The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us,―for that moment only.  ―Walter Pater

Greetings from the Far Left Coast where we have a tsunami advisory along the coast and former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's run for governor is in the hands of the Oregon Supreme Court after Secretary of State Shemia Fagan ruled that he does not meet the state residency requirement. In a display of statesmanship, Kristof charged that Fagan's ruling was "grounded in politics" and railed against "an entrenched political class in Oregon" that feels threatened by his candidacy. I like Kristof as a columnist and might well vote for him if the court rules in his favor, contingent on his campaign platform and the impression made by other candidates, but was less than impressed when he responded to a decision that went against him with the rhetoric of political hackery.

The long road back. I ran a mile on Sunday, another mile Tuesday, a third this morning. Under better circumstances this would be hardly worth recording in the running log. This week it is. Eight months after my right ankle came down with a bad attitude, five and a half months after my right knee came down with a worse attitude, a beginning, a few steps on the road back.

I happened on Le Fils de l'autre (The Other Son) while searching for films featuring Emmanuelle Devos, a new favorite. The storyline hangs on a tried-and-true device: babies switched at birth. The mistake occurs at a hospital in Haifa, 1991, the Gulf War. Two mothers in adjoining rooms. Their infant sons are taken to a safe room during a missile attack and later returned to the wrong mothers, one Palestinian, the other Jewish.

The error is discovered seventeen years later when Joseph undergoes a physical exam while registering for compulsory military service. His blood type shows that he cannot be the son of his mother (Devos), a doctor, and father, a colonel in the Israeli defense forces.

An investigation by the hospital and DNA tests confirm that Joseph is the son of the Palestinian mother and her husband, an engineer forced to earn a living as an auto mechanic. Yacine, raised as Palestinian, is just back home after living with an aunt in Paris, where he earned his baccalauréat with honors. He plans to attend medical school in the fall and eventually return to his village to care for his people.

The news is traumatic all around. Everyone is left shaken. Mothers and younger sisters handle it better than the fathers and Yacine's older brother Bilal, who angrily tells him to go live with his people. Joseph asks the rabbi if he is still Jewish. The rabbi tells him no, but he can convert. Joseph does not find this answer satisfactory. He cannot conceive of what he is if not Jewish.

There are many ways director Lorraine Lévy and the cast could have gone wrong in telling this story, taking up its themes, against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian mess. They didn't. Issues of identity, what makes us who we are, what makes parent, child, family, the whole matter of nature and nurture, all the complexities of life for decent people living in a  deeply troubled place, play out in this intense, compelling, and altogether convincing film. 

Joe Biden's address to the nation on January 6 was solid. His speech about voting rights earlier this week drew mixed reviews. The speech has been praised as fiery, a forceful denunciation of voter suppression legislation. Republicans blasted it as incoherent and unpresidential.

I am of two minds (what else is new?). Biden comes off better when speaking calmly than when speechifying as he was on Tuesday, shrill and shrieking, as if admonished by advisers to show passion. Much of the speech was fine and for me came off better when reading the text than while listening to it. Some was questionable.

The threat posed by voting restrictions passed in nineteen states last year (Voting Laws Roundup: October 2021, Brennan Center for Justice) is real. References to Jim Crow 2.0, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis were, as even some in the president's camp noted tactfully, over the top. They were, I suppose, meant to rouse voting rights activists and groups who criticize him for not doing enough, some going so far as to boycott the speech. You do not have to be soft on the Republican Party to acknowledge that a handful of Republican officials at the state and local levels were crucial to preventing the former president from overturning the election. Biden's rhetoric about Jim Crow, etc., is more apt to tick them off than to serve any constructive purpose.

More to the point, it is hard to see what Biden hoped to accomplish. Maybe it was about playing to a faction of his party that appears to be incapable of grasping that no amount of presidential arm twisting or cajolery is apt to change Manchin's and Sinema's positions on the filibuster.

No path forward is offered. The president and members of his party standing to the left of him have painted themselves into the same grim corner they occupied with Build Back Better. They stake their lot on massive sweeping legislation that they are convinced will win over the hearts and minds of voters. This is delusional. Can they really believe that repetition of the demand that voting rights legislation must pass will somehow make it happen? One waits in vain for something, anything, concrete about how exactly this is to be done when the road to passage runs through Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Or into them.

For the record: I have no love for Joe Manchin. I don't even have any like for Manchin. Or for Kyrsten Sinema. I do have grudging respect for their refusal to bow to threats and intimidation.

Filibuster. The stuff about carving out an exception to the filibuster for whatever happens to be the uniquely consequential issue of the moment while retaining it for other legislation is lame, as is Sinema's assertion that the filibuster promotes bipartisanship and other such folderol. It is past time to nuke the filibuster in its entirety. Raging moderate Norman Ornstein provides welcome perspective in Five myths about the filibuster (Washington Post, January 7, 2022). Eugene Robinson is equally on point calling out Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy on the subject: Opinion: McConnell’s defense of the filibuster is pure hypocrisy (Washington Post, January 13, 2022).

Text and analysis of Biden's speech:

• Biden pushes overhaul of US election laws in fiery speech, BBC, January 12, 2022
• Alana Wise, Biden calls for changes to the Senate's filibuster to pass voting rights bills, NPR, January 11, 2022
• Remarks by President Biden on Protecting the Right to Vote, The White House, January 11, 2022

Do Democrats want to lose? New York City's move to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections does nothing to address issues with immigration law or provide a path to citizenship for dreamers. As a gift to Republicans, it is up there with "defund the police."

Oath Keepers indicted. 

The indictment also includes stunning details about [Stewart, the group's founder and leader] Rhodes’s weapons cache. Here’s a summary of what prosecutors say he bought in the days before Jan. 6th:

Two night-vision devices and a weapon sight, costing approximately $7,000 on December 30. Investigators say he shipped them to an individual in Virginia "near Washington D.C." The package arrived on January 4.

$5,000 worth of firearms and related equipment on January 1 and 2 that included a "shotgun, scope, magazines, sights, optics, a bipod, a mount, a case of ammunition, and gun-cleaning supplies."

While en route from Texas to Washington, D.C. on January 3, Rhodes spent approximately $6,000 on “an AR-platform rifle and firearms equipment, including sights, mount, triggers, slings, and additional firearms attachments.” The next day, while still en route, he spent another $4,500 on similar purchases.

Keep in mind, this was the weaponry brought to Washington by one man.

…

According to the indictment, he spent $17,500 between Jan. 10 and 14 on  scopes, magazines, firearm parts, ammunition, and related equipment.

One has to ask: Why would all the guns be needed to oppose Biden? Why were they needed on Jan. 6th? Would it be because these folks were conspiring to overthrow the United States government through the use of force?

Sounds like sedition, all right. (Amanda Carpenter, Sedition Charges Demolish a Right-Wing Talking Point, The Bulwark, January 14, 2022)

And Omicron, confusing guidance from CDC, partisan hackery at the Supreme Court, Russia, Ukraine, Novak Djokovic, the Aaron Rogers of tennis, and this  article by Natalie Fertig, federal cannabis policy reporter for Politico (who knew there is such a position?): 'Talk About Clusterf---': Why Legal Weed Didn’t Kill Oregon’s Black Market. All deserving of commentary but too much to process.

Time to drive a stake in the heart of this one and call it done. It's a lovely winter day and I'm looking forward to an afternoon walk.

Keep the faith.

yr obdt svt

Two new blog posts:

• January 6, January 6, 2022. Video and photos of the events of January 6, 2021, take me back to September 11, 2001. The sense of unreality as the plane flew into the tower was revisited as the mob swarmed the Capitol…read more>>

• January 6: Impressions, Deflections, Reflections, and a Tribute, January 9, 2022. The past week brought a deluge of reporting, analysis, and commentary on the events of January 6, 2021. Much was repetitive. Much was devoted to competing narratives…read more>>

Pictured below: Laurelhurst Park Thursday afternoon