Better to be Wrong?

In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) suggested that doctors should wash their hands between patients.  It so happened that roughly 10% to 15% of women were dying after childbirth.  However, Semmelweis was able to reduce that to less than 1% through his handwashing regimen.  He called for all doctors to do this.  They called him crazy, and he eventually died in a mental institution.  A doctor who had tried Semmelweis' handwashing found that deaths did indeed plummet.  The realization that he had killed so many of his patients led him to commit suicide.  To embrace Semmelweis was to also accept that they had fatally infected many of their patients.  For their own sanity, doctors rejected Semmelweis.

Recently, I listened to a woman - Helen Joyce - who said that the trans debate is not going to fade away.  There are too many parents who have had their children surgically transitioned.  They are committed to the trans camp for life.  To accept that transgender is a mental disorder that should be treated as such is to admit to needlessly mutilating - and likely sterilizing - their children.  Better to stay the course.  In fact, not just stay the course but, like the doctors opposing Semmelweis, denounce those who argue against transgender.  This also applies to abortion.  Those on the pro-choice side are locked into their views because the alternative means they have championed infanticide.  No one wants to swallow that pill.

Quest for Fire (1981)

It is 80,000 years ago and a clan of primitive humans live in a cave.  Though they have fire, it is not something they can create.  Fire is stolen from nature and maintained.  Another tribe, more primitive still, attacks to steal the fire and perhaps some of the women.  Their cave overrun, the survivors flee to an island in a nearby marsh.  They have no fire!  Three warriors are selected to find fire: Naoh (Everett McGill), Amoukar (Ron Perlman), and Gaw (Nameer El-Kadi).  The journey is truly epic, with the heroes escaping saber-toothed tigers, mammoths, wolves, a cannibalistic tribe, a bear, and more.  They inadvertently rescue Ika (Rae Dawn Chong), who follows them despite their efforts to send her away.  Of course, male-female relationships are fairly simplistic at this point and Naoh is the alpha male of the group.

Though the characters speak, it is all gibberish without subtitle.  The meaning is understood through context.  Despite the primitive setting, the adventure is truly epic.  Not only did they overcome immense odds to retrieve fire, they learned new things by interacting with Ika and Ika's tribe.  They get new technologies, they learn to laugh, they discover the missionary position, and more.  Once they have returned and reoccupied their cave, Amoukar tells stories around the campfire of his encounter with mammoths.

The acting is tremendous.  McGill is amazing when he sees another tribe make fire from scratch.  The emotional rollercoaster he shows is quite impressive.  Ron Perlman is Amoukar.  It is always possible to see what he is thinking and feeling whenever he is onscreen.  An outstanding performance.  Rae Dawn Chong shows some dedication in appearing nude - clothed only in mud paint - throughout.  She is the most talkative of everyone (women, right?).

Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.

Asteroid City (2023)

Wes Anderson's latest movie is a tangled mess.  Merely outlining the 'plot' should demonstrate that assessment.  The narrator (Bryan Cranston) states that Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) is a famous playwright.  His latest play, Asteroid City, follows a variety of people who happen to be in Asteroid City for a science competition.  During the festivities, an alien arrives and confiscates the famous asteroid for which the city is named.  A quarantine follows.  Mildly humorous antics follow.  The quarantine is lifted after a week and everyone leaves.  Throughout the play, there are breaks to show behind-the-scenes events or flashbacks to Conrad Earp's creative process, and so on.  To clearly separate these events from the main story, they are shown in black & white.

Augie is a photographer whose wife recently died.  He and his children will be living with his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) for awhile.  Augie's son, Woodrow (Jake Ryan), is part of the science competition.  Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) is a famous actress who views herself as a bad mother; her daughter is another competitor.  There are many other characters, but they are mostly here as background.  As usual for an Anderson film, most of the lines are delivered in something close to a flat monotone.  There is very little emoting.  Based on some of the behind-the-scenes footage and the budding relationship between Augie and Midge, it appears that he is on the mend from his wife's death.  Was that the story?  There was a lot of other stuff here that advanced that plot not in the least.  The playwright claimed the story was about infinity.  I must have missed that aspect.

The movie-play dynamic didn't work.  The set didn't work.  I liked the vibrant visuals, but the silly incomplete overpass was stupid.  I understand that he wants the audience to view this as a play rather than a movie, but that is being too clever by half.  Why do we have background of the play's director's marital issues?  The vending machines that offered virtually anything was amusing, but again beside the point.  It was like a clip show at times.  Oh!  This would be a great bit!  Let's put that in the movie!  Wouldn't it be funny if we had a police chase zip through the town every now and again?  Yeah, let's do that!  Let's do this routine of Augie's car breakdown with Matt Dillon as the mechanic.  Sigh.  Sketch comedy.

Despite a talented cast full of Oscar winners and nominees, this is no better than mediocre.  This is also the first Wes Anderson film in 27 years not to star Bill Murray; maybe that's the problem.  Watch The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou instead.  Only for the diehard fans of Wes Anderson.

The Gates of the Alamo

San Antonio, April 1911: Terrell Mott, a 91 year-old who fought at the Alamo, rides along in the Battle of Flowers parade that his granddaughter organized.  While riding in the back of a Buick, he notes how the city has changed.  Then, he spots a dark man in a jaguar suit who seems to be taking a particular interest in him.  Has death come for him?

La Bahia Road, Spring 1835: Edmund McGown rides toward the coast from San Antonio.  A botanist in the employ of the Mexican government, his payments have stopped.  He attributes this to the frequently changing governments and worries that he will not be able to renew his contract.  On his way, he becomes deathly ill and encounters Comanche.  While crossing the lowlands of Texas, Edmund is always watching for new plant species to catalog: this is the great work for which he will be remembered.

Refugio, 1835: Mary Mott runs an inn with her son, Terrell, and Fresada, a Karankawa Indian.  During a trip to the coast to gather oysters, she is very nearly killed by raiding Karankawa Indians.  In the brief fight, she shot the chief but had her face bashed in by one of the warriors.  Only the intervention of Fresada saved her life.  She is only partly recovered when Jim Bowie visits.  There is also an aloof man named McGown on his way to Mexico.  McGown had missed his original ship to Veracruz and thus stayed at the inn for an extended period.  Most conversations concern the riled state between Texas and Mexico.  Will there be war?  McGown is doubtful.

Zacatecas, May 1835: Telesforo Villasenor is an ambitious lieutenant of the Zapadores with a talent for mapmaking.  During the Battle of Zacatecas, he is wounded in the arm but nevertheless finds his way to Santa Anna to give him a box of chocolates he pillaged.  Santa Anna is touched by this gesture and soon has Telesforo on his staff as a mapmaker.

San Luis Potosi, 1835: Blas Montoya, first sergeant in the Mexican Army, meets with some new recruits.  He likes what he sees.  Afterwards, he is called upon by Captain Loera.  Loera notes that Blas does not have a woman and arranges for him to take charge of Isabella, the woman of a deceased soldier.  Blas reluctantly agrees.  Isabella proves to be a Mayan from Yucatan who speaks virtually no Spanish.  She is viewed as a witch by many, but she has a talent for healing.  When word of rebellion comes, Blas leads his company north to Texas on a brutal winter march.

Terrell, Edmund, Mary, Blas, and Telesforo converge at the Alamo and offer a view of the siege and final battle from various perspectives.  All the principals - Crockett, Bowie, Travis, Santa Anna, Houston - are met by one or more of the characters.  Even after the battle, survivors provide a view of the slaughter at Goliad and the Texas victory at San Jacinto.

The book paints the setting brilliantly, giving one a strong feel for the time and place.  The characters are fully realized, feeling every bit as real as Davy Crockett or Santa Anna.  Better still, the historic events are faithfully related.  Some places where it appeared he was taking liberties proved to be little known incidents that are not typically shown in movies.  Outstanding book and highly recommended.

Indiana Jones & The Sanctuary of the Black Order (2021)

Italy 1939: Indy, Short Round, and Marcus Brody are spelunking through caves in search of the Holy Shroud that covered Jesus when he arose from the dead.  They find a one-eyed woman who claims it has already been stolen.  Then, a trio of Crusader knights attack the heretics who came to steal it.  Indy and crew flee.

Barnet College: Government agents report that some American archeologists have gone missing in Germany; they were looking for the Holy Shroud.  Among the archeologist was Anais Watson, who accompanied Indy on his quest for the Crown of Thorns.  In flashback, Indy and Anais lived together, she got pregnant, he was iffy about the parenthood thing, she miscarried, and they broke up.  Yikes!  Brody declares the situation hopeless and counsels against a rescue mission into Germany.

Prague: Ignoring Brody's advice, Indy arrives in Prague to meet with Sallah and Sallah's brother-in-law, Husani.  Yes, Husani will serve as guide as they ride through Germany on their way to Hamburg.  Okay.  The trio arrive and learn that all relics have been moved to Wewelsberg Castle.  Let's get back on the horses!  Husani complains that it isn't a camel.  At Wewelsberg, Indy encounters a resurrected Colonel Krakauer - he had beheaded him in Crown of Thorns - who proves to be virtually invulnerable.  Uh oh!  The Nazis have created a super soldier.

This is the third Indy fan film with Lluis Ortega and the longest.  The length does it no favors.  Much of the movie drags and the action scenes are often just characters firing from cover and not achieving anything.  Many of the gunfights should have been shortened.  Some action scenes are stolen from other movies, notably Indy chasing down a truck on a horse and then kicking the driver out of the cab.  Why is Sallah in Germany?  Indy should have different contacts for different regions.  Sallah is Indy's Middle East contact and should remain there.  By that same reasoning, what is Short Round doing in Italy?  The love affair between Indy and Anais didn't work.  Another funny thing was that the travel map was modern, showing Prague to be in the Czech Republic.

Resurrection/divine healing features prominently in each of Lluis Ortega's outings as Indy.  There was the Crown of Thorns that brought Anais back to life, the Holy Grail which healed Indy from a gunshot wound in the back, and now the Holy Shroud that created the invulnerable Colonel Krakauer.  If another episode is made, I fully expect them to seek the Holy Rood and discover it has divine healing properties.

Though the weakest of the trilogy, it was still entertaining.

John Wick 4 (2023)

It has been several months since John Wick (Keanu Reeves) survived being shot and falling off the New York Continental.  He has spent the time under the protection of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) to heal and train.  He is now ready to take his revenge.  That does not go so well.  Meanwhile, the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) deprives Winston (Ian McShane) of his hotel for failing to kill Wick (cf. John Wick 3).  Winston contacts John and suggests that he challenge the Marquis to a duel.  Of course, in order to do so, Wick would need a clan, which he no longer has.  Side quest time.  While Wick shoots his way through the various assassins sent to stop him, Caine (Donnie Yen) is also tracking him.  Though a friend of Wick's, he has been sent to kill him.  Of note, he is blind.  Can Wick survive long enough to attend his duel to the death?

The action is plentiful, perhaps too much so.  John Wick has gone from skilled assassin to superhero.  In one of his action pieces, he gets hit by several cars but keeps going.  The bulletproof suits have gotten ridiculous, such that anything but a headshot is negligible.  With how effective these suits are, why do you all have hoodies?  The assassin world has become too big.  Of all things, I was reminded of Harry Potter and how ludicrous it was that the wizarding world was unknown to the muggles despite how vast it was.  They run radio stations with assassin boards and regular notices, scores of assassins are available at a moments notice in Paris to run into John Wick's bullets.  Why do they all want to run up to Wick and shoot at pointblank range?  Have none of you heard of a sniper?

Though great fun to watch, the setting has gone off the rails.  Nonetheless, great popcorn fun and recommended.

Indiana Jones & The Crown of Thorns (2018)

Iraq 1922.  Indiana Jones is enjoying a drink with friends when a Frenchman asks to join them.  His name is Rene Belloq.  It turns out there is trouble at the archeological digs as several artefacts have gone missing and two soldiers have been murdered.  Soldiers enter the bar and arrest Dr. Jones; they find a stolen artefact in his jacket pocket!  Belloq smiles deviously as Jones is hauled away.

Marshall College 1934.  Dr. Jones has recently begun teaching.  However, he has received a letter from Jerusalem that claims a map to the crown of thorns has been discovered.  Marcus Brody agrees to cover Indy's classes so he can investigate.

Jerusalem.  Indy arrives in Jerusalem and meets Anais Watson, the possessor of the map.  The pair set out to find clues at a local church.  Soon, they are trekking through the countryside to locate an ancient underground complex that contains the crown of thorns.

This low-budget fan film was the first of three to star Lluis Ortega as Indiana Jones.  It has a lot of the trademarks of an Indiana Jones film.  There is the map that shows his flight from New York to Jerusalem, there is the beautiful damsel with whom he must team though she may not be trustworthy, there are Nazis in search of ancient relics, and there is even Rene Belloq, the best of Indy's adversaries.  Sadly, the fight choreography is weak and the action scenes are mediocre.  Of course, the film is in Spanish and requires subtitles for those not fluent.

Good popcorn fun!

Deadwood (season 1)

The story opens in Montana Territory where Sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) hangs a prisoner outside the jail door rather than allow a mob to lynch him.  With that as his final act as sheriff, he resigns and leaves for Deadwood.  The road into Deadwood is crowded with wagons bound for the gold rush.  Among the wagons are Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine), Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert), and Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie).  The town of Deadwood is only a few months old and situated on Indian land, thus placing it outside the jurisdiction of the United States.  To make matters more interesting, news of Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn has just happened.  Many of the proprietors are a law unto themselves, most notably Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), the owner of the Gem Theater, which is really a bar and brothel.  Into this maelstrom ride Seith Bullock and his partner, Sol Star (John Hawkes), who open a hardware store.

Many of the characters are historical figures who lived and died in Deadwood while others are composites, and many others are just fictional.  Though many of the events are true, the chronology is not.  For instance, Bullock arrived in Deadwood after Hickok had been killed, but the show has them meeting and becoming friends.  Bullock arrived in early August 1876 (1st episode) and General George Crook arrived in Deadwood in September 1876 (12th episode).  Eventful place!

Ian McShane is too old for the real Swearengen, who was 30 at the time, but he does a great job.  It is no wonder he won a Golden Globe for his performance.  Much as I like Timothy Olyphant, he has a limited emotional range here: simmering anger.  He is too often about to blow a gasket.  So much righteous indignation.  I like the incorruptible good guy more than most but give him a sense of humor.  He's going to have a stroke with how high-strung he is portrayed.  Keith Carradine doesn't last long in the series but makes for an excellent Wild Bill.  Oddly enough, a decade earlier he played Buffalo Bill Cody to Jeff Bridges Wild Bill.

The show does not shy away from profanity and many of the characters are quite proud their colorful speech.  Nudity and violence are also plentiful.  Entertaining and recommended.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

It is the late 1840s when Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) arrives on the frontier.  After purchasing a horse, a mule, a Hawken rifle, and some traps, he sets out for the Rocky Mountains.  He makes a variety of greehorn mistakes but is lucky enough to survive anyway.  He eventually stumbles upon an old mountain man (Will Geer) who deigns to train him.  Armed with new skills, Johnson treks deeper into the mountains and has some success.  He acquires a mute son, a Flathead squaw, and a reputation.  He has achieved something like a happy life before tragedy changes him.  The Crow tribe wronged him and now they are at war.

The movie has an unusual structure: Johnson meets people on his journey and meets them again in the reverse order toward the end of the movie.  In the first meeting, he is a novice on the mountains while in the second meeting he is a living legend.

Based on the true story of Liver-Eating Johnson, the movie gets the gist right if not the details.  Johnson had been in the Navy during the Mexican-American War, but left before the peace.  His Flathead wife was killed in 1847, while the war was still in progress.  His vendetta against the Crow is painted as if he was satisfied after killing a handful of them.  In fact, the vendetta lasted for 25 years and saw Johnson recruiting others to assist him.   He earned his moniker by eating the livers of the Crow that he killed, a facet of the man that the film does not explore.

Overall, a terrific movie and great popcorn fun.  Highly recommended.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1986)

A woman and her mother are murdered in a most grizzly manner in the Rue Morgue of Paris and the city is in a panic.  The Prefect of Police (Ian McShane) has arrested a bank employee, Adolphe Le Bon, who escorted the women home with a sack of 4,000 francs in gold.  As it happens, the man is engaged to Claire Dupin (Rebecca De Mornay) and her father is the famous retired Inspector Auguste Dupin (George C. Scott).  Auguste did not choose retirement; he was pushed out by the Prefect.  However, with his daughter's fiancée in jail, he is obligated to act.  With the help of Phillipe Huron (Val Kilmer), Dupin sets out to solve the insoluble crime.

Though the crime is faithful to the source material, everything else has changed.  C. Auguste Dupin was a young man who solved riddles and mysteries as a hobby; he was the original gentleman detective.  Furthermore, he was on good terms with the prefect who regularly called upon his services.  He had neither wife nor children but lived with another bachelor who served as his Watson.  Though the original story takes place around 1840, this version places it in the 1880s or 1890s; that's Sherlock Holmes' time period.  Of course, keeping with what is written would make for a short movie, so the added characters and conflicts serve a purpose.

Good popcorn fun.

Wars within War

The Mexican-American War was not just one war.  The Mexican government was not popular with much of Mexico and was in a constant state of rebellion.  With the invasion of the Americans, the Mexican government was forced to reallocate its army to resist.  However, that left many of the independent-minded states with an opportunity to rebel.  Many regions declined to provide either money or troops to resist the Americans and there was little the central government could do to force them.  The Mayan population of the Yucatan Peninsula used the war to declare independence and to fight the forces of the central government.  When the American forces routed the Mexican Army at Cerro Gordo (April 1847), the government created the Light Corps to take up the fight.  The Light Corps were granted charters for particular regions where they could attack the Americans, specifically to disrupt supply lines.  They were tremendously effective, but often attacked Mexicans as well as Americans.  When a peace treaty was finally signed, the American troops were soon engaged in putting down rebels against the central government, thus taking over for the army they had destroyed.

Here is a terrific book that details an aspect of the war that is usually glossed over in other works.  Indeed, how is it that history books detail the Battle of San Pasqual - which saw perhaps 150 US Dragoons vs. 75 Californio Lancers - but does not detail Brigadier General Franklin Pierce's column of 2500 troops having multiple clashes with upwards of 1400 Light Corps guerrillas?  The US sought to minimize the guerrilla war, which it was not winning, and thus didn't keep track of these engagements.  Levinson posits that as many as 2800 soldiers died in the guerrilla war but were not classified as such.

A relatively short but excellently researched and highly informative book.  Recommended.

Indiana Jones: Return of Elsa Schneider (2019)

Berlin 1940: Indy (Lluis Ortega) and Sallah (Eduardo Castro) have been captured by Nazis who plan to interrogate them regarding a map.  When the interrogator arrives, both Indy and Sallah are stunned to see it is Elsa Schneider!  Immediately, Indy asks how she survived.  She brushes aside the question and begins her interrogation.  When the Nazi guards are out of the way, she lets Indy & Sallah escape, but requests a meeting later.  On the way out of the Nazi compound, Indy again asks why she's not dead and she ignores him.  Indy arrives at the meeting site and Elsa finally explains that she was seriously injured in the fall but not killed.  The Crusader Knight healed her with the Holy Grail.  She was able to escape thereafter but left the Grail behind.  She would like Indy to help her retrieve it.  He agrees.

This fan film is less than 20 minutes but quite entertaining.  Filmed in Spain, the dialogue is all in Spanish.  The sets, costumes, and cinematography are all low-budget, but workable.  The comical elements are great.  Perhaps the funniest line was when Indy returns home to see his father (Manel Gonzalez), who is dating a new woman.  He is eager to introduce Junior to her: Willie Scott (i.e., Indy's love interest from Temple of Doom).

This is one of three fan films with Ortega as Indy.  Of those, he wrote and directed two of them.  I can hardly wait to see the other films.  Good popcorn fun!  Recommended.

Waiting for the Barbarians (2019)

Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp), a noted figure from the capitol, arrives at an outpost town on the far edge of the empire.  The town magistrate (Mark Rylance) welcomes him and offers whatever assistance he might require.  Among his friends, the magistrate chuckles at the Colonel's mission, declaring that once every generation there arises a fear that the nomadic tribes will rise to attack the empire.  The following day, Joll interrogates a pair of sheep rustlers.  When he is done, one of them is dead and the other has revealed a planned rising among the desert tribes.  The magistrate finds this ludicrous, but Joll sets out into the desert and returns with more nomads to interrogate.  When Joll leaves to report his findings, the magistrate releases all the captured tribesmen and tries to return the town to its pre-Joll state.  However, there is a blind woman (Gana Bayarsaikhan) who begs in the streets.  The magistrate takes her in and eventually discovers that she was blinded, had her ankles broken, and was severely scarred by Joll's interrogations.  The magistrate offers to return her to her people and sets out into the desert with her and a small escort.  Upon his return, Officer Mandel (Robert Pattinson) has taken over the outpost and arrests the magistrate for consorting with the enemy.

The movie plays as a morality tale.  Joll sees an uprising that does not exist and through his efforts to expose it, he has created an uprising.  The peaceful co-existence that had stood for year was broken thanks to the intervention of an emissary from the distant capitol who did not understand the region.  Worse, he ignored the magistrate who was quite familiar with the people and customs.

Based on the uniforms and the setting, I had guessed this was supposed to be the French Foreign Legion in North Africa, but it is a purely fictional empire.  Most of the characters are nameless; that works fine in films, but it is awkward in writing.

Though well-acted, the story is unengaging.  The magistrate is a learned man whose hobbies include archeology and cryptography, but he is often detached from current events.  Sure, he sees what is going on and does not approve, but he is passive about it.  He's just a victim of this series of events.  Victims rarely make for good protagonists, even if they are the only moral and upright characters.

Mediocre.  Skip.

Raven's Hollow (2022)

In 1830, five West Point cadets are riding through the New York countryside when they encounter a crucified man whose intestines are spilling from a slash in his abdomen.  When one of the cadets inspects the body, the man looks up and whispers, "Raven."  He then dies.  The investigating cadet is none other than Edgar Allan Poe.  The cadets take down the corpse and head to a nearby town, Raven's Hollow.  The folk of the town claim not to know the dead man and prove to be unfriendly.  Though most of the cadets would be quite happy to move on, Poe insists that they investigate who murdered the man.  One of the locals, a man named Usher, strongly advises the cadets to leave immediately before the raven kills them.  Sure enough, one of the cadets is killed that night.

The story borrows liberally from Poe's writing, thus implying that this event changed the course of his life.  We have familiar names (Usher, Lenore), familiar themes (a raven, a disembodied heart, a dismembered corpse, a spooky many-gabled house), and an investigation (The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter).  The epilogue has Poe court martialed and tossed from West Point, though the bizarre circumstances are replaced with something believable.

It is curious that two movies (this and The Pale Blue Eye) about Poe's time at West Point should be released simultaneously.  Poe did attend West Point from July 1830 to February 1831.  He was court martialed for disobedience of orders and failure to attend classes.  He had served as an enlisted soldier from May of 1827 to April of 1829, which would explain why he was the cadet in charge.  Of particular note, Poe went by the name of Edgar A Perry during his military service, both as a soldier and West Point cadet.

Though an interesting horror story and mystery, the characterization of Poe is off.  William Mosely plays him as the brave man of action, the standard heroic type.  There is little poetry in his speech.  Though he shows an interest in Charlotte, there is no chemistry on the screen.  Despite this harrowing experience, one does not see this Poe becoming a morose drunkard.  Harry Melling's Poe is far superior in The Pale Blue Eye.

Good popcorn fun!

Thus Spoke SCOTUS

As it did last year, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has handed down controversial rulings.

1. Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruled that the current use of race to determine admission to the university was unconstitutional, violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  Essentially, affirmative action has suffered a blow.  This change is long overdue.  That a less qualified applicant should be chosen on account of race is just racism.  Yes, at one time it may have been necessary to amend for wrongs of the past but it has been half a century.  Those who are 'paying' for this new form of discrimination have mostly been of Asian ancestry.  Let us judge applicants on their merit, not their melanin.  Of note, in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the court had upheld affirmative action, though Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had suggested that it would no longer be needed in another 25 years.  She was only off by 5 years.

2. Biden v. Nebraska ruled that the President cannot forgive student loans.  The court even offered a quote from Speaker Nancy Pelosi who had stated that only the Congress could forgive loans.  The ruling so obvious that it should never have gotten this far.  Congress allocates money, not the president.  It is so clear in the Constitution that one should be concerned that it was a 6-3 ruling.  Of course, President Biden knew - in his lucid moments - that this wouldn't fly but it was a good campaign issue.  All those young voters might gamble on voting Biden/Democrat in order to escape college debt.  Instead, it turns out of if you agree to a loan, you need to repay the loan.  However, colleges should take some responsibility for the ballooning student debt.  One might say they defrauded the student by convincing them that their degree would get them a high paying career rather than a job as a Starbuck's barista.

3. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis held that a website designer was not obligated to design wedding announcements that were contrary to her Christian faith.  This is a repeat of the cake case and also comes from Colorado.  Businesses should have the right to refuse service.  It is curious how these cases are always filed against Christians but never Muslims.  During the cake case, a YouTuber had gone to several Muslim bakeries and was always refused when asking for a LBGT cake.  Why no lawsuit?  That the same case has repeated only for a different product means that there will be more of them.  Christian florists, Christian DJs, Christian venues, and many others will be targeted.  The point may not be to get all the way to the Supreme Court but merely to bankrupt businesses with legal costs.

That the court has made a decided shift to Originalist thinking has triggered the call for packing the court.  Add another 4 justices and we will have 7-6 rulings with the 'correct' outcome.  The court is far too important because the Congress has outsourced its authority to the court and the bureaucracy.  The government is too big, too intrusive, and unaccountable for failures.