Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by John Stossel.

It’s hard being a baseball fan. All summer long, I rooted for the Boston Red Sox—not because I like them, but because I hate them less than I hate the New York Yankees. Now that Boston has beaten New York, I’m rooting against the Red Sox in their division series against the Los Angeles Angels. If both Boston and New York win their respective division series, I’ll root for Boston again. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster!

10-3-87 Saturday. The Senate Judiciary Committee is still considering the nomination of Robert Bork to the [United States] Supreme Court. By all indications, his nomination is in trouble. Many senators have announced publicly that they will vote against the nomination, and Alan Cranston, a liberal Democrat, claims that he’s “licked.” But even if the Judiciary Committee refuses to report favorably, or reports unfavorably, the entire Senate has to vote. It’ll be close, however it goes. Curiously, some conservatives are criticizing liberals for turning the nomination process into a national referendum on Bork. For example, there is a television commercial in which Gregory Peck, a famous actor, urges Americans to contact their senators to express disapproval of Bork. But this criticism cuts both ways. President [Ronald] Reagan today called on Americans to contact their senators with the opposite message. So both sides are turning the process into a referendum. I, for one, do not like this. Americans are stupid—too stupid to understand what it is that judges do. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the focus should be on Bork’s competence, not his theory of constitutional interpretation and certainly not his location on some political spectrum.

As of this evening, I couldn’t be happier. The [Detroit] Tigers beat the [Toronto] Blue Jays this afternoon, 3-2 in twelve innings. That’s the sixth straight one-run game between these teams, and the second won by Detroit in extra innings. Actually, I saw only parts of the game. As I was going to sleep last night, I had a brilliant idea. Why not take my television to work with me? There are blocks of time in which the students take practice tests, so I would have time to watch the game. And the game would be on during my lunch hour. Also, my television is small enough to carry; it even has a handle on top. So that’s what I did. Although the picture wasn’t the greatest (because of interference from the building), I was able to follow the action and see the scoring. I used headphones when I wanted to listen to the play-by-play. Next week, during the playoffs, I’ll take the television in again.

The game itself couldn’t have been more tense. The Tigers came back from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits, winning the game on a bases-loaded single by Alan Trammell. Jack Morris pitched well for the Tigers and Mike Henneman held off the Blue Jays in relief. The question is, can Toronto be beaten seven straight times? If so, then my beloved Tigers will be Eastern Division champions. (In other baseball news, Benito Santiago’s hitting streak ended today at thirty-four games. So 1987 saw two lengthy streaks: Paul Molitor’s of thirty-nine games and Santiago’s of thirty-four games. Santiago is a cinch to win National League Rookie of the Year honors. [He not only won it; he received all 24 first-place votes.])

True or false: Some dogs are animals.

Sharrock was in effect making Hobbes out to be Friedrich Nietzsche, and two philosophers are hardly farther [sic] apart. Nietzsche praises what is natural and condemns what is artificial, celebrates the exercise of power for its own sake, and disdains conventional morality; Hobbes praises what is artificial and is wary of what is natural; the exercise of unrestrained power inevitably ends in premature death, and conventional morality is an essential part of self-preservation. Nietzsche is the philosopher of the strong; Hobbes is the philosopher of the weak.

(A. P. Martinich, Hobbes: A Biography [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 351)

Here, for your Wednesday evening reading pleasure, is an essay by Joshua Muravchik.

Here.

Jim Edmonds. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

Here.

To the Editor:

With regard to the publication of his new book, I agree wholeheartedly with Justice Clarence Thomas that Anita Hill’s testimony in his confirmation hearings was a travesty as well as a deeply personal insult that was supported outright by the prejudice of liberals hostile to his appointment. As I said then, if there had been any integrity to Ms. Hill’s accusations, they would have been made at the time the alleged violations were said to have occurred, not later on and with a vindictiveness defying not only the dignity of the hearings but also of justice itself.

Ms. Hill should have had the courage to come forth in a more timely and less passive-aggressive fashion. I, too, opposed Judge Thomas’s appointment, but solely because I oppose his deeply conservative outlook, which I continue to regard as anathema to the well-being of millions of Americans.

So at least I hope that despite his highly justified anger and bitterness he also realizes that there were plenty of liberals like me who stood against the mockery that Anita Hill’s participation made of the hearings confirming his appointment to the Supreme Court. In this regard I think it’s indeed a shame that even now she’s being given attention she didn’t deserve in the first place.

Jack Eisenberg
Baltimore, Oct. 2, 2007

Note from KBJ: How strong do you suppose is the correlation between (1) opposing Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the United States Supreme Court and (2) believing Anita Hill? Are there many people who believed Hill but didn’t oppose Thomas? Are there many people who opposed Thomas but didn’t believe Hill? I suspect the correlation is very high. Of course, this is to be expected if Hill’s allegations constituted a good reason to oppose Thomas. Does anyone think they did? More likely, people’s position on whether Thomas should be confirmed determined whether they believed Hill, with those opposing Thomas believing her and those supporting Thomas disbelieving her. By the way, several letter writers in today’s New York Times think it odd or unhealthy (or worse) that Thomas should still harbor a grudge against Hill. I don’t think it’s the least bit odd. She tried to lynch him. Do you forget and forgive such things? In fact, doesn’t the fact that he’s indignant, many years later, support his side of the story? If he harassed her and lied about it, would he still be complaining about it? What would be the motive for that?