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1. I've mixed feelings about A Letter on Justice and Open Debate in Harpers.
Which is also commented on in the NY Times - due to the pursuant debate : An open letter published by Harper’s, signed by luminaries including Margaret Atwood and Wynton Marsalis, argued for openness to “opposing views.” The debate began immediately.
Before I go any further? I don't know if you are familiar with Harper's? But it is a progressive liberal magazine composed mainly of short stories, essays, op-ed's, and lengthy op-eds. It's...very academic and intellectual. Kind of a sophisticated or Ivy League version of the New Yorker. My brother go it for a while - and gave me a subscription once as a present. I'm not crazy about it - but it does have some excellent articles and is an interesting discourse on ideas. Hard to get published in it however, you have to have some serious credentials or know someone.
Anyhow, the list of names on this letter is kind of interesting. Everyone on Twitter and online - went right for JK Rowling, but she's actually the least interesting name on the list. She may be the most well-known, but she's the least interesting.
It's suffice to say a diverse list including people like Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Wynton Marsalis, Gloria Steinman, various historians, academics, musicians, Salaman Rushdie, etc. (Salaman Rushdie received death threats when he wrote his books, and had to go into exile from his homeland, and many on the list have had similar fates.)
He said there wasn’t one particular incident that provoked the letter. But he did cite several recent ones, including the resignation of more than half the board of the National Book Critics Circle over its statement supporting Black Lives Matter, a similar blowup at the Poetry Foundation, and the case of David Shor, a data analyst at a consulting firm who was fired after he tweeted about academic research linking looting and vandalism by protesters to Richard Nixon’s 1968 electoral victory.
Such incidents, Mr. Williams said, both fueled and echoed what he called the far greater and more dangerous “illiberalism” of President Trump.
“Donald Trump is the Canceler in Chief,” he said. “But the correction of Trump’s abuses cannot become an overcorrection that stifles the principles we believe in.”
Mr. Williams said the letter was very much a crowdsourced effort, with about 20 people contributing language. Then it was circulated more broadly for signatures, in what he describes as a process that was both “organic” and aimed at getting a group that was maximally diverse politically, racially and otherwise.
“We’re not just a bunch of old white guys sitting around writing this letter,” Mr. Williams, who is African-American, said. “It includes plenty of Black thinkers, Muslim thinkers, Jewish thinkers, people who are trans and gay, old and young, right wing and left wing.”
“We believe these are values that are widespread and shared, and we wanted the list to reflect that,” he said.
Signatories include the leftist Noam Chomsky and the neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. There are also figures associated with the traditional defense of free speech, including Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as some outspoken critics of political correctness on campuses, including the linguist Steven Pinker and the psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
The signers also include some figures who have lost positions amid controversies, including Ian Buruma, the former editor of the New York Review of Books, and Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor who left his position as faculty dean of an undergraduate residence amid protests over his legal defense of Harvey Weinstein.
There are also some leading Black intellectuals, including the historian Nell Irvin Painter, the poets Reginald Dwayne Betts and Gregory Pardlo, and the linguist John McWhorter. And there are a number of journalists, including several opinion columnists for The New York Times.
Nicholas Lemann, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a former dean of Columbia Journalism School, said that he rarely signs letters, but thought this one was important.
“What concerns me is a sense that a lot of people out there seem to think open argument over everything is an unhealthy thing,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life having vigorous arguments with people I disagree with, and don’t want to think we are moving out of this world.”
The principle of open argument, he added, becomes especially important outside liberal-leaning enclaves, “where people don’t have the option of shutting down these supposedly completely unacceptable views.”
Mr. Pardlo said that as somebody who has felt the “chilling effect” of being the only person of color in predominantly white institutions, he hoped the letter would spark conversation about those “chilling forces, no matter where they come from.”
He said he was surprised by some of the blowback to the letter.
“It seems some of the conversation has turned to who the signatories are more than the content of the letter,” he said.
There was particularly strong blowback over the inclusion of J.K. Rowling, who has come under fierce criticism over a series of comments widely seen as anti-transgender.
Emily VanDerWerff, a critic at large at Vox who is transgender, posted on Twitter a letter she said she had sent to her editors, criticizing the fact that the Vox writer Matthew Yglesias had signed the letter, which she said was also signed by “several prominent anti-trans voices” — but noted that she was not calling for Mr. Yglesias to be fired or reprimanded.
Doing so “would only solidify, in his own mind, the belief that he is being martyred,” she wrote.
Mr. Yglesias declined to comment except to say that he has long admired Ms. VanDerWerff’s work and continued to “respect her enormously.”
Amid the intense criticism, some signatories appeared to back away from the letter. On Tuesday evening, the historian Kerri K. Greenidge tweeted “I do not endorse this![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
harpers letter,” and said she was in touch with the magazine about a retraction. (Giulia Melucci, a spokeswoman for Harper’s, said the magazine had fact-checked all signatures and that Dr. Greenidge had signed off. But she said the magazine is “respectfully removing her name.”)
Another person who signed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in an effort to stay out of the growing storm, said she did not know who all the other signatories were when she agreed to participate, and if she had, she may not have signed. She also said that the letter, which was about internet shaming, among other things, was now being used to shame people on the internet.
But Mr. Betts, the director of the Million Books Project, a new effort aimed at getting book collections to more than 1,000 prisons, was unfazed by the variety of signers.
“I’m rolling with people I wouldn’t normally be in a room with,” he said. “But you need to concede that what’s in the letter is worthy of some thought.”
He said that as someone who had spent more than eight years in prison for a carjacking committed when he was a teenager, he was given pause by what he called the unforgiving nature of the current moment. “It’s antithetical to my notion of how we need to deal with problems in society,” he said.
He cited in particular the case of James Bennet, who resigned as the editorial page editor of The New York Times following an outcry over an Op-Ed by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, and cases of authors of young adult literature withdrawing books in the face of criticism over cultural appropriation.
“You can criticize what people say, you can argue about platforms,” Mr. Betts said. “But it seems like some of the excesses of the moment are leading people to be silenced in a new way.”
Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Mr. Williams said he was trying to think through how outrage over Mr. Floyd’s death had become so intertwined with calls for change “at organizations that don’t have much to do with the situation George Floyd found himself in.”
But to him, he said, the cause of the letter is clear: “It’s a defense of people being able to speak and think freely without fear of punishment or retribution, of the right to disagree and not fear for your employment.”
I like what the NY Times article states about this. I've noticed a lot of righteous folks online have forgotten how to be kind. More can be achieved with kindness than righteous indignation which like it or not can often take the guise of bullying, or so I've discovered. (I've been attacked and bullied by people whose politics and views I actually agree with because they either misread what I said, I made a typo and wasn't careful enough with my phrasing, or they couldn't handle any questions or criticism of their righteous views.) Righteousness tends to lead to damnation. Always. Always. We tend to demonize the other, as opposed to their actions and words - and the very act of demonizing is often utilized against us by someone else.
The Universe has a wicked sense of humor - it likes to thrust us on the opposite of every argument we've ever been on. I sometimes think the Universe thrives on dramatic and comedic irony.
2. 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books on Good Reads - keep in mind it is Good Reads, which has funky taste to begin with.
I've read roughly 40% of them. Mainly because I leap frog around genres, and there's more books out there than I have time to read, and I've been in a book reading slump since Feb. I have not finished one book since Feb. Or made much progress on the novel I'm writing. But I've written a lot of DW posts, and completed a lot of actual work. Plus taken a lot of photos of a cemetery.
3. Flirting with television shows, so if you've seen any of the below and can offer thoughts or a synopsis or rec, appreciate it.
* Black Sails - about six episodes in, very compelling. But, I'm wondering if I'm loving the wrong characters? I adore the real life fictionalized pirates, Jack, Anne Bonny, and Vane. Also Max. Long John Silver gets on my nerves, I want to smack him. I do however like Flint. Also want to smack Billy Bones. And I like Mrs. Barrow. But Eleanor is also getting on my nerves.
Should I stick with it? Does it get better? Does it end on a cliff-hanger?
Is there a lot of sexual violence?
* The Mandalorian - is this more adult or kid fare? How would you describe it? I loved Star Wars, Empire, Return - was kind of silly, Force Awakens - I liked. My favorite - Rogue One and Empire, actually. They haunt me. Everything else...eh.
* Warrior Nun - what's this one about and is it any good? It looks like fun and I think it is off a book I was flirting with a while ago.
* The Order - on Netflix - anyone seen it?
Can anyone rec a good supernatural soap? (I've seen Vamp Diaries, Legacies, Supernatural, Angel, Buffy...)
* Avatar: the Last Airbender - is this really just for kids? Is it all coming of age? Any romance? Any older characters?
Thanks in advance.
4. John Scalzi writes about a friend who turned out to be a creep - Kind of depressing. The owner of the sci-fi book store Borderlands, which helped launch a lot of Sci-Fi writers, turns out to be a sexual predator who used the store and his position in the Sci-Fi community to prey on the vulnerable and weak within it. What's interesting about the article he links to - Alan Betts - Borderlands Books Owner Accused of Sexual Assault by Own Daughter - is that the daughter states " she did not want to “cancel” her father “who has done a lot of good in her life” and who was “her best friend” growing up. She told Keene that speaking out was not meant to ruin his life or get revenge. " (By the way, you may not want to read those articles - if you've suffered in this manner yourself - most likely will be very triggering. It bothered me, and I haven't experienced it.)
5. Good news...sort of..
* Supreme Court Says Eastern Half of Oklahoma is Native American Land.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a huge swath of Oklahoma is Native American land for certain purposes, siding with a Native American man who had challenged his rape conviction by state authorities in the territory.
The 5-4 decision, with an opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, endorsed the claim of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to the land, which encompasses 3 million acres in eastern Oklahoma, including most of the city of Tulsa.
The decision means that only federal authorities, no longer state prosecutors, can lodge charges against Native Americans who commit serious alleged crimes on that land, which is home to 1.8 million people. Of those people, 15% or fewer are Native Americans.
“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,” Gorsuch wrote.
“Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” he wrote.
Proof that you have no idea what these people will do.
* Trump isn't King and not above the Law - although COVID crisis has kind of shown the world the limits of the President of the US powers. He really has no control over what each individual state chooses to do within its own jurisdiction.
Voting 7-2, the high court rejected the president’s contention that he was immune from investigation simply because he lives in the White House. Writing for the court’s majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued: “We cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate under article II or the supremacy clause.”
Trump learned the hard way that the US constitution is neither invisibility cloak nor rag. It is also not whatever the president says it is.
As Roberts framed things, “No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.” Significantly, under the court’s ruling, the lower court will continue to exercise oversight of the proceedings.
In a separate ruling, issued minutes later and by a 7-2 margin, the court rejected the president’s contention that Congress had no right whatsoever to review his tax returns and financials. Roberts observed: “When Congress seeks information ‘needed for intelligent legislative action’, it ‘unquestionably’ remains ‘the duty of all citizens to cooperate’.”
The House of Representatives had cast a particular eye on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his de facto lender of choice and last resort. On the other hand, the court denied Congress instant access to the records.
The majority held that the lower courts had paid insufficient attention to the issue of separation of powers and the potential for encroachment upon the executive branch. In other words, this battle will continue beyond Trump’s tenure unless a Biden administration weighs in. And even then.
Which is also commented on in the NY Times - due to the pursuant debate : An open letter published by Harper’s, signed by luminaries including Margaret Atwood and Wynton Marsalis, argued for openness to “opposing views.” The debate began immediately.
Before I go any further? I don't know if you are familiar with Harper's? But it is a progressive liberal magazine composed mainly of short stories, essays, op-ed's, and lengthy op-eds. It's...very academic and intellectual. Kind of a sophisticated or Ivy League version of the New Yorker. My brother go it for a while - and gave me a subscription once as a present. I'm not crazy about it - but it does have some excellent articles and is an interesting discourse on ideas. Hard to get published in it however, you have to have some serious credentials or know someone.
Anyhow, the list of names on this letter is kind of interesting. Everyone on Twitter and online - went right for JK Rowling, but she's actually the least interesting name on the list. She may be the most well-known, but she's the least interesting.
It's suffice to say a diverse list including people like Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Wynton Marsalis, Gloria Steinman, various historians, academics, musicians, Salaman Rushdie, etc. (Salaman Rushdie received death threats when he wrote his books, and had to go into exile from his homeland, and many on the list have had similar fates.)
He said there wasn’t one particular incident that provoked the letter. But he did cite several recent ones, including the resignation of more than half the board of the National Book Critics Circle over its statement supporting Black Lives Matter, a similar blowup at the Poetry Foundation, and the case of David Shor, a data analyst at a consulting firm who was fired after he tweeted about academic research linking looting and vandalism by protesters to Richard Nixon’s 1968 electoral victory.
Such incidents, Mr. Williams said, both fueled and echoed what he called the far greater and more dangerous “illiberalism” of President Trump.
“Donald Trump is the Canceler in Chief,” he said. “But the correction of Trump’s abuses cannot become an overcorrection that stifles the principles we believe in.”
Mr. Williams said the letter was very much a crowdsourced effort, with about 20 people contributing language. Then it was circulated more broadly for signatures, in what he describes as a process that was both “organic” and aimed at getting a group that was maximally diverse politically, racially and otherwise.
“We’re not just a bunch of old white guys sitting around writing this letter,” Mr. Williams, who is African-American, said. “It includes plenty of Black thinkers, Muslim thinkers, Jewish thinkers, people who are trans and gay, old and young, right wing and left wing.”
“We believe these are values that are widespread and shared, and we wanted the list to reflect that,” he said.
Signatories include the leftist Noam Chomsky and the neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. There are also figures associated with the traditional defense of free speech, including Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as some outspoken critics of political correctness on campuses, including the linguist Steven Pinker and the psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
The signers also include some figures who have lost positions amid controversies, including Ian Buruma, the former editor of the New York Review of Books, and Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor who left his position as faculty dean of an undergraduate residence amid protests over his legal defense of Harvey Weinstein.
There are also some leading Black intellectuals, including the historian Nell Irvin Painter, the poets Reginald Dwayne Betts and Gregory Pardlo, and the linguist John McWhorter. And there are a number of journalists, including several opinion columnists for The New York Times.
Nicholas Lemann, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a former dean of Columbia Journalism School, said that he rarely signs letters, but thought this one was important.
“What concerns me is a sense that a lot of people out there seem to think open argument over everything is an unhealthy thing,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life having vigorous arguments with people I disagree with, and don’t want to think we are moving out of this world.”
The principle of open argument, he added, becomes especially important outside liberal-leaning enclaves, “where people don’t have the option of shutting down these supposedly completely unacceptable views.”
Mr. Pardlo said that as somebody who has felt the “chilling effect” of being the only person of color in predominantly white institutions, he hoped the letter would spark conversation about those “chilling forces, no matter where they come from.”
He said he was surprised by some of the blowback to the letter.
“It seems some of the conversation has turned to who the signatories are more than the content of the letter,” he said.
There was particularly strong blowback over the inclusion of J.K. Rowling, who has come under fierce criticism over a series of comments widely seen as anti-transgender.
Emily VanDerWerff, a critic at large at Vox who is transgender, posted on Twitter a letter she said she had sent to her editors, criticizing the fact that the Vox writer Matthew Yglesias had signed the letter, which she said was also signed by “several prominent anti-trans voices” — but noted that she was not calling for Mr. Yglesias to be fired or reprimanded.
Doing so “would only solidify, in his own mind, the belief that he is being martyred,” she wrote.
Mr. Yglesias declined to comment except to say that he has long admired Ms. VanDerWerff’s work and continued to “respect her enormously.”
Amid the intense criticism, some signatories appeared to back away from the letter. On Tuesday evening, the historian Kerri K. Greenidge tweeted “I do not endorse this
harpers letter,” and said she was in touch with the magazine about a retraction. (Giulia Melucci, a spokeswoman for Harper’s, said the magazine had fact-checked all signatures and that Dr. Greenidge had signed off. But she said the magazine is “respectfully removing her name.”)Another person who signed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in an effort to stay out of the growing storm, said she did not know who all the other signatories were when she agreed to participate, and if she had, she may not have signed. She also said that the letter, which was about internet shaming, among other things, was now being used to shame people on the internet.
But Mr. Betts, the director of the Million Books Project, a new effort aimed at getting book collections to more than 1,000 prisons, was unfazed by the variety of signers.
“I’m rolling with people I wouldn’t normally be in a room with,” he said. “But you need to concede that what’s in the letter is worthy of some thought.”
He said that as someone who had spent more than eight years in prison for a carjacking committed when he was a teenager, he was given pause by what he called the unforgiving nature of the current moment. “It’s antithetical to my notion of how we need to deal with problems in society,” he said.
He cited in particular the case of James Bennet, who resigned as the editorial page editor of The New York Times following an outcry over an Op-Ed by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, and cases of authors of young adult literature withdrawing books in the face of criticism over cultural appropriation.
“You can criticize what people say, you can argue about platforms,” Mr. Betts said. “But it seems like some of the excesses of the moment are leading people to be silenced in a new way.”
Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Mr. Williams said he was trying to think through how outrage over Mr. Floyd’s death had become so intertwined with calls for change “at organizations that don’t have much to do with the situation George Floyd found himself in.”
But to him, he said, the cause of the letter is clear: “It’s a defense of people being able to speak and think freely without fear of punishment or retribution, of the right to disagree and not fear for your employment.”
I like what the NY Times article states about this. I've noticed a lot of righteous folks online have forgotten how to be kind. More can be achieved with kindness than righteous indignation which like it or not can often take the guise of bullying, or so I've discovered. (I've been attacked and bullied by people whose politics and views I actually agree with because they either misread what I said, I made a typo and wasn't careful enough with my phrasing, or they couldn't handle any questions or criticism of their righteous views.) Righteousness tends to lead to damnation. Always. Always. We tend to demonize the other, as opposed to their actions and words - and the very act of demonizing is often utilized against us by someone else.
The Universe has a wicked sense of humor - it likes to thrust us on the opposite of every argument we've ever been on. I sometimes think the Universe thrives on dramatic and comedic irony.
2. 100 Most Popular Sci-Fi Books on Good Reads - keep in mind it is Good Reads, which has funky taste to begin with.
I've read roughly 40% of them. Mainly because I leap frog around genres, and there's more books out there than I have time to read, and I've been in a book reading slump since Feb. I have not finished one book since Feb. Or made much progress on the novel I'm writing. But I've written a lot of DW posts, and completed a lot of actual work. Plus taken a lot of photos of a cemetery.
3. Flirting with television shows, so if you've seen any of the below and can offer thoughts or a synopsis or rec, appreciate it.
* Black Sails - about six episodes in, very compelling. But, I'm wondering if I'm loving the wrong characters? I adore the real life fictionalized pirates, Jack, Anne Bonny, and Vane. Also Max. Long John Silver gets on my nerves, I want to smack him. I do however like Flint. Also want to smack Billy Bones. And I like Mrs. Barrow. But Eleanor is also getting on my nerves.
Should I stick with it? Does it get better? Does it end on a cliff-hanger?
Is there a lot of sexual violence?
* The Mandalorian - is this more adult or kid fare? How would you describe it? I loved Star Wars, Empire, Return - was kind of silly, Force Awakens - I liked. My favorite - Rogue One and Empire, actually. They haunt me. Everything else...eh.
* Warrior Nun - what's this one about and is it any good? It looks like fun and I think it is off a book I was flirting with a while ago.
* The Order - on Netflix - anyone seen it?
Can anyone rec a good supernatural soap? (I've seen Vamp Diaries, Legacies, Supernatural, Angel, Buffy...)
* Avatar: the Last Airbender - is this really just for kids? Is it all coming of age? Any romance? Any older characters?
Thanks in advance.
4. John Scalzi writes about a friend who turned out to be a creep - Kind of depressing. The owner of the sci-fi book store Borderlands, which helped launch a lot of Sci-Fi writers, turns out to be a sexual predator who used the store and his position in the Sci-Fi community to prey on the vulnerable and weak within it. What's interesting about the article he links to - Alan Betts - Borderlands Books Owner Accused of Sexual Assault by Own Daughter - is that the daughter states " she did not want to “cancel” her father “who has done a lot of good in her life” and who was “her best friend” growing up. She told Keene that speaking out was not meant to ruin his life or get revenge. " (By the way, you may not want to read those articles - if you've suffered in this manner yourself - most likely will be very triggering. It bothered me, and I haven't experienced it.)
5. Good news...sort of..
* Supreme Court Says Eastern Half of Oklahoma is Native American Land.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a huge swath of Oklahoma is Native American land for certain purposes, siding with a Native American man who had challenged his rape conviction by state authorities in the territory.
The 5-4 decision, with an opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, endorsed the claim of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to the land, which encompasses 3 million acres in eastern Oklahoma, including most of the city of Tulsa.
The decision means that only federal authorities, no longer state prosecutors, can lodge charges against Native Americans who commit serious alleged crimes on that land, which is home to 1.8 million people. Of those people, 15% or fewer are Native Americans.
“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,” Gorsuch wrote.
“Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” he wrote.
Proof that you have no idea what these people will do.
* Trump isn't King and not above the Law - although COVID crisis has kind of shown the world the limits of the President of the US powers. He really has no control over what each individual state chooses to do within its own jurisdiction.
Voting 7-2, the high court rejected the president’s contention that he was immune from investigation simply because he lives in the White House. Writing for the court’s majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued: “We cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate under article II or the supremacy clause.”
Trump learned the hard way that the US constitution is neither invisibility cloak nor rag. It is also not whatever the president says it is.
As Roberts framed things, “No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.” Significantly, under the court’s ruling, the lower court will continue to exercise oversight of the proceedings.
In a separate ruling, issued minutes later and by a 7-2 margin, the court rejected the president’s contention that Congress had no right whatsoever to review his tax returns and financials. Roberts observed: “When Congress seeks information ‘needed for intelligent legislative action’, it ‘unquestionably’ remains ‘the duty of all citizens to cooperate’.”
The House of Representatives had cast a particular eye on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his de facto lender of choice and last resort. On the other hand, the court denied Congress instant access to the records.
The majority held that the lower courts had paid insufficient attention to the issue of separation of powers and the potential for encroachment upon the executive branch. In other words, this battle will continue beyond Trump’s tenure unless a Biden administration weighs in. And even then.
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I vaguely remember Earth: Final Conflict - yes, that had very bad dialogue. LOL! So too did the mini-series V. And...Earth 2. Oh, being a genre fan can be a painful thing.
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