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[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Jan. 6, 2025.] For the last half cent... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Jan. 6, 2025.] For the last half century, Democrats have responded much more responsibly to our growing climate crisis than have Republicans. Presidents Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all took the climate-change threat more seriously than their Republican counterparts, especially Trump. The denial of Republican presidents was fed by such conservative spokesmen as talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and syndicated columnist George Will. In Congress, one of the most prominent Republican political climate-change deniers was Sen. James Inhofe (OK), who from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2017 chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In 2012 his The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future appeared. In May 2014, politifact.com could find only 8 out of 278 Congressional Republican representatives who admitted that a climate-change crisis existed. And this was before human-caused climate-change denier Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. His climate change record was abysmal; and as I indicated in my essay of last year, “Bernie Is Right: Electing Trump Would Be Catastrophic for Our Climate,” a second-term Trump presidency could be even worse.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on January 2, 2025.]
“Terezin,” n... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on January 2, 2025.] “Terezin,” now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a sad 2024 movie about a Nazi prison camp. But in a sense it is uplifting because it can stimulate thinking about how to face life’s tragedies such as death. One way is through transcendence, which involves the central intuition of our unity with nature and others (and maybe God and maybe not). Transcendence can be achieved through a greater appreciation of the beauty to be found in nature, the arts, and love. In the film “Terezin” beauty is primarily realized through music, although art and love also contribute. The two main characters are Antonio, a clarinetist and Italian who had come to Prague to study music and then remained, and Martina, a Czechoslovak violinist, who became his lover. They are both sent to the camp, where for complex reasons, partly propagandistic, they are allowed to play their instruments. And, at one point, Antonio tells the camp’s musical conductor, “music is the most important thing we have.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 31, 2024.] Ty Burr of The... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 31, 2024.] Ty Burr of The Washington Post listed “His Three Daughters" as the best movie of 2024. The three daughters referred to in the title--Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), Katie (Carrie Coon), and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen)--gather together in New York at the apartment of their dad, Vincent (Jay O. Sanders), anticipating his soon-to-occur death from cancer. Rachel is unmarried and the only daughter who has been living with and caring for her dad, under Hospice supervision. What is most striking throughout most of the movie is how critical the oldest daughter, Katie, is of the middle daughter, Rachel. Only near the end, after their father has died, do the three sisters seem to reconcile, as Katie and Christina prepare to depart. Well acted and realistic, the film depicts well the coming together of three very different personalities to face together a stressful moment in their lives.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 28, 2024.] Reviews of the... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 28, 2024.] Reviews of the film “Conclave” have been largely influenced by reviewers’ ideological disposition, with liberals and progressives being much more favorable towards it than conservatives, especially those of the Catholic faith. Although directed by Edward Berger, who directed the award-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022), and starring such leading actors as Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow (all of whom play cardinals) and Isabella Rossellini (who plays a nun), most conservatives find it too “woke.” One conservative Catholic bishop stated this: “The only way forward [according to the film] is the embrace of the progressive buzz words of diversity, inclusion, indifference to doctrine.” Typical of the progressive view are the following words of the film’s main character, Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), “Let me tell you, there is one sin, which I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 26, 2024.] Having recentl... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 26, 2024.] Having recently discovered that Nobel Prize in Literature winner (2013) Alice Munro stayed together for decades with a man who sexually abused her youngest daughter from a previous marriage led me to reflect on why so many spouses choose and then stay with bad partners. There are no easy answers. Relations with one’s parents, one’s upbringing and psychological history, and the fact that we are not primarily motivated by rationality, all are partial explanations. Here are a few more hypotheses:
Our attraction to a potential spouse is affected by earlier evolutionary instincts. For example, perhaps some women’s attraction to “macho” men reflects a carryover from a time when the protection of strong men was needed more so than today, when machoness can often do more harm than good.
Values are not as important to us as they should be--either on the conscious or unconscious level. I doubt whether many single people considering someone as a possible future spouse delves very deeply into the question of whether or not the two of them share common values. But in a marriage, agreement on fundamental values can be an important cement enhancing the relationship.
We have a simplistic approach to love. Partly because of our media, we tend to overemphasize Hollywood’s favorite type--romantic love--but there are various other types, especially agape, which is sometime referred to as “brotherly love” or charity. Although romantic love can be an important component of spousal love, especially in the early years of a marriage, in the latter stages--especially if ill health enters the picture--a love closer to agape often takes precedence.
[This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/18/2024.) Marine biologist Dr. A... more [This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/18/2024.) Marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author/editor of this year’s "What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures," recently stated regarding our present “climate crisis”: “We basically have all the solutions we need. We already know how to make energy that's clean and renewable. We already know how to green buildings and be more efficient with our energy. . . . It's implementation of those solutions that's really not up to the pace that we need. There's a lack of political will that's holding us back.” She’s referring primarily to the USA, and we see this lack of will primarily in our country’s selection of Donald Trump as our incoming president and, most recently, his picks for various government positions. In Johnson’s book there are many fine interviews, poems, and other selections, including a poem (“A Vision”) by 90-year-old Wendell Berry, where he writes, “then a long time after we are dead / the lives our lives prepare will live / here, their houses strongly placed / upon the valley sides, fields and gardens / rich in the windows. The river will run / clear, as we will never know it, / and over it, birdsong like a canopy.” He ends with, “This is no paradisal dream. / Its hardship is its possibility.” His poem is indeed a “vision,” and a climate future we all (oldsters like Berry and youngsters who have so many potential years ahead of them) need to work towards.
(This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/14/2024.) On December 4th Brian ... more (This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/14/2024.) On December 4th Brian Thompson the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed in Manhattan. Although the social-media response was mixed, it included some sympathy for the shooter (Luigi Mangione) and rage against health-insurance providers. According to a CBS report, Mangione possessed a three-page document that he wrote which outlined some of his views. He claimed that the U. S. had the "most expensive healthcare system in the world," but ranked only “42 in life expectancy." He also wrote that many U. S. corporations abuse our country in order to gain “immense profit” and reflect "corruption and greed." This essay considers three media responses to the shooting and Mangione’s arrest and crticism of the healthcare industry. While condemning the shooting, it agrees with some of the media responses that emphasize that profit-seeking in the healthcare industry has been overemphasized.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 12, 2024.] August Wilson’... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 12, 2024.] August Wilson’s play "The Piano Lesson," now as a well-acted film on Netflix, is set in 1936 when Boy Willie (John David Washington), along with his friend Lymon, comes to where his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) lives in Pittsburgh with her uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and her 12-year-old daughter Maretha. The main reason for the visit is so Boy Willie can obtain and sell the piano that Berniece brought up from the south. He wants to buy some land back home that he can farm, and he needs the cash to add to what he can gain in other ways. But Berniece is unwilling to part from the piano, which has a tangled history and some of her and Boy Willie’s ancestors carved on it. The brother-sister clash over Boy Willie’s goal is the heart of the play, and as we view this struggle, we are reminded of many of the injustices and hopes suffered by Black people throughout U. S. history.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] "Organized Crim... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] "Organized Crime on Page and Screen" is David Geherin’s latest book, and he is one of our most distinguished authors on crime fiction. Three of his books have been finalists for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award. His new study is divided into two sections: Part I--Crime Fiction, and Part II--Movies and TV. In Part I, he deals with the Italian Mafia, the U. S. one, and the Mexican drug cartels. Among the ten authors he treats in Part I are Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather (1968), and (perhaps his favorite writer) Don Winslow, writer of many books, among which Geherin discusses two trilogies--“The Cartel Trilogy,” and “The Danny Ryan Trilogy.” The first triad set mainly in Mexico and our southern border region, and the second in various U. S. areas including Rhode Island, southern California, and Las Vegas. In Part II among the movies he treats are “The Godfather Trilogy” and “Five Movies by Martin Scorsese.” The five TV series he deals with are The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Peaky Blinders, and Gomorrah. In addition he also provides an Introduction, Bibliography, and Index, all brief but sufficient.
Even if at times Geherin indicates some likeable traits of criminal characters, he is always mindful of the inhumanity and horrors of organized crimes. He also often links organized crime with capitalism, quoting, for example, the director of The Godfather film, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” In writing about movies and TV series, Geherin (a retired English professor) reveals that he is a discerning critic of such media, while at the same time mindful of predecessors on page and screen.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] The film “The F... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] The film “The Father” (2020), now streaming on Starz, is a powerful movie about an octogenarian struggling with dementia. As the man in the title, Anthony Hopkins won a Best Actor Oscar. In previous essays I have reviewed other screen and book productions about one of the worst types of it, Alzheimer’s, and concluded that caregivers need to apply plenty of love, empathy, heroism, and humor in order to provide maximum help to anyone so afflicted. Only after the death of my wife, Nancy, did I reveal that she suffered from it. What the “The Father” does better than any other Alzheimer’s film is depict the inner turmoil and confusion of someone with late-stage dementia. For anyone desiring more understanding of the many effects of this disease watching “The Father” is a “must.”
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Dec. 4, 2024.] David Geherin’s just-... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Dec. 4, 2024.] David Geherin’s just-published Organized Crime on Page and Screen quotes The Godfather creator, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” Geherin also provides other material that indicates the “thirst for money” and lust for profits that both share. He also mentions “the American Dream” and indicates that a large part of it involved achieving financial success. It is this type of “American Dream” that has largely appealed to our once and future President Donald Trump. But there is another type of “American Dream,” and a more inclusive one. It has best been epitomized by Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and one of his most faithful followers, Congressman John Lewis. In MLK’s dream, “all of God’s children will have food and clothing and material well-being for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, and freedom for their spirits.” Lewis added, that “the American dream is more than living large. The American dream is the power to create one out of many and the goodness that flows from the unity of all human kind.” As both civil-rights leaders realized their dream was not (in MLK’s words) a “thing-oriented society,” where “machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people,” but a “person-oriented society.” And not a society (in Lewis’s phrases) that takes “our air, waters and land for granted” and displays “a simple lack of respect for nature and our environment,” but one that realizes as Lewis did that “humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 2, 2024.] “Say Nothing,” ... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 2, 2024.] “Say Nothing,” the 9-Part Hulu Series which dramatizes the late-1960s-to-1998 period in Northern-Irish history known as “the Troubles,” makes for riveting viewing. It revolves around three loci: Dolours Price and her family, especially her younger sister, Mariane; Jean McConville and her many children; and Gerry Adams, a leader among the IRA members in Belfast. At the beginning of the series the young Dolorous favors non-violent tactics to end British oppression in Northern Ireland, but she soon becomes convinced that only violence will work. By the end of the series, however (decades later), she regrets some of her uses of violence. The series leaves viewers with the same dilemma: What would have been the best way--the way that would have produced the least suffering--to end British oppression in Northern Ireland.?
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Nov. 29, 2024.] With COP 29, the UN’s... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Nov. 29, 2024.] With COP 29, the UN’s annual climate conference (which have been held since 1995), just ending and by most observers considered a failure, it is time to ask why. Moreover, as the New York Times reported, “Trump is widely expected to renege on any commitments negotiated [at the conference] in Baku, and he has said he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement [as he did during his earlier presidency].” As I indicated in an earlier piece, “putting profits before all else” has hindered “climate-change reforms.” Now, as Artificial Intelligence once again indicates, that statement can be applied to additional reforms, especially any that challenge profit-making in general and any new technology- driven changes. A half-century ago economist/environmentalist E. F. Schumacher wrote that “more education can help us only if it produces more wisdom.” But teaching wisdom has little place in modern education. Instead what General Omar Bradley once stated is closer to the truth: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website with the title “Fleeing Nazi Bomb... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website with the title “Fleeing Nazi Bombs” on Nov. 26, 2024.] Steve McQueen’s new film “Blitz,” now Streaming on Apple TV, reminds one of the opening of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Worst of times? Yes, because in early September 1940 Nazi war planes began bombing London and other British cities. And, according to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “from September 7 to November 3 an average of two hundred German bombers attacked London every night.” Best of times? Yes, because as we see the Londoners endure the German bombing, we also see them displaying their humanism, their essential decency, and at times even their love of other humans. The film focuses on 9-year-old George, whose mom puts him on a train so he can live a safer existence in a rural area, one not subject to German bombing. But unable to endure the separation, George jumps off the train an hour or so after it leaves London, and most of the remainder of the film chronicles the adventures he faces making his way back home in a bomb-damaged London.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/22/2024.] With Donald Trump’s seco... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/22/2024.] With Donald Trump’s second presidential term soon approaching, it’s time to recognize that another hyper-capitalist phase is on our horizon. His whole background, including his opposition to federal government restrictions on capitalists like himself, inclines him toward such unfettered, dog-eat-dog capitalism. His 2024 campaign rhetoric, the 2023 playbook of The Heritage Foundation ( Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”), and the president-elect’s proposed cabinet picks all indicate his likely intentions. Opposing the Trumpian approach is one that has also predominated for periods in our U. S. history, e.g., the Franklin Roosevelt era. Today that progressive approach is perhaps best represented by someone like Sen. Bernie Sanders. It stresses such values as compassion, empathy, and tolerance and places the common good above obsessing about profiteering, either personally or for our nation. Past bounce-backs, like FDR’s in the Depression, from free-reign capitalism are no guarantee that we again will be successful. All we progressives can do is work and persist against Trumpism and the “unfettered capitalism,” the dog-eat-dog world, he champions--as long as it coincides with his own egotistic needs.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/17/2024.] This essay summarizes tw... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/17/2024.] This essay summarizes two recent books--John Grisham and Jim McCloskey’s "Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions," and Dan Slepian’s "The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice"--that highlight wrongful U. S. convictions, some resulting in innocent people being put to death. Slepian writes that the wrongful convicted “number is staggering.” He suggests the total number could be between 100,000 and 200,000, but only around “thirty-five hundred people have been exonerated in the past thirty years.” And he adds, “There are roughly two million Americans locked up, more than in any other country, and our recidivism rates lead the world. . . . I’ve come to see the inhumanity and irrationality of that system, and how its worst aspects are revealed by the way it handles wrongful convictions.” Both books discuss why this injustice, and with the recent election of Donald Trump to a second presidential term “innocents in U. S. prisons” shows more signs of increasing rather than diminishing.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/14/2024.] The recent seven-... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/14/2024.] The recent seven-part Apple TV+ series ‘Disclaimer” revolves around a technique referred to in fiction as an “unreliable narrator.”The “narrator” in this case is the author of a book written by Nancy Brigstocke (actress Lesley Manville). In the first six episodes most viewers, as well as other leading characters (e.g. those played by Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen), will take the book’s adulterous version of what happened between Catherine Ravenscroft (played two decades later by Cate Blanchett) and Nancy’s son, Jonathan, as a true narrative. But in Episode seven we will see that the book’s portrayal is inaccurate, and as its director (two-time-Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón) said in an interview, narratives might have no correlation with truth. He also gave an example--about immigrants eating cats and dogs--from the recent U. S. election campaign. Thus, “Disclaimer” has a special relevance in our present Trumpian Time. Besides that, the series is well worth watching and thought provoking.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/10/2024.] The 10-part (21-3... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/10/2024.] The 10-part (21-31 minutes each ) Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” is entertaining and well acted, especially by its two stars, Kristen Bell as an agnostic LA podcaster Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah, a Reform Judaism rabbi. (Justine Lupe, as Joanne’s sister and fellow podcaster Morgan, and Timothy Simons as Noah’s married brother Sasha are also excellent, as is Tovah Feldshuh as Bina, Noah’s mother.) With humor the series touches on differences in belief in God, and more substantially the complications of love (between Joanne and Noah) and family pressures.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/8/2024.] The memoir ("This ... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/8/2024.] The memoir ("This Timeless Moment") of Aldous Huxley’s second wife, Laura, who married him in 1956, a year after the death of his first wife, Maria, is a valuable book. In it she has a chapter entitled “One Never Loves Enough.” She refers to those words as her husband’s “theme song,” and writes that “as the years passed,” it “increased in intensity.” It is this thought, this emphasis on the paramount importance of love, love in the best and fullest sense, that is Huxley’s most important contribution. But there are also others. Although he was best known for "Brave New World" (1932), it is Laura’s memoir and his final novel, "Island" (1962), published a year before his death on November 22, 1963--the same day as President John Kennedy’s assassination--that are examined in this essay.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/7/2024.] For many progressives and... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/7/2024.] For many progressives and other critics of Donald Trump keeping hope alive will be difficult after our 2024 election. But we all must try. In the past such progressive leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela, and Barack Obama have urged us to “keep hope alive.” In addition, psychologists and philosophers have told us that hope is good for us. To maintain our hopes we should remember: 1) Almost half of our voters opposed Trump (about 47 % voted for Harris); 2) Many of those who voted for Trump were more confused than evil; 3) As Harris suggested in her concession speech, Trump’s election victory is only one battle in a long struggle over the direction of our country; 4) The future of our country is still open-ended, with results depending partly on how we all react to Trump’s proposed policies; and 5) The values and justice we progressives fight for, especially regarding climate change, are just too important, especially for younger people, to abandon. Work, persistence, and patience should be our watchwords.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Jan. 6, 2025.] For the last half cent... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Jan. 6, 2025.] For the last half century, Democrats have responded much more responsibly to our growing climate crisis than have Republicans. Presidents Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all took the climate-change threat more seriously than their Republican counterparts, especially Trump. The denial of Republican presidents was fed by such conservative spokesmen as talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and syndicated columnist George Will. In Congress, one of the most prominent Republican political climate-change deniers was Sen. James Inhofe (OK), who from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2017 chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In 2012 his The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future appeared. In May 2014, politifact.com could find only 8 out of 278 Congressional Republican representatives who admitted that a climate-change crisis existed. And this was before human-caused climate-change denier Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. His climate change record was abysmal; and as I indicated in my essay of last year, “Bernie Is Right: Electing Trump Would Be Catastrophic for Our Climate,” a second-term Trump presidency could be even worse.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on January 2, 2025.]
“Terezin,” n... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on January 2, 2025.] “Terezin,” now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a sad 2024 movie about a Nazi prison camp. But in a sense it is uplifting because it can stimulate thinking about how to face life’s tragedies such as death. One way is through transcendence, which involves the central intuition of our unity with nature and others (and maybe God and maybe not). Transcendence can be achieved through a greater appreciation of the beauty to be found in nature, the arts, and love. In the film “Terezin” beauty is primarily realized through music, although art and love also contribute. The two main characters are Antonio, a clarinetist and Italian who had come to Prague to study music and then remained, and Martina, a Czechoslovak violinist, who became his lover. They are both sent to the camp, where for complex reasons, partly propagandistic, they are allowed to play their instruments. And, at one point, Antonio tells the camp’s musical conductor, “music is the most important thing we have.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 31, 2024.] Ty Burr of The... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 31, 2024.] Ty Burr of The Washington Post listed “His Three Daughters" as the best movie of 2024. The three daughters referred to in the title--Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), Katie (Carrie Coon), and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen)--gather together in New York at the apartment of their dad, Vincent (Jay O. Sanders), anticipating his soon-to-occur death from cancer. Rachel is unmarried and the only daughter who has been living with and caring for her dad, under Hospice supervision. What is most striking throughout most of the movie is how critical the oldest daughter, Katie, is of the middle daughter, Rachel. Only near the end, after their father has died, do the three sisters seem to reconcile, as Katie and Christina prepare to depart. Well acted and realistic, the film depicts well the coming together of three very different personalities to face together a stressful moment in their lives.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 28, 2024.] Reviews of the... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 28, 2024.] Reviews of the film “Conclave” have been largely influenced by reviewers’ ideological disposition, with liberals and progressives being much more favorable towards it than conservatives, especially those of the Catholic faith. Although directed by Edward Berger, who directed the award-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022), and starring such leading actors as Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow (all of whom play cardinals) and Isabella Rossellini (who plays a nun), most conservatives find it too “woke.” One conservative Catholic bishop stated this: “The only way forward [according to the film] is the embrace of the progressive buzz words of diversity, inclusion, indifference to doctrine.” Typical of the progressive view are the following words of the film’s main character, Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), “Let me tell you, there is one sin, which I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 26, 2024.] Having recentl... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 26, 2024.] Having recently discovered that Nobel Prize in Literature winner (2013) Alice Munro stayed together for decades with a man who sexually abused her youngest daughter from a previous marriage led me to reflect on why so many spouses choose and then stay with bad partners. There are no easy answers. Relations with one’s parents, one’s upbringing and psychological history, and the fact that we are not primarily motivated by rationality, all are partial explanations. Here are a few more hypotheses:
Our attraction to a potential spouse is affected by earlier evolutionary instincts. For example, perhaps some women’s attraction to “macho” men reflects a carryover from a time when the protection of strong men was needed more so than today, when machoness can often do more harm than good.
Values are not as important to us as they should be--either on the conscious or unconscious level. I doubt whether many single people considering someone as a possible future spouse delves very deeply into the question of whether or not the two of them share common values. But in a marriage, agreement on fundamental values can be an important cement enhancing the relationship.
We have a simplistic approach to love. Partly because of our media, we tend to overemphasize Hollywood’s favorite type--romantic love--but there are various other types, especially agape, which is sometime referred to as “brotherly love” or charity. Although romantic love can be an important component of spousal love, especially in the early years of a marriage, in the latter stages--especially if ill health enters the picture--a love closer to agape often takes precedence.
[This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/18/2024.) Marine biologist Dr. A... more [This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/18/2024.) Marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author/editor of this year’s "What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures," recently stated regarding our present “climate crisis”: “We basically have all the solutions we need. We already know how to make energy that's clean and renewable. We already know how to green buildings and be more efficient with our energy. . . . It's implementation of those solutions that's really not up to the pace that we need. There's a lack of political will that's holding us back.” She’s referring primarily to the USA, and we see this lack of will primarily in our country’s selection of Donald Trump as our incoming president and, most recently, his picks for various government positions. In Johnson’s book there are many fine interviews, poems, and other selections, including a poem (“A Vision”) by 90-year-old Wendell Berry, where he writes, “then a long time after we are dead / the lives our lives prepare will live / here, their houses strongly placed / upon the valley sides, fields and gardens / rich in the windows. The river will run / clear, as we will never know it, / and over it, birdsong like a canopy.” He ends with, “This is no paradisal dream. / Its hardship is its possibility.” His poem is indeed a “vision,” and a climate future we all (oldsters like Berry and youngsters who have so many potential years ahead of them) need to work towards.
(This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/14/2024.) On December 4th Brian ... more (This article first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 12/14/2024.) On December 4th Brian Thompson the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed in Manhattan. Although the social-media response was mixed, it included some sympathy for the shooter (Luigi Mangione) and rage against health-insurance providers. According to a CBS report, Mangione possessed a three-page document that he wrote which outlined some of his views. He claimed that the U. S. had the "most expensive healthcare system in the world," but ranked only “42 in life expectancy." He also wrote that many U. S. corporations abuse our country in order to gain “immense profit” and reflect "corruption and greed." This essay considers three media responses to the shooting and Mangione’s arrest and crticism of the healthcare industry. While condemning the shooting, it agrees with some of the media responses that emphasize that profit-seeking in the healthcare industry has been overemphasized.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 12, 2024.] August Wilson’... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 12, 2024.] August Wilson’s play "The Piano Lesson," now as a well-acted film on Netflix, is set in 1936 when Boy Willie (John David Washington), along with his friend Lymon, comes to where his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) lives in Pittsburgh with her uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and her 12-year-old daughter Maretha. The main reason for the visit is so Boy Willie can obtain and sell the piano that Berniece brought up from the south. He wants to buy some land back home that he can farm, and he needs the cash to add to what he can gain in other ways. But Berniece is unwilling to part from the piano, which has a tangled history and some of her and Boy Willie’s ancestors carved on it. The brother-sister clash over Boy Willie’s goal is the heart of the play, and as we view this struggle, we are reminded of many of the injustices and hopes suffered by Black people throughout U. S. history.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] "Organized Crim... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] "Organized Crime on Page and Screen" is David Geherin’s latest book, and he is one of our most distinguished authors on crime fiction. Three of his books have been finalists for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award. His new study is divided into two sections: Part I--Crime Fiction, and Part II--Movies and TV. In Part I, he deals with the Italian Mafia, the U. S. one, and the Mexican drug cartels. Among the ten authors he treats in Part I are Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather (1968), and (perhaps his favorite writer) Don Winslow, writer of many books, among which Geherin discusses two trilogies--“The Cartel Trilogy,” and “The Danny Ryan Trilogy.” The first triad set mainly in Mexico and our southern border region, and the second in various U. S. areas including Rhode Island, southern California, and Las Vegas. In Part II among the movies he treats are “The Godfather Trilogy” and “Five Movies by Martin Scorsese.” The five TV series he deals with are The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Peaky Blinders, and Gomorrah. In addition he also provides an Introduction, Bibliography, and Index, all brief but sufficient.
Even if at times Geherin indicates some likeable traits of criminal characters, he is always mindful of the inhumanity and horrors of organized crimes. He also often links organized crime with capitalism, quoting, for example, the director of The Godfather film, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” In writing about movies and TV series, Geherin (a retired English professor) reveals that he is a discerning critic of such media, while at the same time mindful of predecessors on page and screen.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] The film “The F... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 9, 2024.] The film “The Father” (2020), now streaming on Starz, is a powerful movie about an octogenarian struggling with dementia. As the man in the title, Anthony Hopkins won a Best Actor Oscar. In previous essays I have reviewed other screen and book productions about one of the worst types of it, Alzheimer’s, and concluded that caregivers need to apply plenty of love, empathy, heroism, and humor in order to provide maximum help to anyone so afflicted. Only after the death of my wife, Nancy, did I reveal that she suffered from it. What the “The Father” does better than any other Alzheimer’s film is depict the inner turmoil and confusion of someone with late-stage dementia. For anyone desiring more understanding of the many effects of this disease watching “The Father” is a “must.”
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Dec. 4, 2024.] David Geherin’s just-... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Dec. 4, 2024.] David Geherin’s just-published Organized Crime on Page and Screen quotes The Godfather creator, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” Geherin also provides other material that indicates the “thirst for money” and lust for profits that both share. He also mentions “the American Dream” and indicates that a large part of it involved achieving financial success. It is this type of “American Dream” that has largely appealed to our once and future President Donald Trump. But there is another type of “American Dream,” and a more inclusive one. It has best been epitomized by Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and one of his most faithful followers, Congressman John Lewis. In MLK’s dream, “all of God’s children will have food and clothing and material well-being for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, and freedom for their spirits.” Lewis added, that “the American dream is more than living large. The American dream is the power to create one out of many and the goodness that flows from the unity of all human kind.” As both civil-rights leaders realized their dream was not (in MLK’s words) a “thing-oriented society,” where “machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people,” but a “person-oriented society.” And not a society (in Lewis’s phrases) that takes “our air, waters and land for granted” and displays “a simple lack of respect for nature and our environment,” but one that realizes as Lewis did that “humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 2, 2024.] “Say Nothing,” ... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on Dec. 2, 2024.] “Say Nothing,” the 9-Part Hulu Series which dramatizes the late-1960s-to-1998 period in Northern-Irish history known as “the Troubles,” makes for riveting viewing. It revolves around three loci: Dolours Price and her family, especially her younger sister, Mariane; Jean McConville and her many children; and Gerry Adams, a leader among the IRA members in Belfast. At the beginning of the series the young Dolorous favors non-violent tactics to end British oppression in Northern Ireland, but she soon becomes convinced that only violence will work. By the end of the series, however (decades later), she regrets some of her uses of violence. The series leaves viewers with the same dilemma: What would have been the best way--the way that would have produced the least suffering--to end British oppression in Northern Ireland.?
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Nov. 29, 2024.] With COP 29, the UN’s... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on Nov. 29, 2024.] With COP 29, the UN’s annual climate conference (which have been held since 1995), just ending and by most observers considered a failure, it is time to ask why. Moreover, as the New York Times reported, “Trump is widely expected to renege on any commitments negotiated [at the conference] in Baku, and he has said he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement [as he did during his earlier presidency].” As I indicated in an earlier piece, “putting profits before all else” has hindered “climate-change reforms.” Now, as Artificial Intelligence once again indicates, that statement can be applied to additional reforms, especially any that challenge profit-making in general and any new technology- driven changes. A half-century ago economist/environmentalist E. F. Schumacher wrote that “more education can help us only if it produces more wisdom.” But teaching wisdom has little place in modern education. Instead what General Omar Bradley once stated is closer to the truth: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website with the title “Fleeing Nazi Bomb... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website with the title “Fleeing Nazi Bombs” on Nov. 26, 2024.] Steve McQueen’s new film “Blitz,” now Streaming on Apple TV, reminds one of the opening of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Worst of times? Yes, because in early September 1940 Nazi war planes began bombing London and other British cities. And, according to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “from September 7 to November 3 an average of two hundred German bombers attacked London every night.” Best of times? Yes, because as we see the Londoners endure the German bombing, we also see them displaying their humanism, their essential decency, and at times even their love of other humans. The film focuses on 9-year-old George, whose mom puts him on a train so he can live a safer existence in a rural area, one not subject to German bombing. But unable to endure the separation, George jumps off the train an hour or so after it leaves London, and most of the remainder of the film chronicles the adventures he faces making his way back home in a bomb-damaged London.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/22/2024.] With Donald Trump’s seco... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/22/2024.] With Donald Trump’s second presidential term soon approaching, it’s time to recognize that another hyper-capitalist phase is on our horizon. His whole background, including his opposition to federal government restrictions on capitalists like himself, inclines him toward such unfettered, dog-eat-dog capitalism. His 2024 campaign rhetoric, the 2023 playbook of The Heritage Foundation ( Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”), and the president-elect’s proposed cabinet picks all indicate his likely intentions. Opposing the Trumpian approach is one that has also predominated for periods in our U. S. history, e.g., the Franklin Roosevelt era. Today that progressive approach is perhaps best represented by someone like Sen. Bernie Sanders. It stresses such values as compassion, empathy, and tolerance and places the common good above obsessing about profiteering, either personally or for our nation. Past bounce-backs, like FDR’s in the Depression, from free-reign capitalism are no guarantee that we again will be successful. All we progressives can do is work and persist against Trumpism and the “unfettered capitalism,” the dog-eat-dog world, he champions--as long as it coincides with his own egotistic needs.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/17/2024.] This essay summarizes tw... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/17/2024.] This essay summarizes two recent books--John Grisham and Jim McCloskey’s "Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions," and Dan Slepian’s "The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice"--that highlight wrongful U. S. convictions, some resulting in innocent people being put to death. Slepian writes that the wrongful convicted “number is staggering.” He suggests the total number could be between 100,000 and 200,000, but only around “thirty-five hundred people have been exonerated in the past thirty years.” And he adds, “There are roughly two million Americans locked up, more than in any other country, and our recidivism rates lead the world. . . . I’ve come to see the inhumanity and irrationality of that system, and how its worst aspects are revealed by the way it handles wrongful convictions.” Both books discuss why this injustice, and with the recent election of Donald Trump to a second presidential term “innocents in U. S. prisons” shows more signs of increasing rather than diminishing.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/14/2024.] The recent seven-... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/14/2024.] The recent seven-part Apple TV+ series ‘Disclaimer” revolves around a technique referred to in fiction as an “unreliable narrator.”The “narrator” in this case is the author of a book written by Nancy Brigstocke (actress Lesley Manville). In the first six episodes most viewers, as well as other leading characters (e.g. those played by Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen), will take the book’s adulterous version of what happened between Catherine Ravenscroft (played two decades later by Cate Blanchett) and Nancy’s son, Jonathan, as a true narrative. But in Episode seven we will see that the book’s portrayal is inaccurate, and as its director (two-time-Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón) said in an interview, narratives might have no correlation with truth. He also gave an example--about immigrants eating cats and dogs--from the recent U. S. election campaign. Thus, “Disclaimer” has a special relevance in our present Trumpian Time. Besides that, the series is well worth watching and thought provoking.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/10/2024.] The 10-part (21-3... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/10/2024.] The 10-part (21-31 minutes each ) Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” is entertaining and well acted, especially by its two stars, Kristen Bell as an agnostic LA podcaster Joanne and Adam Brody as Noah, a Reform Judaism rabbi. (Justine Lupe, as Joanne’s sister and fellow podcaster Morgan, and Timothy Simons as Noah’s married brother Sasha are also excellent, as is Tovah Feldshuh as Bina, Noah’s mother.) With humor the series touches on differences in belief in God, and more substantially the complications of love (between Joanne and Noah) and family pressures.
[This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/8/2024.] The memoir ("This ... more [This essay first appeared on the Hollywood Progressive website on 11/8/2024.] The memoir ("This Timeless Moment") of Aldous Huxley’s second wife, Laura, who married him in 1956, a year after the death of his first wife, Maria, is a valuable book. In it she has a chapter entitled “One Never Loves Enough.” She refers to those words as her husband’s “theme song,” and writes that “as the years passed,” it “increased in intensity.” It is this thought, this emphasis on the paramount importance of love, love in the best and fullest sense, that is Huxley’s most important contribution. But there are also others. Although he was best known for "Brave New World" (1932), it is Laura’s memoir and his final novel, "Island" (1962), published a year before his death on November 22, 1963--the same day as President John Kennedy’s assassination--that are examined in this essay.
[This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/7/2024.] For many progressives and... more [This essay first appeared on the LA Progressive website on 11/7/2024.] For many progressives and other critics of Donald Trump keeping hope alive will be difficult after our 2024 election. But we all must try. In the past such progressive leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela, and Barack Obama have urged us to “keep hope alive.” In addition, psychologists and philosophers have told us that hope is good for us. To maintain our hopes we should remember: 1) Almost half of our voters opposed Trump (about 47 % voted for Harris); 2) Many of those who voted for Trump were more confused than evil; 3) As Harris suggested in her concession speech, Trump’s election victory is only one battle in a long struggle over the direction of our country; 4) The future of our country is still open-ended, with results depending partly on how we all react to Trump’s proposed policies; and 5) The values and justice we progressives fight for, especially regarding climate change, are just too important, especially for younger people, to abandon. Work, persistence, and patience should be our watchwords.
"Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, 2000
An earlier pdf copy of "Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky," Anthem Press,... more An earlier pdf copy of "Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky," Anthem Press, 2002 including: PART ONE 11 1 AN EMPEROR'S FUNERAL 12 2 A LIEUTENANT IN THE CRIMEA 16 3 THE TSAR VISITS MOSCOW 23 4 A MOSCOW PROFESSOR 29 5 TOLSTOY IN THE CAPITAL 38 6 THE TSAR, THE SERFS, AND THE CORONATION 49 7 A SOLDIER IN EXILE 59 8 MICHAEL BAKUNIN 68 9 THE MURAVIEVS AND PEROVSKYS 78 10 TWO NOBLEMEN 86 11 HERZEN AND THE BELL 103 12 TWO VISITORS TO LONDON 118 13 TWO MORE VISITORS, 1862 129 PART TWO 142 14 A FATEFUL YEAR 143 15 NEKRASOV AND MURAVIEV THE HANGMAN 151 16 THE PEROVSKYS AND HERZEN IN GENEVA 160 17 ANNA 168 18 THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY 178 19 A MARRIAGE AND A MASTERPIECE 185 20 A SHOT IN PARIS 197 21 BADEN-BADEN 209 22 THE DOSTOEVSKYS IN GENEVA 219 23 NECHAEV, BAKUNIN, AND THE LAST DAYS OF HERZEN 229 PART THREE 240 24 THE TSAR VISITS LONDON 241 24 THE TSAR VISITS LONDON 241 25 DOSTOEVSKY IN BAD EMS 252 26 SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA, RADICAL 261 27 A MYSTIC IN THE DESERT 274 28 THE TSAR AT THE FRONT 287 29 THE DEATH OF NEKRASOV 302 8/4/23, 5:06 PM Moss, Walter - About alexander II and his times https://www.theyliewedie.org/ressources/biblio/en/Moss,_Walter_-_About_alexander_II_and_his_times.html 2/150 30 A VISIT TO A MONASTERY 319 31 TOLSTOY APOLOGIZES 332 32 "PROPHET, PROPHET" 346 33 A DEATH AND A MARRIAGE 363 34 TWO CONSPIRATORS 372 35 BOMBS AND BLOOD 381 36 THE TRIAL 388 37 TWO APPEALS 397 38 A SPECTACLE ON SEMENOVSKY SQUARE 407 EPILOGUE 411 ENDNOTES 416 CHRONOLOGY 449 ABOUT ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES
In the Face of Fear: On Laughing All The Way Toward Wisdom, 2019
This paper contains a Table of Contents, sample material, and reviews of the Face of Fear: On Lau... more This paper contains a Table of Contents, sample material, and reviews of the Face of Fear: On Laughing All The Way Toward Wisdom (Wood Lake, 2019)
In this collection of 36 previous articles, written between 2013-2022 and previously posted on we... more In this collection of 36 previous articles, written between 2013-2022 and previously posted on websites, Abba Solomon indicates that Zionism necessarily led to a “government oppressive to non-Jews in Palestine” and present-day Israel. He also criticizes U. S. Jewish organizations that equate criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism. In addition, he criticizes U. S. media, which “in contrast to most of the world’s, omit the Palestinian story [of Palestinian Arab suffering and being persecuted], and thus why US public opinion favors Israel so markedly.” He also blames most U. S. politicians, including Presidents Trump and Biden, as well as Hillary Clinton, for being too pro-Israeli and not mindful enough of Palestinian Arab suffering.
The cover of the 2021 book reviewed here portrays four of my heroes whom I have written about--Ma... more The cover of the 2021 book reviewed here portrays four of my heroes whom I have written about--Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Harriet Tubman. Maring, who has much personal experience working for social justice through his DC Lutheran church, devotes most of his book to examining “detractors” that have hampered the USA from furthering the common good. They include Economic inequality, Poverty and homelessness, Racial and immigration injustice, Gender and family issues, and failures regarding Health care, Voting rights, and Environmental sustainability. In advancing the common good, he realizes that political compromises are often required. The only omission he fails to address is the necessity of reassessing our basic values, a reassessment that education and culture should, but often do not, facilitate.
Jonathan Eig’s new (2023) biography of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) is the first comprehensive on... more Jonathan Eig’s new (2023) biography of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) is the first comprehensive one since David J. Garrow's Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference" appeared in 1986. In this newer one, Eig devotes much more space--almost a quarter of his text--to MLK’s pre-Montgomery-Bus-Boycott years. It includes much more on Coretta Scott King--and also indicates that King was often sexist toward his wife (and other women). And Eig goes into much more detail on how and why King’s life was not only “deeply courageous,” but “also deeply flawed.” Overall, however, Eig presents a deeply appreciative biography of a great man, detailing not only his civil-rights activities, but his opposition to the Vietnam War and other U. S. failings.
David Geherin’s “The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations”... more David Geherin’s “The Crime World of Michael Connelly: A Study of His Works and Their Adaptations” provides a comprehensive overview of Connelly’s 36 novels and other writings and podcasts between 1992 and mid-2022. In addition, it details the various adaptations of his works in other media, including films and TV series. Moreover, it devotes a chapter to the “Portrait of L.A. and the LAPD,” which occurs in most of his writings, and provides an excellent analysis of Connelly’s main themes and writing techniques.
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates displays sympathies that are clearly... more Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates displays sympathies that are clearly with progressive values, and she empathizes with those who are often looked down upon by better-off whites, not only ethnic minorities but also gay people and the poor. The novel also reflects much wisdom and appreciation of wise values such as love. About the character most similar to herself, the widow (for most of the novel) Jessalyn McClaren, Oates stresses the centrality of her love : “So long as Jessalyn is alive, she must have someone to love and to care for.” As a well-off white woman, Jessalyn is also wise in realizing how lucky and privileged she has been. The novel also conveys much wisdom about intrafamily relations--Jessalyn has five adult children--coping with death, and continuing personal development. But Oates’s novel is never dull, verbose, or preachy; her writing centers on her characters, and they all hold our interest.
“The Third Man” is s a worthy addition to the already large number of books dealing with the two ... more “The Third Man” is s a worthy addition to the already large number of books dealing with the two great victorious WWII leaders, Churchill and FDR. It is primarily based on the relevant years of Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s diary of mind-boggling length--the complete diary is 30,000 typewritten pages. As the author (Thompson) notes, “No other national leader was so intimate with both Churchill and Roosevelt. . . . Few were so perceptive about them and none left so detailed an account [in his diary] of their circumstances, policy, and interactions. In addition to closely observing the two individuals, King, as the leader of a country vital to their interests, used his position to actively participate in the transfer of global hegemony from Britain to the United States.”
Much of what Saunders has to say in this new book is about the art of writing-as he tells us, "I ... more Much of what Saunders has to say in this new book is about the art of writing-as he tells us, "I decided to write this book, to put some of what my [writing] students and I have discovered together over the years down on paper and, in that way, offer a modest version of that class to you." (He also offers insights into artists' creations in general, whether they be writers, painters, or composers, and he acknowledges that he is analyzing translated stories, which loose something in translation.) But this review will only focus on what the seven translated stories-three by Chekhov, two by Tolstoy, and one each by Gogol and Turgenev-have to offer to the average reader. And then we'll conclude with some observations about the value of Russian writings and literature in general.
As Putnam’s title suggests, he attempts to indicate how the USA once came together (beginning in ... more As Putnam’s title suggests, he attempts to indicate how the USA once came together (beginning in the Progressive Era) and how now in the midst of our polarized age we can so again. The post-Civil-War Gilded Age “was startlingly similar to today. Inequality, political polarization, social dislocation, and cultural narcissism prevailed.” But then during the Progressive Era (1890-c. 1910) “the institutional, social, and cultural seeds” of what Putnam labels the “Great Convergence” were sown. Out of those seeds emerged more than six decades (up until the late 1960s) of “imperfect but steady upward progress toward greater economic equality, more cooperation in the public square, a stronger social fabric, and a growing culture of solidarity,” in which we “became more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest.” But “then suddenly and unexpectedly . . . the Great Convergence was reversed in a dramatic U-turn, to be followed by a half century of Great Divergence,” in which the “I” was emphasized much more than the “we.” Putnam traces these developments in separate chapters on economics, politics, society, and culture. He also has individual chapters devoted to race and gender, where he indicates that the “we” of the Great Convergence was often meant for white males more than for all Americans. The book’s penultimate chapter summarizes earlier findings and pays special attention to historical causation and the 1960s that brought about the switch from the Great Convergence to the Great Divergence. The final chapter concentrates on the lessons that can be learned from the Progressive Era, and what we can do today to once again focus less on the “I” and more on the “we” or common good. In summary, this is a useful and important book.
In this very readable novel the author’s characters manifest the dazzling complexity of love. And... more In this very readable novel the author’s characters manifest the dazzling complexity of love. And in the face of suffering and death, mainly in a Japanese POW camp in Thailand, the transcendent power of beauty and goodness sometimes shine through. But the book’s hero, doctor and commander of Australian POWs Dorrigo Evans, has no easy answers to the meaning of life. Like Don Quixote, he just continues to “charge the windmill,” stating “it’s only our faith in illusions that makes life possible.” As a youth he “read and reread” Tennyson’ poem “Ulysses,” and on his death bed he mumbles lines from it. “Every word [of the poem] now a revelation, as if it had been written for him, a poem his life and his life a poem.” The POWs main job is to help build the Thai–Burma Railway to aid Japanese forces in Burma, similar to the POW work depicted in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. In addition to many Australian characters, primarily the POWs and the women in their lives, we also learn about their Japanese officers, and what motivated some of them, such as their reverence for their emperor and the Japanese spirit. In addition, there is a section dealing with the postwar occupation of Japan and the treatment of Japanese war criminals, and how some of them met their deaths. In concrete prose Flanagan has his realistic characters confront some of life’s most important questions.
Like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Elena Ferrante in her four Neapolitan novels (2011-2015) deals reali... more Like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Elena Ferrante in her four Neapolitan novels (2011-2015) deals realistically with important subjects and does so in captivating, page-turning prose. Her quartet has been especially appealing to women because her two main characters, Elena and Lila, face many of the same problems that modern women have confronted in recent decades, namely dealing with their friends, love lives, families, and careers. The love lives of the two women receive special attention, and neither one finds a love that endures. But the quartet by no means limits itself to women’s topics. Elena’s struggle to rise in life, intellectually and socially, from her poor background is one with which many of us can identify. And Ferrante’s quartet tells us much about changing Italian life in the late twentieth-century, including its many political factions and organized crime. This is especially true regarding Naples.
In 2016 and 2017 the public and press in Russia looked more favorably upon Donald Trump than was ... more In 2016 and 2017 the public and press in Russia looked more favorably upon Donald Trump than was true in other major countries, largely because he seemed more positive toward Vladimir Putin than did other U. S. politicians. Yet, Russian media, as reflected in the 100 plus articles collected here, realized the various constraints upon him, such as Congress. The collection’s editor acknowledges that the assessments of Trump by Russian journalists and political analysts have varied, but, unlike many U. S. commentators, “they do not impugn his character, honesty, or intelligence.” The books “Epilogue” section concentrates mainly on the declining hopes for any improved U. S.-Russian relations. The main reasons given for the decline are the charges leveled against the Russians for “meddling” in the 2016 presidential election and subsequently The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (passed by Congress and signed by Trump in the summer of 2017). 2018 events, which have occurred since the book’s completion, provide little hope that those relations will improve any time soon.
Steven Pinker’s "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress." broade... more Steven Pinker’s "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress." broadens the optimistic argument that he made in his "The Better Angels of Our Nature" (2011), which maintained that the world was becoming a less violent place. Here he argues that “people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, [and] they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter.” He envisions his present book as an “attempt to restate the ideals of the Enlightenment [reason, science, humanism, and progress] in the language and concepts of the 21st century,” and in many ways he succeeds. But the book also has its faults. One is that it undervalues the importance of character virtues, especially wisdom, which it treats too casually. It is also too full of sweeping, and at times inaccurate, generalizations. Pinker’s whole approach is like that of a lawyer presenting his case. What provides evidence for his case is included. What casts doubts upon it is excluded or explained away. Like all the rest of us, he has his biases. One of the most notable is against religion. He is not a concordance-seeker attempting to mobilize all good-willed people, but a case-maker who makes many good points, but leaves us with reasonable doubts.
Presidential historian Robert Dallek wrote his FDR biography “to remind people, especially a youn... more Presidential historian Robert Dallek wrote his FDR biography “to remind people, especially a younger generation with limited knowledge of American history, of what great presidential leadership looks like.” He considers FDR one of our three greatest presidents, along with Washington and Lincoln. The first half of Dallek’s book concentrates on Roosevelt’s privileged early years and domestic presidential leadership during the 1930s, partly because U.S. isolationism limited his opportunities to have more of an impact in the international arena. The last half of the book focuses on FDR’s foreign policy: the threat of Hitler and Japanese militarism; overcoming U.S. isolationism; wartime leadership and relations with Churchill, Stalin, de Gaulle, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek; and FDR postwar aspirations. This biography clearly demonstrates that FDR sought the proper political goal—improving the common good—and possessed the necessary qualities needed to act politically wise. He deserves the esteem with which Dallek regards him.
David Geherin’s “Funny Thing About Murder: Modes of Humor in Crime Fiction and Films" provides an... more David Geherin’s “Funny Thing About Murder: Modes of Humor in Crime Fiction and Films" provides an analysis and many examples of humor in the writings of 30 authors (23 men and 7 women) and 33 films. Most of the works are USA-produced, but some British, Irish, translated, or sub-titled novels or films are also examined. Geherin’s style is concise and appreciative of the humor he describes. As he points out, however, humor does not preclude the treatment of serious subjects. For example, he writes that “no one writes funnier crime novels than Carl Hiaasen,” but he is deadly serious in his anger toward “those responsible for the crime of transforming Florida's stunning natural beauty into what one of his characters calls ‘Newark with palm trees.’” And “Hiaasen's most venomous portraits are those of the corrupt, moneygrubbing, soulless individuals who are responsible for the utter despoilment of Florida's natural beauty in their pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.”
This biography by two Washington Post journalists provides much useful information and is well wr... more This biography by two Washington Post journalists provides much useful information and is well written. It begins with Trump’s German paternal immigrant grandparents and Scottish mother and ends a few weeks after the November 2016 election with the following summation of the new president-elect’s behavior: “Again and again in the first weeks after the election, Trump’s awkward attempts to appear presidential butted up against his peevish insults and his overnight tweets about the elites who were unfairly attacking him.” The sad truth is that some nine months after the publication of this latest edition of Trump Revealed, the presidency of Donald Trump seems as disastrous as his biographers suggested it would be.
Having appeared in the midst of a presidential election year, America's War for the Greater Middl... more Having appeared in the midst of a presidential election year, America's War for the Greater Middle East is a timely and significant book. Retired career military officer Andrew Bacevich (Boston Univ.) reckons that every president beginning with Jimmy Carter has made serious mistakes in conducting the US war in the Middle East, and he details them in this excellent book .
According to Fawcett emphasizes four ideas that have characterized liberalism: “acknowledgment of... more According to Fawcett emphasizes four ideas that have characterized liberalism: “acknowledgment of inescapable ethical and material conflict within society, distrust of power, faith in human progress, and respect for people whatever they think and whoever they are.” He see's liberalism as a "big tent" that has existed from about 1830 to the present, and he lays out the thinking and actions of more than 50 people he considers liberal.
A review of Barbara Claypole White's novel which deals with a mother, father, and son who grow i... more A review of Barbara Claypole White's novel which deals with a mother, father, and son who grow in love despite many obstacles.
In the same month that Dostoevsky arrived in Bad Ems, Sophia Perovskaya was released from five mo... more In the same month that Dostoevsky arrived in Bad Ems, Sophia Perovskaya was released from five months in prison.What crime had merited such treatment for this little twenty-year-old whose father had once been governor of St Petersburg and who was now still a member of the Council of Ministers of the Ministry of the Interior? Not long after her father had lost his job as governor in 1866, she had gone with her mother and sister to Kilburn, the family estate in the Crimea. There they lived for over two years. In the summers, and once in the spring after a two-month university suspension for taking part in student disorders, her brother Vasily came down from St Petersburg armed with radical literature. The young Sophia longed to know more. And at the end of the sixties she got her chance. In the summer her father came to the Crimea with the news that it was necessary to sell Kilburn to help pay for his debts. The family returned to the capital, where he found a place for them, while he continued to live in his own apartment. Sophia enrolled in the newly begun classes for women being offered at the Alarchinsky gymnasium, which was located near her new lodgings on the western side of the city. Soon she was spending hours in rooms with other women discussing the position of women in society and other social questions.Amidst heavy cigarette smoke, Sophia looked almost like a child.
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“Terezin,” now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a sad 2024 movie about a Nazi prison camp. But in a sense it is uplifting because it can stimulate thinking about how to face life’s tragedies such as death. One way is through transcendence, which involves the central intuition of our unity with nature and others (and maybe God and maybe not). Transcendence can be achieved through a greater appreciation of the beauty to be found in nature, the arts, and love. In the film “Terezin” beauty is primarily realized through music, although art and love also contribute. The two main characters are Antonio, a clarinetist and Italian who had come to Prague to study music and then remained, and Martina, a Czechoslovak violinist, who became his lover. They are both sent to the camp, where for complex reasons, partly propagandistic, they are allowed to play their instruments. And, at one point, Antonio tells the camp’s musical conductor, “music is the most important thing we have.”
Our attraction to a potential spouse is affected by earlier evolutionary instincts. For example, perhaps some women’s attraction to “macho” men reflects a carryover from a time when the protection of strong men was needed more so than today, when machoness can often do more harm than good.
Values are not as important to us as they should be--either on the conscious or unconscious level. I doubt whether many single people considering someone as a possible future spouse delves very deeply into the question of whether or not the two of them share common values. But in a marriage, agreement on fundamental values can be an important cement enhancing the relationship.
We have a simplistic approach to love. Partly because of our media, we tend to overemphasize Hollywood’s favorite type--romantic love--but there are various other types, especially agape, which is sometime referred to as “brotherly love” or charity. Although romantic love can be an important component of spousal love, especially in the early years of a marriage, in the latter stages--especially if ill health enters the picture--a love closer to agape often takes precedence.
Even if at times Geherin indicates some likeable traits of criminal characters, he is always mindful of the inhumanity and horrors of organized crimes. He also often links organized crime with capitalism, quoting, for example, the director of The Godfather film, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” In writing about movies and TV series, Geherin (a retired English professor) reveals that he is a discerning critic of such media, while at the same time mindful of predecessors on page and screen.
“Terezin,” now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a sad 2024 movie about a Nazi prison camp. But in a sense it is uplifting because it can stimulate thinking about how to face life’s tragedies such as death. One way is through transcendence, which involves the central intuition of our unity with nature and others (and maybe God and maybe not). Transcendence can be achieved through a greater appreciation of the beauty to be found in nature, the arts, and love. In the film “Terezin” beauty is primarily realized through music, although art and love also contribute. The two main characters are Antonio, a clarinetist and Italian who had come to Prague to study music and then remained, and Martina, a Czechoslovak violinist, who became his lover. They are both sent to the camp, where for complex reasons, partly propagandistic, they are allowed to play their instruments. And, at one point, Antonio tells the camp’s musical conductor, “music is the most important thing we have.”
Our attraction to a potential spouse is affected by earlier evolutionary instincts. For example, perhaps some women’s attraction to “macho” men reflects a carryover from a time when the protection of strong men was needed more so than today, when machoness can often do more harm than good.
Values are not as important to us as they should be--either on the conscious or unconscious level. I doubt whether many single people considering someone as a possible future spouse delves very deeply into the question of whether or not the two of them share common values. But in a marriage, agreement on fundamental values can be an important cement enhancing the relationship.
We have a simplistic approach to love. Partly because of our media, we tend to overemphasize Hollywood’s favorite type--romantic love--but there are various other types, especially agape, which is sometime referred to as “brotherly love” or charity. Although romantic love can be an important component of spousal love, especially in the early years of a marriage, in the latter stages--especially if ill health enters the picture--a love closer to agape often takes precedence.
Even if at times Geherin indicates some likeable traits of criminal characters, he is always mindful of the inhumanity and horrors of organized crimes. He also often links organized crime with capitalism, quoting, for example, the director of The Godfather film, Francis Ford Coppola, as stating, “Both the Mafia and America. . . . are totally capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit motive.” In writing about movies and TV series, Geherin (a retired English professor) reveals that he is a discerning critic of such media, while at the same time mindful of predecessors on page and screen.
PART ONE 11
1 AN EMPEROR'S FUNERAL 12
2 A LIEUTENANT IN THE CRIMEA 16
3 THE TSAR VISITS MOSCOW 23
4 A MOSCOW PROFESSOR 29
5 TOLSTOY IN THE CAPITAL 38
6 THE TSAR, THE SERFS, AND THE CORONATION 49
7 A SOLDIER IN EXILE 59
8 MICHAEL BAKUNIN 68
9 THE MURAVIEVS AND PEROVSKYS 78
10 TWO NOBLEMEN 86
11 HERZEN AND THE BELL 103
12 TWO VISITORS TO LONDON 118
13 TWO MORE VISITORS, 1862 129
PART TWO 142
14 A FATEFUL YEAR 143
15 NEKRASOV AND MURAVIEV THE HANGMAN 151
16 THE PEROVSKYS AND HERZEN IN GENEVA 160
17 ANNA 168
18 THE PROFESSOR AND HIS FAMILY 178
19 A MARRIAGE AND A MASTERPIECE 185
20 A SHOT IN PARIS 197
21 BADEN-BADEN 209
22 THE DOSTOEVSKYS IN GENEVA 219
23 NECHAEV, BAKUNIN, AND THE LAST DAYS OF HERZEN 229
PART THREE 240
24 THE TSAR VISITS LONDON 241
24 THE TSAR VISITS LONDON 241
25 DOSTOEVSKY IN BAD EMS 252
26 SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA, RADICAL 261
27 A MYSTIC IN THE DESERT 274
28 THE TSAR AT THE FRONT 287
29 THE DEATH OF NEKRASOV 302
8/4/23, 5:06 PM Moss, Walter - About alexander II and his times
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30 A VISIT TO A MONASTERY 319
31 TOLSTOY APOLOGIZES 332
32 "PROPHET, PROPHET" 346
33 A DEATH AND A MARRIAGE 363
34 TWO CONSPIRATORS 372
35 BOMBS AND BLOOD 381
36 THE TRIAL 388
37 TWO APPEALS 397
38 A SPECTACLE ON SEMENOVSKY SQUARE 407
EPILOGUE 411
ENDNOTES 416
CHRONOLOGY 449
ABOUT ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES