The Abortion Debate, Respect, and Michelle of the Resistance

Kirsten Cooke as Michelle of the Resistance

Of late, Curmie and Beloved Spouse have watched a couple of episodes a week of the old (1982-92) British sitcom “‘Allo ‘Allo!”  Curmie generally doesn’t think stupid equates to funny, but in this case he’ll make an exception.

The show is set in France during World War II.  One recurring character is Michelle of the Resistance.  If imdb.com can be trusted, she’s in 82 of the 85 episodes; whereas he can’t be sure of this, Curmie would bet that she utters her catch-phrase, complete with music-hall French accent, in all 82 of her appearances: “Listen very carefully.  I shall say this only once.”

And that, Gentle Reader, is how Curmie begins this essay on abortion.  I shall say this only once, albeit, unlike Michelle, I’ll say it loudly: SOMEONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU ABOUT ABORTION IS NOT INHERENTLY EVIL.  If, to use the euphemistic terms applied by both sides, you’re pro-life, your neighbor who’s pro-choice is not a baby killer.  If you’re pro-choice, your pro-life neighbor is not a fascistic misogynist. 

Curmie need hardly tell you, Gentle Reader, that someone leaked a copy of a draft of a SCOTUS decision, drafted by Justice Alito.  This document could be word-for-word what the actual ruling will be when it’s officially announced, or there could be significant changes—significant enough, indeed, to totally flip what is now regarded as “the script.”  Curmie will read the final document in its entirety (which is more than most commentators on either side of the issue will do), but reads drafts only if at least one of two conditions are met: the draft document is in Curmie’s area of professional expertise, and/or he’s getting paid, directly or indirectly, to read it.  The Alito draft meets neither of these criteria.

If, however, that leaked draft remains essentially unchanged, it would overturn the half-century-old Roe v. Wade decision and, presumably, a host of other cases decided on the basis of that precedent.  Regardless of what the final document will say, the leak has precipitated a flurry of memes, rants, and other variations on the theme of demagoguery from both sides, with epithets flying faster than English arrows in a movie version of Henry V (Olivier or Branagh, take your pick). 

What’s notable about these outbursts is that they are uniformly without the slightest hint of nuance.  Curmie does not suggest here that decisions about abortions are ultimately anything but disjunctive—you can’t “sort of” have an abortion—but there’s no suggestion of “I see your point, but…” emanating from literally anyone.  Even those who purport to respect all perspectives lapse pretty quickly into variations on the themes of accusations of infanticide or serial misogyny. 

Curmie’s own view aligns reasonably well with prevailing national sentiment on this issue, but it doesn’t matter, as this is a deeply personal issue, affected by one’s own life history as well as world view.  Your point of view is likely to be different if your mother considered abortion but ultimately chose to give birth to you than if you literally would have died had you not been able to abort a pregnancy gone wrong.  Either way, you’re alive because abortion was or was not considered the least bad option in a difficult situation.

There are, to be sure, a couple of side issues at play here—what if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest? how do we handle an ectopic pregnancy? are we considering the life of the mother, and, if so, what level of threat to her life is sufficient to perform an abortion at what point in the pregnancy?, etc.  Ultimately, however, there is really only one issue: at what point can we say we’re dealing with a human “baby” rather than simply a collection of cells?

There would seem to be two reasonable endpoints: at fertilization and at birth.  No one seriously believes in the literality of the “masturbation is murder” signs that have turned up at rallies in the past fortnight.  Monty Python’s “Every Sperm Is Sacred” song is satire, not advocacy, and the shtick is funny precisely because it’s so absurd.  Nor does any sane person believe that babies who have been—you know—born are anything less than human beings.  If anyone positions themselves outside the fertilization/birth range, Curmie encourages you to run, do not walk, away from this person.

There are major religions which align themselves at both poles.  Catholic policy, which purports to be unchanging, erm… isn’t.  Southern Baptists, too, now condemn what they accepted without demur in the wake of the Roe decision.  Are these changes of direction cynical?  Or is Curmie cynical to point them out?  Yes, to at least one of those questions.

In all, Curmie counts no fewer than seven positions which have been suggested as the beginning of human life. 

Stop #1 is fertilization.  This is a logical position in that it is the first moment after which birth can (not to say will) occur without any volitional action.  A number of birth control strategies—condoms, spermicide, contraceptive implants, etc.—seek, therefore, to prevent fertilization.  When Curmie was a lad, the Catholic Church forbade even these approaches, advocating instead for the “rhythm method,” in which couples predicted, based on menstrual cycle, the days on which the woman was most likely to conceive, and avoided sex on those days.  Needless to say, this was not a foolproof process.  As the late, great, George Carlin put it, there’s a word for couples who use the rhythm method: parents. 

Stop #2 on our journey is implantation.  This occurs roughly a week after fertilization.  The distinction is important, as a fertilized egg must penetrate into the uterus for the birth process to continue.  If and when this process occurs, the body releases hormones, begins to build up the placenta, etc.  One could legitimately argue that pregnancy actually begins here, when the body prepares for the process, rather than at fertilization, which is simply the conjoining of two cells.  A number of birth control methods—the “morning after pill,” for instance—seek to prevent implantation, as fertilization may have already occurred. 

And so we move on to Stop #3: “Fetal heartbeat,” which generally happens at about six or seven weeks. (It’s important to note here that this and subsequent dates of pregnancy refer not to the period since fertilization, but since the last menstrual period; this is how such dating can be as exact as it is.)  “Fetal heartbeat” may be the least reasonable of our stops along the path to birth, more for its name than anything else.  First off, it’s still an embryo (see below), not yet a fetus.  Secondly, it’s pretty damned difficult to have a heartbeat without a heart to be beating.  (There’s a reason for Curmie’s use of scare quotes for the term.)  The opening and closing of valves that constitute a heartbeat per se can’t happen because those valves don’t yet exist.  Rather, a cluster of cells generates electrical activity; what is heard on an ultrasound machine is generated by the machine itself.

“Fetal heartbeat” legislation is thus literally nothing more than an emotion-based attempt by anti-abortion politicians to move the cut-off point for abortion from the standards established by Roe to a much earlier moment, a point at time in which a woman may not even knows she’s pregnant in time to get a legal procedure.  And let’s face it, “fetal heartbeat” sure does sound a lot more baby-like than “embryonic pulses.” Being a few days late for a period can happen for a wide variety of reasons; pregnancy is on the list, but nowhere near the only possibility.  

Stop #4.  Ensoulment.  First off, what a lovely term!  This refers to the moment when, according to whatever religious or philosophical position one follows, the soul enters the body.  Of course, since we’re dealing with a spiritual rather than medical/anatomical phenomenon, different cultures place ensoulment at different points in the process—as early as 40 days after conception (perhaps eight weeks or so after the last period) or as late as quickening, the moment the mother feels the fetus move, which may not happen until as late as 21 weeks.  Note: according to some religious traditions, a human being doesn’t have a soul, it is a soul.  Curmie just thought he’d throw that in there, because the topic isn’t complicated enough, otherwise. 😉

Ensoulment is a fascinating concept, since if a fetus isn’t really human until that moment, and we can’t decide when that happens, then we’re really casting about, looking for answers.  Of course, this leads to where it always leads: the recognition that we have a natural tendency to translate and interpret to fit our own pre-conceived notions. 

Curmie is not a scholar of Ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, and suspects that you aren’t, either, Gentle Reader.  That means we’re not really in a position to decide if Genesis 2:7 says that human life begins at first breath.  And even if you do happen to be such a scholar, you were taught what words mean and what grammatical structures suggest by someone who may or may not have had an agenda in placing a particular spin on a passage… and who was taught by someone else who may or may not… you get the idea.

More to the point, whatever this or that religion may currently say, or may once have said, about ensoulment, it’s impossible to base a secular policy decision on such a basis.  We reject this rationale as emphatically as we do “fetal heartbeat,” albeit for different reasons.

Stop #5.  Fetus.  This occurs at roughly ten weeks, and marks the transition from “embryo” to “fetus.”  That is, all the major organs, though immature, have been formed.  This strikes Curmie as a far more reasonable signpost than the bogus “fetal heartbeat.”  Whatever your views on the morality and ethics of abortion, it seems reasonable to grant that something significant occurs at this point in a pregnancy.

Stop #6.  Viability.  This represents the point at which there is a reasonable expectation that the fetus could survive outside the womb, with or without medical intervention,  This is, roughly speaking, the status quo established by Roe, albeit a number of states have drastically lowered the threshold to well under the most optimistic interpretation of viability.  But, like the other moments already listed, this is impossible to pinpoint exactly.  And that word “reasonable” complicates things, too.  What, after all, is “reasonable”? 

Curmie knows and loves someone, now well into adulthood, whose birth was extremely premature: to the point that the infant weighed less than three pounds a month later.  The chances of surviving the first night were placed at 1 in 1000, of ever walking, at far longer than that.  As an adolescent, this youngster was the weakest member of the high school cross country team.  Let me say that again: the weakest member of the cross country team.

Of course, we can reasonably assume that the medical community’s ability to care for such patients is at least as good as it was a generation ago.  The accepted standard for viability seems to be at 22 weeks, with the smallest baby to survive even for a few weeks having been born at 18 weeks.  So, Gentle Reader, if viability is your criterion, that’s your range; Curmie, for personal as well as ethical reasons, urges you to err on the side of early rather than late.

Stop #7: Birth. Some religions, including, for example, some forms of Judaism, insist that birth per se is the beginning of human life.  Still, adopting such a standard for abortion is not only ethically problematic at best, it’s politically impossible except in cases where either the mother’s life is seriously imperiled or the fetus has literally no chance of survival.  Even these exceptions, along with exceptions for rape or incest, are anathema to some conservative politicians. 

There are those who argue, as Pete Buttigieg does, that the overwhelming majority of third trimester abortions are for pregnancies that were intended to go to term.  The argument goes that anyone seeking an abortion for frivolous reasons would have already had the procedure.  Therefore, there had to be something that went wrong—with the mother or the fetus—to change direction.  That’s a compelling argument.  Of course, absolutists would counter that “overwhelming majority” is insufficient, and that even if 99% of late-term abortions are for good reason, that leaves 1% that constitute, in their minds, sanctioning murder.

The problem gets even more complex when we start talking about the health of the mother.  Defining that term is akin to grabbing a handful of mercury.  Does mental health count?  Does the threat need to be chronic or acute?  Both?  There are times that Curmie is quite fine with letting other people decide the details; this is certainly one of them.

Closing thoughts #1:  Curmie is not an obstetrician, a lawyer, or a religious leader.  He may be misinterpreting what’s he’s read.  If so, he asks forgiveness and correction. 

Closing thoughts #2: The Democratic Party, as usual, fucked up royally in their response to the leaked document.  They could have put forward a bill in Congress that would have guaranteed abortion rights a significant majority of Americans agree upon, eliminating “fetal heartbeat” bills, protecting victims of rape or incest, etc.  This would have led to one of two results: either those rights, at least, would be guaranteed or the Republicans would have had to go on record to fail to protect even rape victims seeking a first-term abortion.  That wouldn’t play well with the electorate at large.

Instead, the Dems put forth a bill, laden with Woke platitudes and jargon, which actually would have extended abortion rights beyond what Roe ensured.  They can blame Joe Manchin all they want, but it was the party leadership that snatched political defeat from the very jaws of victory.  It’s also bad form (to say the least!) for both Democratic politicians and, worse, left-leaning news media, to blame the defeat on a Republican filibuster which, of course, never happened.  Of course, it’s also a bit of a stretch to call the bill’s defeat “bipartisan,” as the right-leaning press would have us believe.

Closing thoughts #3.  You are, of course, free to choose whichever you choose of these steps along the process of creating a human life as your personal definition.  Curmie would argue, however, that it is impossible to make good public policy (a different thing) based on religion-specific ideologies (#4) or pseudo-science (#3). And option #1 does seem misogynistic, as “Plan B” would seem to be a means by which to protect victims from being further punished while not, in fact, interfering with a pregnancy (at least in one definition of that term). 

But that still leaves options 2, 5, 6, and (in narrowly defined cases) 7 as viable possibilities.  If that’s where you are, Gentle Reader, then Curmie respects your opinion.  He may disagree, but that’s another matter.  Diogenes famously went in search of an honest man.  In terms of policy-makers in whatever branch of government and at whatever level, Curmie would settle for a grown-up.

The Great Story of Rich Strike's Win... Which ESPN Can't Be Bothered to Cover

Let us take as given that there are some serious problems with horseracing: unscrupulous owners and trainers, doping, horses bred for speed at the expense of overall health, all that.  And it is certainly a sport for rich people.  All those great stories about a group of friends kicking in a few thousand bucks (pounds, Euro, etc.) apiece to buy a racehorse that subsequently wins The Big Race against colts that sold at auction for millions—these are heart-warming tales, but they capture our collective imagination precisely because they’re so rare.

Of course, it would be difficult to name a sport that isn’t dominated by the obscenely rich.  With the occasional exception of a team like the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers, virtually all sports teams are owned by individuals whose net worth is three or four zeroes more than yours or mine. 

And, in this country, one of the premiere sporting events of the year is the Kentucky Derby.  Few people care about gymnastics, swimming, or figure skating on an ongoing basis, but Olympics competitions in those sports attract a lot of viewers.  Similarly, the nation’s indifference to horseracing in general disappears, briefly, on the first Saturday in May.  Nearly 150,000 fans showed up at Churchill Downs in Louisville; television viewership numbers haven’t been released as of this writing, but predictions were in the range of 15 million.  That’s a lot of folks.  And, all told, a record $168.8 million was bet on this race alone.

Side note: the Kentucky Derby is also special for completely other reasons to Curmie and Beloved Spouse.  Watching the 1981 Derby from my apartment on the other side of Kentucky was sort of our first date.  We “bet” on Tap Shoes.  He… uh… did not prosper.  On the other hand, a year later, on the second Saturday in May, we were married.

This year, there were lots of potential stories.  How would the horses initially trained by the suspended Bob Baffert fare?  Would this be the year a Japanese horse won the roses?  Would jockey John Velasquez win his fourth Derby?  Or would Mike Smith, at 56, become the oldest ever to win, aboard a horse who’d only run in two previous races (winning them both, including the Santa Anita Derby)?  Or would Steve Asmussen, the winningest trainer in the country, finally get a Derby win after 23 losses?  And do I go with the morning line favorite or the post-time favorite?

The answers to the above: not very well, no, no, no, no, and neither.

Sonny Leon guides Rich Strike to victory

There are Disney movies that don’t strain credulity as much as what actually occurred.  The aptly-named Rich Strike did indeed strike it rich yesterday.  This was a horse that didn’t qualify for the Derby on points, and was added to the field at literally the last minute Friday morning when legendary trainer D. Wayne Lucas pulled Ethereal Road, allowing Rich Strike to become the twentieth and last entry into the field.  A former claimer, Rich Strike was sold by the famous Calumet farms for $30,000.  He just won $1.86 million.  Someone at Calumet is muttering a big “Oops” about now.

The horse was listed, probably optimistically, at 80:1.  The odds were even that low because there wasn’t a really clear “super-horse” favorite.  But a late entry without speed racing from the far outside post?  A trainer (Eric Reed) and jockey (Sonny Leon) who had precisely one Grade 1 win and no Kentucky Derby experience between them?  Yeah, 80:1 was probably wishful thinking.

At the half-mile pole, Rich Strike was well to the back of the pack, in 18th place, perhaps 10 lengths off the lead.  Even coming into the home stretch, he was in 13th place, surrounded by other horses, with no apparent chance of breaking through, no matter how fast he might have been capable of running.  Except that he did.  Leon, who had never won a Grade 1 race, gave as masterful a ride as Curmie has ever seen (seriously: check this out)—finding the gaps and shooting his horse through them.  That young man’s phone IS. GOING. TO. BLOW. UP.

By the time they’re into the final furlong, Rich Strike is up to fifth and on the rail.  Leon guides him outside to pass a fading horse, then straightens him out and charges towards the wire.  The announcer continues to talk about the battle between morning line favorite Zandon and post-time favorite Epicenter: “Coming down to the wire, Epicenter and Zandon, these two, stride for stride!”  He doesn’t even mention Rich Strike until he’s already caught the favorites at the 1/16 pole.  Needless to say, that merited an excited “oh, my goodness!”. And it was a clear win—no photo finishes, noses, or necks.  Officially, it was ¾ of a length.  Curmie would have said a full length, but he’s not going to quibble.

On the way to the winner’s circle, one of Rich Strike’s connections is screaming “we shocked the world.”  Indeed, you did, sir.

This has to be one of the most memorable horseraces in history.  Was there luck involved?  Boatloads.  The scratch of Ethereal Road just soon enough to allow another entrant into the field.  And taking nothing away from Leon’s utterly brilliant ride, sometimes the holes just never appear the way they did yesterday.  But this plucky colt, his modest Kentucky-based trainer, and a jockey who rode the race of his life—they deserved the win, however much Steve Asmussen wants to pout. Train your horse better next time, Stevie.

This story has got everything: luck, huge underdogs across the board, an exciting come-from-behind finish… you name it.  So what sports reporter wouldn’t be all over this?  The answer to that question is apparently “anyone who works for ESPN.”    

Seriously.  It’s over 18 hours after the conclusion of the race, and what’s on ESPN’s webpage?  Gasping coverage of game threes of NBA conference semifinals, a couple of reports on soccer leagues in foreign countries, NCAA women’s softball scores, even a story on not-even-close-to-being-a-sport WWE.  The biggest horseracing story, at least in this country, in a decade or more: not a freaking word.

Now, Curmie could understand if ESPN decided that horseracing isn’t really a sport (WWE is?), or if the downside of the sport makes it ethically unpalatable (unlike, for example, the clear linkage of football to chronic traumatic encephalopathy).  But pre-race coverage—which horse to bet on, mostly—is still up.

ESPN has long been known for insufferable announcers.  As a college basketball fan, Curmie will definitely turn off the sound if not the game itself if Dick Vitale or Bill Walton are within hailing distance of a microphone.  Even Jay Bilas—who, unlike the two just mentioned, actually analyzes the proceedings instead of spouting idiocies and catch phrases they think are cute—allows himself to be an accomplice in ESPN’s belief that people tune in to see and hear “their people” instead of, you know, the game.  Curmie can but hope it’s against his will.

And if the front-line announcers are this bad, imagine what the guys covering the game between the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and Pigeon Puke Ag and Tech are like.  But this is all, of course, a matter of personal opinion.  Somewhere, one supposes, there’s someone who doesn’t work for ESPN who thinks Bill Walton adds to fans’ enjoyment.

Less forgivable was last fall’s airing on their main channel of what purported to be a high school football game between IMG Academy (a “school” devoted almost exclusively to athletics) and “Bishop Sycamore” (a school that doesn’t even exist).  Curmie wrote about this incident last September, and the situation kept getting weirder and more sinister after that.  ESPN was unquestionably complicit, but one could argue that they were simply too fucking lazy to exercise even cursory oversight of their product.  And what they did wasn’t criminal, right?  I mean, yes, they abetted criminality, but they were too incompetent to know any better, so that’s OK, then.

But now we pass from sloth and logistical ineptitude into the range of YOU CAN’T CLAIM TO COVER SPORTS IN THE US IF YOU DON’T HAVE AT LEAST 500 WORDS UP WITHIN A HALF AN HOUR territory.  There is literally no excuse for an omission this egregious.  But just as ESPN thinks they’re more important than the game, they also think it isn’t really worth covering if they weren’t the ones to do the live coverage.  They are as arrogant as they are incompetent, and that’s saying rather a lot.

Correction: It appears that ESPN did indeed post a story.  It didn’t appear on their homepage, and it was not the featured story even on the horse racing page, which you have to search for (there is, however, a direct link to the NBA’s G-League, even though a). they're a minor league, and b), their season has been over for weeks): ESPN pundits’ predictions about the race occupied the featured position until days after the race was over.  But there was a story; the link was hard to find (Curmie specifically looked, twice), but it appears it was there.  With this minor correction, Curmie’s indignation stands.

Dartmouth Wins Three-Way Battle for Looking the Worst

This may head into TL/DR territory.  You have been warned.

The extent to which Curmie’s alma mater actually allows
Voice(s) Crying in the Wilderness
is not entirely clear.

Curmie had remained blissfully ignorant of an incident, or perhaps series of incidents, this spring at his undergrad alma mater, Dartmouth College, until reading about it on Ethics Alarms.  I usually see stuff from FIRE; no idea why I didn’t, this time.

A little personal history first.  I think it may become relevant…

My time “on the hill” was, to coin a phrase, the best of times and the worst of times.  It was certainly a period of change.  The administration building had been occupied by anti-war protestors a couple of years before I got there.  Direct US involvement in the Vietnam War and the accompanying draft had ended, but there was a lot of residue. The campus police once demanded to see my draft card when I was studying in the lounge of a classroom building my freshman year.

My freshman class was the second in the college’s 200+ year history to include women; the male/female ratio was 5:2 when I enrolled, 3:2 when I graduated.  The “Indian symbol,” a commemoration of the college’s origins as a missionary school for Native Americans, was officially discarded in my freshman year: a neat trick since it had never been officially adopted.  Many students and alumni were upset by both of these changes to tradition.  Others rejoiced.

Certainly the concerns of both the Native American community and the women on campus were ignored if not suppressed, not (just) by the administration, but by a lot of fellow students.  Politically, the student body was all over the map.  Curmie at the time was probably a little right of center, but had friends from across the spectrum.  One had a parent in the then newly-created Heritage Foundation, another was the daughter of a Democratic member of Congress.  I knew radicals and reactionaries and about everything in-between.

I’ve had little direct contact with Dartmouth in many years.  I send the alumni fund a little money each year, and I check the alumni newsletter for news of friends.  I bemoaned the choice of commencement speaker a few years ago. That’s about it.  So I can’t say for certain what the student body is like in terms of political philosophy.  I suspect it’s rather familiar, except that those in the center have been pulled in one direction or the other.  There probably aren’t a lot of moderates left on either side, as has been the case nation-wide of late.

The great thing about Dartmouth in those bygone days (and I hope this is still true) was that there wasn’t a department on campus that wasn’t at least very good, and most were excellent.  Curmie started as a pre-law Government major, added a Drama major, and ultimately dropped the former and entered the honors program of the latter. 

Interestingly, a course in Political Ideals helped prompt the change from both directions.  It was one of two courses I ever took anywhere in which I felt any pressure to agree with the professor on matters of opinion.  But it also introduced me to the study of dramatic texts as an exercise in more than simply literary analysis.  The idealistic and intellectual Doctor Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People was used as an example of traditional conservatism (how far today’s GOP has wandered from that template!), and I became intrigued.  This was far from the only reason for my decision to change to a different career path, but it was certainly a factor, and it may have been the first catalyst.

But… enough of the scaffolding.  The story:

In January of this year, the Dartmouth chapters of the College Republicans, Turning Point USA, and Network of Enlightened Women (no arrogance associated with that title, right?) were scheduled to host an on-campus event, “Extremism in America,” featuring conservative journalist/media personality Andy Ngo and ex-antifa, now libertarian activist, Gabriel Nadales. 

At the last minute, college authorities, citing “safety issues” and “concerning information” from the local (Hanover, NH) police, apparently suggesting the possibility of violent protests, moved the event exclusively online, despite the fact that no one actually showed up to protest.  Later, they billed the sponsoring organizations $3600 for the added security.  (Note: the demand is a little more nuanced than that, but that’s the de facto gist.)  The zoomed event was seen by 177 unique viewers, with a peak viewership at a given moment of 94.  Filene Auditorium, where the event was originally scheduled, has a seating capacity of 221.  Organizers believe the event would have attracted more viewers if they’d had more time to distribute the zoom link; it’s difficult to argue with that.

OK: let’s start at the beginning.  Ngo and Nadales have both been all over the map in terms of any kind of personal philosophy.  Ngo, for example, has been a Buddhist, an evangelical Christian, and a loud and proud atheist.  That’s a pretty good range for someone still in his mid-30s.  A sympathetic reading of this phenomenon would be that he is a perfectionist, moving on from any ideology that does not express his true beliefs.  A more cynical interpretation is that he actually has no core values, but will pretend to do so if it gets him something we wants—fame, money, whatever.  But ultimately, none of this matters.

Nor does it matter that Ngo and Nadales, like so many others, left or right, on the traveling talking-head circuit, were booked not because they have anything terribly pertinent to say, but because they’re controversial (and little else).  Why else would the College Republicans’ previous event have featured Madison Cawthorn?  The College Republicans’ next guest?  They brought Ngo’s mentor, James O’Keefe, who has literally no integrity whatsoever, to Hanover a couple of weeks ago.  An opinion piece by Kyle Mullins in The Dartmouth (a.k.a. the “Daily D”) accurately describes the obvious conclusion: “The group’s decision to bring him to campus appears to be another example of trying to ‘own the libs,’ proving that they are more interested in self-victimization than in a free dialogue about conservative ideas.”  Curmie could not have put it better.

For all this, the fact that Curmie wouldn’t sit through an hour of listening to the likes on Ngo and Nadales (or Cawthorn, or O’Keefe) if he were paid to do so doesn’t mean that they have no right to speak, or that others have no right to hear them.  Things in this case are a little more complicated than that, of course, but deciding how much so probably tells us more about the reader’s politics than about what actually happened.

A couple of days before the event, event organizers learned of a protest by a group calling itself Dartmouth Anarchists.  The protest was to take place at Filene Auditorium, beginning an hour before the scheduled beginning of the event.  There then ensued a series of e-mails between Chloe Ezzo, a Dartmouth junior who is an officer in all three sponsoring organizations and apparently the lead organizer of the event, and various college officials, including a representative of the campus police and the events coordinator.  You can see at least some of that exchange here.

There was apparently an in-person meeting, as well.  What’s clear is that Ezzo suspected that “Dartmouth Anarchists” didn’t really exist, but, given the history of some antifa protests, wanted to take no chances.  It was her idea to ban backpacks at the event and to require a Dartmouth ID to attend an event originally intended to be open to the general public.  (There were also some COVID protocols.)  She asked about the possibility of metal detectors, but was told that was infeasible.

Jim Alberghini, the events coordinator, also wrote, prior to the event, that Ezzo and her fellow sponsors were “responsible for the smooth execution of this event…. as hosts you are responsible for the guests you invite to campus—including crowd behavior, violations of College policies, and any associated damage.”  He also urged moving the event online or requiring a Dartmouth ID; organizers rejected the former suggestion but had actually already proposed the latter.  What is conspicuous in its absence from Alberghini’s CYA e-mail is any indication that the sponsoring organizations would be responsible for the cost of security deemed necessary by College officials.

On the day of the event, there was a “routine” security check; Ngo said it involved bomb-sniffing dogs.  That assertion is uncorroborated, as far as I can tell.  Curmie wouldn’t trust Ngo not to exaggerate, but that’s different from saying he’s lying.  And Curmie has attended dozens if not hundreds of events (even excluding sports and the arts) at colleges and universities over the years.  With the exception of appearances of Presidential candidates (in one case a sitting Vice President) or an ex-President, none, not even the ones involving sitting governors or senators, have, to the best of my knowledge, had security checks at all.  So there was obviously at least a little concern (by whom, exactly?) for the safety of guests and attendees alike. 

And why the extremely late insistence that the event go online?  That’s unclear.  The Dartmouth reports that “Department of Safety and Security officers at the venue confirmed that the in-person event had been moved online, but did not explain why, referring comment to Safety and Security director Keysi Montas, who declined to comment.”  Not exactly the most shining example of transparency, that, but declining comment isn’t lying, and one supposes there could conceivably be a legitimate reason for the secrecy—protecting an undercover source, for example.  That’s a bit of a stretch, though, don’t you think, Gentle Reader?

Indeed, the Hanover Police deny making any recommendations that the event go online.  Curmie, who has dealt with that police force on several occasions over the years—before, during, and after his time at Dartmouth—is quite confident that they’d cheerfully throw Dartmouth under the proverbial bus, given the opportunity.  But would they lie to do it?  Curmie doesn’t trust them enough to say “no,” but it’s certainly a “probably not.”

College Republicans president Griffin Mackey offers a scathing take-down of the college’s position in a post on NHJournal.com a couple of days after the event.  I do encourage you, Gentle Reader, to follow the link and check out his full screed, but here’s a brief sample: “Dartmouth College decided to cancel based on information that had been available for days — if not weeks — before. Moreover, if the security concerns Dartmouth had were so grave, why did we host the virtual event in the same room we had intended for the in-person event?”

That’s a pretty impressive rant.  But just because X is wrong doesn’t mean than every version of not-X is right.  There are, for example, a couple of flaws in the arguments presented by Mackey and Ezzo.  Yes, the college is correct in saying that College Republican officers themselves had expressed security concerns.  They decided to go ahead with an in-person event despite those concerns, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t express them.  The real point is that there doesn’t seem to have been any new evidence of a potentially violent protest.  

Moreover, it’s clear from both Mackey’s post and one by Ezzo on TheCollegeFix.com that they claim agency in arranging for all those police officers, SWAT team members, etc., to be present.  So why shouldn’t they be responsible for picking up the tab for that increased security?  

It’s also a bit difficult for the college to punish the “Dartmouth Anarchists,” as Mackey and Ezzo insist should happen, since: 1). no one knows who they are, 2). therefore no one knows if they’re actually students, and 3). they only advertised a protest, and never (that Curmie has seen, at least) threatened violence.  They don’t have the right to prevent Ngo and Nadales from being heard, but they can certainly gather outside the venue and protest the event to their hearts’ content.

Unsurprisingly, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) got into the act fairly early on.  FIRE has a reputation for leaning a little to the right, but Curmie, being more of a civil libertarian than a traditional liberal, agrees with them more often than not.  This time… sort of.

At one level, FIRE’s claim that Dartmouth capitulated to a “heckler’s veto” seems accurate as far as it goes, but it also appears to be focused on a single facet of the larger picture.  To say the college handled the situation clumsily is truth bordering on understatement.  But for all their upside in terms of engaging the college community in considerations of different perspectives on current events, events like this with controversial speakers are lose/lose for colleges and universities in other terms. 

If such an individual, someone whose very presence has the potential to trigger a protest that could get out of hand, is invited by a student group, the college will find itself in a precarious position.  There are three choices, all bad: 1). decline to provide extra security and suffer the consequences if something does go wrong, 2). provide that security and be stuck paying for it, despite the fact that the college per se wasn’t the sponsor of the event (FIRE’s apparent belief that the college ought to pay for the added security because it has sufficiently deep pockets is particularly troubling in this regard), or 3). provide the security but expect the sponsoring organization to pay for it, whereupon they’ll whine to FIRE and to TheCollegeFix.com or MoveOn.org or whatever such platform best aligns with their politics about how their First Amendment rights are being trampled.

Who looks good here?  Literally no one.  FIRE seems to go heavier on the righteous indignation than on ethical and responsible argument.  The College Republicans do indeed seem more interested in controversy and victimhood than in raising the level of political discourse.  But, absent evidence they haven’t provided, Dartmouth officials look arbitrary, capricious, and authoritarian, perhaps even guilty of actively and intentionally undermining the event.  That’s not a good look.  At all.

Sigh.

Kent State and Today's Headlines

Today is a strangely emotional day for Curmie.  It was final exam day in what might well be the last course I ever teach, a little short of the 43rd anniversary of the first day of the first class of my teaching career.  It’s a day I had my first long (well over an hour) talk with one of the students in that class, a young woman whose skills I’ve respected for some time, but with whom I’ve never worked directly.  It is also, of course, Star Wars Day, and therefore filled with fuzzy memories of where and with whom I saw the original trilogy. (I’ve tried to watch a couple other movies in the franchise, but turned them off after less than half an hour.  No regrets.)

One of many chilling images from 52 years ago today.

But whereas today—literally, today—is, or at least could be, a turning point in my life, it’s what happened on this date 52 years ago that will continue to be the more significant event, even on the personal level.  I refer, of course, to the murders (and they were murders, even if no one was convicted of any crimes) of four Kent State University students by members of the National Guard.

If I were to list the half dozen blog pieces I like the most of the over 400 I’ve written over the last dozen years, there’s no question that this musing on Kent State, posted from a dormitory room on that very campus, would be included.  It wasn’t until long after May 4, 1970, that I became fully aware of the specific horrors of that day—that none of those killed were closer than 85 yards from the Guardsmen who were supposedly fearful for their own safety; that the Guardsmen were walking away from the student protesters before turning in unison to open fire on whoever happened to be in the line of fire; that 11 of the 13 casualties were shot from behind.

What I did know, only intuitively at first, was that everyone—from Richard Nixon to the local officials to Walter Cronkite—was lying to me.  Even my father’s words seemed hollow and evasive, even though uttered with great surety and apparent sincerity.  What happened in that early afternoon in eastern Ohio wasn’t self-defense; it wasn’t inevitable; it wasn’t triggered by the actions of radical peaceniks.  And it sure as hell wasn’t a small sacrifice worth making to restore law and order.

The coming of age I described in my post from almost seven years ago took place over time.  Yes, I could smell the heady aroma of bovine feces in the initial pronouncements, but even in junior high I knew better than to trust entirely in feelings rather than actual evidence.  Of course, as the facts emerged, my suspicions were confirmed and my anger crystalized.  It all played out rather like a Greek tragedy: I already “knew” where we were headed, and rather hoped that I was wrong, but eventually the evidence became too overwhelming to ignore.

This wasn’t, I don’t think, political in the sense that had the other party been in office, it would have changed much.  No, it was generational.  My generation, especially but not exclusively the men, were cannon fodder for the politicians and the power-mongers.  The Vietnam War per se was bad enough, but at least we could understand the motives.  We might have rejected them, but we could trace a coherent line of reasoning.  What happened at Kent State (and Jackson State a couple weeks later), however, had no rational underpinning: it was a categorical rejection of all the precepts we had perhaps naïvely believed about the country.  It was life-changing for Curmie, and he suspects for many others, as well.

Now, assuming what virtually everyone believes will happen with respect to over-turning Roe v. Wade actually eventuates, we’re faced with another split.  This time those most directly affected will be young women instead of young men, but the structure of the issues remains familiar: the people making the decisions aren’t those who will bear the brunt of the burden.  They’re insulated by at least one, usually more, variables: age, gender, and economic status—the rich don’t care what happens in Mississippi if they can fly their loved ones out to Massachusetts or Illinois to have a procedure done.

None of this is to say that SCOTUS should (necessarily) have done differently (see last time for more on this), but there are ways in which the events of the week can turn out to be positive for those of a progressive mindset.  First off, overturning Roe doesn’t mean abortion will be criminalized, nation-wide.  Yes, there will be yahoos from red states who will seek to do so, and they’ll succeed in some places… in the short term.  But they’ve been trying to find creative ways around Roe for decades.  Now, apparently, they’ll get their way.  Be careful what you wish for, GOP.  You’ll likely find that your rallying cry whimpered its way to death alongside the SCOTUS ruling you so despise.

Moreover, just as the anti-war forces gained enough traction (and the suppression of those voices gathered enough antipathy) in the 1970s that even the Nixon administration had to take notice, the pro-choice forces will organize in time for the midterms.  This matters, especially since the performance of the Biden administration has been something short of impressive.  With the notable exception of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the nominees for a host of positions have been notable more for their “diversity” than for their expected competence.  Even Jackson’s nomination came after Biden had artificially narrowed the field to women of color… which rather takes away from the fact that she would have been a legitimate candidate without the affirmative action nonsense.

Curmie remembers saying to someone that he’d vote for a dead sloth over Donald Trump.  Serendipitously, the DNC massaged the primaries so the closest thing they could offer to approximate such a creature was nominated.  Curmie appreciates the opportunity to test his hypothesis.  Yep, still true.  And there’s no one on the GOP horizon who looks even vaguely palatable... which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of Democratic leadership, except by contrast.

But it’s much easier to oppose something than to actually propose good new ideas.  And “just say no” has been featured in the Republican playbook on abortion for years.  It’s been a great fundraiser, if nothing else.  Now it’s gone.  “Right this wrong” is a far more rousing slogan than “Maintain the status quo!”.  Now, the energy is on the other side.  Far more people will rally, both literally and figuratively, behind what they perceive as an issue of gender-based discrimination than did so because a single petty criminal was inadvertently killed by an asshole (not necessarily racist) cop in Minnesota.  And the protests will almost certainly be less violent, making them less objectionable to those in the middle, politically. 

Progressives on abortion rights are likely to be progressives on other issues, as well.  The result, despite the fact that the Democrats seem to value diversity over equity, and that they aren’t doing much to reverse the wreckage wrought by the Trump administration, might well be a stronger showing in the midterm than is usual for the party in power.  Curmie isn’t necessarily predicting this, but he’d be far from surprised should it happen. 

Women of child-bearing years make up about a quarter of the total population, more than that among folks of voting age.  Even the idiots who manipulated the process to twice in a row nominate the only prominent Democrat who could possibly lose to Donald Trump (OK, Kamala Harris, too, I’ll grant that one) aren’t stupid enough to fail to remind voters of Republican attempts to deny abortion access to victims of rape or incest.  You are free to be an absolutist on this issue in ethical terms, Gentle Reader, but that’s not a winning proposition in political terms.

None of this, of course, ameliorates the plight of young women who happen to become impregnated in a radically red state after its testosterone-poisoned legislature concocts a new version of repression.  We mustn’t forget that.  But the draft of the imminent ruling in the Dobbs case should remind us of one thing: that battles in a courtroom are not insignificant, but the ones that really matter are at the polls.  This is imperative.  And, to tie all the day’s events together, we close with the wisdom of Yoda: “Do or do not.  There is no try.”

Vote, y’all.  May the 4th (or the Force) be with you.

5 Thoughts on the SCOTUS Roe Brouhaha

It didn't take long for the protests to erupt.

The recent release of what gives every impression of being a draft of an imminent SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade raises more complicated issues than Curmie has any intention of trying to address in one or two thousand words. Indeed, given the circumstances of the leak, we can be certain of very little. 

Five (relatively) brief points: 

1. The Leaker. One thing we do know is that the leaker—a staffer? one of the justices themselves?—is a scoundrel of the first order. It’s a draft, after all, apparently written three months ago. One presumes that the Court hasn’t already released a final version for a reason. We’re not even sure this is the latest draft of the document. Perhaps it’s just a matter of wanting to clean up some of the language. (Curmie just signed off on the proofs of a book chapter and devoutly wishes he’d had one more chance to fix a phrasing rather than simply proofread. He understands.) But it’s also plausible, though not likely, that one or more of the justices wants to modify their stance or even to change their vote. In the words of the great 20th century philosopher Yogi Berra, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” 

The leaker, whoever that may be—there’s a lot of finger-pointing at the moment, but no actual evidence, at least that’s been made public—has, of course, violated all standards of propriety, confidentiality, discretion, and professional ethics. Assuming the culprit is a lawyer (a good bet), anything less than disbarment is an insufficient punishment. There may be criminality involved, too, although Curmie has no particular charges in mind. All this presumes, of course, that we ever find out whodunnit: a risky assertion at best. 

2. The Issues.  Access to abortion has been a complicated and contentious issue since well before the Roe decision in 1973. Curmie wants to go on record (again) that there are honest, intelligent, and moral people at about every point on the spectrum on this matter. (There are also evil people at both extremes, but that’s not the point here.) Nor are the positions necessarily staked out according to religious beliefs. True, the evangelical movement and the Catholic Church have been prime movers in pro-life circles, but Curmie knows pro-life agnostics and adamantly pro-choice Southern Baptists. 

Indeed, the Catholic position for centuries was that a fetus becomes “human” (and therefore that abortion becomes homicide) not at conception, but at “ensoulment,” the moment the mother is aware of the fetus’s movement… generally at about 18 weeks. Curmie may be getting along in years, but it’s not like he hung out at the local pub with Kit Marlowe, and he was already in college when the Southern Baptist Convention re-affirmed their church’s position to “allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”  

A 2019 Pew poll finds that a clear majority of American Catholics believe abortion should be legal in “all or most cases”; in 2018, voters in very Catholic Ireland overwhelmingly (66-34%) repealed the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, the one that forbade abortion. Hardly the stuff of unwavering religion-based opposition, from either the Christian Church or its parishioners, this. The Bible, of course, has nary a word, either way. 

None of this is to discount the reservations of those who do oppose abortion for whatever reason. The majority is not always right. But it’s worth noting that as the majority of the general population’s support for the legality of the procedure seems increasingly secure, the pro-life movement seems to have increased its fervency. 

The case that’s before the Court at present, the one that Justice Alito (who wrote the now-leaked opinion draft), et al., are considering, concerns a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The question before the Court, of course, is not whether such a law is a good idea, but whether it’s constitutional. Roe v. Wade suggests that perhaps it is not; the solution, in the minds of the conservative majority, is to overturn Roe, which is what appears to be happening. (Key word: “appears.” We shall see.) 

3. The Aftermath.  Assuming what now seems probable actually happens, the proverbial fecal matter will interface the whirling rotors in a matter of weeks, at most. Every conservative male-dominant state legislature will attempt to be the first to impose absurd restrictions on abortion rights, and if they can’t get there first, they’ll have a pissing contest to see whose new law is the most draconian, the most misogynistic, the most medically ignorant. 

Someone somewhere will decide that not only is it illegal to get an abortion here in Trumpistan, it’s also illegal to leave the state to have the procedure done elsewhere. Sooner or later, even this SCOTUS will have to recognize that this system cannot be sustained. That might work out OK for the nation, but not for the individuals affected in the here and now. Oh, wait. Concern for the individual rather than seeing someone as part of a group: that’s a conservative notion. Oh, to hell with it. This is about showing them uppity fillies who’s boss. (Apologies for the correct spelling in the previous sentence… I just… couldn’t.) 

4. A Possible Analogy from Curmie’s Professional Life. Many years ago, in (checks the Google machine) 1991, Curmie got a phone call from a reporter for a second-tier national newsmagazine, asking for comment about a recent controversy concerning the New York premiere of the musical Miss Saigon. Jonathan Pryce had played the leading male role of the Engineer in London, and producer Cameron Mackintosh wanted him to reprise the character on Broadway. Actors Equity Association objected to casting Pryce, who is white, in the role of a Eurasian character. (Pryce, being from the UK, was not a member of the American branch of Equity, and therefore needed a waiver from the union.) Mackintosh—no shrinking violet, he—threatened to cancel the production. AEA backed down. 

Anyway, the reporter wanted my opinion on the matter. Exactly why they’d care what an Assistant Professor at a small college in Iowa thought about the matter was never made clear. But they asked, so I told them I thought Equity had erred twice: that the initial opposition was misplaced because the character was half white, but that once having taken their stand on moral/ethical grounds, they looked weak and irresolute when they capitulated. (My comments never made it to print, by the way.) 

This is sort of the same structure my thinking takes as regards Roe v. Wade. I would have preferred that an American actor got the role of the Engineer—I suspect Americans can play French-Vietnamese characters as well as Welshmen can—but there was no real reason to break long-standing tradition by denying an established star like Pryce the necessary waiver. Similarly, Curmie is pro-choice, but Roe v. Wade is a bad decision. It’s not SCOTUS’s job to make new law, and try as you might, you can’t really find a constitutional imperative to legalize abortion nation-wide. “Should there be one?” is a different matter. 

But the rest of the parallel holds, as well. Once Equity publicly raised objections to Pryce’s casting, they were obligated to maintain that ethical position instead of appearing to have been bought off (which, of course, they were). Similarly, as all current SCOTUS members averred in their confirmation hearings, Roe is now the law of the land, and it should take more than partisan politics to overturn it. The presumption rests with the status quo, as every debate coach in history has intoned ad nauseum. 

5. The Political Manoeuvring. All of which brings us to the politics of the situation. Let’s face it, that whole “law of the land” rhetoric is simultaneously true and, on the part of the conservative bloc of SCOTUS in this particular case, very much intended to deceive… not that such insincerity differs much from the litany of evasions and half-truths that have characterized every confirmation hearing Curmie can remember. 

Current thinking is that Chief Justice Roberts would vote to uphold the Mississippi law but against overturning Roe v. Wade. Assuming this to be true (and you know what they say about assuming), that places the perfidy of Mitch McConnell front and center. In the three Senatorial elections prior to McConnell’s refusal to give Obama nominee Merrick Garland even a hearing (there was an election coming up, you see), Democrats got over 6 million more votes than Republicans. But because of the way the Senate is configured—Wyoming has as many senators as California, for example, despite having less than 1.5% of the population—McConnell was “majority leader.” 

Fast forward to 2020. A president who, because of the arcane electoral vote system, was elected despite receiving nearly 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, made his third (!) nomination in his single term in office. Despite there being far less time prior to the election than there was for Garland, McConnell proclaimed that it was his job to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed. Note, Gentle Reader, that he wasn’t arguing for a fair hearing. He was being, as he has always been, an unscrupulous partisan hack. (It’s not clear that McConnell is any more unethical than his Democratic counterparts, but he’s prouder of it.) This time, McConnell was majority leader despite his party having received over 24 million (!) fewer votes in the senatorial elections that led to the 2020 Senate. Nonetheless, despite the obviously unethical power play, Barrett was narrowly confirmed. 

The longest-serving Justice, Clarence Thomas, has been on the Court since 1991. In the time since Thomas’s confirmation, Democrats have held the Presidency for 17 years, Republicans for 14. Yet two-thirds of the members of SCOTUS were nominated by Republicans. There are as many justices nominated by Republicans who lost the popular vote as there are who were nominated by Democrats. Ah, American democracy in action! 

This is not to say that Democratic nominees are inherently better than Republican ones. Curmie has a good deal of respect for John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch, for example, objecting to the latter only for the totally-not-his-fault fact that the position he holds should have gone to Merrick Garland. But Brett Kavanaugh, irrespective of what may or may not have happened between him and Christine Blasey Ford when he was in high school, demonstrated a level of petulance in the hearings that ought to disqualify him from judging a high school speech contest, let alone a Supreme Court case. And Barrett was chosen for two reasons: she’s an ideologue, and she wasn’t yet 50. (To be fair, both were at least initially rated as “well qualified” by the ABA.) 

So… even allowing for the absurdity of the enormous over-representation of small states in both the Senate and the Electoral College, it’s really the chicanery of Moscow Mitch that has brought us to where we are today. Confirm Garland, confirm Gorsuch (the first Trump nominee), admit you don’t have time to vet a Supreme Court nominee for a lifetime appointment after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Even if the GOP goes all-in on having a lame duck Senate confirm a lame-duck President’s nominee (not the best look, politically), that still leaves a majority (assuming what we hear about Roberts to be accurate) to uphold Roe v. Wade. If the extremely late nomination of Barrett were delayed or withdrawn, as it should have been, there’s a better than even chance that the Mississippi law would be thrown out and Roe wouldn’t be even under serious threat. This, of course, assumes that a Democratic nominee would be subject to the same litmus test on this issue as a Republican nominee, just in the opposite direction… a fairly safe assumption. 

At best, we’re once again in the realm in which SCOTUS, unelected and chosen by the chance of who happens to be in the position of political power when an opening occurs is making new law… it’s just that this time they’re doing so in the opposite direction from what happened a half century ago. (Side note: Roe v. Wade was decided by a 7-2 vote; the majority opinion was written by Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun, so this wasn’t always a purely partisan matter.) Whatever your feelings about Roe v. Wade, whatever your political leanings, you can’t be happy with what appears to be happening. If you’re pro-life, it’s at best the right response for all the wrong reasons. If you’re pro-choice, it’s an abomination. 

The worst part, though, is that Mitch McConnell’s reptilian smirk won’t be going away any time soon.

The Perqs, Hazards, and Irrelevancy of Celebrity: The Britney Griner Case

Britney Griner playing for the US Olympic team.

WNBA star Britney Griner’s ongoing detainment by Russian authorities is beginning to make headlines for not making headlines. That is, it’s been long enough since her arrest in February that the lack of information about her status is itself newsworthy. The recent release in a prisoner exchange of American Trevor Reed has helped to bring Griner’s case to the foreground again. 

Well, that and statements like this one by the likes of Aron Solomon, chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital, who apparently thinks the following is a useful contribution to the conversation. “What if this was Kyrie Irving? It would be the front page of every paper every single day, Kyrie still in detention. But with Brittney Griner, it hasn’t been.” 

With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning… how is this moronic? Let me count the ways. First off, ongoing situations—the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa, the hostage situation at the American Embassy in Iran, COVID-19 statistics—don’t make news every day. After a while, something has to change for the story to be newsworthy. Americans are already tiring of hearing about the situation in Kyiv; the Ukrainian flag is seen less frequently now, and the news agencies are going to be led by their audiences to cover whatever the big new story is. So, if it were Kyrie Irving instead, the same phenomenon would be happening. 

There could probably be a better example than Kyrie Irving, of course, if Solomon really wants to make a point. Irving, a flat-earther and anti-vaxxer, is one of the stupidest and apparently most annoying people on the planet. If he were in a Russian prison, it would be about all Curmie could do to avoid saying “they can have him.” Try LeBron James or Stephen Curry if you’d like to pretend to know something about basketball, Ace. 

Most importantly, what we’re talking about here is an American citizen in the foreign jail. Why should she get any more attention than Trevor Reed? Be honest, Gentle Reader… had you ever heard of him? I bet his family cares more about his release than about hers. The rest of us should care at least as much, partly because all the evidence suggests that he was innocent, and we don’t know about her. 

Certainly the Russian government is not famous for its pursuit of either inclusion or justice in general. Griner, for better or worse, checks all the right boxes to be set up on phony charges: wealthy (estimated net worth about $5,000,000), American, black, openly gay. And it seems a bit extreme, even for Russians, to test vape cartridges for hashish oil. So there’s a real possibility that she is a real victim. But we can’t be sure, or even especially confident, of that. 

Not everyone arrested in Russia is innocent, and plenty of other folks have believed, naïvely, that they could outwit the authorities, or that their fame could protect them. It may or may not be significant that whereas mentions of Reed or Paul Whalen, another American detained in Russia, almost inevitably suggest—or even assert outright—the men’s innocence, no such proclamations (at least that Curmie has seen) have been forthcoming about Griner. This could be a strategic move not to irritate the Russians… or it could be that what isn’t said is as important as what is. 

One of the secondary issues that was highlighted in the first round of stories about the Griner case was what she was doing there to begin with. (I won’t bother to link one particular article; if you’ve found your way here, Gentle Reader, the chances are pretty good that you can handle the Google machine.) The short version is that she plays for the Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA off-season. The longer version is that a lot of WNBA players also play in Russia, because the pay is significantly better. 

Griner makes an annual base salary of $227,900 (plus bonuses) to play for the Phoenix Mercury, just short of the WNBA maximum salary (there is such a thing!) of $228,094. Add to that an estimated $1 million from Nike, plus a handful of other endorsement deals, and Curmie doubts that she’ll be struggling to scrape together the funds to get the large fries with her #3 special. But she’s making an estimated $1 million to play in Russia, and that’s a lot of money, even if you’re already making a lot. 

Of course, after her playing career is over, she’ll continue to rake in a fair amount in endorsement deals, and the chances are that she’ll become a coach or television analyst or something like that. There is—or at least would have been—little doubt that she’ll make more in salary and endorsements (let alone investments) every year for the rest of her life than Curmie and Beloved Spouse combined. 

But it’s worth noting that Russia pays several times as much as the WNBA, and Griner’s salary for the Mercury is less than 1/200 of what Stephen Curry gets paid to play for the Golden State Warriors. Yes, you read that correctly. Curmie is going to sidestep the issue of whether that pay differential is legitimate or not. (You can check out the last couple of paragraphs of this seven-year-old piece on the pay difference for men’s and women’s soccer players for an overview of some of the considerations.) 

What matters for this essay is that the disparity exists. For all the allegations of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia in the US, Russia is worse on three of the four and as bad on the other. Still, a million bucks is enough for most people, even those who would be most likely to experience bias, to at least contemplate living under an authoritarian regime for a few months, especially since, in Griner’s case, she’d been doing it for several years. Ekaterinburg may not exactly feel like home to her, but it is at least familiar. And the teams themselves seem to take good care of their players. 

So that part, at least, is understandable. What we don’t know, what we may never know for certain, is whether her celebrity made her hubristic or whether it made her a target.