Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: She Said

#MeToo

In late November, my wife and I saw the new movie She Said at the Landmark cinema Spectrum 8 in Albany. It’s about New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan), who broke the story that helped drive the #Metoo movement, especially as it applied to the Hollywood establishment.

It felt like real journalism, partly because of the shots inside and outside the Times offices. Among the big takeaways is that good journalism is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

Finding the information and getting people to go on the record about sexual assaults by powerful people that took place years ago is difficult. When there are non-disclosure agreements involved, it’s even harder.

Add to this the reporters trying to have a semblance of a real life, with husbands and children – which felt genuine – and you also get the struggle of being working moms.

We liked it. The acting by the leads and by Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, and others was uniformly solid.

Compare and contrast

My issue is that it was a little too low-energy. I could not help but think about the film Spotlight. The stories are similar, the real-life story of a great northeastern newspaper – the Boston Globe – taking on a powerful institution – the local Roman Catholic church – over abusing the less powerful.

Spotlight, though, was tenser. In She Said, Harvey Weinstein offered threats of retaliation on the phone. But in Spotlight, it felt that if the reporters didn’t get it right, their investigative unit might have been dismantled, and the paper excoriated literally from the pulpits. In Spotlight, the movie made me feel that a lot was at stake; She Said proclaimed it but was less successful in presenting it.

Still, I would recommend She Said. It ought to be seen. It did a terrible box office, despite decent reviews. There were fewer than a dozen people at our Thursday matinee, two men and the rest, women.

Chaos as Civics Lessons

Emoluments

I’ve been trying to reframe the last few years. Maybe we should embrace the chaos as civics lessons.

ITEM: There were discussions about whether the previous guy in the White House was profiting off the office. “Generally, these anti-corruption provisions, the so-called Emoluments Clauses, prohibit the president from receiving any profit, gain, or advantage from any foreign or domestic government. Impeachment, as outlined by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65, is a political remedy (though not the only remedy) for a president’s egregious violations of these prohibitions.”

Alas, in January 2021, the justices of the Supreme Court “dismissed two cases about then-President Trump’s alleged violations of the Emoluments Clauses… In doing so, the Court forfeited a golden opportunity to clarify just what these mandates mean for future presidents. And its refusal to rule one way or another may inadvertently encourage another president to brazenly leverage his or her power for profit.”

I dare say most readers had never heard of the word “emoluments” before 2017. So the citizenry is better informed, right?

Counting the electoral votes

ITEM: Did you know that Congress meets on the 6th of January after the Presidential election to count the electoral votes? Well, since 2021, NOW you do. It’s right there in 3 U.S. Code § 15.

As an old poli sci major, I was aware of it, but I never paid any attention until 2001, when there was some noise about challenging the Bush victory, but it was all bluster. I did follow it in 2009 because I couldn’t believe, in a good way, that Barack Obama was going to become President. But I all but forgot in 2005 and 2013, after W and Obama were reelected.

I noted it in 2017 because I couldn’t believe, in a not-so-good way, that djt was going to become President. Then I heard him, in his idolatry, say that Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election results.

Still, the 2021 event was supposed to be largely ceremonial, with Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and others bringing their families to watch the beginning of the peaceful transfer of power. That didn’t work out as well as it might have.

And the US has exported political chaos to Brazil as Bolsonaro backers stormed government buildings in a January 6-style attempted coup. The country’s President, Congress, and its top court have jointly said the actions were terrorist acts. Last I checked, Bolsonaro had taken refuge in Florida.

Picking the Speaker

ITEM: Electing a Speaker of the House is usually a pretty straightforward process, though some horsetrading takes place. For instance, when Nancy Pelosi was up for the job in early 2019, she agreed to limit her tenure to two two-year terms. (I remembered that, but I also read it in a right-wing publication trying disingenuously to show that Kevin McCarthy’s difficulties weren’t all that uncommon.)

Well, a 15th ballot is rather unusual.

I knew one did not need to be a member of the House of Representatives to be the Speaker, though I believe it’s always been a Congressperson. So when Matt Gaetz nominated djt, there was no specific prohibition against that.

What ARE the legal requirements?

“Constitutionally, a current member of the Executive branch is prohibited from simultaneously holding office in the Legislative Branch. The Ineligibility Clause (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 states:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

But I could find nothing SPECIFICALLY that indicates whether the Speaker must be a certain age; members of the House have to be 25. I suppose someone too young to vote could be selected.

Incidentally, during the first week in January, C-SPAN Was America’s Hottest TV Drama.

Word of the Day: Scrablize

Word of the Day

The Word of the Day guy, Anu Garg, wrote about how he loved the game SCRABBLE when he was a kid. This led him to create the game Scrablize.

My aunt Deana (1908-1966) played SCRABBLE with me a lot, from when I was in first grade, c. 1959 until she died. I learned to love the game, though I haven’t played it in over a decade.

A more obsessive Anu has an even more compelling story, which you should read. The relevant part is only 300 words long.

“Last year, I started wondering what if there’s a way to arrange any text into a Scrabble-like grid. So I created Scrablize.

“You give it any text, names of your family members or the full-text of ‘Romeo and Juliet.” It will return you the words in a beautiful grid.” I tried it with the names of my family members, which was fun. And sharable.

“Give it a try, and let me know what you think. It’s a work-in-progress, so any bugs and suggestions are most welcome. It works in dozens of languages.”

The text I used for this post should be familiar to most Americans. In the tradition of old Marvel Comics, there will be a No-Prize for the first person who can identify it.

By the way, I think Scrablize works better with the one B he used than with two for various reasons, including as a pronunciation guide.

MLK: “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore”

Two years after Brown v. Board of Education

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the sermon “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore” on May 17, 1956, to 12,000 people. The venue was the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the headquarters of the Episcopal Diocese of New York State.

The occasion was an ecumenical program commemorating the second anniversary of the Supreme Court school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. As the Montgomery bus boycott was still going on, this was early in this phase of the civil rights movement.

King had preached this sermon at least twice in the past, based on the biblical story of the exodus from Egypt, comparing the Israelites’ captivity with the plight of African Americans. The scripture text was: “And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore.”-Exodus 14: 30

I try to find sermons by MLK for the holiday that are both well-regarded yet largely unfamiliar.

Evil

There is hardly anything more obvious than the fact that evil is present in the universe. It projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles into every level of human existence. We may debate over the origin of evil, but only the person victimized with a superficial optimism will debate over its reality. Evil is with us as a stark, grim, and colossal reality…

But we need not stop with the glaring examples of the Bible to establish the reality of evil; we need only to look out into the wide arena of everyday life. We have seen evil in tragic lust and inordinate selfishness. We have seen it in high places where men are willing to sacrifice truth on the altars of their self-interest. We have seen it in imperialistic nations trampling over other nations with the iron feet of oppression. We have seen it clothed in the garments of calamitous wars which left battlefields painted with blood, filled nations with widows and orphans, and sent men home physically handicapped and psychologically wrecked. We have seen evil in all of its tragic dimensions…

[The telling of the Red Sea story in Exodus]

This story symbolizes something basic about the universe. It symbolizes something much deeper than the drowning of a few men, for no one can rejoice at the death or the defeat of a human person. This story… symbolizes the death of evil. It was the death of inhuman oppression and ungodly exploitation.

Colonialism

Notice how we have seen the truth of this text revealed in the contemporary struggle between good, in the form of freedom and justice, and evil, in the form of oppression and colonialism. Gradually we have seen the forces of freedom and justice emerge victoriously out of some Red Sea, only to look back and see the forces of oppression and colonialism dead upon the seashore.

[Statistical analysis of colonialism and how it was slowly breaking down.]

What we are seeing now in this struggle is the gradual victory of the forces of freedom and justice. The Red Sea has opened, and today most of these exploited masses have won their freedom from the Egypt of colonialism and are now free to move toward the promised land of economic security and cultural development. As they look back, they clearly see the evils of colonialism and imperialism dead upon the seashore.

The struggle in the United States

In our own struggle for freedom and justice in this country, we have gradually seen the death of evil. Many years ago, the Negro was thrown into the Egypt of segregation, and his great struggle has been to free himself from the crippling restrictions and paralyzing effects of this vicious system. For years it looked like he would never get out of this Egypt. The closed Red Sea always stood before him with discouraging dimensions. There were always those Pharaohs with hardened hearts who, despite the cries of many a Moses, refused to let these people go.

But one day, through a world-shaking decree by the nine justices of the Supreme Court of America and an awakened moral conscience of many White persons of goodwill, backed up by the Providence of God, the Red Sea was opened, and the forces of justice marched through to the other side. As we look back, we see segregation caught in the rushing waters of historical necessity. Evil in the form of injustice and exploitation cannot survive. There is a Red Sea in history that ultimately comes to carry the forces of goodness to victory, and that same Red Sea closes in to bring doom and destruction to the forces of evil.

Hope

This is our hope. This is the hope and conviction that all men of goodwill live by. It is… the conviction that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that the whole cosmic universe has spiritual control. It is, therefore, fitting and proper that we assemble here, just two years after the Supreme Court’s momentous decision on desegregation, and praise God for His power and the greatness of His purpose, and pray that we gain the vision and the will to be His co-workers in this struggle.

Let us not despair. Let us not lose faith in man and certainly not in God. We
must believe that a prejudiced mind can be changed and that man, by the grace of God, can be lifted from the valley of hate to the high mountain of love.

Let us remember that as we struggle against Egypt, we must have love, compassion, and understanding goodwill for those against whom we struggle, helping them to realize that as we seek to defeat the evils of Egypt, we are not seeking to defeat them but to help them, as well as ourselves…

I prefer to live by the faith that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever,
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

The full text is here.

Sunday stealing: Favorites

Green. Or blue.

This week’s Sunday Stealing is Favorites.

1. What is your favorite accent?

It varies. Sometimes it’s French. I love the sound of even mundane French words. My high school French is all but gone. “Je m’appelle Roger Vert.”

Other times, it’s Italian, which has a lot of musical terms, some of which I know.

2. What is your favorite animal?

In what context? I like the idea of the kangaroo and its pouch. The ant’s industriousness is impressive. But I don’t want them in my house.

I’m a cat person, though my male feline, Midnight, is demented.

3. What is your favorite band?

Historically, it’s always been The Beatles. But there are LOTS of bands I’ve loved, such as Talking Heads and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Speaking of the latter, John Fogerty just got the rights to his songs back after a half-century.

Other artists aren’t in what are “bands” but groups such as the Supremes and the Temptations—or solo artists such as Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.

4. What is your favorite childhood book?

Bartholemew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss. Speaking truth to power.

5. What is your favorite color?

Green’s up there. Or blue. Or blue/green.

6. What is your favorite drink?

It’s Diet Cherry Pepsi, but it’s TERRIBLE for me for a lot of reasons. Lemonade, I guess.

7. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Easily strawberry.

8. What is your favorite place on the planet?

IDK. It would have to be near water. My favorite specific event was going out on a pier in Galveston, TX, in 1996 or 1997 at five a.m. and watching the tide come in.

9. What is your favorite sandwich?

There is a 2014 movie called Chef, starring Jon Favreau. The title character makes a Cubano that is practically food porn. On rare occasions, I’ve had one; stellar.

Mothertrucker

10. What is your favorite swear word?

Growing up, not only were obvious even mild epithets disallowed, but also their tame equivalents, such as darn, sugar, BS, and jeepers creepers.

I have a friend of mine whose use of the word @$$h0!e is quite exquisite, but I don’t have the artistry to pull it off. Mine is probably bull$h!t, which I’ve used far more in the past eight years than before.

11. What is your favorite thing to wear?

Caps in summer and wool hats in the winter to protect my head from the sun. I have approximately 1.37 zillion T-shirts, usually with designs. Sneakers, almost always sneakers.

12. What is your favorite food to eat on a rainy day?

Macaroni and cheese.

13. What is your favorite food to eat on a sunny day?

Fruit cocktail and cottage cheese.

14. What is your favorite number?

37. If I played sports, that would be my number unless it was unavailable, in which case I’d take 73. They’re both primes.

15. What is your favorite snack?

Golden Oreos, which purist friends of mine say can’t be REAL Oreos because REAL Oreos are chocolate. Sure, whatever.