Wars (I invite one to Google or watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGjl6VhXs4w) which resulted in a dissolution of an online knitting club over the lack f BIPoC representation. Matt Walsh's advocacy journalistic documentary "What Is a Woman?" was poised for distribution well before Justice Jackson was asked that faithful question. When Orwellian obfuscation upends well established facts ('truths') e.g. what is a 'woman' and words, e.g. recession, are redefined in real time, trust and faith in once accepted facts ('truth') shatters the basic foundation on which any can agree. More troubling than selective sharing or withholding of particular facts or whole cloth fabrication for misinformation is reconstituted meaning of ordinary words. If we cannot agree on what is a 'woman' what hope for any communication, let alone an exchange of ideas and opinions? The destruction of logos leaves persuasion by ethos and pathos. No wonder socio-political discourse is in shambles.

 Case in point, here is a video used as a demo for Final Cut Pro, found on the latest MacBook Pro at an Apple store. The video was professionally done, hours of film footage, and several takes to get the scene right. All edited down to a final finished product of 1 minute and 12 seconds. Here was content wherrein the people were doing something.

     I was among those who count themselves fortunate escaping to the beach, but I, speaking for myself, had a horrible time.  There was sun, heat, and . . . kids: three of the very things I hate most. I spent agonizing time, as a third wheel, visiting Revere Beach. I went for the annual sand sculptures contest but my friend and his lady friend were there for the beach. Oh, do not get me wrong, I love the beach, I grew up walking distance from one of the best beaches in the  world especially for surfing. The heat and sun are what I cannot tolerate. Give me an overcast sky, any day, cooler temperatures, ≈ 54˚F, and a more sparse population, then I can revel in the moment while enjoying the seaside landscape.

     Bare in mind, Boston has no beaches. I declare this as a native Californian who grew up and lived by the coast.

     Beyond the video and photos, the beach understood the assignment accomplishing what was intended: I felt relaxed. Although warm, I was overdressed to dip into the water. Instead, I stood in the low tide waves while my feet were awashed by sludgish, brown seaweed. In the late afternoon, we enjoyed a light picnic under the shading tree across the street from the beach while we listened to a band performing covers of familiar pop songs.

     I can admit I have an obsession. I left early before the fireworks to return home in time to watch the night’s episode of “Big Brother” and finishing listening to the podcasts discussions while in transit. Big events happened in the house that delayed completing my reading on Where the Crawdads Sing.

     For some, killing is wrong, thus the debate / discussion ends there.

     The other side would posit “yeah, it is killing something, but . . .” followed by a set of qualifiers, contextuals, and exceptions. For their side, the argument is about the measure of degree or under what conditions is killing allowable, from which various factions and attitudes are derived against the anti-abortionists.

     From this, there are two major — not necessarily strongest, positions. The first goes back to Aristotle: actuality vs potentiality. For Aristotle et. al., a baby is not a baby until a baby is actually a baby. Before birth or any prenatal state is but a potential baby. So one aspect of the abortion debate argues over where to draw the Dedekind cut, if you will, of where life begins; some say at conception, while others mark it at an x number of weeks, and yet others still say all the way up to y number of hours after birth.

     So the other position is arguing that there are certain conditions under which killing is acceptable or desirable compared to an alternative. “Sure, killing is bad, but there are times when killing can result in something good or beneficial, such as a the assassination of Hitler. We are all against mass shootings, to be sure, but mass shooting a bunch of Nazis seems like a good thing.” They would claim there are some situations in which would be better to abort than not.

     Can rattle off a finite number of exceptions for which an abortion is the better option and judge justification of each on a case by case bases. An extreme take on this avenue is wanting to reserve prerogative for all exceptions beyond the rarity of conception from a rape. Of course, sufficient well-crafted or encompassing exceptions effectually nullify any prohibition.

     I am not ignoring the popular, and emotive, arguments for abortion, “my body, my choice”, otherwise, the “body autonomy” argument.

     There is a huge body — no pun intended, of literature on the topic of body autonomy alone which abortion is a subordinate topic. Where body autonomy applies to abortion depends upon the Aristotelian position one has. If they hold the view potential life has equal value to actual life, then there is more than one body of concern, to say nothing of the dad.

     ‘Choice’ is a word that carries a certain amount of baggage. The prerogative of exercising choice and the privilege of having rights is responsibility.

     An interesting caveat is to date the technology exists to where at a certain level of development, if unwanted or for whatever reason, can transplant a prenatal baby into another womb, man, or, dare I say, test tube, and remain there until full maturation.

First, the Bad

In Fiction

• Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun

• Grass by Sheri Tepper

• and a disappointing To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Movies and TV

• “Chariot” (2021)

• “Paradox Lost” (2021) huge disappointing crap with a great title, but goes to show some amateur film makers need alternative pursuits

Second, the . . . “Meh”

Fiction

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb4044672

A romance novel is like popcorn. The pleasure is in the predictability of the story and satisfying while experiencing the narrative, but popcorn experiences are not memorable like the dining experience one has at a restaurant that requires reservations.

From the prologue, the reader knows how the story will go. Missing, compared to Henry’s inspirational ancestor, is the fine ingredient, the Austen twist (I so named after the ankle twist that served as plot twist in Persuasion.)

• H. G. Wells’s The Wonderful Visit 

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1386797 

and

Men Like Gods

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1386427

Non-Fiction

• Bibliophile Diverse Spines by Jamise Harper (2021)   

https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S75C8081810 (Boston public library)

The thesis of the book, “@diversespines, to help readers diversify [i.e. more BIPoC authors] their bookshelves. A champion for amplifying marginalized voices, Jamise passionately believes that reading diversely cultivates the opportunity for growth and understanding.”

Movies and TV

• “Chariot” (2013) entertaining suspense but ending left the audience wondering what eventually happens to the characters

• In a similar vein, “Escape from the Field” (2022) suspense by not answering why strangers are in a corn field puzzle maze, but the ending hints at a sequel which I predict will never be made.

• “Final Frequency”, scholocky sci-fi of the old Saturday night variety once found on the channel formerly called Sci-Fi.

• In the middle of binge watching “Blindspot”, completed season 1 and started into season 2

• “Lady of the Manor”

• “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”

P. S. addition

• “Love on th Spectrum” US version — a reality TV dating show where those on the Autism spectrum are setup on dates with others on the spectrum

An aspect I did not like about the show is how they presume those on the Autism spectrum are only best suited dating others on the spectrum. So the arranged dates seem inauthentic. I preferred seeing how those on the spectrum interacted with those not on the spectrum.

It was my friend, who I told about “As We See It” who in turned telling me about “Love on the Spectrum” and knowing of the cast members, James (in Massachusetts). I cannot say ever I met Steve from San Francisco but I only identified as having Asperger’s at a time when albeit on the same neuro-divergent spectrum Autism was regarded as distinct from Asperger’s.

Third, finally the interesting or great reads.

Fiction

• The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3053518

Unlike most who discovered the novel from the Apple+ television series adaptation, I learned of the story from a spiritual themed vlog post made mention of the series because the multi-universe element to the show which in turn lead me to the book.

Non-Fiction selections

• Performing Al-Andalus Music and Nostalgia Across the Mediterranean by Jonathaan Holt Shannon

• Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1450208

Movies and TV

• “Paulie Go”

I do not subscribe to the current trend of identity politics, but the lead actor in film draws attention why we must have more Asian representation in television and cinema. A wonderfully charming film like a Wes Anderson without the story been drowned out by Anderson’s directorial style.

• “White Hot The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch”

• re-watched “Wondrous Oblivion”

P. S. addition

• “As We See It”, a heartfelt drama about three persons on the Autism spectrum living together visited by a life coach / care aid who helps them navigate living independently

Podcasts

I discovered a couple of podcasts of note

• For those who care about education, there is “EdSurge” which comes out of the Chronicle of Higher Ed

https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/the-edsurge-on-air-podcast

• “The Big Ponder”, small stories, sorry for the crippling analogy, like “This American Life” but with a German bent.

https://www.goethe.de/prj/tbp/en/index.html

“I’ll help you,” she said, “and we won’t need to go anywhere. Poirot says all you need to solve a mystery is ‘the little gray cells.’ ”

“Poirot?” I said. “Who’s Poirot? The curate?”

“No,” she said.“Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie. He says—”

“Agatha Christie?” I said, completely lost.

“The mystery writer. Twentieth Century. My assignment before Lady Schrapnell took over Oxford and my life, was the 1930s, and it’s an absolutely grim time: the rise of Hitler, worldwide depression, no vids, no virtuals, no money to go to the cinema. Nothing at all to do except read mystery novels. Dorothy Sayers, E.C. Benson, Agatha Christie. And crossword puzzles,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Crossword puzzles?” I said.

“Are not particularly useful to our present situation. But mystery novels are. Of course they’re usually about murder, not robbery, but they always take place in a country house like this, and the butler did it, at least for the first hundred mystery novels or so. Everyone’s a suspect, and it’s always the least likely person, and after the first hundred or so, the butler wasn’t anymore—the least likely person, I mean—so they had to switch to unlikely criminals. You know, the harmless old lady or the vicar’s devoted wife, that sort of thing, but it didn’t take the reader long to catch on to that, and they had to resort to having the detective be the murderer, and the narrator, even though that had already been done inThe Moonstone. The hero did it, only he didn’t know it. He was sleepwalking, in his nightshirt, which was rather racy stuff for Victorian times, and the crime was always unbelievably complicated. In mystery novels. I mean, nobody ever just grabs the vase and runs, or shoots somebody in a fit of temper, and at the very end, when you think you’ve got it all figured out, there’s one last plot twist, and the crime’s always very carefully thought out, with disguises and alibis and railway timetables and they have to include a diagram of the house in the frontispiece, showing everyone’s bedroom and the library, which is where the body always is, and all the connecting doors, and even then you don’t have a prayer of figuring it out, which is why they have to bring in a world-famous detective—”

“Who solves it with little gray cells?” I said.

“Yes. Hercule Poirot, that’s Agatha Christie’s detective, and he says it isn’t at all necessary to go running about measuring footprints and picking up cigarette ends to solve mysteries like Sherlock Holmes. That’s Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective—”

 — Chapter Twelve, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

     Inspired by reading Magpie Murders (watching the television adaptation both written by Anthony Horowitz) and re-reading Death on the Nile after watching a recent cinematic adaptation, I recall to mind the movie “Murder by Death” which parodied many of the well-known detectives of literature but excluded the most prominent one. I knew there was something . . ., for the want of a better word, special about Sherlock Holmes compared to the others like Miss Marple. Now I am able to pinpoint the difference between Holmes vs., say, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Each represent two major epistemological schools of thought.

     Doyle’s Holmes mysteries are a proto-police procedural akin to current day “NCIS” where the murder mystery is solved through gathering physical evidence and deducing who the suspect is. Compared to the more Marple or Poirot approach, clues are sprinkled throughout the mystery novel leaving the reader to discern for themselves what clues matter and how only to be corrected by the detective using “the little gray cells” linking selected clues that point to the guilty party. Poirot’s approach is the Rationalists school e.g. Descartes, Spinoza. Whereas Holmes, evidence collecting before naming the likely suspect represents the Empiricist tradition e.g. Bacon, Hume.

• First, is the old Aristotelian distinction between potential vs actual. Some regard pre-birth, potential births, as life while others do not, preferring the actual born babies.

     A subordinate consideration is the quibbling over what constitutes life.

• Then we have the debate between killing life regardless whether potential (at whatever level of development) or actual birth.

     There exists those who see abortion as simply killing. Killing is bad, therefore, abortion is bad. (Albeit a simplic formulation of their argument, nonetheless addresses the ad rem, to most, of the debate. Under what conditions is killing acceptable.)

• Moving further comes, what I describe as the red herring issue*, concerning 'women's body autonomy’. 

     There is a substantial body of literature addressing the varying nuances of 'body autonomy' in the public sphere independent of the abortion topic. For the sake of brevity, and with due apology to both sides I shall make a hash at summarizing the collective points as pertaining to abortion specific.

     On the one hand, women have a right to do with their bodies as they choose. Some might accept that absolutely while others might attach a soften qualifier.

     The other side might argue, the woman does not have that right alone when there is another life in consideration, attached or unattached. (Let me add a popular point usually made by this side, just as a woman/mother has an obligation to her 4-year old child, her 14-year, and, perhaps, her 40-year old child, so too she has obligation to her unborn child. Of course, ‘obligation' imports the whole discussion of normativity, there arises whole sorts of moral debates including religious, utilitarianism, consequentialism, etc.)

• Then there is the issue of the state's involvement which can be described by three attitudes.

     The obvious two is the tussle between whether or not the government should endorse abortion through assigning legality of such action. An attached debate is government funding, direct or indirect, of abortion which is implicit endorsement, e.g. government can make abortion illegal while through providing public services which might include abortion as an option.

     When a democratic based government gets involved, what was once an individual / private concern now becomes a public issue. (An elected official represents the interests of those who elected them. The taxes paid are supposed to fund the interests of the people. If the government subverts that in any way, then there is a problem. Let me make the explicit acknowledgement that within this set of people, there are those who take issue with the government funding, directly or indirectly, or through available public services an action they find objectionable, for whatever reason; and there is a subset of them who feel like morally sinful accomplices by letting such action happen.)

     Then there are those who hold the position that the government should not (/never) weigh-in on such individual, private choices, independent of their personal acceptance or objection to abortion. In other words, the government in no way be involved in abortions, not via funding, through legislation, nor via public services.

* So why a "red herring"? Body autonomy is a separate issue from abortion, in fact, abortion is a subordinate issue to the major topic of body autonomy. In particular, the position one holds concerning body autonomy retreats to outside underlining premise(s) independent of the abortion topic or falls back onto one of either bullet points so cited.

Recent Reads in Fiction

• Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3608317

Inspired by the book publishing connection, I decided reading the next book from my backlog list

• Must Love Books by Shauna Robinson

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb4042653

• The Other Black Girl: a novel by Zakiya Dalila 

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3982315

Recent Reads Non-Fiction

• Suspicious Minds  Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories by Rob Brotherton

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3279943

In the wake of a previous book that had me question my objection to Marx, but I did not want to re-read Marx so opted to re-reading more Foucault. But cheated by reading about Foucault’s ideas rather than reading Foucault himself; that came later.

• Foucault for Beginners 

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1560134

• Foucault: a Very Short Introduction by Gary Gutting

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2492742

• The Foucault Reader ed. by Paul Rabinow

the 1984 edition but I wanted to read the 1997 edition, the difference being . . . I do not know because I did not find a copy of the 1997 edition

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1697605

Recent Re-reads

• Ian Fleming James Bond books, in no particular order

- Moonraker

- Doctor No

- Diamonds Are Forever

- Thunderball

 Missing PAXEast, I re-read this geek-themed romance novel.

• Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert

https://find.minlib.net/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3916613

• After reading and watching the TV series Magpie Murders, I decided  revisiting a couple Agatha Christie titles, one of which before going in onto the latest cinematic adaptation 

- Death[s] on the Nile

- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

For Television and Movies

• “Magpie Murders” — great stuff especially for those who are fans of Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie mysteries

• “Reset” — a 2021 Chinese sci-fi series involving time looping bus riders trying to stop their bus from exploding

• Big Brother Canada season 10 is approaching the final

• “The Batman” 

This is the Batman Christopher Nolan tried and wanted to do, gritty realism, downplaying the costuming villians, done much better and better story arc within a single movie.

Music not bad Direction, who was the director? To me, he was great, again better than Nolan. The Batman/Bruce Wayne himself, ... well, anyone was better than a masking muting, lisping Brit playing an American superhero, but this guy was good.

Actions and cinematography was good.

The aesthetic is different; I repeat, out Nolan's gritty realism that Nolan strived at doing but failed.

I give 8½ out of 10.

“Death on the Nile” 2022 version — good; I thought Gal Gadot as Linnet was perfect — a chef’s kiss casting choice

I re-watched some old and recent favorites

• “The Pink Panther Strikes Back”

• “Johnny English: Reborn”

• “After the Fox”

There exist some more conservative political pundits arguing that the Republicans gain some testicle fortitude and bork President Biden's SCotUS Black woman nominee just as Leftists and Democrats had done so toward Justice Brett Kavanaugh; an equal measure bitter taste to discourage potential future Republican president nominations from past bork attacks. Fine but I think that is the wrong tact, only because the Republicans will lose this battle. Biden's nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, will be confirmed thus she will ascend becoming the next SCotUS Justice. The hypocritical irony is Biden’s single-minded identity properties as the sole parameters for his nominee selection runs counter to his earlier borking who would have been the first Black woman United States Supreme Court justice, Janice Rogers Brown.

I leave url to an Washington Post op-ed piece articulating the details¹, Opinion: Biden blocked the first Black woman from the Supreme Court, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/01/biden-black-woman-janice-rogers-brown/

Resigned in accepting Biden’s superficial (and demonstration in hypocrisy), my fantasy is imagining some level-headed Republican (or Democrat, ha ha) will acknowledge and make a public spectacle of how (Justice) Jackson’s selection and appointment is the consequence of the vapidity of Identity Politics. Justice Jackson, more than Justice Thomas and the late Justice Thurgood Marshall ever were, will be the literal personification of Affirmative Action, some one only there simply because they checkoff the “right” identity boxes and not for their the content of character and qualifications.

Leaving aside Jackson is not the best person for the position, she is not even the best Black, woman for the position. Again, leaving aside the better option such as Amalya Kearse, J. Michelle Childs is far superior than Jackson both in intellect and judicial record. Putting aside my Harvard affiliation for the moment, I think the prejudice for the Ivy League has bias Jackson over the more qualified Black, woman candidate Childs. I think there is a certain misconception that the best (qualified) people can only be found among with an Ivy League pedigree.

1 In the event at some future date, the piece is unavailable, removed, re-edited, placed behind a paywall, or otherwise I copy & pasted the full text that I read saved here.

 Opinion: Biden blocked the first Black woman from the Supreme Court

Marc A. Thiessen

President Biden wants credit for nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. But here is the shameful irony: As a senator, Biden warned President George W. Bush that if he nominated the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, he would filibuster and kill her nomination.

The story begins in 2003, when Bush nominated Judge Janice Rogers Brown to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is considered the country’s second-most important court, and has produced more Supreme Court justices than any other federal court. Brown was immediately hailed as a potential Supreme Court nominee. She was highly qualified, having served for seven years as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court — the first Black woman to do so. She was the daughter and granddaughter of sharecroppers, and grew up in rural Alabama during the dark days of segregation, when her family refused to enter restaurants or theaters with separate entrances for Black customers. She rose from poverty and put herself through college and UCLA law school as a working single mother. She was a self-made African American legal star. But she was an outspoken conservative — so Biden set out to destroy her.

Biden and his fellow Democrats filibustered her nomination, along with several other Bush circuit court nominees, all of whom had majority support in the Senate. Columnist Robert Novak called it “the first full-scale effort in American history to prevent a president from picking the federal judges he wants.” Democrats argued that she was out of the legal mainstream, but Republicans responded that she had written more majority opinions than any other justice on the California Supreme Court — and she was reelected with 76 percent of the vote, the highest percentage of all the justices on the ballot.

When Democrats derailed her nomination, Bush renominated her in 2005. Brown was eventually confirmed by a vote of 56 to 43 — after Democrats released her and several other Bush nominees in exchange for Republican agreement not to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominations. Biden voted a second time against her nomination. He never explained why, if Brown was so radical, Democrats let her through but killed 10 other Bush nominees.

Jennifer Rubin: Biden’s critics are clueless about his pledge to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court

The following month, when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, Brown was on Bush’s shortlist to replace her. She would have been the first Black woman ever nominated to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. But Biden appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to warn that if Bush nominated Brown, she would face a filibuster. “I can assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult fight and she probably would be filibustered,” Biden said. Asked by moderator John Roberts “Wasn’t she just confirmed?,” Biden replied that the Supreme Court is a “totally different ballgame” because “a circuit court judge is bound by stare decisis. They don’t get to make new law.”

What Biden threatened was unprecedented. There has never been a successful filibuster of a nominee for associate justice in the history of the republic. Biden wanted to make a Black woman the first in history to have her nomination killed by filibuster. Bush eventually nominated Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Today, Biden calls the filibuster a “relic of the Jim Crow era.” But he threatened to use that relic as a tool to keep a Black woman who actually lived under Jim Crow off the highest court in the land. The irony is that now he wants to get rid of the filibuster, and claim credit for putting the first Black woman on the court.

There were many conservatives on Bush’s shortlist whose legal philosophy Biden opposed. But Biden only promised to filibuster the one Black woman. Why? Perhaps a clue lies in another confirmation fight that Biden helped wage. In 2001, Democrats blocked the nomination of Miguel Estrada to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. According to internal strategy memos obtained by the Wall Street Journal, they targeted Estrada at the request of liberal interest groups who said Estrada was “especially dangerous” because “he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.” They did not want Republicans to put the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. So, Biden and his fellow Democrats killed Estrada’s nomination — the first appeals court nominee in history to be successfully filibustered. It paid off when President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice.

The Ranking Committee: The 11 likeliest people to get Biden’s Supreme Court nomination

Democrats’ commitment to diversity is a ruse. Biden was willing to destroy the careers of an accomplished Latino lawyer and a respected Black female judge, and stop Republicans from putting either on the Supreme Court. For Democrats, it’s all about identity politics. Indeed, Biden might not have become president had he not made the pledge to nominate a Black woman. That promise helped secure the endorsement of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — which won Biden the South Carolina primary and rescued his faltering campaign.

So, when Biden tries to bask in the glory of his historic nomination, remember Janice Rogers Brown — the Black woman who does not sit on the Supreme Court today because of Biden’s disgraceful obstruction.

      When my local public library announced the novel was scheduled for an upcoming book club meeting, reluctantly, I picked up and read. (“Tolle lege.”)

     Like the television series, an aspect that made me dislike the novel was the non-linear temporal narrative. Such neither added nor enhanced the story. If anything, the effect was a huge distraction and cloaks a confusing, lackluster plot. Plot such as there was, did not appear until I was about 45% way into to the book, and resolved pages — chapters well before the novel’s end pages. While reading, I kept thinking, Where is the story going with these long character backstory diatribes? At best, I am reminded how the back & forth across different character storylines is similar to Virginia Woolf’s intersecting lives narrative in The Waves.

A few bullet points worth mentioning.

• The book contained some bad writing, literally, to the point I was even taken out of the book. The novel could have used another set of editor eyes.

• Borrowing from a point made by a book club member during discussion on the novel, Clark is a central figure that connects almost everyone in the book. Although easy enough thinking Arthur Leander was the linchpin to the story, but when in fact, Clark is character that connects everyone “before” and “post-pan”. The closed set of characters strikes me as a contrived convenience that rings hollow against the effort at realism in the story.

[• P. S. edit Some critics would nitpick on the flawed premise by pointing out how such a virulent virus would have burned itself out long before spreading around the globe killing more than half the population. I am willing to suspend my disbelief on that issue; but what really bothered me is how no one interested in studying the virus survived the pandemic. It was as if, by design?, every person knowledgeable, capable, or willing to tackle the pandemic died. After twenty years, no one, no community has developed beyond an Amish commune lifestyle!? Granted, there are not enough peolpe in the immediate wake of the pandemic apocalypse to worry about grass cutting, but to leave the world as such after twenty years is pure neglect. Why? Are the humans that remain so lazy that they could not be bothered to clear, clean, or recuperate?]

• One of the annoyance of dealing with post-apocalyptic stories are the stupid people who seem to survive and wreck havoc in the community. Leaving aside the cult leaders that inevitably emerge, the real danger are those who lack sensibility and, worst still, lack any skills useful in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Granted not everyone need be some urban prepper or some physician/farmer/mechanical engineer with military experience, but what we are presented in the novel where everyone we know to survive, with exception of Jeevan, is devoid of utility when it comes to surviving a post-apocalyptic situation.

     Let me belabor this point since my observation was challenged by one who failed noticing who survived.

     Long before the Trolley Car Problem became vogue in pop philosophy discourse, there was the Lifeboat Problem. With limited space and resources, who does one choose to save onto the lifeboat? Well, between the great opera singer and the physician, the choice seems simple and clear, almost in any context. (Sorry, Leotyne Price.) What I find striking is how of all the people to survive, the novel opted focusing upon the most useless. As far as the reader knows, no physician survived leaving Jeevan who was a nascent EMT becoming the de facto doctor (who made house calls). After twenty years, he is the sole physician practicing medicine in the whole of the Michigan/Illinois lake region!? Seriously!?

     Further highlighting their stupidity is not realizing downloading the whole of the internet before losing power was unnecessary. They had access to the greatest resource in the world, the public library, or any library for that matter. No need to download Wiki articles on how to farm. Go to to the nearby library and pick-up a book. Want to learn mechanics, go to the library and pick-up a book.

— But they were afraid to leave out their area, I can imagine an interlocutor arguing. Evidently, some one would need to leave, to collect necessary resources such as food, water, and medicine. There were hunters who left the airport. People travelled far and wide came to the airport — nay, the Museum of Civilization. (By the way, in the whole airport, there was only one pilot?)

    Seems to me, the only people to survive the pandemic are the very people who are least helpful, skillful, or* knowledgable in surviving after an apocalypse. [P.S. edit being blunt, no one competent, my original word choice shared at the book club meeting, or proficient at operating a power plant or manufacturing plant survived; even worst none who did survive demonstrated any ambitions at wanting to learn, or scarier still, perhaps none were capable of learning.] Given the post-pan focus upon a transient collective of musicians and thespians, the television show’s BIPoC & non-traditional casting seem to stress the carnival circus aspect, I gather the author, Mandel, was trying to posit the thesis with “survival is not sufficient” motto that the arts have utility even in the most dire of situations such as in a post-pandemic apocalypse.

Now there are, at least, two avenues of consideration. (i) The choice and preference for Shakespeare echoes the attachment to the “before times” which merits a discussion topic in of itself and, what I am responding to most, (ii) the enterprise of the creative arts can only manifest in moments of leisure which happens only when there is sufficient sustainability in the essential elements of survival.

     Circling back to my pet peeve mentioned earlier, without a some goal, the characters are just surviving without incentive at improving their situation. They are living directionless lives. From the text, there is no indication that anyone with interests in recovery (or improvement) had survived the pandemic and thus those left behind are bereft the mental acuity to avail themselves of the existing and useful resources (books from the library, how difficult would it be to haul a bag of fertilizer from Home Depot?) instead rather engage in the quotidian struggle at re-inventing the proverbial wheel. Twenty years might not be sufficient time to restore the world to pre-apocalypse status but some signs or progress would be developing. Restoration does not mean bringing back the iPhone but neither does it mean living like the Amish, or worst, a third nation in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

* As a logician, all uses of disjunctives are inclusive