Epstein and Pinker again

Two more thoughts about this exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Steven Pinker, reported in The New York Times:

At one session at Harvard, Mr. Epstein criticized efforts to reduce starvation and provide health care to the poor because doing so increased the risk of overpopulation, said Mr. Pinker, who was there. Mr. Pinker said he had rebutted the argument, citing research showing that high rates of infant mortality simply caused people to have more children. Mr. Epstein seemed annoyed, and a Harvard colleague later told Mr. Pinker that he had been “voted off the island” and was no longer welcome at Mr. Epstein’s gatherings.

The Survivor metaphor is either decidedly careless or decidedly purposeful, given that Epstein owns an island, Little St. James Island, that’s prominent in his career of exploitation and trafficking. But also, though I might be stating the obvious: according to the account in the Times, it was Epstein who walked away from Pinker, not Pinker who walked away from Epstein.

A related post
Epstein and Pinker

[For clarity: I mean walking away metaphorically.]

A debate review

Hank Stuever, television critic, writing in The Washington Post:

Having subjected us to two nights of garishly adorned, overproduced, conflict-obsessed live “debates” among a field of 20 Democratic hopefuls (its own delusional gridlock of egos), CNN and the Democratic National Committee summoned the worst aspects of some of TV’s most popular genres and visual tropes.

The overall tone, of course, was cable-news alarmism, but the debates also resembled those celebrity-packed, prime-time game shows that litter the schedule all summer. One also got wafts of the blaring bombast of professional football broadcasts, and, yes, the stage-managed awkwardness of the lesser styles of reality TV.

Yes.

Domestic comedy

[Elaine singing.]

”Carhartt pants, Carhartt hat, Carhartt logo front and bat.”

Yes, she’s married to a Carhartt man, sort of. Meaning sort of a Carhartt man, not sort of married.

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) : Carhartt B18 : Carhartt B324

Crossover candidate

This MyPillow commercial keeps running through my head, but with a different pitch: “Hey, you’re that guy!” ”The thousand-dollar-a-month guy!” The time is running out for Andrew Yang to make this pitch.

[“MyPillow”: must everything be camel-cased?]

Debate

It ain’t over till it’s over, but I’m pretty confident that Elizabeth Warren has already won tonight’s debate.

Epstein and Pinker

Whenever I think reality can’t get any worse, along comes a headline. Like, say, this one from The New York Times: “Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race with His DNA.” Really. Read if you dare.

An exchange between Epstein and Steven Pinker recounted in this article caught my attention:

At one session at Harvard, Mr. Epstein criticized efforts to reduce starvation and provide health care to the poor because doing so increased the risk of overpopulation, said Mr. Pinker, who was there. Mr. Pinker said he had rebutted the argument, citing research showing that high rates of infant mortality simply caused people to have more children.

I just left a comment at the Times:

It’s striking that we don’t hear Pinker telling Epstein that withholding food and health care from poor people is cruel, immoral, depraved. Instead Pinker rebuts the argument with statistics. The lack of moral outrage here speaks volumes about how Epstein found audiences and allies in academia.

And I have to wonder: what if research showed the opposite, that high rates of infant mortality caused people to have fewer children? Would that make withholding food and health care appropriate? I can only repeat what I wrote in my comment: The lack of moral outrage here speaks volumes about how Epstein found audiences and allies in academia.

Related reading
All OCA Steven Pinker posts (Pinboard)

[Good grief: my comment, five minutes old, is now a “NYT Pick.”]

Mingus and Brubeck

“I see you got here first,” says an unidentified musician. And Charles Mingus replies: “Yeah, baby, and I’ll be the last one to leave.”


[Click for a larger view.]

Mingus and Dave Brubeck appear briefly in All Night Long (dir. Basil Dearden, 1962), a reimagining of Othello. The two musicians are among those gathered to celebrate the first wedding anniversary of pianist Aurelius Rex (Paul Harris) and singer Delia Lane (Marti Stevens). Mingus, who’s there from the get-go, has a few quick lines early on before disappearing from the film. Brubeck leads a small group in his “It’s a Raggy Waltz.” At another point, an offscreen band that might include Mingus is playing his “Peggy’s Blue Skylight.” Near the film’s end, Mingus and Brubeck have a few seconds duetting. I thought they might be improvising on Mingus’s “Boogie Stop Shuffle.” But no — it’s Mingus’s “Non-Sectarian Blues.” The few seconds in the film seem to be from this performance, right down to Mingus’s “Yeah, baby” at the 2:04 mark.


[File under Wait, what? And click for a larger view.]

Elaine has written about the film at greater length. All Night Long is available from the ever-rewarding, ever-surprising Criterion Channel.

Related reading
All OCA Charles Mingus posts (Pinboard)

Sebald exhibitions

In Norwich, England, two exhibitions mark what would have been W.G. Sebald’s seventy-fifth birthday. Lines of Sight: W.G. Sebald's East Anglia has “celebrated artworks, curious objects, archive material and the author’s own, unseen photographs.” And W.G. Sebald: Far away — but from where? has previously unseen photographs related to Austerlitz, source materials for the images in Vertigo, and visual art made in response to Sebald’s work.

Related reading
All OCA W.G. Sebald posts (Pinboard)

College these days

You can find nuance in this piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education if you like, but here’s the bottom line: a professor invited his students to read a book — a “physical book” — for extra credit. With the breathless line “Our students are multitasking masters.” And a takeaway: “Reading a print book, it turns out, is actually enjoyable.”

Books in college? What an intriguing idea! As the poet said, I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.

Not competent, not well

....Don’t watch show, but heard Mika said I asked to preside over their marriage. Not true—does anyone really believe that? They were married by Elijah, King of Baltimore!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2019

Our tax dollars at play.

I wondered this morning what might happen if network news broadcasts were to devote a chunk of each night’s broadcast to a word-for-word reading of the day’s presidential tweets: no funny voices, just straightforward reading. Would that sober up at least a few people? If you had a close relation who carried on in this way, you’d want to intervene.