Mandating French in Quebec Furious controversy and public demonstrations have raged this week over Bill 96, one of the toughest pieces of legislation so far drafted in the efforts of francophones to make theirs the official language of Quebec. A May 16 article by Elizabeth Zogalis on the website Global News describes how many anglophones in Montreal and other parts of the province fear the ramifications of such a hardball approach to promoting the use of French in the workplace and public institutions. It may give readers a sense of the slant of Global News to note that you have go considerably further down, toward the end of the article, to find a differing view of Bill 96. Depp v. Heard Johnny Depp’s lawsuit over the alleged libel his ex-wife Amber Heard committed in a Washington Post op-ed piece continues this week, as does her countersuit, with Heard on the stand taking questions under cross-examination from Depp’s lawyer about their heated quarrels. One of the most harrowing parts of a trial filled with disquieting testimony was Heard’s claim that Depp committed sexual assault with a bottle. Jurors saw a photo of the bottle, which was intact despite Heard’s claim that she feared it was broken while inside her body. The gruesome testimony, along with Depp’s claims to have lost the tip of his middle finger when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him and to have hidden from her while she went on a rampage looking for him, is the subject of a May 17 article in the New York Post by Elizabeth Rosner and Snejana Farberov. California Judge Nixes Gender Quotas Just when you may have thought there was no hope for California, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis last week made a sensible decision striking down gender quotas that had forced corporations in the state to have a certain number of women on their boards. As Evan Symon details in a May 16 article for California Globe, the judge’s ruling finds that SB 826, which has been law in the Golden State for three years, violates the right to equal treatment and is therefore unconstitutional. Israel Defends Itself As terrorist attacks continue to endanger the civilians, military, and infrastructure of Israel, prime minister Naftali Bennett has pledged a massive response making use of helicopters and missiles, the Jerusalem Post reported on May 17. According to the Post’s article, calls for a tough response have grown in the aftermath of the killing of Noam Raz, a veteran counterterrorist operative, during an Israeli Defense Force operation in the city of Jenin last week, and another incident where IDF soldiers fatally shot a Palestinian man at a checkpoint when he ran at them with a knife, among other incidents. The article details how IDF soldiers have arrested numerous terror suspects in recent days. But clearly such actions have not gone nearly far enough to quell public fears of a sharp uptick in attacks and the need for the military to use its considerable resources to maintain order.
Censorship in China Censorship in communist China extends further than some may realize. The repressive regime in Beijing seeks to extirpate not only speech and writing that contravene its dogmas, but even symbols that might give viewers the wrong idea. An article by Zachary Evans in National Review Online on May 2 details how China’s censors demanded that Sony cut the Statue of Liberty from the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Evans notes that the monument is on view throughout the 20-minute climax. In the view of Chinese censors, it is unacceptable for viewers to take in, even subliminally, this image of freedom. The Times Gets It Wrong, Again Jesse Wegman of the New York Times Editorial Board believes that the Supreme Court, as currently constituted, is out of touch. The title of his May 3 opinion piece in the Times says it bluntly: “This Supreme Court Is Out of Step With Most Americans.” Wegman complains at some length that the court has become increasingly politicized over the years to the point where it resembles Congress more than a body undertaking the review of laws and policies in an impartial manner and assessing their constitutionality. Hence it is ironic that Wegman’s objections to the pending ruling on Roe v. Wade are political rather than legal in nature. He sounds like a political partisan, indeed like an activist, when he lashes out at the court for its stance on Roe v. Wade. The Passing of Kathy Boudin The California Globe’s Evan Symon reported on May 2 that Kathy Boudin, the member of the Weather Underground who attained notoriety for her role in the deadly Brinks Robbery of October 1981, has died at age 78. Boudin is the mother of San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who faces possible recall in an election scheduled for June 7 as a consequence of the disastrous policy of “decarceration” he has foisted on the city, which has driven crime way up and eroded the quality of life in what many long considered to be one of the most desirable places in the world to live. The World Outside Maybe you remember that tender age when you were just barely old enough to begin to take trips by yourself. The literary journal Rosebud has just published its long-awaited 69th issue, and on page 140 of this issue, you will find my short story “The World Outside,” which is an account of a boy’s trip by train from Chicago through a swath of rural Michigan and back. It evokes midcentury America and draws its inspiration largely from Theodore Roethke’s poem “Night Journey.” In Roethke’s poem, the narrator describes riding in a Pullman car through an alternately bright and misty part of the upper Midwest and conveys the depth of his love for a land that holds out such natural beauty to the observer. I hope that “The World Outside” will evoke more wonder and terror on the reader’s part for what it prompts the reader to imagine than for what it actually shows. As readers of W.W. Jacobs’s classic story “The Monkey’s Paw” will affirm, this approach can be powerful indeed.
Succession at Fox News Whether or not you are a fan of Fox News, it is reasonable to wonder, as Ken Lacorte does in an April 12 article on National Review Online, what will happen to Fox News after the reign of owner Rupert Murdoch, 91, comes to an end. Lacorte finds cause for optimism in the person of the young and dynamic Lachlan Murdoch, who is executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation. The presumptive heir to the News Corporation empire recently gave a speech at the Centre for the Australian Way of Life that harshly criticized woke culture’s attacks on figures and symbols of America’s past and what he termed “the destructive rewriting of its history.” Descent Into Hell Can Mayor Eric Adams reverse the decline of New York City? The headline of columnist Michael Goodwin’s piece in the New York Post on April 12 is “After latest bloodbath, time is running out for Hochul and Adams to save NYC.” The incident that shocked millions occurred on the morning of April 12 when a crazed lone wolf assailant set off smoke bombs and shot passengers on a Manhattan-bound N train in Brooklyn, wounding at least 29. Goodwin thinks that Adams, who ran on a tough law-and-order platform, has moved away from the promises he made while campaigning and has turned into something of an appeaser of the wing of the Democratic Party associated with militants like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If Adams continues to play this role, and to avoid being the kind of leader people sick of crime thought they were voting for, the rapid decline is likely to accelerate still further. Israel’s Third Way Ever since February 24, the blue and yellow flags of Ukraine have been ubiquitous in the news and on social media. People around the world are eager to show their support as Ukraine suffers ever-intensifying battering from Russian forces, including a recent missile attack on a train depot that killed at least 50 civilians. As Patrick Kingsley notes in an April 10 article in the New York Times, Israel has made serious efforts including setting up a field hospital in Ukraine, sending humanitarian aid, and joining diplomatic efforts at the U.N. to sanction Russia. At the same time, Kingsley notes, Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, has largely refrained from demonizing Russia or blaming Russia for the crisis. The balancing act that Bennett has undertaken has drawn fierce criticism and charges of a conflict of interest. Golden State Buffoonery Now that ethnic studies courses are a requirement in California’s public schools, parents want to know what effect such courses are having on those subjected to them. An April 12 article by Katy Grimes on the website California Globe recounts how Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 into law last fall after having vetoed an earlier version, Bill 331, on the grounds of a lack of balance in the viewpoints and perspectives it would impose in California classrooms.
Schumer Hearts Dunst; Dune Triumphs People might assume that a politician who can get elected mayor of one of the nation’s largest cities, and win reelection four years later, is on the way to bigger things. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti won election in 2013 and then again in 2017. As Thomas Buckley details in a March 13 article in California Globe, Garcetti emerged during the 2020 presidential race as a vocal backer of Joe Biden, and expected something pretty important in return for his personal and political loyalty to the winning candidate. But the new administration passed over Garcetti for the role of Secretary of Transportation, a decision Buckley suggests may have had something to do with the severity of L.A.’s homeless problem. Wallace Slams Fox News There is no love lost between Chris Wallace, the longtime host of Fox News Sunday, and his former employer. After nearly twenty years at Fox News, Wallace has moved to CNN, where he will host the new CNN+ streaming platform. An article in the New York Times on March 27 written by Michael N. Grynbaum quotes Wallace saying that working at Fox News became “unsustainable” as Wallace, a political centrist, increasingly heard views that he felt crossed the line from conservative opinion that he respected even if he did not always agree with it, into irresponsible stances on the supposed theft of the 2020 election and the hidden sources of the January 6 unrest in Washington. Wallace’s new gig at CNN+ will be an interview show whose acknowledged influences include such legends as Charlie Rose and Larry King. Amy Schumer Loves Kirsten Dunst Comedian Amy Schumer has issued a statement attempting to clarify that she meant no real disrespect to Kirsten Dunst, who was at the center of the second-most notorious incident at the 94thOscars Ceremony on Sunday, March 27. The incident provoked by Amy Schumer did not turn physical, but one can see how it easily might have. Schumer approached a couple of chairs on the floor of the event where Dunst sat with Jesse Plemons, her fiancé and co-star in the somber 2021 western film The Power of the Dog. She proceeded to call Dunst a “seat filler,” implying Dunst is a has-been B-list or C-list talent whom the organizers of the event brought on in a half-hearted and futile attempt to lend some prestige to the event and bump up its attendance numbers. A March 29 New York Post article by Leah Bitsky recounts Schumer’s weak attempt to explain away the incident by saying that the event was choreographed and affirming that she loves Kirsten Dunst. A Dream Deferred In further Oscars news, Quebec’s most famous living filmmaker, Denis Villeneuve, has a good deal to feel proud of at this time. His visually impressive, mega-budget opus Dune won awards in no fewer than six categories, including those for visual effects, cinematography, production design, editing, sound, and score. Some directors would no doubt be awestruck at winning the most coveted award in just one of these categories, let alone six. But a March 28 article by Brendan Kelly in the Montreal Gazette notes that Dune did not win in the category of best picture. And not only did Villeneuve not win the award for best director, but he did not even receive a nomination in this category, something that could surely be a letdown at this point in his career, when you might think that Villeneuve is at the very top of his game.
The Israeli Path to Peace There may be hope. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, have been speaking on a regular basis since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. On March 8, Zelensky personally thanked Bennett for intervening in the conflict and trying to help bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. And if Bennett is not quite Talleyrand, he does appear to have brought diplomatic skills of a very high order to the table. An article in the Jerusalem Post on March 8 describes Bennett as an intermediary who has been “passing messages” between Russia and Ukraine without explicitly identifying himself with one side or the other. The Jerusalem Post story presents Bennett as someone highly knowledgeable about the current state of the conflict and the chances for reconciliation as Russia grows more amenable to the demilitarization of certain parts of Ukraine rather than the entire country, and Ukraine backs down a bit from its insistence on immediate unconditional entry into NATO, a development that would only further stoke Russia’s fear and alarm about the encroachment of hostile powers around its borders. An Artist’s Plight A February 19 article by Ken Kurson in Fine Art Globe, “Cuban Curator Anamely Ramos Gonzalez Stranded in Miami,” details how staff at Miami International Airport, seemingly at the behest of the Cuban regime, barred Ms. Ramos from getting on an American Airlines flight bound for Cuba. Kurson’s piece cites a Miami Herald article stating that typically, when Cuban authorities deny someone entry to the island nation, it happens on the ground in Cuba, and not at a U.S. airport. When asked whether she fears that the attention given her case might put her in danger, Ramos said that, on the contrary, she feels safer in the spotlight. A Terrorist’s Death Sentence Reimposed On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 ruling to reinstate the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving member of the pair of brothers who set off two bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three people and injuring hundreds, and then went on a rampage in the course of which they murdered a young MIT police officer and caused still more chaos, injuries, and destruction in the Boston area. An article in National Review published shortly after the ruling details the reasoning put to use by Justice Clarence Thomas, who spoke for the majority when stating that the defendant had received a fair trial before an impartial jury as required under the Sixth Amendment. Defending Academic Freedom, in the New York Times? On March 7 the New York Times published a guest essay by Emma Camp, a senior at the University of Virginia, entitled “I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.” Some students are so terrified of social repercussions—and of getting a lower grade for speaking out in class—that they choose to clam up no matter how wrong they may find the viewpoint of a professor or a fellow student to be.