Osler's Razor

Not long ago, a friend was telling me about a fascinating new fast-food place, which offered only sushi and smoothies. It's a weird combination; hopefully there is no cross-over between the product lines. The people at the counter were Asian, and the workers making the food and the smoothies were Latino. The customers were a mix of people from a typical mixed-income urban American neighborhood. The joint was jammed, with a line out the door.

That scene is profoundly American, all of it. The jarring mash-up of cuisines and people, the innovation, the lively success. It's the kind of thing that comes from one of our greatest strengths: the ability to meld cultures into something new, prosperous, and meaningful.

So, who is American?

There seems to be a movement in this country to define "American" as white, conservative, and Christian. That movement will fail.

It will fail because it is wrong legally; the Constitution itself makes that clear.

It will fail because it is weak. Those who fear those who are unlike them are limpid, infirm.

It will fail because it is moral wrong-- even (or especially) within the morality of Christianity.

And it will fail because it will lose out to the genuine heart of America, that is alive in that place where they are (apparently) making pretty good sushi and smoothies.

There were some great haiku last week about secret talents! I loved finding out that the Medievalist can bake bread, that Jill Scoggins makes intriguing-sounding ornaments, that Silly American can parallel park, and that Christine is making book trees. (I already knew that Gavin could write haiku, but it was still a good poem).

The epic for this week, though, comes from Tall Tenor, who teaches opera in Texas (necessary context to understand this poem):

Singing I can do.
Not so much guitar playing.
But I will get it!

Country-western songs
Played in a honky-tonk bar
Make me laugh and cry.

One terrible person made a bunch of bombs. They were duds; no one was hurt. He targeted the rich and famous.

Another terrible person went into a building and shot as many people as he could, killing 11 of them. He targeted those who were worshipping.

Both did it out of hate.

Like a lot of people, I am wondering "What is going on?" How did we get to a place where (on top of school shootings and all the other violence) we now are stacking up in one week multiple acts of lethal hate on the national stage.

Part of the problem is this: There is no moral force in our society to counter hate.

The government has abdicated that role.
Faith leaders have lost their voice and influence, and some exacerbate the problem.
Our teachers have been marginalized and devalued.
Popular culture is not much help; it is often rooted in violence.

In all of the time I have been alive, this is the period I can remember with the largest vacuum in real leadership.

Can we hope that this will change?

There are a lot of interesting races going on, but the Florida governor's contest has to be one of the most fascinating:

A few years ago, Dr. Joanne Braxton gave me the book "A Lesson Before Dying," by Ernest Gaines. The book captivated me, and I couldn't put it down.

As I have mentioned here before, one line in the book struck me hard. A young black man is being led to the execution chamber, circa 1948:

And my mind went back to that cell uptown, then to another cell, somewhere in Florida.  After reading about the execution there, I had dreamed about it over and over and over.  As vividly as if I were there, I had seen that cell, heard that boy crying while being dragged to that chair, "Please, Joe Louis, help me.  Please help me.  Help me."  And after he had been strapped in the chair, the man who wrote the story could still hear him cry "Mr. Joe Louis help me, Mr. Joe Louis help me."

At the time I read it, I felt hit by the odd plea to someone wholly unable to help-- and I felt too much like that helpless person called out to. Of course, I'm no Joe Louis.

But is Kim Kardashian the Joe Louis of our time? I know that she is inundated with pleas for help right now, and that many people in prison are convinced that she holds the keys, based on her success with Alice Johnson (who is between us in the picture above). And, I suspect that she is feeling some of the same emotions that I do-- that sense of being overwhelmed in the face of great need and a flood of mail. I'll defend her against any critic who claims she should not be joining this fight, just as I defend the work of my other allies who come from a remarkably broad stratum of our society. Our coalition has something to offend everyone. That's our strength.

This past Sunday, the Star-Tribune columnist Jennifer Brooks wrote a great piece about the work of my clinic (you can read it here). I really appreciate the article, but it is hard for me to read-- I know it sets out an expectation that is hard to meet right now (and, pretty much, always). We are a society that too often prefers finality and forgetting, even when changeable, redeemable human lives are at stake. Once you glimpse the wrong in that, it is hard to look away. But like many worthwhile things, what you are looking  at beneath that compelling image is a hard, uphill path.

I know what that has been like for me. What will it be like for Kim Kardashian?

Not that kind of pie, Gavin!:

Sometimes there is a reflection out there better than what I can offer, and today is one of those days. So check out this today's New York Times Magazine's memoir from Reginald Dwayne Betts, where he describes his journey from inmate to poet an lawyer. It is well worth your time. You can read it here.

Ronald Blount served over 20 years of a life sentence for a non-violent narcotics offense. He was one of the clients of my clinic at St. Thomas, and for about a year, he called me every Friday. At first, it seemed like he was calling to check in on his case, but it soon became clear that he had a broader purpose: to check in on me, to encourage me, to give me hope in the project. There were some hard times, and his Friday calls helped me get through it working on his case and many others.

This week, I visited him at home. I met his family, caught up, and talked about food for a while. It was... perfect.

Not all moments are equal. This one was a rare joy.

I'm used to some staggering sentences coming out of Waco. Usually, they are staggeringly long, and given to black and Latino defendants who are involved in drug or sex assault cases.

This one is different-- a white college fraternity president from Baylor was charged with four counts of sexual assault. He was given a staggeringly sweet plea deal: A $400 fine and three years of what the Waco Tribune Herald called "deferred probation" (and I assume to be deferred adjudication, where the defendant serves probation and then the case is dismissed upon successful completion).

Here is what the Waco Trib had to say, quoting the victim of the alleged crime and then discussing the actions of prosecutor Hillary LaBorde:

Wow! Good work, writers.

The Medievalist stuck wisely to the classics:

Catcher in the Rye,
A broken grieving soul is
Crying out for help.

So did Gavin:

Some books speak to you. 
For me, it’s Catch 22. 
Over and over.

CTL had a truth:

Voices, footsteps, life; 
In a good book you can hear
A story unfold. 

And I loved what Anonymous wrote:

Lila, third reading
Marilynne Robinson’s prose
Charms enchants me still

Despite sad ending
Elegance of the Hedgehog
Deserves a reread.

"I'm trying to right my wrongs
But it's funny, those wrongs
Helped me write this song."

So, yeah, we are living in this weird time where a black rapper is a Republican hero and country singer is championing Democrats. But, most people agree, Kanye West's rant at the White House this week was pretty epic:



Look-- I personally have given a rant at the White House, so I have a little experience with this. And the interesting thing is that some of what Kanye said-- such as the part about the murder rate in Chicago going down of late-- is both true and important to say in the time and place that he said it. Other stuff he said, of course, was just kooky and sometimes dangerously wrong.

One point I hear people coming back to is his apparent condemnation of the 13th Amendment, which got rid of slavery in the US. Sure, that sounds bad. I think, though, that Kanye is just doing a really bad job of making a more subtle point. Here is the 13th Amendment:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I think that Kanye was talking about the clause which allows for slavery or involuntary servitude "except as punishment for a crime," given the context of his other condemnation of over-incarceration. 

I'm a reader. One thing that comes with that status is that every once in a while, you read something that totally pulls you in, and when you are done you miss the characters in the book-- they are gone and you feel their sudden absence. I just finished a book like that this week, and I am now in that period of mourning.

Let's haiku about great books this week, the ones that make you want to get home a little early so you can dig in. Here, I will go first:

When I was done, I
Set the book down, content. Yet,
I miss its wonder.

Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable count, and feel free to call out the name of that great book!

I was fascinated by this story over at the BBC, regarding a woman named Zamira Hajiyevah. She's an Azerbaijani living in London, and the wife of a former state banker in Azerbaijan. It seems she... well, she spends a lot of money. A LOT. Like, $16,000,000 at Harrod's over the course of a decade.

Apparently, the whole thing is kind of fishy, and now the British are (for the first time), using something called an "Unexplained Wealth Order," which the BBC explained this way:

A UWO is a new power which has been designed to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money through the UK.

Is this a good idea? It seems to me like it could be a great way to go after corruption and illegal gains from drug networks and the like, but would no doubt run up against privacy concerns. Could it work in the United States?

Sometimes, movies can be an escape for me. Except when I pick the wrong movie for that purpose.

Which I did last weekend, when I went to see "White Boy Rick," a movie that turned out to hit on all of the following themes that are somewhat personal:

-- The decay of Detroit
-- The illogic of mandatory minimum sentences
-- All that can go wrong when government agents say "trust me."
-- The clothes people (I) wore in the 1980's

Next time, maybe I'll go see "Cars 4" or something...

A good crop last week! I do have to say that we have very different ideas about comfort food. For example, I do not share Silly American's taste on this:

Must have lamb curry--
spices beckon from inside
favorite soup spot.

where I stay an hour.
Walking later, catch a whiff
of pungent sweater.

I get it, though, I do! And my own likes go more along the lines of Susan Stabile's:

A hearty beef stew
warm, crusty bread on the side,
and perhaps some wine.

And Jill Scoggins made me hungry:

Hubby Dave's homemade
veggie soup: Thick broth. Full of
veggies. Full of love.

And then we have the southern contingent, who haven't gotten to fall yet. The Medievalist is still sipping iced tea, and Christine is eating picnic food!:

Crispy and crunchy
fingers, greasy; lick the crumbs
Publix Fried Chicken.

It was my second month of law school.

By that point, I had convinced myself that I somehow belonged at Yale Law, mixing with people who seemed more sophisticated and worldly that me, a guy who had entered the law by serving summons and complaints in Detroit. I had made friends and found my voice in class. It was a fascinating group of people-- it still is.

The school was in an uproar. President Ronald Reagan had nominated Robert Bork, a man who had spent 16 years teaching at Yale Law, to the Supreme Court. He had left a deep imprint at the school, where his students included Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jerry Brown, John Bolton, Anita Hill, and Robert Reich.

Bork himself had grown up among privilege. He graduated from the exclusive Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, then went on to the University of Chicago for both college and law school. As an academic, he was one of the early proponents of "originalism," which holds that a judge should interpret the Constitution by looking at its original intent rather than any re-interpretation within a modern context.

Part of his hardship as a nominee came from his legacy as a scholar; he had written extensively in critique of the line of cases that announced a right to privacy for such things as contraception, and had also been critical of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

People were worked up about the nomination and some (including Ted Kennedy) were unfair. At school, the debate was intense both in the classrooms and on "The Wall," a free-speech zone on the first floor that hosted whatever screed the students chose to attache to the wall with tape.

And then the Senate voted, 58-42, against confirming Bork. Reagan reacted quickly by nominating Anthony Kennedy, who was confirmed without dissent.

Looking back, one striking thing about the Bork fight was that Bork himself did not seem very political. Rather he was a theory guy-- conservative theory, yes, but largely unattached to party machinations. His one seemingly political move was an epic disaster. That was his role in Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" where Nixon fired people at the DOJ (both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General) until he came to an Acting AG, Bork, who was willing to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was investigating Watergate.

Bork was hurt by the Senate's rejection. He quit his seat on the DC Circuit and decamped to George Mason Law School, where he taught for years.

I saw him once, getting a big soda at the WaWa in New Haven by the law school. This was after that crushing vote; I don't know what he was doing back at Yale. He got his drink, I got my hot dog. I held the door for him as we left, and each walked out into the night.

Here in Minneapolis, the chill is in the air. It was 37 the other evening as I walked outside, and when I looked up at the sky I could see my breath. Suddenly, the leaves have begun to change color and the frost appears.

I love that moment.

Part of "cozy season" is making sure that you have the right sweater and the right food. So let's haiku about that this week-- you can pick, sweater or food.  Here, I will go first:

My Mom made warm bread
The smell filled the whole house
With after-school bliss.

Now it is your turn! Just use the 5-7-5 syllable formula and have some fun....

So, Don Lemon quoted the Razor last night on CNN.

But, let's set all that mess aside for the moment. The non-Kavanaugh news for this week revolves around the New York Times's report that Donald Trump actually received over $413,000,000 from his father before and after his father's death. Moreover, the transfer of that money to him may have involved illegal tax dodges.

The implications of this, to some, strike at a central part of the Trump persona: that he is a self-made man, a business virtuoso who became very wealthy through "the art of the deal."

Will this matter? Should it?