It is obscene that the wealthy and empowered landlords are able to toss American renters out in the street as the Pandemic is still a part of our lives.
Even if there was no Pandemic the historical power of landlords to ruin the lives of their fellow citizens is reprehensible. The latest abuse of this unfettered greed is the decision by a Trump appointed Judge to declare the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Moratorium on evictions unconstitutional.
Washington Post 5.5.2021
In a ruling that could have a tremendous impact on millions of Americans, a federal judge in Washington D.C. on Wednesday ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its legal authority when it issued a nationwide eviction moratorium.
U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich’s 20-page order says that the protection, first put in place during the coronavirus pandemic under the Trump administration and now set to run out on June 30, goes too far.
“It is the role of the political branches, and not the courts, to assess the merits of policy measures designed to combat the spread of disease, even during a global pandemic,” the order stated. “The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not.”
Serving Eviction Notice
Landlords and property owners have consistently challenged the CDC order, arguing the policy sets an undue financial burden on business owners.“We’ve argued from the beginning that the CDC lacked statutory authority to impose this, and we’ve had multiple courts agree with us on that,” said Luke Wake, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation who has represented landlords in similar cases. “Today’s decision again vindicates our argument.”
Deportation Smacked Down by Government’s Incompetent Use of “A”
For once the Supreme Court got it right about the Government’s incompetence using Standard American English.
The grammar rules of rich white men are the basis for Standard American English. These rules were established long ago in England to protect the upper classes from infringement upon their status and authority by the lower classes, who were slowly becoming educated and, predictably, gaining access to power.
The grammar rules have nothing to do with logic and are based on politics and power.
An English teacher knows full well the pitfalls of getting the hang of the articles “a, an, the” and the usage of “count” vs. “noncount” nouns which confounds most English language students.
It seems that the Justices of the Supreme Court recently took on the challenges of an English teacher when they had to teach the Government how to interpret the grammar of its own laws.
An immigrant from Guatemala, Agusto Niz-Chavez, had been living in the United States 8 years when he received “a notice to appear” at a deportation hearing.
The notice informed Mr. Niz-Chavez of the charges against him but did not include any further information about the hearing. Two months later, Mr. Niz-Chavez was sent another “a notice to appear”, this one with the missing information about the time and place for his deportation proceeding.
Under a 1996 federal law (the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act – IIRIRA), an undocumented immigrant cannot be deported if they can establish their continuous presence in the country for at least 10 years.
If the immigrant establishes a continuous presence in this country for at least 10 years, they can appeal to the Immigration Judge for eligibility for cancellation of their removal.
However, as soon as an immigrant is served with “a notice to appear” with specific information about a deportation proceeding, the clock is stopped on the immigrant’s continuous presence.
This is known as the stop-time rule.
Mr. Niz-Chavez, who entered the country unlawfully, was ordered by the Immigration Judge to depart the United States within 30 days or else be removed to Guatemala. He contested his removal.
The Supreme Court heard the case and cast aside, in a 6-3 decision, the Immigration Judge’s order to remove Mr. Niz-Chavez from this country.
The Justices ruled that the “two” notices sent to Mr. Niz-Chavez could not be construed as “a notice to appear’, or one notice, as they were multiple notices and not a singular one.
The Justices agreed that, to stop the 10-year clock or to invoke the stop-time rule, the Government must provide all the required information in ONE DOCUMENT rather than TWO.
A Portrait of the Supreme Court Justices
The Government attempted to invoke the Dictionary Act, arguing that the Dictionary Act tells us to assume “words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things”.
The Supreme Court Justices would have none of the Government’s doublethink.
The Justices told the Government that “The Dictionary Act does not transform every use of the singular ‘a’ into the plural ‘several’.
The Justices then hit the bull’s-eye in explaining their reasoning in such plain English that any student would be able to get it.
“Suppose a statute made it a crime to vandalize ‘a’ bank. Under the Dictionary Act, someone who vandalizes five banks could not avoid prosecution on the ground that he vandalized more than one.”
The Government’s lack of proficiency in using the article “a” or in recognizing that the noun “notice” is inherently neither a “count” nor a “noncount” noun was a blessing in disguise for the immigrant whose native language is not English.
Its incompetence in following the rules of Standard American English means that now Agusto Niz-Chavez will be able to apply for citizenship. This worthy immigrant deserves a break for his ability to interpret the English language better than the US Government.
May Day in Berlin is often a time of rowdy and violent street demonstrations. 2021 was no exception. Germany is still in the midst of recovering from the economic and social strain of the Pandemic, astronomic housing costs and national elections to be held next September.
The current political atmosphere of May Day in Berlin is a far cry from that of the Nazi era. Check out the article in Jacobin Magazine at the conclusion of this blog post .
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.2.2021
Around 4,000 officers were deployed on the streets of Berlin, where past May Day rallies have been accompanied by disorder, particularly after nightfall. Saturday’s clashes between protesters and police saw trash cans and street barricades set on fire.
This year, with many people unhappy at the coronavirus restrictions currently in place, authorities have been on increased alert.
Left meets right in Germany
Thousands of police officers were on hand ahead of and after the protests, with unrest emerging among both left- and right-wing demonstrators.
Protesters in Berlin threw bottles, firecrackers and stones at police during May Day marches in the Neukölln neighborhood of the German capital.
According to police tallies, 5,000 people took part in the rally, while organizers put the turnout closer to 20,000. Police took several demonstrators into custody.
A reporter for Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper noted that after confrontations between protesters and police, the situation in Neukölln had calmed somewhat.
DW journalist Elliot Douglas said fire was still raging in Neukölln shortly before curfew, but crowds started leaving as riot police were taking over the scene.
While the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) held its main rally in Hamburg with a motto that “Solidarity is the Future,” the authorities’ main focus was elsewhere.
Being a journalist is a dangerous profession. In Nairobi, Kenya a reporter for the German publication DW was struck by two tear gas canisters.
Attacks on journalists are a common occurence as governments increasingly attempt to stop the dissemination of news. It happens in autocratic countries. It happens in America, too.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.2.2021
Police fired tear gas canisters at DW’s East Africa correspondent Mariel Müller (shown above) while she was covering a protest in Nairobi. Amnesty International and the Foreign Press Association of Africa have condemned the attack.
Müller said that police appeared to be purposefully aiming at her and the camera crew.
She approached authorities afterward, telling the officer who had been firing the canisters: “You just shot me, you just hit me in my leg.”
The officer denied it and walked away, “but he knew exactly what had happened,” Müller said.
Kenyan authorities fired tear gas canisters at Müller with one canister grazing her and a second injuring her leg while she was conducting an interview.
‘You just shot me’
Müller was covering a peaceful protest against police brutality and coronavirus lockdown measures in central Nairobi at the time of the attack.
Around 40 protesters gathered to voice their opposition to COVID restrictions and the economic impact on poorer communities. The demonstrators were careful to adhere to social distancing rules “to not anger the police,” Müller told DW.
“The police were there and observed the first part [of the protest] and then eventually started firing tear gas,” Müller said.
The first time Müller was struck, she said she was grazed by a canister when police began launching tear gas in the direction of protesters and reporters.
Police moved in with batons and detained several demonstrators. One man was shoved in a truck after police tried to take away the sign he was holding.
DW Editor-in-Chief Manuela Kasper-Claridge called the attack “absolutely unacceptable,” adding that “freedom of the press has to be protected.”
Amnesty International’s Kenya branch also called for authorities to launch an investigation, and slammed “the brutal attack on journalists and protesters” in Nairobi.
District Attorney Chesa Boudin and his legions of supporters must wage an aggressive campaign to call out the Recall attempt for what it is.
This is a blatant power grab by City Hall which is upset about the 2019 election. Assisted by a compliant local media the Recall has not faced critical scrutiny.
The entire attempt to get a Recall on the ballot this year is being run by Mayor London Breed, City Hall political functionaries loyal to the Mayor and the Police Officers Association.
DA Chesa Boudin supporters are up against the full weight of the entrenched San Francisco power structure.
The attempted Recall has little to do with Chesa’s “progressive” agenda. Chesa is not one of the ‘in-crowd’ in the cloistered world of City Hall San Francisco politics. It is now out there in plain view. The announcement by a group of political “moderates” to Recall Chesa makes it obvious. City Hall and the POA have one Goal. Chesa is dangerous and must Go.
Supporters of DA Boudin must realize NOW the attempted Recall is no longer being run by some outlier living his political fantasy and respond aggressively. Wannabe power player Republican Richie Greenberg has been shelved.
The “moderate” recall posse is a Creation of Room 200 in City Hall. Mayor London Breed (pictured above with the DA) is all over it. Andrea Shorter is a key figure. So is Mary Jung who, until she was voted out, was the Chair of the Democratic County Central Committee in Western San Francisco. Mary is very influential in certain political circles. She is also a divisive figure.
Equally telling was Heather’s Knight’s SF Chronicle recent exit interview with City Attorney Dennis Herrera in which he expressed frustration, without mentioning DA Chesa Boudin, about the lack of prosecutions against Tenderloin Drug merchants.
Richie Greenberg, a Republican outlier in Dark Blue San Francisco, thought he could do the job. So did City Hall, initially, to give themselves political cover. However City Hall power brokers quickly realized that Richie is a political liability. The Recall would crash and burn. He’s been tossed aside.
Suzy Loftus, the former Acting DA who was appointed by Breed one month before the 2019 election and defeated by Chesa a month later, is being very coy. A six month dissection of her Twitter feed @suzyloftus has not one mention of Chesa. She doesn’t need to do anything but be patient. When Suzy was the acting DA in 2019 she was happy to have the endorsement of disgraced ex-Police Chief Greg Suhr who was forced out in 2016 by late Mayor Ed Lee.
Chesa supporters cannot stand by and allow City Hall and the POA to thwart the will of the voters and destroy one of the most “progressive” District Attorneys in the United States. The reputation of this town as a forward looking and open minded international venue is at stake.
May 1, 1969 finds many folks at the Federal Building in San Francisco singing the praises of Huey P. Newton who is serving a long jail sentence for allegedly doing in an Oakland policeman in 1967.
Many folks were there holding aloft “FREE HUEY” placards and several strolls were taken around the block as some 4000 folks chanted many slogans, including “Off the Pigs!!!” … “Free Huey!!!” and it was contagious as young blacks and whites did vent their anger at the outrages of society and discussed the revolution which will come sooner or later in some form.
“Free Huey” Rally at SF Federal Building – May 1, 1969
In one sense it’s very depressing to see how far down society has come that the only redress for grievances is in the streets and that’s what occurred today as Tactical Squad folks were called in to quell a small disturbance and these cats, as in the strike at SF State, do look mean and ugly, running down the block … true pigs.
During this time, I talked with an old Black man who chatted about the insanity that is America, then told me to get away since I was putting “up tight” his nice stroll in the country and, “This country is fucked anyway.” A sobering moment.
The Little Red Book
Many Blacks passed out Mao’s Little Red Book and at the proper moment held them high aloft. At this moment I could see why so many folks like Mao. Afterall, he took his cause and won over the biggest land mass next to Russia. So, he’s something of a hero. This was not the typical friendly type march. There were many angry folks ready, willing and able to “off the Pigs!!!”
…………….
Later I went over to City Hall and watched the trials (of several students arrested during the Strike at SF State) with six folks in the Docket, and in this Trial is John Webb, one other man and four women. So, life goes on and a horrid woman as District Attorney mercilessly grilled all the suspects, especially John … The DA with blonde hair all done up probably hates men and could have been an adequate Nazi to be sure.
Free Huey Poster SAN FRANCISCO, CA – 1969: A poster showing a Mass Rally on May Day 1969. The Black Panther Party held rallies across the nation demanding the jailed minister of Defense Huey P. Newton be set free circa 1969 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Democrats are wrong when they claim Republicans are “hitting a new low.” There’s no “new low.” This is the norm. Republicans have always been nothing more than reactionaries pandering to the lowest common political denominator.
Trump took the Republicans into the Land of Nonsense from which there is no way out. The latest. A false narrative about the President Biden taking away their hamburgers.
Excerpted from The Hill 4.30.2021
The conspiracy theory that Biden wants to ban beef gained steam in Republican circles and conservative media in the past week, fanned by lawmakers such as Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) who accused Democrats of wanting “to limit us to about four pounds [of beef] a year.”
The false claim was sparked by a report in the Daily Mail, a tabloid based in Great Britain, that said Biden’s climate plan could limit burger consumption to one a month per person. Biden’s actual climate plan makes no such recommendation; the claim appears to come from a study unrelated to the White House that is itself based on a hypothetical question.
Another false story, first published by the New York Post, said Vice President Harris’s children’s book “Superheroes are Everywhere” was being included in the welcome packs of migrant children at the border.
Both stories became fodder for conservatives all week, underscoring a Republican fixation on cultural issues. Democrats argue it will end up hurting the GOP in the end.
“They’re showing everyone every day how f—ing small they are,” said one Democratic strategist bluntly. “This isn’t even a strategy. It’s carrying on Trump’s lies.”
Trump and his Beef
Some Republicans are also worried about the issue.
“Is it a strategy? I don’t think it’s a strategy,” said Tony Fratto, who served as deputy press secretary to former President George W. Bush. “I think these kinds of conspiratorial rumors are a feature of the modern Republican Party.
“This isn’t something that happened to the party,” he added, pointing to the party’s embrace of controversial figures such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has been criticized for espousing conspiracy theories. “And they’re not just spreading these bizarre ideas. They have a hand in manufacturing them. They are part of the machinery.”
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said his party shouldn’t be embracing the conspiratorial narratives.
Conditions in American jails and prisons are barbaric whether the incarcerated person is male, female, a person of any race or ethnic group. Even the wealthy and socially connected are not exempt from this heinous treatment.
The American penal system is designed to beat down and destroy the person behind bars. It is totally inhumane.
Daily Beast 4.30.2021
In the latest legal spat between Ghislaine Maxwell and the feds, lawyers for the alleged accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein suggest she got a “black eye” from shielding her face from the harsh lighting inside her jail cell at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
“I am shocked my sister’s guards didn’t immediately refer her for proper medical care,” Maxwell’s brother, Ian, said in a statement Thursday night. “Instead they bullied and harassed her, effectively blaming the victim. The simple solution is to review the round-the-clock security camera footage to see what may have occurred. Apart from whatever happened in this ‘House of Horrors,’ I can report that Ghislaine’s family and friends continue to support her. We are confident, once this is over, it will be the prosecutor who has a proverbial black eye.”
Ghislaine Maxwell
The British socialite and accused sex-trafficker has been denied bail four times since her arrest for grooming minors last July. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected Maxwell’s request to be released on bond. At oral arguments the day before, her lawyer David Oscar Markus complained about her conditions in the federal lockup, claiming MDC guards were keeping Maxwell awake at night by conducting suicide checks and flashing lights in her cell every 15 minutes.
Ghislaine Maxwell – Before Jail
In its order, the appeals court said, “To the extent Appellant seeks relief specific to her sleeping conditions, such request should be addressed to the District Court.”
Bobbi Sternheim, another attorney for Maxwell, wasted no time writing to a Manhattan federal court judge over the 59-year-old’s supposed sleep deprivation. She also included a photo of Maxwell with a bruise under her left eye as an exhibit.
“While Ms. Maxwell is unaware of the cause of the bruise, as reported to medical and psych staff, she has grown increasingly reluctant to report information to the guards for fear of retaliation, discipline, and punitive chores,” Sternheim wrote Judge Alison J. Nathan on Thursday. “However, there is concern that the bruise may be related to the need for Ms. Maxwell to shield her eyes from the lights projected into her cell throughout the night.”
According to Sternheim, Maxwell “resorts to using a sock or towel to cover her eyes in an awkward attempt to shield them from disrupting illumination every 15 minutes.”
“Ms. Maxwell continues to be disrupted throughout the night by guards shining a flash/strobe light into her cell, claiming that her breathing must be checked,” Sternheim added. “The myth that Ms. Maxwell’s conditions of confinement are related to her being a suicide risk was laid to rest during the oral argument: There is nothing to support that contrived claim.”
On Wednesday night, Sternheim wrote, MDC staff confronted Maxwell about the bruise covering her left eye and warned they’d place her in the lockup’s Special Housing Unit, or solitary confinement, if she didn’t tell them how she got it.
The lawyer asked the court to direct MDC to stop its 15-minute checks of Maxwell or “justify the need for the disruptive flashlight surveillance.”
Nathan has ordered prosecutors and MDC legal counsel to answer whether Maxwell is being subjected to flashlight surveillance as described; what the basis is for doing so; and whether the jail can provide Maxwell with an appropriate eye covering.
Maxwell’s legal team has repeatedly claimed she’s suffering from “detrimental” conditions in the federal detention center. In response, the government fired off its own missive to the court claiming Maxwell was cared for as well as any other prisoner, and that jail staff had to remind her to clean her cell and flush her toilet.
When Maxwell appeared before a judge last week, the socialite did not appear to be frail or in poor health as her lawyers have claimed.
Maxwell faces trial this summer for allegedly grooming, abusing and trafficking four underage girls for Epstein from a period covering 1994 to 1997 and 2001 to 2004. Her lawyers asked Nathan to postpone the trial until next year.
Sociopath: a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
Citizen’s arrest is one of the most abused tools available to the public. The misuse of the citizen’s arrest can have devastating long term consequences for a person illegally and unfairly targeted for a citizen’s arrest.
Lee’s Perspective contributor Liz Heidhues wrote the following after she read of the Federal Hate Crimes indictment of three men charged with the February 2020 murder of jogger Ahmaud Arbery while he was running in a predominantly White Georgia neighborhood.
We need to start a conversation around repealing the citizen’s arrest law – NOW.
Another innocent victim will be wronged, humiliated, falsely arrested, or murdered if we continue to ignore the abuse or misuse of the doctrine of citizen’s arrest with its serious consequences for the arrestors and the arrestees.
Private persons, acting out their own depraved fantasies and manipulating the system to achieve their own hateful ends, abuse the citizen’s arrest as a tool for enacting Revenge, Racism, and Repression of another’s civil rights.
In every jurisdiction in the United States, a private person may lawfully detain another and may often use physical force to do so.
Citizen’s arrests arose in medieval England when it could take days for law enforcement to travel to a crime scene. Then, it was necessary for private citizens to help detain suspects for the arrival of law enforcement. However, citizen’s arrest is a doctrine whose time should have passed many decades – or centuries – ago. It has long outlived its usefulness.
People are unchecked from roaming the streets looking for “wrongdoers” to arrest, thus increasing the potential for abuse.
Citizens Arrest! Citizen’s Arrest!
The racist implications of the law cannot be ignored.
During the lynching era in America, white mobs would claim they were exercising the right of citizen’s arrest.
On 1.22.1912 four Black people in Hamilton, Georgia, were citizen’s arrested and lynched, accused of killing a White planter who was sexually abusing Black girls and women.
On 7.25.1946 two Black couples were dragged from their car in Walton County, Georgia, and shot 60 times by a mob of White men making a citizen’s arrest.
Police Officers abuse the citizen’s arrest.
In one instance, a Police Officer had a private citizen sign a blank citizen’s arrest form as a precautionary measure to permit Officers to arrest protestors if they became too rowdy.
The citizen’s arrest is a blanket authorization for a private person to arrest anyone for almost anything and compromises the usual restraints that are placed on a Police Officer’s power to arrest, such as actually witnessing the Incident. It alters the role of the Police Officer.
The citizen’s arrest transforms the Police Officer into a custodian who acts at the direction of the person making the citizen’s arrest.
The most recent grim reminder of an abuse of a citizen’s arrest is the 2.23.2020 shooting death of a 25-year-old Black jogger pursued by three White men in pick-up trucks during a citizen’s arrest of him in Glynn County, Georgia.
The armed White father-and-son duo, Gregory and Travis McMichael, were captured on video pursuing Ahmaud Arbery, the black jogger, in their vehicle through their Georgia neighborhood and gunning Mr. Arbery down.
Gregory and Travis McMichael charged with Federal Hate Crimes.
The third White man, William “Roddie” Bryan, followed in a second vehicle. Bryan later provided a statement to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that the McMichael son, Travis McMichael, said “F—— N—–” as Mr. Arbery lay dying.
Local prosecutors blocked the arrests of the White men, the McMichaels and Bryan, for over 8 weeks. The McMichael’s and Bryan were eventually indicted for murder and other charges in late May 2020.
Initially, prosecutors citied Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law. The White men were declared to be legally in “hot pursuit’ and had “solid, firsthand, Probable Cause” that Ahmaud Arbery was a burglary suspect.
There was absolutely no evidence that Mr. Arbery was a burglar. Mr. Arbery was not armed as he jogged through the White men’s neighborhood.
The harm caused by the United States’ citizen’s arrest doctrine is long-standing and thoroughly documented. The abuses of it far outweigh the uses.
We need to stand up and take action. NOW.
There can be no more justification for private persons to enact false arrests AND to murder innocent citizens for deceptive, spurious, or untrue grounds.
Resources:
Vilifying the Vigilante: A Narrowed Scope of Citizen’s Arrest. Ira P. Robbins, Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. 2016.
House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee to Repeal Georgia’s Citizen’s Arrest Law. Hannah Riley, 7.12.2020. Southern Center for Human Rights.
“…..flying to New York to see her lover Ivan after dreaming about sucking a rabbit bone to its marrow on his Manhattan balcony.” Susan Taubes – Divorcing
This is a line from the 1969 novel Divorcing written by Susan Taubes (pictured above with her family). Shortly after its publication she committed suicide at age 41. The book was re released in 2020. It is the subject of a deep and thorough review by Leslie Jamison, herself an accomplished writer who went through her own divorce last year.
Divorcing was published two years after Susan Taubes own divorce was finalized.
Taubes and the author Susan Sontag were close friends. Sontag’s son David Rieff wrote the introduction to the newly released edition of Divorcing. Taube’s body was identified by Sontag. Years later Sontag told her own son, “I will never forgive her…and never recover from what she did.”
David Rieff and Susan Sontag
The review is fascinating for the insights it provides about the author Susan Taubes and the entire subject of Divorce. It really got me to think about the subject in a manner I had not previously. Plus, Leslie Jamison is an excellent journalist.
Susan Taubes 1928-1969
Excerpted from New York Review of Books – 5.13.2021 Issue – Leslie Jamison
Susan Taubes’s novel Divorcing begins with the death of its main character. Sophie Blind wakes up in an apartment by the Hudson River, still groggy from a dream, or perhaps still dreaming, to find her lover bending over her, saying, “you’re dead Sophie.” Then she remembers:
I died on a Tuesday afternoon, struck by a car….
The sensation of my head severed from my back is still vivid. My body growing enormous, its thousands of trillions of cells suddenly set free, spread, speeded, pressed jubilant.
It’s a vision of death that holds terror and freedom at once: the body enlarged rather than destroyed, its cells liberated. “Spread, speeded, pressed”: even the sibilance suggests a vaulting song.
Given that Sophie is in the midst of ending her marriage, this dream of death suggests itself as a metaphor for divorce: the death of an old self suddenly confronting the vertigo of freedom. And given the biography of Sophie’s creator, it feels less like metaphor and more like warning.
Divorcing – Susan Taubes
Only a few days after Divorcing was published, in November 1969, Susan Taubes committed suicide by drowning herself in the Atlantic. It’s hard not to read much of the novel as an extended suicide note. “Now that I’m dead,” Sophie jokes with her lover, “I can write my autobiography at last.”
Although her suicide happened soon after her novel’s publication—and even sooner after a devastating review in TheNew York Times,a timeline that invites causal speculation—Taubes had in fact been planning it for some time; she had struggled with depression for years. She was forty-one when she died, her son sixteen, her daughter twelve. Her body was identified by Susan Sontag, one of her closest friends. Years later, Sontag told her own son, David Rieff, “I will never forgive her…and never recover from what she did.”
Divorcing is a strangely provocative and unsettling work of art—a quilt of memories, dreams, arguments, trysts, snippets of motherhood, and dark fantasies, including an autopsy, a funeral, and a trial. The novel moves across national borders—her working title was To America and Back in a Coffin—and zigzags constantly between gruesome daydreams and mundane daily life. The thresholds that obsess it most are death and divorce, the latter as a kind of death-in-life. Both dangle the prospect of simultaneous anguish and liberation; both illuminate Sophie’s desire for self-possession.
It begins to feel like travel, sex, fantasy, divorce, and death are all handmaidens of the same siren call—to keep changing at all costs. As if Sophie and Taubes herself both embodied Sontag’s pronouncement that “I am only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation.”
I found the perfect music to accompany a review of Divorcing. A piece from the 2006 film directed by Robert DeNiro, The Good Shepherd. It’s titled Miriam, conducted by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler. If you view the film you will see that this haunting creation fits right in with the character Miriam in the story line. It is apropos as a soundtrack for Divorcing.
Lee's Perspective 