The act of making a film remains something solitary and individual. There’s no rulebook, you can’t say: you must absolutely talk about certain things and in such a way. It has to remain a free and individual act. —Isabelle Huppert
Greetings from the far left coast where I am thinking of my nephew Dan and the fair Maribel, a lovely young couple who had the great good fortune to find one another, exceedingly happy for them and wishing them all the best there can be in this world.
For years Springwater Corridor was a regular route for my long run of the week on Saturday mornings. In those days I picked it up at the entrance a few blocks down from Portland Opera at the south end of the Eastbank Esplanade and ran to Sellwood. Sometimes I ran it as an out and back, others I cut up through Sellwood Park and returned home by way of Milwaukie, 13–15 miles depending on which twists and turns I took along the way.
Half that distance counts as a long run at this stage of my career. This morning I ran down Clinton from 34th to the Clinton Street MAX station and from there south on Milwaukie to Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. The trail through Oaks Bottom took me to Springwater more or less midway between the downtown entrance and Sellwood. As I ran back toward the Opera I spotted a woman who had stopped up ahead. I thought she might be pausing to take a selfie with the scenic backdrop. It turned out that her attention was on a deer eating leaves at the side of the trail, unruffled by our presence just a few steps away. On occasion the deer turned her head to glance at us, then returned to grazing. I have seen deer on a number of occasions while running along Springwater but never this close. It was a pretty cool highlight for a nice run that came out at 8.75 miles as the Garmin flies.
Behind the Scenes from the Museum (1995), English writer Kate Atkinson's first book, begins at the moment of Ruby Lennox's conception in 1951 and her first intimations of the family she will join when she emerges from the womb. From there Ruby the narrator goes on to relate four generations of her family's tumultuous history beginning at the end of the nineteeth century and continuing through her own story up to the age of forty. Keeping track of the sprawling cast of characters Atkinson always gives us is a daunting task that becomes a little easier as the tale progresses and they shuffle off this mortal coil through a series of bizarre, tragic incidents, two world wars, and sometimes even natural causes. Ruby's older sister says to her as they part after burying their mother, "The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby." "Nonsense, Partricia," Ruby says as she boards her train. "The past's what you take with you."
This brief mention cannot possibly do Behind the Scenes justice, so I settle for relating that I repeatedly laughed aloud, blinked away tears more than once, and took heart from Ruby's thoughts at the end as she returns from the English town of her childhood to her home in the remote far north of Scotland:
I have caught the slow train that stops everywhere—Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, meandering its way along the Northumberland coast to Berwick. As we cross the Tweed the air seems to lighten and the sky begins to dry a little and, like a watermark, the pale sheen of a rainbown welcomes our train over the border. I'm in another country, the one called home. I am alive. I am a precious jewel. I am a drop of blood. I am Ruby Lennox.
It has been a long while since I was so moved by a novel.
Now, onward into the muck, ha! Not to be outdone by Yevgeny Prigozhin's antics on the road to Moscow last week, the so-called conservative majority on the Supreme Court doubled down on its own mutiny against the twentieth century, laying waste to stare decisis, pillaging history, and abusing the constitution in a spate of rulings that have the country lurching toward an ugly, reactionary revanchism. Unlike Prigrozhin the Supreme Court six show no sign of turning back.
Hyperbole? Well. Maybe. It is bad nonetheless. Each ruling—wedding web designer/LGBTQ case, student loan forgiveness, affirmative action—merits more in the way of commentary and analysis than I am prepared to give here. Following are a few thoughts.
When Justice Clarence Thomas charges that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson claims "we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today,” his argument is more with Ibram X. Kendi (‘Race Neutral’ Is the New ‘Separate but Equal’) than with the dissenting views of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Jackson in the ruling on affirmative action. Recognition that the effects of historical wrongs and injustice are still felt today is not tantamount to claiming that we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society.
Chief Justice John Roberts statement that "eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it" smacks of a facile utopianism rightly criticized when it comes from comrades on the left. Justice Harry Blackmun made the better point when he acknowledged in his opinion on Bakke that "in order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way." It is not simply a matter of discarding wrong policies and adopting right ones. Choices must take into account tensions between competing values.
If the more agitated critics of the court's ruling are correct, then perhaps we should be asking just how effective affirmative action has really been at remedying injustices associated with race and why it has not been more effective. More is called for than simply digging in our heels on affirmative action. It is incumbent on college administrators and others to divise ways to promote diversity by addressing factors that contribute to the need for affirmative action, factors like quality of education and access to computers, the internet, and test prep, which are often effects of class as well as race. Some opponents of affirmative action would push back here as well because promotion of diversity is what really rankles them.
Dingbattery spouted by some college administrators, self-styled racism experts, and diversity-training entrepreneurs hinders legitimate pursuit of diversity, inclusion, and amelioration of the effects of historical wrongs and injustice.
Kimberly Wehle's column on the affirmative action ruling is the one to read if you only have time for one of the following articles:
Geoff Bennett, David Brooks, Jonathan Capeheart, Brooks and Capehart on the implications of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions, PBS NewsHour, June 30, 2023
Josh Gerstein, Clarence Thomas, Ketanji Brown Jackson air sharp disagreement on race in America, Politico, June 29, 2023
Josh Gerstein, Bianca Quilantan, Kierra Frazier, Supreme Court guts affirmative action in college admissions, Politico, June 29, 2023
Ann E. Marimow, For Thomas and Sotomayor, affirmative action ruling is deeply personal, Washington Post, June 29, 2023
Kimberly Wehle, Affirmative Action Ruling: SCOTUS Decision Is Bad News for Equal Opportunity, The Bulwark, June 30, 2023
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) voted against funding for transit in her district that she now celebrates. There is a lot of this garbage going around.
Expert opinion on last weekend's events in Russia remains firmly all over the map. Three of my go-to sources weighed in with insightful analysis and commentary I have come to anticipate from them. Cathy Young at The Bulwark gave the dust time to settle a bit before assessing the situation in Wednesday's column: "FOLLOWING THE BIZARRE 24-hour armed rebellion launched by Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the hotly debated question both in the West and in the expatriate Russian media remains: 'What the hell was that?'" Young evaluates various explanations that range from very unlikely to "Now we're getting warm" and considers what comes next for Prigozhin:
Dead man walking
Lukashenko henchman
Return to Ukraine
Escape to Africa
A second act in Russia
Her conclusion:
For now, all of these scenarios remain strictly in the realm of speculation. There is a nontrivial possibility that the Prigozhin rebellion will prove to be the beginning of the end for Putin. It could also be the end for Prigozhin. Then again, given Prigozhin’s improbable career, maybe it’s just the beginning of a new chapter. (Cathy Young, What Comes Next for Prigozhin?, The Bulwark, June 28, 2023)
Anne Applebaum and Tom Nichols discussed the week's events in Russia with Hanna Rosin yesterday at Radio Atlantic. It is no surprise that they too acknowledge that we are all in the realm of speculation, which is not to deny that some speculation is better informed than others.
Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who leads a private army called the Wagner Group, attempted what many have called a coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Technically, it failed. He landed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, pledged to march to Moscow, and then turned around. Nothing about this series of events suggests expert planning or high competence. Prigozhin is a former prisoner and a former hotdog salesman. Staff writer Tom Nichols puts him in a league with “gangsters” and “clowns.”
But sometimes gangsters and clowns are the ones who shake up the established order. Prigozhin’s march lasted barely 48 hours, yet it seems to have changed the conversation about Russia. Putin appears shaken and, as staff writer Anne Applebaum put it, “panicky.” His response to such a direct threat has been surprisingly tentative. The mutiny may have technically failed, but it left some revolutionary thoughts in people’s minds. Putin is not, in fact, invulnerable. Which means Russians might have a choice. (The Power of a Failed Revolt, The Atlantic, June 30, 2023)
New at Portable Bohemia Substack:
•In These Baffling Times, June 19, 2023. These are baffling times for us Marxist thugs. We are supposed to be the ones denouncing the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and other three-letter agencies of the deep state for abuse of power, travesties of justice…read more>>
•Desire Is Not Dead (a poem), June 23, 2023. The poem “Desire Is Not Dead” was published in Clockwise Cat Issue 40, Fall 2018…read more>>
•The Week That Was, June 26, 2023. Are we witnessing a Coen Bros movie or what, with George Clooney as zany caterer turned warload Prigozhin and Bill Murray as the dour tyrant Putin? Saturday’s aborted coup/mutiny/hissy fit capped off quite a week. Even David Frost and the cast from the 1962–63 BBC satire That Was the Week That Was might be hard-pressed to do it justice…read more>>
Keep the faith.
Stand with Ukraine.
yr obdt svt
