BOOKS: The Drunkard's Walk

CalTech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, in his book "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives", offers a fascinating lesson on the development of our understanding of probability and randomness, and how randomness is widely misunderstood and underestimated even today. The core chapters of the book present a sequence of concepts in probability theory, but rather than just present dry theory, Mlodinow takes the much more interesting approach of presenting the concepts by way of the history of their development, making it not only the story of the development of ideas, but of the colorful characters who contributed to them. Along the way, we meet a Renaissance doctor who made more money at games of chance than treating the sick, a Swiss dynasty and full-scale soap opera of mathematicians, and a mathematician who experienced a religious conversion and made a probabilistic argument for the existence of God. He does a good job of carefully explaining the concepts with good examples. Many of the examples are surprisingly counter-intuitive, such as the "Monty Hall problem", supporting the point that our brains tend to be wired counter to correct probabilistic reasoning. The book begins with a discussion about how much we may underestimate and underrecognize the role of randomness in our lives, and at the end returns to the theme of how much we misattribute success or failure to our own efforts while neglecting the role of chance. He touches on a wide variety of applications, from baseball (home run records and world series outcomes) to movie industry executive performance and mutual fund management success, illuminating how much of such outcomes are random. And he discusses some surprising psychological experiments that expose our innate tendency to find patterns in random "streaks" and to attribute intentional control over things we don't actually control (even when we know better). Not only does Mlodinow succeed in making mathematical theory and history quite fascinating, but he demonstrates the applicability of randomness in our lives in ways that will make you ponder.

FILM: The Brothers Bloom

To Catch A Thief as written by Lemony Snicket...

On the spur of the moment, I decided to check out The Brothers Bloom, a dark quirky con man / relationship comedy. Picture something like Paper Moon or The Sting, as if they were written by Lemony Snicket. The whole film has that slightly dark and vaguely surreal quality of Lemony Snicket (or the TV show Pushing Daisies), with characters, costumes, and some elements that seem very a-hundred-years-ago mixed in with modern cars and other contemporary elements, which makes it hard to put your finger on exactly when the film is set, at the same time as it makes it easier to accept the fantastic bits. Certainly there are no characters in real life like the ones in this film, but the film succeeds in making you believe, at least for a couple of hours, that there could have been. There's also an overlay of fairy-tale quality that starts with the title, is launched by having a narrator, and by the Dickensian childhood of the brothers, and is maintained by a series of timeless settings including a Newportesque mansion, steamer ships and trains, and the city of Prague. The lead actors are all superb, starting with Rachel Weisz as Penelope, a fantastically multi-talented and fantastically rich but slightly autistic hyper-eccentric heiress. Not having ever encountered such a person in real life, it's hard to make claims about authenticity, but if such a person ever existed, Weisz's Penelope was absolutely her. Adrian Brody is charming as the broody younger Bloom who's been conning so long that he longs for his own authentic life but doesn't know if he's capable of one. And Mark Ruffalo is perfectly elusive as Stephen, the mastermind of the brothers' cons, who may or may not love his brother beyond pulling off the next con job. Rinko Kikuchi adds spice and humor as the enigmatic Bang Bang, and Maximillian Schell and Robbie Coltrane add mysterious shady characters to the mix. Penelope is the ultimate prey of the brothers, but she adds an element of unpredictability, and as Bloom may be developing real feelings for her, you just really don't know who's playing whom and how. The scenery and overall visual texture are marvelous, and I found the quirky story engaging to the surprising end.

Hyperventilating Over Smelt

Many gay Americans have been starting to wonder when our "fierce advocate" in the White House is going to start delivering the change that we can believe in. And today, salt was rubbed in the wound of Obama's inaction by the Justice Dept filing a brief in a federal case defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). And in a painful irony, this comes not only during Pride month of the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, but it comes on the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision ending miscenegation laws in the US. I first learned of this from Andrew Sullivan's blog (my first read nearly every morning), who linked to John Aravosis, and based on his diatribe, I was outraged. The brief was characterized as egregious anti-gay rhetoric and religious right arguments, comparing gay marriage to incest, and more.

Now this evening, I've had a chance to read what a lot of bloggers have had to say about it, but more usefully, I had a chance to read the actual DOJ brief, and I'm a lot more sanguine about it than others. Some of my observations, and reasons for calming down and taking a deep breath.

First, the case itself, formally known as Smelt v. US, is not the recently-filed case against Prop 8 that Olson and Boies are representing. This case comes from a gay couple in Orange County who have, against the advice of pretty much every gay advocacy group, been filing federal marriage-related challenges for the last few years. In fact, several gay advocacy groups have filed briefs against Smelt's cases, because they think they are very ill-advised, likely to lose, and likely to leave very damaging precedents on the books. They don't seem to have a very good lawyer representing them, and from a legal standpoint, their particular case is weak and overly broad in its claims and redress sought. While I don't begrudge anyone the right to go to court and press their claims, it is in the best interest of our larger cause if this case would just go away.

Fortunately, that's very likely to happen. The first part of the DOJ brief argues some legal technicalities about jurisdiction and "standing", and those arguments seem to me to be fairly strong. A court will always consider these types of arguments first, before considering the "merits" of a case, and I predict this case will get tossed out on the technicalities, without the court even having to look at the merits.

Meanwhile, there is a much, much stronger and better advocated case being brought in Massachusetts challenging DOMA, and there is the Boies/Olson challenge against Prop 8.

As for the rest of the DOJ brief, I think much of it is legally sound, and I did not find the rhetoric nearly as "egregious" as I was lead to expect. This was definitely not a brief written by the likes of the Prop 8 proponents. They rightly pointed out the reasons why this case is on weak legal footing. For instance, this particular case is not about a right to marry, it is about a "right" to get certain federal benefits. In these sort of constitutional challenges, you always want to show that a fundamental right is implicated, or that a suspect classification is involved, or best, both. In this fact pattern, the fundamental right claim is hard to sustain. It's only the suspect classification prong where there's any traction to be had, and even that is an uphill battle against precedent.

The DOJ brief is weakest where it defends against the suspect classification charge, and it does make some dodgy claims, which have been rightly pounced on. "DOMA does not directly or substantially interfere with the ability of anyone, including homosexuals, to marry the individual of his or her choice. … DOMA merely clarifies that federal policy is to make certain benefits available only to those persons united in heterosexual marriage, as opposed to any other possible relationship defined by law, family, or affection." While this sounds very much like the "both gays and straights have an equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex" canard, it's not exactly saying that. It's also admitting very clearly that the classification is one of sexual orientation, which nicely sets up the argument as to whether that is a justifiable classification.

It makes the novel argument that through DOMA, Congress is maintaining "neutrality", such that citizens of some states are not forced to subsidize marriages that go against their public policy just because another state approves of those marriages. But this seems a little odd after an earlier part of the brief went into detail about how state marriage laws differ, and that can and should be tolerated. If this "neutrality" were to be taken seriously, then the federal government wouldn't recognize first-cousin marriages because that would force the people of Arizona, who are appalled by such things, to subsidize the first-cousin marriages of New Mexico. Likewise, the federal government wouldn't recognize the marriage of 16-year-olds in Indiana because it wouldn't be fair to New Jersey, who insists on age 18. (Alas, this "neutrality" is just the sort of nonsense that is allowed to pass the "rational basis" test, if that what's the court decides is appropriate to apply.)

The DOJ brief also cites Loving v. Virginia, but with a very bizarre reading of it. According to this brief, the decisive factor in Loving was that the Virginia statute was lobsided, in that it outlawed only whites from marrying other races. Thus, it clearly treated the races differently, whereas the "neutral" DOMA does not. On this reading of Loving, it seems that the Virginia miscegenation statute might have passed constitutional muster if it had prevented all races equally from intermarrying. (The DOJ attorney here is either being disingenuous, or gets poor marks for reading comprehension. I suggest he mark the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia by re-reading the opinion more carefully. While that was certainly part of the opinion, it was by no means all of it.)

There's been much discussion about whether Obama's DOJ should have chosen not to defend DOMA, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Having the Justice Dept pick and choose which laws it defends seems awfully similar to Bush's "signing statements" that so many of us were (rightly) unhappy about. Especially if the constitutional issues are not completely clear cut. (In my amateur opinion, I think that while DOMA part 3 should be tossed on equal protection grounds, DOMA part 2 may well be constitutional.) I don't think Obama has ever actually said he believes DOMA is unconstitutional, he's said he believes it's bad policy and should be repealed. Now it would just make us all feel better if he would get on that.

BOOKS: The Shack

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about The Shack by William P. Young, so I figured I ought to read it. I thoroughly enjoyed this very fresh, creative imagining of what it might be like to meet God and grapple with the thorny question of how an omnipotent loving God can allow bad things to happen to innocent people. The book takes the form of a personal story, and even though I already knew the outline of the story going in, I was still swept up in it. While the story is clearly a vehicle to deliver some creative theological musings, its earnestness caught me up, and I was holding back tears in many parts of it (not good to cry while driving, you know). The vision Young presents of God is amazing and original, and the spiritual journey of Mac (the protagonist) is like a Divine Comedy for our age. To depict God at all is audacious, and to depict Him the way Young has is especially so, but it is as apt as it is surprising, which is appropriate. God should be bigger than our expectations and imaginings. God should surprise us. I won't give away too much, but this depiction of God and of Heaven reminded me of the beautiful tapestries at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, showing the community of saints as a wonderful mix of men, women, and children of all races, rich and poor, famous and unknown, ancient and modern, side by side. Through Mac's journey, Young presents some intriguing ideas. I liked his metaphor of God-as-man choosing to limit himself when interacting with humans, just as an adult can choose to limit themselves when talking to or playing with a child, in a loving way that honors the relationship. The love of a parent for a child is a powerful metaphor that is richly mined throughout. Mac's encounter with divine judgment is astonishing and brilliant. Some of the ideas are provocative, especially the disdain for much of organized religion. According to Young's God, religion, along with politics and economy, forms the real axis of evil. This God is all about loving relationship, and submission to God's love and God's life as opposed to human independence from God. In this view, organized religion is just another human power structure, an attempt to grasp control over our own security, which leads away from God.

The philosophy underpinning Young's theodicy is not new: bad things happen because God allows us our free will, and because of humankind's separation from God after the fall. What is fresh and original here is the beautiful vision of God's intentions for and relationship with the world, a vision woven around that traditionally unsatisfying answer of free will, making the complete picture surprisingly satisfying. The fact that a bigger picture can make an unsatisfactory answer satisfy is, in a way, the point. From our limited point of view in this world, evil is impossible to reconcile, but when you add God and everlasting life to the picture, it can look quite different. "Love never forces," God says, in a line that echoes 1 Corinthians 13, explaining how He always allows us to make our choices, and how He can turn even bad choices to ultimate good ends. And just when it appears God might be causing evil to achieve good ends, He clarifies that grace neither requires evil nor causes it, but it can make use of it where it occurs. In a beautiful echo of Romans 5:20, He explains, where you find evil, you find even more grace.

One pitfall of writing such a sweeping account, taking on such big questions, is that it's hard to resist faulting Young for not providing every answer. For example, while his theodicy powerfully addresses evil human actions, he doesn't really address natural disasters and disease. It's hard to see earthquakes or cancer as consequences of free will, although in one brief tangential comment, he suggests that these may be reactions of the Creation to our irresponsible stewardship of it (ecological sins, if you will). The metaphor of parent-child relationships to model the God-human relationship is beautiful and powerful, but it also raises some troubling questions. Doesn't a good parent stop their child from running out into the middle of the street? A good parent doesn't allow their children unlimited free will. And the goal of a good parent is for their child to become independent; the child is not raised merely to live out the parent's life. But perhaps that stretches the metaphor too far. The question that most haunted me after the story is this: if God so greatly desires to have a personal relationship with each of us, then why doesn't He give each of us a Shack experience?

The best (though not entirely satisfying) answer to that is of course that God has sent us William P. Young. Through a compelling story and amazing imagination, Young confronts some hard questions -- what does God want from us? what does it mean to truly forgive? what is the nature of grace? why is there evil? -- and he confronts them with the same sort of Christian boldness that Pope John Paul II displayed when he met and forgave his would-be assassin. Mac's journey will surprise, engage, and challenge you. If you have a relationship with God, this book is likely to make you rethink it (in a good way). And if you don't have a relationship with God, this book may make you want to have one.

Sotomayor and Personal Finance

Among the critics at the Sunday night family dinner table, the issue that weighed most heavily with my brother was what was revealed by Sotomayor's financial disclosure statements. Her finances are rather remarkable for their sparseness. Apparently, she has no stocks, no bonds, no mutual funds, in fact no financial holdings other than a simple savings and checking account at Citibank. (In a way, that's rather smart for a judge, as it avoids any conflict of interest questions.) What's more, her entire savings (the combined checking and savings accounts) was between $50,000 and $115,000 in 2007, and as low as $30,000 in the previous four years. My brother was shocked and appalled that someone who makes $179,500 a year should have so little saved three decades into her career. She may be very bright in some subjects, he conceded, but in the practical matter of personal finance, she is colossally stupid. Top economist Greg Mankiw expressed a similar doubt. However, many have pounced on this.

Economist Brad DeLong estimates the value of her Greenwich Village condo to be about $1 million, and the value of her pension to be about $2.5 million. As far as I can tell, the condo estimate is speculation based on the general neighborhood where she lives, since her exact address and details of her home financing are not part of the public disclosures (although there appears to have been a reference to a home equity loan for improvements a few years ago, at least substantiating that she owns rather than rents). As a federal judge, she can continue working or retire at age 65 as she likes, and either way she draws full salary for the rest of her life.

Statistician Nate Silver crunches the numbers, and figures that her salary affords a very nice but by no means extravagant life for someone living in Manhattan. He notes the high tax rates (including a 3.86% city tax on top of state and fed) and figures $65,000 of her salary goes to taxes. He estimates another $65,000 goes to housing (based on average neighborhood rents for a 2-bedroom apartment in a doorman-building in Greenwich Village, $5400/month). That leaves $50,000 a year for utilities, transportation, food, and everything else. As Silver notes, in Manhattan, that would let you eat out nicely, attend a dozen Yankee games, and take a one-week vacation, and not a whole lot more.

Silver also takes Mankiw to task for missing the basic economics of the situation. He notes there are only four basic economic incentives to save money. First is to protect against a drop in income, like losing your job. Sotomayor's paycheck is from the US Government and short of an impeachable offense, she has job security for life, so that incentive is irrelevant. Second is to save for retirement, but as noted above, she has a guaranteed full salary for life, so that doesn't apply either. Third is to save for your spouse and children, but she is single. Fourth is to save for an expensive purchase, like a home (which she already has) or a nice car (which a Manhattanite doesn't need). Based on rational economics, there's really no incentive for Sotomayor to be saving her money rather than spending it.

Further, as USD law prof (and conservative blogger) Tom Smith has noted, someone in her position "any day she wants to she could walk out of her current job and into a partnership at a law firm in Manhattan or DC and get paid (guessing again) maybe $2 million a year, with the potential for a lot more… She has a guaranteed job for life with very generous retirement and health benefits, and any day she decides she wants to be a millionaire, all she has to do is pick up the phone. She's doing a job she must love and be good at or she wouldn't be where she is..."

Based on the evidence, I'd agree that she is working in a job she loves, has plenty enough money to live the life she wants, and has as close to zero worries about financial security as anyone could possibly have. That doesn't sound very stupid to me. I'd say she's one wise Latina.

UPDATE 6/5/09: In a document submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as reported by the Washington Post: "Sotomayor listed a net worth of $740,000, consisting primarily of equity in a $1 million condo in New York's Greenwich Village. She reported having $32,000 in cash and bank accounts, and personal property worth $108,000. Sotomayor reported that she owned no stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other non-real-estate investments."

Sotomayor and Reversal Rates

As the old saying goes, there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. Last Sunday, my conservative aunt was scoffing at Judge Sotomayor's reversal rate, pointing out that she has had five of her opinions reviewed by the Supreme Court, and three of those were overturned. Turns out this has been a right wing talking point, with a Washington Times headline crying "Sotomayor Reversed 60% by High Court." I conceded that it didn't sound good, but I determined to look into it.

One of the first questions to ask is what exactly is the statistic that we're looking at. Judge Sotomayor has been on the 2d Circuit bench for 11 years, and in that time has heard nearly 3000 cases. Only in the more controversial cases is a published opinion typically issued, and she has published 232 opinions. Of those 232, five of them have been reviewed by the Supreme Court. And of those five, three have been overturned. So you could say that 60% of her reviewed opinions were overturned, but you could also say that 2% of her published opinions have been overturned, or that 0.2% of her total decisions have been overturned.

The other more relevant question to ask is how her statistics compare with her colleagues. Here it's useful to note that the Supreme Court only grants review of about 1% of the appeals filed, and the Court, in order to use its time wisely, only grants review to those cases where there is inconsistency across the Circuits, or where they expect to clarify or revise the precedent. In other words, the high court is likely to overturn the cases it selects for review, because it selects the controversial ones. According to statistics compiled by SCOTUSblog, since 2004, the Supreme Court has reversed 73% of the cases it reviewed. So it turns out that Sotomayor's 60% reversal rate is better than average. As Rachel Maddow observed, this is comparable to batting averages, where Sotomayor has a .400 "batting average". That's considered quite good. It has also been observed that Justice Alito, at the time of his Supreme Court confirmation, had a 100% reversal rate.

Knowledgeable attorneys observe that a judge's reversal rate is not a very meaningful statistic. In other words, the critics are clutching at straws here.

University of Chicago Law professor Eric Posner has been analyzing other comparative data about appellate judges, including how often their opinions are cited in other opinions or in law review articles (a measure of their influence and respect of their peers) and how often they have dissented in panel decisions (a measure of how inline with their colleagues they are). His conclusion:

the data should put to rest the rumor that Judge Sotomayor is not a competent jurist. She holds her own among a highly respected group... If citations reflect quality, Sotomayor may well be one of the top appellate judges in the country.

FILM: Little Ashes

It wasn't on my radar at all, but George caught wind of an intriguing British-Spanish film called Little Ashes, about the relationships between the artist Salvador Dalí, poet/playwright Federico García Lorca, and filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who became close friends in the early 1920s attending university in Madrid. I'm glad we caught this interesting and illuminating film, as it was playing only at the Laemmle Music Box and only for another week. The film does a great job of portraying these three fascinating men, and in capturing the milieu of Spain in the heady 1920s, when young intellectuals dared to rebel against the conservative social order, and the tumultuous 1930s leading up to the Spanish Civil War. I was familiar with Dalí's paintings, and had seen a García Lorca play, and the film "Un Chien Andalou" (a collaboration of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, and probably required viewing in any modern film class), but I didn't know much about these men's lives. I came away from the film with a very vivid picture of García Lorca, the sentimental, soft-spoken though passionate Andalusian poet, portrayed pitch-perfectly by Javier Beltrán (who even resembles a photo I later found of the poet). I came to the film with a notion of what Dalí was like, which was greatly deepened by the equally profound performance of Robert Pattinson (who shows he's got much more in him than teen vampires and Harry Potter classmates). We watch him transform through the film from the shy boy who first shows up at school, becoming more confident and more outrageous, eventually becoming the larger-than-life character of his famous years. The film slowly but relentlessly builds romantic tension between the two, and the romance, which exists more in suspension than in consumation, is shown as a major force in their lives. Buñuel, who seems to have sexual repression issues of his own, impacts the other two as encourager, critic, and collaborator. His portrayal by Matthew McNulty was a hyper-manly Hemingway-esque character, which fits perfectly as this time and place, this social circle, and this story all conjure Hemingway. The texture of the film was marvelous, capturing the period with an authentic synergy of costume, music, lighting and sets (it really felt like an old movie), some tantalizing Spanish scenery, and visual allusions to "Un Chien Andalou" (parts of which were also actually included). The story was compelling, and the dialog mostly authentic and even poetic, except for a couple of spots near the end (Magdalena's farewell and García Lorca's tavern speech) that seemed a bit anachronistic, writing contemporary thinking back into a historical period where it didn't seem authentic. But despite those spots, I felt the story really worked over all. The script was well-grounded in actual history, and though core elements of the story, particularly the romance between García Lorca and Dalí, are speculative at best, it rang true for me. It makes sense that García Lorca would have taken "Un Chien Andalou" personally, and that Dalí and Buñuel would have intended it personally, showing how much these men haunted and inspired one another. The sentimental poet stayed devoted to his country, and remained to try to make a difference there, while the other two ran off to Paris to pursue the artistic and intellectual scene with no serious interest in politics, even as their native country was falling into an abyss. In a way, each man's life was a living reproach of the choices of the other, yet they couldn't escape an admiration of one another's artistic spirit, and on some level, a mutual attraction. A fascinating portrait of the artists as young men.

Sotomayor is a Perfectly Good Choriamb

Over at the National Review, Mark Krikorian stirs up a minor tempest over the most pressing issue surrounding the Supreme Court nominee:

So, are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the
natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er, like Niedermeyer?

He goes on to write about how "putting the emphasis on the final syllable is unnatural in English", and expecting Americans to adapt to that is just multiculturalism gone too far. Once past my initial puzzlement at how Niedermeyer was more English than Sotomayor, what stuck in my craw was the claim about emphasis on the final syllable being unnatural in English. That would certainly be news to people in VerMONT, TenneSEE, or IlliNOIS, in DeTROIT, Des MOINES, or San JoSE. (Or perhaps Krikorian thinks San Jose in "natural English" rhymes with banjoes.) It's true that the preponderance of Anglo-Saxon surnames are "trochees", the technical term in prosody for two-syllable words whose cadence is STRONG-weak. JACKson, LINcoln, WILson, REAgan, CARter, CLINton. But it doesn't mean that "iambs" (weak-STRONG) are unheard of. MonROE, for instance. Those iambs, because they change it up, can give a cadence that's distinctive but hardly unnatural to English. Just ask Shakespeare, who wrote most of his work in iambs. They're hardly exotic. Without iambs, Krikorian wouldn't be able to proPOSE or deBATE, atTACK or deFEND, reFUSE or aMAZE. Let aLONE deNOUNCE a SuPREME court nomiNEE. You get the idea. Now he might protest that iambs are fine, but a four syllable word with final stress is just a phoneme too far. But it turns out that a four syllable pattern with the cadence STRONG-weak-weak-STRONG has a name, a "choriamb", because it carries a distinctive punch. That's why "hip hip hooRAY" sounds right, and that's why "seventy-six" sounds more catchy that "sixty-seven". A choriamb is quite natural in English, and as American as "blueberry pie" or "four on the floor". SotomayOR is a perfectly good choriamb, no more of a tongue-twister than "American flag" or "not anymore". So I say: Open the DOOR for SotomayOR.

Sotomayor and Identity Politics

It's unfortunate that those who profess to abhor identity politics seem unable to see or talk about anything else when someone other than a white male is nominated to the Supreme Court. Even those who try to express their reservations in measured terms end up saying odd things along the lines of "We want to give her a chance to show that she can be an impartial judge, setting aside her identity as a Puerto Rican woman." Yet, when Roberts and Alito and Breyer and Souter were being confirmed, these same people never thought to question whether those men could set aside their identity as white men. A member of a minority group is presumed to be partial to their own group, while white men are presumed to be impartial.

White men are also given full credit for their own accomplishments, whereas the accomplishments of a minority are always suspect. People are thinking she's probably not as smart as her peers, but was advanced by affirmative action. In the discussions about Sotomayor, you can hear people raising questions about her intelligence and her jurisprudence that were never raised about Roberts or Alito. With the men, there were questions about their views, about their judicial philosophy, but their reputation for intelligence and for being top in their field was taken as a given. So why, when it's a Latina rather than a white guy, are so many asking "is she really intelligent? is she really excellent?" Personally, I don't have to look far to satisfy myself on those counts. While a policy of minority preference could possibly have been a contributory (but not decisive) factor into getting her accepted to Princeton and to Yale Law, there was no such factor in her graduating summa cum laude or becoming editor of the Yale Law Review. Those are only achieved through formidable intelligence and a lot of hard work. (Cue John Houseman: She got those the old fashioned way. She earned them.)

The Prop 8 Decision

To some disappointment but little surprise, the Calif Supreme Court announced that they were upholding Prop 8 as a valid amendment to the Calif Constitution, and they were also upholding the existing marriages. Needless to say, George and I were relieved that our own marriage continues to be valid and recognized by the state of California, but sad that other gay and lesbian couples will not be able to similarly enjoy full equality in California (for now). As a matter of policy, I think it will be better in the long run for California to fix this at the ballot box rather than in the courthouse, and I believe that's fully achievable in a few years (if not next year). Politically, overturning the amendment would have had a corrosive effect on the faith of people in our political process, as few would have understood the technical legal arguments supporting an overturn. It would have widely been seen as an activist or result-oriented decision, undermining the credibility of the Court, not just among the rabid wingnuts but among more reasonable people as well.

Legally, while I thought that the arguments for overturning the amendment were well-grounded in the philosophy of constitutional democracy, I also think that the Supreme Court did the right thing here. They interpreted the Constitution as it is written, and not as it ought to be written. Their regret, that our state constitution is too easily amended and does not adequately provide protection against the abridgement of fundamental rights, was manifest. They practically proposed an amendment to remedy that, pointing to specific language in the constitutions of other states that explicitly protects fundamental rights. (But would that be a revision?) Their conservative decision belied the accusations of liberal activist judging that were levied by those who didn't like the Marriage Cases decision.

On the upside, the Court went out of their way to emphasize how much of the Marriage Cases opinion is still good law. The Court affirmed the finding of the constitutional right of same-sex couples to "choose one’s life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship that enjoys all of the constitutionally based incidents of marriage", that that right is fundamental (embodied in the constitutional right to privacy and due process), and that same-sex orientation is a suspect class. And note that while the Marriage Cases opinion was 4-3, all 7 justices signed onto or concurred with this affirmation. (The three dissenting justices from the Marriage Cases all signed on to the majority opinion here.)
Further, the Court reasoned that because Prop 8 did conflict with a fundamental right, legal construction rules required it to be interpreted as narrowly and specifically as possible. The opinion went on to spell out exactly how constrained that interpretation would be: Prop 8 constrains the designation of "marriage", and nothing more. It does not touch any of the substantive rights found in the right to marry. Thus, if any of the anti-equality folks harbored secret hopes of using the constitutional amendment as a beachhead to dismantle domestic partnerships, those hopes were pre-empted by this opinion. The Court prospectively interpreted Prop 8 as narrowly as possible, dug a moat around it, put yellow police tape around that, and said "move along folks, nothing to see here…" (Though the Court does not properly do prospective interpretation per se, they cleverly worked it in as an essential part of their amendment vs. revision analysis.) And of course the narrow construction included unanimously upholding the 18,000 pre-Prop 8 marriages.

The Court was as positive as it could be about same-sex marriage in a case which marriage wasn't directly at issue. The actual legal issue at hand was the ability of the people of California to enact constitutional amendments that abridge fundamental rights, a question which boiled down to technicalities about "amendments" versus "revisions". And the unfortunate answer is that it appears that 51% of the voters in a single election can indeed amend the state constitution to curtail "inalienable" rights, with the only backstop being the U.S. Constitution. Thus, with amendments, the appeal to the independent interpretation of the state constitution, so zealously guarded by the Court in Raven v. Deukmejian, is out the window. The Court even suggested that had the revision vs. amendment argument been raised in Mulkey v. Reitman (a 1964 initiative constitutional amendment overturning legislation that outlawed racial covenant restrictions in real estate transactions), it would have been upheld as validly enacted (though it was struck down as violating the U.S. Constitution). While this is causing some alarm among minority and civil rights groups, we should follow their advice and direct our energies toward fixing this flaw in our state constitution, rather than get mad at the judges who are just interpreting it as it is.

That being said, I do have to applaud Justice Moreno's passionate dissent. I'm glad there was a voice of dissent, scolding the other justices for backing away from their own strongly articulated Marriage Cases holding that even a difference "in name only" can create substantive unequal protection of the law. When it's time for Scalia to be replaced, I hope they consider Justice Moreno. That would be karmic balance.

FILM: Angels and Demons

George's mother and her friend Bruce (a former Catholic priest) were visiting us this weekend, and we were surprised to be told that they wanted to see Angels and Demons. Bruce had enjoyed the book. Katie, I think, was going along for the ride. We caught an 8:10 showing at the Americana in Glendale, after determining that sundown was 7:54 (which made George's Mom feel much better, a nuance that only Adventists would understand). We enjoyed the gruesome but rollicking adventure through Rome, and in fact I didn't think it was quite as gruesome as it could have been. Clearly a plot centering on the murder of four cardinals in elaborately painful ways cannot avoid some minimum of gruesomeness, but director Ron Howard didn't dwell in the pain Mel Gibson style nor make you really feel the pain Tarantino style. The idea was horrible enough on its own, and Howard just keep the film moving forward, focused on uncovering and foiling the diabolical plot. This film, more so than The Da Vinci Code, did keep moving. It was able to convey just enough of the symbology to keep it comprehensible, without letting symbology lectures bog down the pace of the adventure. The writers did a great job of paring down the lengthy book to its core plot without losing the essentials. The book had a few more twists and turns, and some elements got altered, but I think the story survived the surgery in good shape. In fact the alterations were enough to jar me into questioning how the film might end, even though I had read the book. So much the better! Tom Hanks reprises Robert Langdon, and seems even better at the character the second time out (although as the LA Times surmised, perhaps it was just that he had such bad hair in The Da Vinci Code, a distraction not repeated here). And Ewan McGregor is very convincing as the Cammerlengo, once I got over the shock of the fact that they'd changed the character to be Irish instead of Italian. The other performances were all good, although I had trouble understanding what Pierfrancesco Favino (Commander Olivetti) was saying. The other star of this show was the cinematography, delivering awesome visuals of St. Peter's Basilica and Square, the pageantry of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, and many other impressive sights around Rome. This feat is all the more impressive considering I don't think they were allowed to use most of the actual sites to film in. It will be worth buying the DVD when it comes out just to see the behind-the-scenes "making-of" tracks. But don't wait for the DVD to see this film. You'll want to get the full impact on the big screen.

BOOKS: Assassination Vacation

I've spent the last week of commuting in the quirky company of historical commentator Sarah Vowell, reading her book Assassination Vacation. The book traces the people and events leading up to and immediately following the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, interspersing fascinating historical narrative with Vowell's own experiences visiting the markers, artifacts, and monuments that remain from those events. Her unique roadtrip tracks down every route of interest, no matter how seemingly remote or trivial, meandering from the Mütter Museum of pathology which has a piece of the brain of Garfield's assassin; to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, the desolate prison where Dr. Samuel Mudd served, for aiding John Wilkes Booth in his flight after shooting Lincoln; to the Tahawas Club in the Catskills where Teddy Roosevelt received word that McKinley had been shot. Her observations and her conversations with rangers, docents, and other people connected to historical sites, combined with her intricate knowledge, make it an engrossing trip through both history and the Americana that commemorates it. She has a great nose for history's trivial ironies: who knew that Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln would be in close proximity to three presidential assassinations ("the presidential angel of death" as Vowell dubs him), or that John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin saved Lincoln's son. Vowell would be really fun to travel with in real life. She even succeeds in making James Garfield interesting. Apparently among the author's many quirks is that she doesn't drive, so she is always prevailing upon friends to take her places. Sarah, when you're working on your next book, I'll be happy to drive you for one of your explorations!

FILM: Star Trek

On Friday, I skipped work and caught a morning matinee of the new Star Trek movie. (I knew it would be pretty low on George's list, so I'd best just go see it without him if I wanted to see it.) I'd heard good advance buzz, and was delighted to find it lived up to the hype. It was wonderful to see these old new characters again, and at the same time see them in a fresh new way with this prequel / reboot bringing on a whole new cast to play the younger versions of the classic crew. I have to admit that I'd missed a bunch of Star Trek movies over the years. The fourth one (the one that opened with fart jokes and Scotty banging his head into the bulkhead Three Stooges style, and ended with Nichelle Nichols degrading herself as a topless dancer) was so awful that the film franchise lost me for a decade or more. But this latest one, this one was well worth coming back for. The story of how the Enterprise crew first comes together really rings true, and it's great to see how the well-known characters and relationships got their start. Prequels can often feel contrived, especially with such established characters, but this one was very natural, and I just felt "of course that's how it must have been". And despite the well-worn plot device of time travel, it was used to very good effect for the story, for an excuse to bring in Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock, and most of all, as a vehicle to relaunch the whole franchise with familiar characters that are acceptably and intriguingly changed. Chris Pine, channeling James Dean, creates an awesome young Kirk, as an aimless Iowa farm boy with a penchant for bar brawls and driving vintage cars recklessly fast. Zachary Quinto recreates Spock beautifully, still the logical Vulcan, but with his human half more evident, creating a more nuanced character. Karl Urban is a brilliant choice as a young (and cute!) Dr. McCoy, while Zoe Saldana positively smolders as the sultry and fierce young Uhura. Bruce Greenwood was also notable as Captain Pike. If they make more Star Trek movies with the chemistry of this one, they'll have me for the next decade.

Clashes of Same-Sex Marriage with Religious Liberty

In this morning's LA Times, I found an interesting editorial by law professor Robin Wilson, called "The flip-side of same-sex marriage." In it, she argues that "it is possible to legalize gay marriage without infringing on religious liberty", though care must be taken to get the second part of that right. I agree with Prof. Robin Wilson that the enactment of marriage equality should be carefully balanced with religious liberty protections, and welcome her call to do so. When a pair of New Mexico photographers refused services for a same-sex wedding, and were fined for violating state anti-discrimination statutes, that was a clear unjust infringement of liberty. But this important dialog is not furthered by misinformation about the actual cases of conflict, and unfortunately Prof. Wilson trots out several overworked half-truths. That New Jersey church group who lost their property tax exemption status on a public pavilion that they refused to rent for a lesbian wedding? The tax exemption was granted for the pavilion expressly because the group promised to make it open to the public. They could either rent the pavilion selectively, or they could take the tax exemption and rent to everyone equally, but they couldn't have it both ways. The lost tax exemption was on the property tax for the pavilion only. The tax-exempt status of the religious group that owned it was never in question. The closing of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts? Catholic Charities was contracted by the state to provide adoption services. As a private entity, they would be free to discriminate according to their conscience, but by choosing to act as an agent of the state, they must treat all citizens equally. Latter-day Saints Family Services also provides adoption service in Massachusetts, exclusively to heterosexual couples, and has continued to operate since the advent of gay marriage, because they aren't funded by the state. Catholic Charities could have made the same choice, but chose not to. The crucial distinction that Prof. Wilson fails to account for is the difference between private entities and public entities (including entities acting on behalf of or subsidized by the state). Private entities should be entitled to considerable latitude for rights of conscience even when they conflict with values of equal treatment and non-discrimintion. For public entities, on the other hand, equal treatment and non-discrimination are paramount.

FILM: The Soloist

We were eager to see The Soloist based on its intriguing previews, and having been familiar with the story from Steve Lopez's LA Times series that inspired it. The film met our high expectations and then some, with a pair of tour-de-force performances from Jamie Foxx as the schizophrenic prodigy Nathaniel Ayers, and Robert Downey Jr. as journalist Steve Lopez. Writer Susannah Grant did a nice job adapting Lopez's book, telling the story from the chance acquaintance of the two men, to their developing relationship, with Ayers' life in bits of flashback as Lopez uncovers it or Ayers recalls it. Some minor facts were changed in the adaptation, such as creating the character of Lopez's editor and ex-wife (nicely enacted by Catherine Keener), but that device artfully provided good illumination of the fictionalized Lopez's motivations and failures. Foxx's amazing performance of the beautifully written Ayers character portrays his mental illness as vividly as Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man or Russell Crowe's Beautiful Mind, but surpassing those in the aching humanity of this broken man. The tone of the film is enhanced visually by sweeping vistas of Los Angeles, from Elysian Park and Disney Hall, to downtown freeway underpasses and grittier streets not so many blocks away, and musically with a full orchestra Beethoven-heavy Romantic score. In the end, the film keeps it real by not Hollywood-izing the ending.

OPERA: Die Vögel

This afternoon I had the delightful experience of attending Die Vögel (The Birds), an opera by Walter Braunfels. This opera is a continuation of Los Angeles Opera's "Recovered Voices" program, which seeks to rediscover the works of Jewish composers of the early 20th century which had been surpressed by the Nazi regime. They have been giving new life to lost gems, restoring them to their rightful place in the opera canon. I found Die Vögel to be a charming work. Historically, Braunfels was strongly influenced by Wagner (upon seeing Tristan and Isolde, Braunfels decided to drop his law career and pursue music instead), but at least in this work, I found much more influence of other Germans, notably Richard Strauss and Mozart. How can an opera featuring birds, and opening with two guys carrying bird cages, not call to mind The Magic Flute? And some of the Nightingale's arias featured coloratura ornamentation worthy of the Queen of the Night. The story itself was fanciful and allegorical in a Magic Flute sort of way, based on Aristophanes' play The Birds, though made less farcical and with a changed ending (to support the established order rather than overthrow it), giving it more of a story arc and an opportunity to insert a romance. All the performers were strong, but two young stars making their LA Opera debut were particularly captivating. Désirée Rancatore's exquisitely beautiful soprano voice and graceful bearing as the Nightingale made it easy to see her allure, and how Good Hope could fall in love with her. And the honey-golden tenor of the handsome Brandon Jovanovich made Good Hope's passionate arias soar. Their nocturne duet in Act II was so moving, just sigh-inducingly beautiful. Another notable voice was baritone Brian Mulligan, as Prometheus, rich, deep, powerful and commanding. The play was charmingly visualized by director Darko Tresnjak (whom we knew from his Shakespeare work at The Old Globe in San Diego), with a large chorus swirling around in vibrant many-colored costumes, and a bird city in the clouds looking like classical Athens done as birdhouses. The one awkward piece of staging was the conquest of the city by Zeus, which was anticlimactically undramatic, with the birdhouses being gingerly dismantled. A plot-irrelevant thunderstorm from the evening before was more dramatically staged than the actual battle which is the climax of the story. But the final scene is touching, where the two adventurers return to the human world, Loyal Friend shrugging off the experience having learned nothing, and Good Hope having been profoundly moved. "Now I will go back down the mountain, for I have lived," he sings. I left very grateful to James Conlon, not only for his fine conducting, but his leadership in the "Recovered Voices" program for bringing us this unjustly neglected gem.

OPERA: Wagner's Ring (the first half)

Having now seen two of the four installments in Wagner's Ring Cycle, I can understand the appeal of seeing the whole cycle in succession, although the idea of taking in four Wagner-magnitude operas in one week seems insanely daunting. We saw Das Rheingold and Die Walküre two weeks apart, and that's about perfect. Opera on that scale is the most grandiose of art forms, a culmination of voice, orchestra, dramatic story-telling and magnificent staging, and I think one needs some time to let one sink in before taking on another. Two weeks was sufficient recovery time, but close enough that the previous installment was still fresh in mind. Alas, now we'll have to wait a year for the third and fourth parts. But based on what we've seen, we'll be eagerly awaiting. The first two have been magnificent. Wagner's music, of course, is a marvelous experience in its own right. His dramatic flourishes and vivid leitmotifs (the shimmering Rheingold, the lumbering giants, the regal fortress) would inspire great stories in one's imagination just from listening. Even if you think you're unfamiliar with this justly famous music, much of it would sound familiar from having been used in film scores (and not just Apocalypse Now). And then there's the epic story. Drawn on Norse myths and sagas, it's a riff on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (well, actually, vice versa), complete with gods, giants, dwarves, heroes, magic gold, and a ring of terrible power.

The particular staging put on by Los Angeles Opera is by German artist/director/designer Achim Freyer, and has been controversial, if you read the reviews (and judging by some booing mixed with the applause when Freyer appeared for the curtain call at the close of Das Rheingold). While it's unabashedly modern and at times abstract, which will not be to the liking of traditionalists, I've been favorably impressed. In Das Rheingold, Freyer has realized this epic world with larger-than-life costumes for all the characters, and even larger doppelganger representations of the gods and the giants. I'd read complaints of the singers not being able to project from under all the weight of these oversize costumes, but perhaps they'd solved that problem by the time we saw it, because bass Vitalij Kowaljow projected Wotan (the Zeus-like ruler of these gods) strong and clear, and likewise for the others. I thought the larger-than-life visuals were appropriate for these larger-than-life gods and giants, and Freyer's stage, topped by a "sky" decorated with symbolic objects like Wotan's eye and a cartoon Valhalla, conjured a magical world (even if it was a bit reminiscent of Space Mountain at the same time). His visual motifs suited the grand gestures and motifs of Wagner's music. Admittedly, some of the symbolism eluded me completely (like the vintage aircraft thing), and others (like Fricka's freaky-long arms) were quirky, intriguing, and memorable, even if puzzling. Perhaps Fricka (goddess of marriage and wife of the filandering Wotan) is eternally reaching for something beyond her grasp. Her arms reminded me of that allegory of heaven and hell where people's arms are too long to feed themselves. But I think most of the visual motifs worked well to make characters readily recognizable. In the special effects department, you can't expect the operatic stage to compete with motion picture special effects, but when the dwarf Alberich transformed himself into a dragon, it was quite visually impressive.

In Die Walküre, where we first get some human characters mixing with the gods, the visuals get a bit more abstract. The humans have normal size costumes, but they also sport symbolic body paint. Siegmund and Sieglinde, twin brother and sister separated since youth, are signified by both being painted half black and half white (but on opposite sides, kinda like that old Star Trek episode). Swords and spears, which figure prominently in this part of the saga, are represented by long neon shafts (i.e., Star Wars-style light sabers), conveniently color-coded as red for the Huns, white for the immortals, and blue for the magic sword that the hero Siegmund pulls from a tree, where it had been stuck like Excalibur waiting for the right hero to be able to pull it out. The tree is left entirely to the imagination, and the blue sword is just standing on end in the center of the stage at the start of Act I, the hub of a giant circle that figures prominently in the staging. In Act I, a white neon tube lays on the floor, anchored to the center of the circle, and a shadowy figure slowly, methodically, relentlessly pulls it around, like the hand on a clock. Indeed, this is meant to symbolize time (and perhaps that we're seeing mortal characters for the first time in the saga), and when Siegmund and Sieglinde meet and start to exchange stories of their past, the clock hand moves backwards when they're relating a past event. Also, as they relate stories, mimes appear on the wheel symbolizing the characters in the story, including doppelgangers of the two speakers. When the dialog returns to the present, the mimes disappear like a dream upon awakening, and the clock hand starts going forward again. When the two meet, the abstract staging has them placed on opposite sides of the stage, separated by the giant abstract clock, even though they are talking face to face. Just as when we meet someone special and time stands still or goes real slow, this is conveyed in this abstract symbolism by their interactions being surreally separated by the clock. At one point, when he's thirsty and she gives him a drink of water, she hands the water glass to the shadowy time keeper, who carries it slowly from her position at "3 o'clock" to his position at "9 o'clock". As they become more and more caught up in one another, they slowly move toward each other and toward the center stage, when finally they're both together when he pulls out the magic sword. It's a very surreal and creative way of visualizing the inner dynamics of these two apparent strangers discovering their once and future connection. Freyer keeps the staging minimal and cerebral, letting Wagner's voluptuous music in this act speak the emotional volumes. (Yes, we are talking about a twin brother and sister falling in love, but that's the saga, and you just have to go with it.) And of course we were all eager to see whether Plácido Domingo (age 68) still had a Wagnerian hero in him, and indeed he did.

In Act II, I couldn't help but be distracted by the strange echoes of Prop 8 rhetoric when Fricka harangues Wotan about how the sanctity of marriage must be upheld. (Nothing intentional there, and the metaphor is inapt; it was just an odd juxtaposition with current events.) But thanks to Freyer's visual motifs, and having Das Rheingold fresh in mind, we immediately recognize Wotan the one-eyed and Fricka the long-armed when they appear, and we recall their backstories. (Opera is much more enjoyable when you don't have to struggle to keep the characters straight.) Finally, the much anticipated Act III delivered on the heightened expectations. It opens with the famous Ride of the Valkyries (now cue the Apocalypse Now helicopters and napalm), with the semi-immortal daughters of Wotan looking a bit bride-of-Frankenstein-ish and riding metallic steeds, half skeletal horses and half Harley-Davidson. But somehow that's appropriate for these fearsome demi-goddesses who haunt battlefields and gather the bodies of fallen heroes. In the end, when the most spirited Valkyrie Brünnhilde must be punished for disobeying Wotan's command (even though she did what he really wanted her to do), the circle of flames that surrounds her enchanted sleep is symbolically spectacular. No real flames, as other productions do, but bright red cartoonish flames suited this abstract staging, and they enchanted my eyes. In a final inspired touch, we see Siegfried (the foretold hero of the latter half of the saga, readily identifiable thanks to Freyer's visual motifs) cross the circle of flames, foreshadowing the next installment. I eagerly await.

FILM: Adventureland

Greg Mottola surely had fun directing Superbad. Now, in Adventureland, he has written and directed a film with the same coming-of-age authentic awkwardness, but where the kids are just a few years older, their lives just a bit more complicated and interesting. The film takes place in a cheesy amusement park where college kids from a town outside of Pittsburgh work a crappy summer job, while dreaming of moving to New York City for grad school. They're at the age where academic intellectual pursuits seem really cool, but also at the age where it's becoming clear that making their way in the real world might require some work. "I'm not even qualified for manual labor," says James, a comparative lit major, after being rejected for a trucking job. Jesse Eisenberg plays James with the perfect balance of earnest innocence and sardonic remarks for our 21-year-old virgin coming-of-age hero. Comparisons to Michael Cera are inevitable, but Eisenberg's James has a bit more spark and drive going for him than Michael Cera's meek Hugh Grant-esque deer-in-the-headlights aphasia, and it's a delight to watch James blossom. The film's setting in the 1980s gave it a slight (but not cloying) Wonder Years nostalgic patina, and James is much like Fred Savage's character probably turned out ten years after the Wonder Years. Eisenberg is well-matched by Kristen Stewart, who plays Em, the girl of that memorable summer, a bit more worldly than him, confident and outgoing, but not quite as ready to handle it all as she projects. A cast of quirky characters, some stock (the bubble-gum-blowing sexy Catholic New Jersey-type girl) and some more interesting, add color to the retelling of the archetypal story. The film is tender, funny, and enjoyable to the expected but satisfying end. But it's not about the end, which we know from the start, but the summer of how he got there.

BOOKS: A Thousand Splendid Suns

My heart and mind are still racing, having just finished Khaled Hosseini's breathtaking epic novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. All week, I have been commuting with anxious nerves, shaking with rage, or tears running down my cheeks, as I have been making my way through this marvelous story of two women spanning several decades of Afghanistan's tumultuous recent history. The two women, whose stories begin many years and hundreds of miles apart, come together in a surprising and inspiring way. The epic tale not only spans the monarchy, the communists, the warlords, the Taliban, and beyond, the horrors of a war-torn city, the despicable injustices of Islamist rule, conflicts of traditionalists versus the more modern-minded, and the conflicts between compassion and the cruel treatment of women and illegitimate children under cover of traditional Afghan and Muslim codes of honor. Hosseini illustrates these grand themes with an engrossing story and vivid memorable characters. I loved his descriptions of children, how they perceived the people around them, and how those perceptions changed as they matured. The recurring themes of memory were hauntingly poignant, how even the greatest memories can be like trying to hold water in your fingers, but also how the memory of someone lost who once shaped us can mark us indelibly and affect us years later. And it is also the story of a city, Kabul, vividly described, once a place where children played in the streets and women gossiped around a communal tandoor, then later a place where people hid inside as rockets and bullets strafed the city skies, and then later the place where religious fanatics enforced beards on men, burqas on women (never unaccompanied), and prohibited music and kite-flying. While there is a lot of sorrow and pain in this story (how could there not be?), Maryam and Laila persist and inspire. Their spirit is like a weed growing up from a dry river bed toward the sun, despite being parched by drought and ravaged by fire, there is a dignity and beauty in its endurance. Though the book ended in a very fitting place, I was sorry to see it end, as I am reluctant to let go of its characters. I think I will remember them for a long time.

BOOKS: The Conservative Soul

On a business trip last week, I finally had the chance to finish The Conservative Soul. It's Andrew Sullivan's political analysis of the last couple of decades, on where he thinks the "right wing" has gone off the rails, and what he thinks true conservatism ought to be. Even though it's a couple years old now, his analysis is still very relevant and astute (in some ways even more so, as we watch the crack up of the right in the wake of their 2008 losses). Though he touches on many particular hot-button issues by way of example, his focus is more on philosophical underpinnings and the motivations for broad political trends and alignments. Starting from an assessment of the particular vacuums after the collapse of the "old left" that enabled the rise of the "new right", he diagnoses the "fundamentalist psyche" (a need for absolute truth arbitrated by central authorities and authoritative texts), the "theoconservative project" (to "recapture" the public square from the "false neutrality" of secular liberalism), and its ascendancy in the "Bush crucible". He then sets out to propose an alternative "conservatism of doubt" and a "politics of freedom". While some details of his account are anchored in the specifics of American politics in a particular time, some of his philosophical work, particularly in the chapter about natural law and in his latter positive chapters, are quite profound and less tied to this moment in history. His dissection of natural law (as it is wielded today) versus the implications of Darwin and "nature" is keenly argued and very insightful. His presentation of his preferred understanding of conservatism, as articulated in Montaigne and Oakeshott, leading to his political philosophy manifesto, extrapolating from Hobbes, is compelling. (Makes me want to work through his bibliography of those classic philosophers.) In his classic style, Sullivan writes eloquently, deftly weaving deep philosophical argument with crackling contemporary examples and personal experiences and insights. Full of thought-provoking ideas from his distinctive perspective, lucidly expressed, this book was a pleasure to read.