On The Oxford Comma

 My view of the “Oxford comma:” don’t use it or not rigidly. If the context makes clear that “and” signifies the last item in a series, then the comma is superfluous. If the penultimate item has more than one component requiring “and” to separate them, then the comma is in order.

Brief Exchange On Israeli Proposed Judicial Reforms

 R

1. It seems the status of Basic Laws confuses most everyone, but my limited understanding is that the Israeli Supreme Court has held that they should be treated as constitution - like.

2. Just because Israel doesn’t have a real Constitution doesn’t mean that the Parliament should therefore always have the final say, with a 50.1 % majority 

3. Democracy is not just majority rule, as it must also include certain sacred minority rights

4. Israel’s democracy differs significantly from all other democracies as it has one parliament ( no Senate, no Provinces ), and therefore doesn’t have the checks on single person rule that others do - especially the US ( famous for the gridlock that your friend Scalia says is the essence of the US system of checks that the framers wanted)

5. In addition to overturning Court decisions the same rationale applies to judge selection - compare to the US where a President nominates for Senate confirmation , often when they are from different parties

6. Finally the problem with these proposals is greatly magnified by the current government with the PM beholden to 3 parties that represent viewpoints that are anathema to a liberal democracy

One more point. I read Bibi’s book. He and his family have made a huge contribution to Israel. He may be Israel’s most important PM ever given his role in the economic transformation, promoting Israeli tech to the world, Abraham Accords and the fact that his view on peace / two states, often vilified, looks like it was correct.

Me

As to your points:

1. Limited understanding is right. How does Israel’s SC get to give various originating laws constitutional status. There’s not any example anywhere of a mature liberal democracy with a judicially created SC. Plus, the court is somehow tied into the AG and they work in tandem to try to engineer results that they want. An example of the SC’s over the top self arrogated power is its recent invalidating a Bibi cabinet pick on the non existent legal ground that it was “unreasonable.” “Unreasonable” is the SC’s judicially created basis for invalidating laws it doesn’t ideologically like.

2. Does lack of a written constitution make  it a jump ball as to who should have the final say as to which laws stand? I’d prefer a court that “stayed in its lane” to have that say on the basis of democratically set grounds. But when the unelected court arrogates extra legal power to itself, then the  jump ball is between a 3’ unelected group of judges and the 6’ people’s representatives. Right now the reform proposals are working their way through Israeli democracy processes, may well get moderated and will reflect in what they do to the court, democratic  processes bringing it back into line.

3. The protection of minority rights will be best be achieved by an effective court whose jurisdiction and limits are redefined to fit with how courts operate under the rule of law in all liberal democracies. VB granted and her good points well made, Canada’s notwithstanding clause represents a compromise between British parliamentary supremacy and US republicanism (not the party.) The reforms now reflect that compromise and, as noted, their final chapter has not yet been written.

4. Your point 4 in Israeli practice is the opposite of what you say. In effect, and as often noted, the splintered party system makes the Israeli theoretical unicameral government in effect multi-cameral to the point of ongoing political instability. 

5. In what liberal democracy does the judiciary or a quasi judicial body pick successor or added on judges? Answer: nowhere escort Israel. So among the the points counting against you here are: 1. that; 2. the people’s representatives as against an unelected core of a power centre that has arrogated to itself unprecedented power under any idea of the rule of law as functioning in liberal democracies around the world; and 3. the just mentioned reality of what is in effect a multi-cameral political system.

6. As to 6, I urge you to read this and deal with the arguments made, and as linked to by Whelan here:  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-judicial-apocalypse-is-not-upon-us/.

Three Tweets On Doc, Bill Russell, Legend

 1 Compelling, stirring doc, Bill Russell Legend. But:

Too hagiographic?

It didn’t note specifically his activism’s acts (or did I miss them?)

I saw subtext that he seemed a bit purposeless after leaving Celtics (or do I read in too much?)

Were the last minutes over-egged?
—————

My feeling is, his undeniable athletic greatness grounds the off court greatness claimed for him that I’m unsure the doc makes a case for.

I miss what he did off court, other than commendably being his own man, that was so extraordinary.

I’d like to be told what I missed. 2/2
———-

P.S. 3/3

Where were acts by Russell even remotely comparable to the great magnitude of what Ali forfeited in refusing the draft, which the doc extolls but maybe unintentionally defines by contrast what Russell seems not to have come close to doing. 

Happy to be shown wrong.

A Few Thoughts On Film To Leslie

 Watched it with my wife. Had to rent it but I’m glad I did. 

I think it’s a terrific small movie that suffers not in its excellence by being small. And thats its arc is predictable bothers me not at all. 

Of course Riseborough is spectacular in it. (I checked out the “controversy.” What horseshit! A listers going all out to try to ensure Riseborough gets her due. I’m all for them doing it. She deserves the nomination and if publicizing her by feting her got her there I’m glad for it, even as the academy awards mean little to me.) 

I saw someone say her presence outstrips the movie (maybe like Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.) I don’t agree with that in To Leslie though it’s true about Blue Jasmine. She is the movie; it’s about her and while her performance stands out she doesn’t overpower everything else. Rather there’s a symbiosis between her and everything else that’s effectively mutually reinforcing. 

In Blue Jasmine, what’s not Blanchett is Woody Allen at his most formulaic and flat. And even as in To Leslie the arc is predictable and we sniff out about 1/2 way, though in a very broad way, how it will end, the movement to the ending is organic —ok with maybe a dash of the formulaic. 

Btw, Allison Janney is utterly potent as the queen bitch. I’m not sure I was 100% persuaded by her final turn around though its effectiveness is helped by her hate-filled bitchiness in the midst of that turnaround as she machine guns Leslie with how awful it was how she abandoned her kid. 

Mind you, when she says she was at fault too in not stopping Leslie when she could have, as though there’s some equivalence between their faults, that seems misconceived to me. The way Leslie’s then raging drunkenness/alcoholism is described, there’s no way a friend’s stern warnings could’ve abated it. So that didn’t ring true to me. 

I also thought the Royal character was too much of an unconvincing distraction even though it fit in with the generally idea of wrecking yourself with booze and drugs. His howling at the moon, prancing around in his underwear or even naked is to me unneeded filigree, caricature.

There’s of course a lot more to be said about the film—Marc Maron, the music supplementing the action, the scene where he dumbly but with good intentions plays the tape of her winning the lottery, the scenes of her resisting drinking and so on—but I’ll leave it here.

8/10 is my score for it, if I were scoring it.