Law, Power, and Justice

SUNDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2023

Things on my mind this morning:

• Two very good articles about Russia and Putin in the September issue of Foreign Affairs.
• The corporate media seems determined to ask every living person in the country why they think Fani Willis didn’t indict some of the people recommended for indictment by the grand jury.
• The novel “Laura” by Vera Caspary and the movie that was based on the novel.  Caspary was a fascinating woman.  There is a very good book on Caspary’s fiction.
• One edition of “Laura” was published by the Feminist Press.  It has an introduction and epilogue that point out Caspary’s feminism evident in the 1942 novel.
• Otto Preminger pretty much removed all the feminist elements in the 1943 movie.  Caspary was not happy about it.  She told Preminger in a screaming argument years after the movie was released that he had turned Laura into a “cute business girl.” 
• I’m doing a seminar about “Crime and the Movies of Gene Tierney.”  The subject was suggested by one of our members.  I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I have.  If you have seen the movie, pick up a copy of the novel.  It is worth reading.  The novel is very much about class and gender roles.  Caspary was interested in character rather than the details of the murder.  She changed the character of the detective novel.
• Gene Tierney is also an interesting woman.  She virtually worked herself into an institution.  Because of the reckless belief in the effectiveness of shock therapy, she was given dozens of shock therapy sessions in two separate institutions.  She lost entire years of memory.  She wrote afterward that she even forgot what foods she liked.
• The Ukrainian counteroffensive effort is painfully slow and there is not much specific information online about it. 
• I am repeatedly shocked to read Americans whining online about the funding of the Ukrainian effort.  Who are these people?
• Saw a video of young men standing on a bridge over an expressway waving Nazi flags.  Who are these people?  I am glad my father, who fought in WWII, is not alive to see such a thing.  It would have made him furious.