A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Our “Lucky Town”: Unvaccinated Americans Procrastinate and Protest, Unvaccinated Foreigners Perish

Today's dominant delta variant is the 2020 version “on steroids.”

My Last Lecture

I taught courses on law and international development at Berkeley Law School and elsewhere for quite a while. On the last day of class each year, I’d end with what I considered my “lucky” lecture to the students. It went something like this:

Among other things, I hope that this semester you’ve learned something more than what you knew before about how unfortunate many people in the world are, about the inequities or deprivation they face. I hope you also appreciate how lucky you are, and that, going forward, you find ways of giving back.

No doubt, many or most of you have had major disappointments or pain in your lives. And if you haven’t, you certainly will sooner or later.

But still, the very fact that you’re smart enough and lucky enough to make it to Berkeley Law means that you won the lottery. Whether out of some sense of justice, or faith, or thankfulness, or whatever, please consider ways of aiding the less fortunate as you pursue your careers and lives.

OK, it’s not the Gettysburg Address. But I hoped it resonated for at least some of the students, particularly since they’d shown an interest in the wider world by taking the course to begin with.

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Even in Dictatorships, Dictators Are Not Necessarily the Only Game in Town

Back in 1983, I scored a summer fellowship from my law school to research the plight of Cambodian refugees in Thailand. On the way back home, I stopped off in the Manila for a few days to see an old friend who was on his first overseas posting for the State Department. I mainly recall reconnecting with my pal and dealing with the aftermath of some bad oysters. But one discussion stands out…

It was in my friend’s apartment, with a few of his fellow junior embassy staffers, debating the Philippines’ future. One professed no love for then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who’d controlled the nation since declaring martial law in 1972. But he viewed the autocrat as securely in place and thus “the only game in town.”

Marcos was gone less than three years later, deposed by the country’s People Power revolution.

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A Tale of Two Covids

The pandemic news is both wonderful and horrible.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The Moonshot and the Bubble

Late last year, in discussing with me the rapid, successful development of anti-Covid vaccines, my cousin the doctor (and medical school professor, and very bright guy) – described the feat as a “moonshot.” I’d imagine others have also applied the term to that effort. But I’ll gladly give credit where credit is due for the first time I heard it used that way.

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Memorial Daze

In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, Republican leaders want us to sleepwalk through history as they dishonor the graves of the fallen.

From a National Holiday to 1984

Memorial Day honors Americans who died while performing their military duties in our armed forces. This year, it is accompanied by attempts to make Americans sleepwalk through history.

The holiday arrives but three days after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of a bipartisan commission that would have investigated the January 6th Capitol insurrection. And it comes just one day after the Texas Legislature tried but temporarily failed to adopt one of the most stringent voter suppression laws in the country.

What we have, then, is a national holiday commemorating our history, following on the heels of a major political party seeking to deny it.

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Our Twilight Zone

“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.“

– Epilogue to “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, ” 1959

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