"Errol Musk, the father of Elon, has described the feud between his son and Donald Trump as 'over the top,' likening it to a clash between 'gorillas' fighting for dominance."

"Musk, 79, advised his 'alpha' son, 59, to accept that the president was the more dominant of the two and would 'win this round.' 'In any successful group of animals, whether gorillas, elephants or human beings, the dominant males will always fight for dominance,' Musk said, predicting that an eruption of bitter exchanges between two of the world’s most powerful men 'would now fizzle out.' Musk added: 'The problem you get with really good quality people is that the men all think they should be the general. They will have to sort it out and because Trump is the one who was elected, Elon is going to have to accept he is not going to be the general.... Trump isn’t vengeful. He will win this round with Elon and not hold it against him. A big person can forgive easily, only small people can’t. Things have gone over the top, but this is the situation when alphas fight it out. I’ve told Elon he has said his part, but now he must allow things to calm down — and I hope he will.'"

The London Times reports.

ADDED: Remember this:

"A lot of people really like him, so you’ll have a lot of people going, 'This is really cool.' And then you’ll have some people that’ll be like, 'What the fuck is he doing here?'"

"But hopefully the people who say, 'What the fuck is he doing,' when they realize why he’s here they’ll give him a second chance."

Said the producer of Kevin Spacey's new film, quoted in "Kevin Spacey to Make Surprise Appearance in Cannes to Accept a Lifetime Achievement Award" (Variety).

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "Tell me about the idea of a 'second chance.'"

From Grok's answer: "Christianity... emphasizes redemption through forgiveness, like the parable of the Prodigal Son. In Buddhism, the cycle of rebirth offers chances to correct past karma.... In stories, the 'second chance' trope is a classic—think redemption arcs in movies where the villain turns hero or the underdog gets a shot at glory. It’s compelling because it mirrors real-life struggles and the hope for a do-over."

In some of those second-chance stories, the second-chance getter goes on to do good things — Jean Valjean, Scrooge, etc. — but in other second-chance stories...

"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage."

"He's talking about the border patrol, he's talking about nurses, he's talking about teachers, he's talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President. And I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said. We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America and thank you for running Mr. President."

Said Marco Rubio to Donald Trump, on stage at Trump's rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania last night. Click the video below, which is cued up to the spot. Trump appears to be hearing this news of President Biden's statement for the first time.

Trump reacts: "Wow. That's terrible.... Remember Hillary? She said 'deplorable' and then she said 'irredeemable.' Right? But she said 'deplorable.' That didn't work out. 'Garbage,' I think is worse. Right? But he doesn't know. You have to please forgive him. Please forgive him! For he not knoweth what he said."

I believe that last bit was an attempt to evoke the words of Jesus: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Trump continues: "These people. Terrible terrible terrible — to say a thing like that, but he really doesn't know. He really, honestly, he doesn't. And I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala. Convinced. But that's a terrible thing."

It was a terrible thing to say, but you can see that Trump knows that Biden's rhetoric — like Hillary's "deplorable" — was an excellent gift to his campaign. And it came just as Kamala Harris was delivering her big closing-argument speech that was supposed to reach out to all Americans and to characterize her as the one who, unlike Trump, embraced everybody.

Here's the NYT article about that: "Harris’s Mission: Disqualify Trump, but Extend a Hand to His Voters/Kamala Harris, in her closing argument to voters, acknowledged an inescapable political reality: Donald Trump is not a fringe figure within his own party or the nation" (free-access link):

Lucid.

I'm reading "Without Senators in Sight, Christine Blasey Ford Retells Her Story/Her lucid memoir, 'One Way Back,' describes life before, during and after she testified that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school" (NYT). Excerpt:

Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one.

 The book is important, lucid, belated, and prosaic, we're told.

"Write the story of a specific hurt you want to forgive. Then write it again as more of an observer..."

"... without emphasizing how bad the wrongdoer was or how you felt victimized. Look for at least three differences between the two versions."

That's one of the exercises in a "forgiveness workbook" given to one group in a study, reported in "The Emotional Relief of Forgiving Someone/Replacing ill will with good will has marked mental health benefits" (NYT).

You never see a spoiler alert on an obituary.

But this is the most compelling case for one that I have ever noticed. Please, if you haven't seen the excellent movie "Heavenly Creatures" — directed by Peter Jackson, starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey — don't click forward. Watch the movie first! I know you won't. You've gone this long without seeing it. And what a story. You might as well click through.

"What Musk is doing is... like opening the gates of hell...."

Said one of the experts quoted — by Taylor Lorenz — in "'Opening the gates of hell': Musk says he will revive banned accounts/The Twitter chief says he will reinstate accounts suspended for threats, harassment and misinformation beginning next week" (WaPo).

Why would you want to keep people in Hell? 

 

Why not forgive — if only to give them a second chance? Musk knows that the process of condemnation wasn't fair. At the very least, we are worried that it was skewed against conservatives. It's efficient to wipe the slate clean — to default toward freedom — and to begin again, with a viewpoint neutral approach that is transparent and centered on protecting individuals from harm, not on helping one side over another.

Some who are released from Hell will be those who shouldn't have been condemned in the first place. Some will be those from whom the group does need protection, but these will either go on and sin no more or they will sin again, and they can be dealt with under the new, fair procedure.

And Musk isn't even talking about letting everyone back in. The question he asked in his poll was "Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?" He can say the people have spoken and there will be "general amnesty," but there's that proviso. Anyone who is already known as a danger can still be excluded. On the face of it, Musk isn't recklessly absolutist about freedom of speech. 

The hell the anti-Muskites are afraid of — isn't it just the loss of a political advantage they never should have had in the first place? Did the censorship they enjoyed only make them soft and fearful and stunt their capacity to debate?

"'Twitter gamifies communication,' the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen has argued; it’s custom-built to do things like score apologies, to drag users into a rating system..."

"... that has nothing to do with morality. An unforgiving god rules Twitter, where the modern economy of apology runs something like this: If you express what I believe to be a toxic or ignorant opinion, you must apologize according to my rules for apology. If you do, I may forgive you. If you don’t, I will punish you, and damn you unto eternity.... ... Twitter’s pious mercilessness is generating nothing so much as a new and bitter remorselessness.... Twitter is blowing its top, some very angry people very loudly demanding apologies while other very angry people demand the denunciation of the people who are demanding apologies. Dangerously, but predictably, the split seems to have become partisan, as if to apologize were progressive, to forget conservative. The fracture widens and hardens—fanatic, schismatic, idiotic. But another way of thinking about what a culture of forced, performed remorse has wrought is not, or not only, that it has elevated wrath and loathing but that it has demeaned sorrow, grief, and consolation. No apology can cover that crime, nor mend that loss."

Writes Jill Lepore, in "The Case Against the Twitter Apology/Our twenty-first-century culture of performed remorse has become a sorry spectacle" (The New Yorker).

I've got precisely 10 TikToks for you to "labor" through today. Some people love them.

1. Everyone has 4 obsessions — here are 4 weird ones.

2. Analyzing the student-loan forgiveness program with Biblical references. (Freeze the frame at 0:42 so you can read the text. The first 2 are parables that you've probably already contemplated in this context.)

3. Is it really so bad if men these days don't live for adventure?

4. Broadway Barbara's Fosse Tutorial.

5. When the sports car pulls up to the red light and blocks the crosswalk, there's one way to win.

6. You approach a woman in the park... and she turns into a bird.

7. Inspired by found poetry.

8. Won't the dog just love the new puppy?

9. Deducing that today is the day he's going to propose.

10. Six degrees of corn.

"[Catholicism is] more entertaining. I like saints: each one has a story. And it’s so good, you go into a little booth and say, 'I committed this sin,' get a little blessing..."

"... and you don’t have to pay for Freudian psychologists. It’s much cheaper and it works. The Catholic church is more open-minded towards humanity and its flaws."

Said Terry Gilliam, quoted in "Terry Gilliam: How I was squished by cancel culture/In his first interview since the Old Vic axed his musical, the director and former Python gives his side of the story on transgender rights, black lesbians and #MeToo" (London Times). 

 And there's this, about the 1960s and these kids today:

"I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples... I am sorry... I ask forgiveness, in particular..."

"... for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.... It is necessary to remember how the policies of assimilation and enfranchisement, which also included the residential school system, were devastating for the people of these lands... I thank you for making me appreciate this."

Said Pope Francis, quoted in "Francis Begs Forgiveness for ‘Evil’ Christians Inflicted on Indigenous People/Live Updates/The Roman Catholic leader apologized for the church’s role in running boarding schools where Indigenous children were sexually and physically abused and where many died" (NYT).

"During a Q&A session, one student stepped to the mic and called Chappelle a 'bigot,' adding, 'I’m 16 and I think you’re childish, you handled it like a child'...."

"Chappelle responded... 'My friend, with all due respect, I don’t believe you could make one of the decisions I have to make on a given day.' That peeved some students who were hoping for an apology or some semblance of one from Chappelle.... [A]nother student in the audience shouted at him, 'Your comedy kills,' and Chappelle shot back, 'N------ are killed every day.' He then asked, 'The media’s not here, right?'... The two students we spoke to declined to go on the record out of fear of retribution from the school. The father of one of the students, who also declined to speak publicly to protect the identity of his daughter, said, 'As a parent, I have to say I have a real problem. … He was being dead serious and using the n-word on the record. What kind of judgment is the school showing to allow that?'... [T]he Chappelle spokesperson, responded: 'They are complaining that he talked and said the n-word. If anything, Dave is putting the school on the map.'... [The spokesperson] said Chappelle was expecting forgiveness from students.... 'He said these kids deserve an F for forgiveness.... Give them some space to grow. They are going to say things that are immature.'"

From "POLITICO Playbook: A Dave Chappelle Thanksgiving special." Chappelle made a surprise appearance at his alma mater the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

I note that a student called him "childish" and his spokesperson called the students "immature."

"I really do believe any prisoner who is found to be not a threat to themselves or the world should be released."

Do you believe that? I don't. 

The quote is from Douglas H. Kennedy, one of the sons of Robert F. Kennedy. I'm reading "California parole panel votes in favor of release from prison for Sirhan Sirhan/Parole for 77-year-old convicted of assassinating still must be approved by full board, governor" (WaPo). 

And here's quote from Robert Kennedy Jr.: "My father, I think, would be really happy today. My father believed in compassion. The ideals of our justice system are the possibility of redemption and the importance of forgiveness. He didn’t believe the justice system was just about revenge."

Not all of the offspring of RFK are happy about the decision. Six of them — Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.), Courtney, Kerry, Chris, Maxwell, and Rory Kennedy — put out a statement that sounds right to me:

"We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole. We adamantly oppose the parole and release of Sirhan Sirhan and are shocked by a ruling that we believe ignores the standards of parole of a confessed, first-degree murderer in the state of California."

Sirhan was originally sentenced to death. "When California eliminated the death penalty, Sirhan was resentenced to life. California has since reinstated the death penalty, but has a labyrinthine appeals process and rarely executes anyone."

The decision of the parole panel doesn't set him free. It must be reviewed by the parole board and then the governor. The governor's decision will take place well after the recall election, which is on September 14th.

Prime civility bullshit headline from WaPo's Karen Tumulty: "The people concerned about Neera Tanden’s incivility sure didn’t seem to mind the Trump era’s."

I've been writing under the tag "civility bullshit" for years. It represents my longstanding opinion that calls for civility are always bullshit. Certainly in the area of politics, calls for civility always come out when the incivility is hurting your people. When somebody is deploying incivility effectively for your side, you hold your tongue and enjoy the damage. 

But let's consider the Neera Tanden problem. Her incivility is in the past. People on her side enjoyed the damage she inflicted at the time and I don't think any of her people tried to pull her back with calls for civility. It's just that now she's Biden's nominee to head the Office of Management and the Budget, and the old incivility makes her seem like too much of a political hack to be trusted in that position.

Nobody bellyaches about incivility when it's working as a weapon for their side, and the charge of incivility is another political weapon, whipped out when the other side is landing incivility punches on you. 

Here's the Karen Tumulty piece: 

With the defection of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, [Tanden's] nomination looks to be sunk in the evenly divided Senate if she cannot win the support of at least one Republican.... [Manchin's] stated reason, the “toxic and detrimental impact” of Tanden’s “overtly partisan statements,” is hard to take at face value.

Sometimes God chooses cancer.

July 22, 2015: "Rick Perry just gave an epic speech raging against Donald Trump and comparing him to a 'cancer'" (Business Insider).

"Let no one be mistaken - Donald Trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded," Perry said.... "It cannot be pacified or ignored, for it will destroy a set of principles that has lifted more people out of poverty than any force in the history of the civilized world - the cause of conservatism.... [M]ost telling to me is not Mr. Trump's bombast, his refusal to show any remorse for his comments about Senator McCain, but his admission that there is not a single time in his life that he sought the forgiveness of God... A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God's forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House."

November 25, 2019: "Rick Perry says Trump is the 'chosen one' sent 'to do great things'" (The Hill).

"God's used imperfect people all through history. King David wasn't perfect. Saul wasn't perfect. Solomon wasn't perfect,” Perry said in the clip. “And I actually gave the president a little-one pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago and I shared it with him... I said, 'Mr. President, I know there are people that say you said you were the chosen one and I said, 'You were.’  I said, 'If you're a believing Christian, you understand God's plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government.'"

It's all in the plan, including cancer.

If you make it to the top, you're the chosen one, that time. As for John Adams, who prayed that a man like Trump would never occupy the White House (according to Perry), he must have been the chosen one in 1796 when he won the presidency, but being chosen once doesn't mean you'll be chosen twice, and he was not the chosen one when he ran for reelection in 1800. So even if you subscribe to this notion that the winner is necessarily the chosen one, it doesn't mean that "chosen one" Trump will win in 2020.

The plan is always a mystery until we see what happens.

"I do not in any way, shape, or form condone any harm done by one human being to another. I have also lived long enough to believe in the power of forgiveness..."

"... second chances, and offering a human being a path to redemption. HOW TO BEAT TRUMP is an important, thoughtful book, and I hope everyone has a chance to read it."

Said Judith Regan, head of the publishing company Regan Arts, quoted in "Accused Serial Sexual Harasser Mark Halperin Signs ‘Trump’ Book Deal" (New York Magazine).

Regan's name is vaguely familiar. From her Wikipedia page:

In 2006, Fox announced that Regan had interviewed O.J. Simpson, during which Simpson "confessed" to the 1994 murders of which he had been acquitted. The so-called confession was to air on the Fox network and Regan was to publish Simpson's written confession as a book entitled If I Did It. After harsh criticism, News Corporation cancelled both the book and the interview with Simpson that was to air on the Fox Network. The book went on to be published and became a #1 bestseller. News Corp. fired Regan and Regan sued and won a reported $10 million.

I... believe in the power of forgiveness, second chances, and... a path to redemption...

A sampling of Twitter responses to the Halperin book announcement:

“The new accusations from the four women include that Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window“ https://t.co/Kaie9uZzmJ https://t.co/eNY2AgDCaw

— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) August 18, 2019

1. Having a high-profile position in the media, getting a book deal etc, is a privilege, not a right. Mark Halperin not only sexually harassed women (something he has acknowledged), he has been credibly accused of assaulting multiple women. https://t.co/rJfWSLoGoz

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 18, 2019

Can't a man publish a book? Shouldn't we judge it by its substance? Booted out of his job, he found a way to use his skill and be productive. Now, we will have the rectangular object, and why not say it's worth what it's worth? One answer is: A no-name writer wouldn't have gotten this level of publication and publicity if he wrote an equivalent volume of "How to Beat Trump." Halperin is still able to trade on his reputation and that shouldn't be accepted. But the other answer is, let's see the book. Maybe it's a good read. "If I Did It" was a smash hit. And that makes me think... how would you like Halperin's if-I-did-it book about those terrible things he did? Well, he can't do that. O.J. had his acquittal of the crime. The tort suit was over and done — res judicata. Halperin must look outward and find somebody other than himself to execrate. It's just so uncreative to pick Trump to beat on. So tiresome. "How to Beat Trump." It's like they're hoping people will see the book in the bookstore, pick it up, chuckle, say the title, and comically bop their companion on the head with it.

"Forgive your worst enemies... The moment I forgave the Nazis, I felt free from Auschwitz and from all the tragedy that had occurred to me."

Said Ewa Kor, quoted in "Eva Kor, survivor of Mengele, dies during annual trip to Auschwitz/Forgiveness advocate who dedicated her life to Holocaust awareness testified in 2015 trial of SS officer Oskar Groening" (The Guardian).

During the trial, Kor described her experiences at the hands of Mengele, who had a fascination for twins. She and her twin sister, Miriam, were 10 years old and managed to survive the regular mystery injections from Mengele, who was dubbed the “Angel of Death”.

Kor recalled how, suffering a high fever, she saw Mengele at her bedside, “laugh sarcastically”. “Too bad, she’s so young. She has only two weeks to live,” she recalled him saying.

Crawling on the floor because she was unable to walk, Kor said she went on to find her sister who had been injected with a substance to freeze the growth of her kidneys. “If I had died, Miriam would have been killed with an injection in the heart. Mengele would have performed comparative autopsy,” she said.

What Gov. Northam did was "unforgivable" Trump says... but look at what he's calling "unforgivable."

Democrat Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia just stated, “I believe that I am not either of the people in that photo.” This was 24 hours after apologizing for appearing in the picture and after making the most horrible statement on “super” late term abortion. Unforgivable!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2019

What is Trump calling unforgivable?

Theory #1: What's unforgivable is the tight cluster of poor expression. In quick succession, Northam said something about late-term abortion that sounded as though he meant that a woman could have her born child euthanized if its existence interfered with her mental health, then he apologized for appearing in the blackface-and-Klansman photograph, and then he withdrew his confession that he is one of the men in the photograph. It's a mind-boggling botching of communications, and there's no amount of better communication that can undo the evidence he has created of his own radical incompetence to serve in a role of important trust for the people of Virginia. No kindheartedness or belief in redemption should motivate us to forgive him. We're not saying he can't go to heaven or that his friends and family ought to shun him. It's just that he can't rehabilitate himself as governor.

Theory #2: Based on what we know about Northam's soul — having something to do with that photograph and something to do with beliefs about abortion — we should judge him and declare him unforgivable. Trump identifies as Christian, and Christianity is widely understood to reveal that even the worst person can receive forgiveness, but Trump meant to say that it is impossible for Northam to be forgiven.

Theory #3: With respect to the photograph, Northam provided a written apology and a long press conference, but (as Trump sees it) he hasn't really walked back his endorsement of super-late-term abortions. (He's only said, I believe, that he meant to refer to allowing a badly disabled baby to die.) What's unforgivable is thinking that a decades-old expression of racism is a more serious matter than a present-day statement that you want to legalize the killing of infants after they are born.

Theory #4: Trump doesn't actually think Northam is unforgivable. He just needed to end his tweet with an exclamation, and he could just as well have written "Ridiculous!" or "Terrible!" Trump swings a bit wildly, but the people he's reaching get it, and the big idea is there: Democrat bad.

Theory #5: I'm adding this after reading the post to Meade. This is a verbatim quote from Meade: "Above all else Trump is a media genius, and what Northam is asking for is for us to let him off the front page, and that's what his groveling is all about, and that's what Trump is focusing on. Not so fast. You need to stay on the front page."

Should we try to understand Governor Northam or demand that he Al Franken himself?

Is the Democratic Party the party of no forgiveness? Does it need its own guy to kill himself because they want to be able to kill other people? Unquestionably, if a picture like this...



... had shown up from President Trump's old yearbook, Democrats would yell that he must resign. How can they retain their credibility to ruin Republicans if they don't destroy their own? I see Kamala Harris jumped right in to lead the pack. Harris is to Northam what Gillibrand was to Franken. Instant death. No pausing to reflect on human frailty. No empathy for the the imperfect judgment of young people. No contextualizing, even so soon after people misread what they saw in the photograph of the Covington Catholic boy and the Native American elder.

What was the context? Is asking for the context extending white privilege and contributing to the ravages of racism? I want to read Northham's own statement. Does that make me complicit in historical evil? The Democratic frontrunner for President, Kamala Harris, didn't sound interested in context, understanding, or empathy. She performed snap judgment. Northam must resign.

But let's read. Let's see what Northam gives us to think about.

Earlier today, a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive.

So we know that is him in the photograph... but which one is he? And why isn't he telling us?! Maybe if I could figure out which costume is worse, I'd know why he isn't telling. The KKK character is the evil one, but the other one is blackface, and everyone knows that a white person must never, ever put on blackface. I mean, Ted Danson didn't know in 1993 (and Whoopi Goldberg dared him to do it (he said)) but young Ralph Northam was supposed to know in 1983.

What was the occasion? A costume party of some sort? Is there anything to be said about the apparent camaraderie between the Klansman and the black man? Some vision of the peaceable kingdom: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together..."



But a white man put on blackface and another white man put on a KKK outfit and that's all the there is: Northam's statement, adding nothing but a confession that he was inside one of those costumes, implicitly says, there is no context to consider. To contextualize would be to minimize guilt, when he wants to take on full guilt... except for the little detail of costume was his. (Is he waiting to hear which costume is worse? Which one does he want to be, given that he has to be one?)

The statement continues:

I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo...

You mean as a Klansman or as a black man? I'd like to know, even as I'm unsure which is worse.

... and for the hurt that decision caused then and now. This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today...

But who were you then? What did the costume mean? Were you actually a racist at the time? I'd like to know what he remembers thinking and what other people said. Maybe he isn't talking about it because there was some garish racial foolery or even bigotry, but I suspect he's keeping it short because he's been advised that any attempt to explain will be taken as a failure to take racism seriously. You'll be making it worse.

... and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine, and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment. I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused. I am ready to do that important work. The first step is to offer my sincerest apology and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their Governor.

The elements of an apology are thus firmly in place. Must he also resign? This isn't the Senate. He can't be expelled by a bunch of Senators like Al Franken. But Al Franken ousted himself when the Senators banded together against him. Will Northam take himself out? If he does, what will it mean?

Let's look to Kamala Harris as a source of meaning. Her tweet:

Leaders are called to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no place in the halls of government. The Governor of Virginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward together.

Northam did something 30 years ago. How is his presence in the "halls of government" the presence of the "stain of racism"? This is grandiose and severe language. And yet it purports to give priority to healing and moving forward. If we really cared about healing and moving forward, wouldn't we believe that a man may have moved forward over the course of 30 years and not insist that he is stained forever?

If we are stained forever by what is in the past, then there is no healing, no moving forward — ever, no matter what. So how could Northam's resignation help us do what cannot be done? And, most absurdly, how are we moving forward "together" if the main thing that must be done is to leave one of us behind? There is no "together," no "healing," no "moving forward," just relentless stain, rejection, and punishment.

I'm concentrating on Kamala Harris, because she seems to be the Democratic Party frontrunner for President and because her call for Northam's resignation is the first one I've heard, but others have followed the same path of no forgiveness. The candidates for President look desperate not to be left behind. They see which way things seem to be going and they rush to get there too. Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sherrod Brown,  John Hickenlooper,  Eric Swalwell (who?), Terry McAuliffe. I see why they have to do it, to preserve the Democratic Party brand, and yet I think it's an awful brand — relentless, unforgiving, without context, without careful consideration.

And (most ironically) it makes it harder to say that racism is pervasive and runs throughout humanity. We're stuck in a shallow ritual of identifying scapegoats and imagining that we could emerge from that ritual stainless and whole.

"Jiang Jinfu has bravely admitted domestic violence, facing the problem directly. He’s a good man. Support, encourage, applaud. This is not easy."

From "A Chinese Actor Admits Hitting a Woman — and Some Take His Side" (NYT).

“No matter what the reason is, I should not have raised my hand,” Mr. Jiang wrote on Monday, hours after Ms. Nakaura posted the photos of herself and suggested that he was responsible. Many Chinese internet users roundly condemned Mr. Jiang. But others said he had been brave to admit what he had done....

“Some people say there’s no excuse for beating someone like that, but if what this woman did was true, doesn’t she deserve it?” said one commenter on Weibo, the Chinese microblogging platform.... Little is known about the circumstances of the beating....

Before deleting her Instagram account this week, Ms. Nakaura addressed Mr. Jiang and dismissed his apology. “If you really wanted to apologize, you would apologize to me directly and not through Weibo,” she said. She also said he had caused her to miscarry....