The New Censors

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”

- Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451

In all things, there are debates about which side is right and which is wrong.  These debates often lead both sides to see nuance, modifying their views and coming to a synthesis idea which is better than either of the original ideas.  Sometimes, the two ideas are diametrically opposed and cannot reach common ground.  For instance, Israel would like to exist and Palestinians - at least their leadership - will only be satisfied if Israel doesn't exist.  Irreconcilable differences.

When the two sides are closely matched in debaters, free and open debate reigns.  The pundit class has long sat across from each other on various news programs to spout their talking points and degrade the arguments of the other side.  The classic of this format was The McLaughlin Group.  Stalwarts Pat Buchanan for the Right and Eleanor Clift for the Left along with a rogues' gallery of guest pundits would discuss the news of the day.  Great stuff!

In recent years, the pundit class has become soft.  Unable to answer the broadsides launched by new players on the field (e.g. Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, etc.), the opposition seeks to ban them.  The current target is Joe Rogan and his Spotify podcast.  Unable to counter whatever arguments are aired on his podcast or reach as large an audience, his adversaries have called for his cancelation.  "We can't win the argument or answer his claims, so we demand that he be silenced."

"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself."

Potter Stewart, Supreme Court Justice

When you call for censorship, you are on the wrong side of history.  The censor does not want to control what information he consumes but rather the information you consume.

Solve Poverty by Giving Cash

EconTalk had Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus of GiveDirectly.  They have been giving cash - no strings attached - to people in poverty.  Their argument is that the recipient, not the donor, is better suited to determine where best to spend the money.  One example was that many recipients in Africa would buy a tin roof.  Though this seemed like an extravagance, it was a cost-saving and quality of life decision.  Tin rooves are more costly but last much longer than a thatch roof, don't get infested with mosquitos, and are less likely to leak.  The other benefit of cash is that it doesn't undercut local industry.  For example, sending excess food to be distributed has the effect of bankrupting native farmers whereas cash will allow recipients to purchase more from local farmers and create local prosperity.

Russ offered the argument that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.   He modified it a bit for our modern age.  Of course, cash gifts will raise the recipients' standard of living while the money is flowing, but once it stops, they will revert to poverty.  The goal must be to improve productivity.  The counter was that programs that sought to 'teach a man to fish' or whatever other skill have not proven effective.  Faye observed that a cash transfer in the United States showed that the children of recipients lived longer, had higher incomes, and attained greater education than the children of those who had not received cash transfers.  This was tracked over a 50-year span.  The pair argued that extreme poverty could be resolved through such grants at a cost of 1% of US and European GDP.

Though obviously some people will spend wisely and improve themselves while receiving grants, it is questionable if most will.  Big lottery winners almost always descend back to their pre-lottery lifestyle when the money is all spent.  Interesting and worth a listen.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

In 1939, Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) dragged the shrouded body across the floor and dropped it into a shallow grave in the middle of the house.  On his way out the door, he ignites the house.  Soon after, he is on a bus that stops near a cafe.  By chance, a dwarf walks by him and he turns to follow him.  He arrives at a carnival and soon becomes a carny himself.  There is Bruno the Strongman (Ron Perlmam), Clem (Willem Dafoe) who has a tent full of pickled oddities as well as the crazed geek who bites the heads off chickens, Zeena (Toni Collette) the Seer, Pete (David Strathairn) the mentalist, Molly (Rooney Mara) the electrical girl, and others.  Stanton is soon having an affair with Zeena, learning mentalism from the frequently drunk Pete, and pursuing Molly.  Before long, he has mastered mentalism and runs away with Molly to start an act.

Two years later, they are having considerable success as a mentalist act.  It is then that Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) attends the show to test his talents.  He proves sufficiently impressive that she provides her card and makes richer marks available.  Of course, her clients are rich and powerful and won't take kindly to him if he is shown to be a fraud.  The payoff is great but so is the risk.

Throughout the movie, Stanton is warned against carrying his mentalism shtick too far, against crossing lines, or starting to believe your own lies.  Despite the wise counsel from every carny he has met, he pushes forward to the big score.

Here is a movie about a bad man who does bad things and has a bad outcome.  Karma.  Though well-made and excellently acted, it is hard to enjoy watching an unsympathetic character on the make.  Sure, his final mark deserves to be cheated, but he's putting Molly in the crosshairs.

Of all the Giullermo del Toro films, this one has the fewest bizarre monsters.  In fact, other than the pickled oddities in Clem's collection, all the monsters are human.  Worse, this is a two and a half hour slog that reaches the conclusion that has been telegraphed from the start.

Hard pass.

Trump Won Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ruled that the 2019 law that allowed mail-in ballots was unconstitutional.  Prior to the law's passage, only 300,000 mail-in ballots were submitted.  These would be the standard absentee ballots that required a request from the voter.  After the law, the mail-in total exceeded 2.5 million votes.  Let's look at the 2020 election results.  The following graph is available at The Data Corner.:

Of particular note, 58% of Biden's votes were mailed-in while only 18% of Trump's were.  Reverting to the previous 300,000, but using the same proportion for each candidate, how does that look:

If mail-in ballots are disallowed, Trump wins 62% of the state compared to 37% for Biden.  This same trend goes across the country.  As I noted in a previous post, nearly 60% of Biden's votes were mailed-in vs. a third of Trump's.  Disallow mail-in, Trump wins in a massive landslide.

Of course, it is too late now.  Biden is president and no court will or should reverse the election, flawed or not..  However, this should be a clarion call to the states to get their voting systems in order.  Right now, too many citizens distrust the outcome of our elections.  It does not matter if the concerns are valid or not, only that the citizens are distrustful.  You want a functioning system that does not see more January 6 events, you need to have a system that both sides trust.

The Law of Innocence

Mickey Haller leaves the bar after celebrating a victory when he is pulled over.  He has been a non-drinker for years and thinks the cop is just harassing him.  However, his license plate is missing.  Then the officer noticed something leaking from the trunk of the car.  It's blood.  The Mickey refused permission to open the trunk, the officer did so and discovered a body.  Mickey finds himself in jail and charged with the murder of a former client.  Though everyone on his team and all his family are certain he has been framed, the prosecution case is strong.  The victim was shot in Mickey's garage at a time when he was clearly home.  Though familiar with the saying that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, Mickey elects to defend himself.  This is no easy task while incarcerated.  Luckily, he has his team doing the legwork outside and even his half-brother Harry Bosch is on the case.  To make matters worse, Covid-19 is a top story and jail guards have started wearing masks.  Can Mickey beat the charges by placing the blame on another party?  Can he overcome the multiple roadblocks that Prosecutor 'Deathrow' Dana Berg keeps placing in front of him?  Even if he can win the trial, can he escape being viewed as a murderer who got away with it?  He wants his innocence confirmed, not merely a not guilty verdict.

A very tense thriller that gives Mickey the experience that all his clients have suffered.  Another excellent story from Michael Connelly.  Though Bosch appears, his part is limited and it feels like he wasn't that much help.  This is something of a Best of Haller story in that so many characters from previous novels return.  Also, for a lawyer, Mickey gets beat up a lot.  In one novel, he was driven off the road, an accident that killed his driver.  In another, he was severely beaten.  Mickey finds himself in the hospital a lot.  Who knew the life of a defense attorney was so dangerous?

Highly recommended.

Return to Paradise (1953)

In the late 1920s, the South Pacific island of Upolu is ruled by a strict pastor, the son of the previous pastor.  Pastor Cobbett (Barry Jones) has regimented the people of the island, using a band of thugs called wardens to enforce his code.  It is for the good of the people that he punishes sin.  On a random day, Mr. Morgan (Gary Cooper) the American lands on the beach and decides to call Matareva home.  Cobbett is adamantly opposed but Morgan enforces his desire to stay.  Unlike the natives, Morgan does not bow to Cobbett's regimentation and is more than willing to stand against the wardens.  Soon, the island is in rebellion and Cobbett's power is gone.  Nonetheless, the folk still attend his church.

Among the islanders, Maeva (Roberta Hayes) pursues Morgan and he relents.  However, he is restless.  He has repeatedly explained how he trusts no one and would have left Cobbett to his despotism if the pastor hadn't interfered with him.  He's a wanderer and plots his departure.  But Maeva is pregnant.  Soon after Turia is born, he leaves the island.

Years later, he returns.  World War II is being fought.  Turia is a young woman and eager to spend time with her famous father, whom the islanders view as a George Washington-like figure.  Morgan is torn between a desire to stay with his daughter and the constant pull of wanderlust.  In a twist of karma, Morgan finds his daughter being romanced by a young American pilot who has crashed on the island.  The parallels between the pilot and Turia to Morgan and Maeva cannot be missed.  Cobbett voices that uncomfortable truth.

This is an unusual role for Cooper, who is usually - in my experience - a paragon of virtue.  Such is not the case for Morgan.  He's rough around the edges and hard on his companions.  Maeva was giving and undemanding, but Morgan couldn't accept her.  He didn't want the commitment.  Always he would hint at his plans to move on.

Cobbett has the most dramatic story arc.  He goes from a strict disciplinarian to a kindly old pastor.  Where he was easy to hate in the early part of the film, he is a beloved member of the island family in the end.  He was never a bad man, just misguided in the way he taught the faith.  Being humbled by Morgan did him a world of good.

Just okay.

Learning from Ginsburg

In the last year of President Obama's tenure, there was much pressure on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire.  She had had several bouts of cancer, starting in 1999.  There was concern that, if the worst happened and a Republican was elected in 2016, she would not survive to 2021.  Though she nearly made it, Trump was able to replace her in the days before the election.    Where Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had only seated two justices each in there two-term presidencies, Trump sat 3 in his single term.

With a Republican wave predicted in November, Justice Stephen Breyer has elected to retire from the Supreme Court.  Though President Biden will still be in office for another 3 years, his margin in the Senate is at stake.  Trump was able to get conservative justices by the barest of margins thanks to the change in filibuster rules for judicial nominees and having a majority in the Senate.  Gorsuch (54-45), Kavanaugh (50-48), and Coney Barrett (52-48) would not have been seated if the Republicans didn't hold the Senate.  Trump would have had to nominate more moderate justices.  By that same token, Biden has a shrinking window in which he can place a liberal justice.  Come next year, Biden's nominees will have to satisfy a Republican majority in the Senate, led by Mitch McConnell.  By leaving now, Breyer's replacement is more likely to share his views, rather than have a watered-down version of his views.