Len Zwelling

On Tuesday evening, November 2, the Houston Astros lost their chance to vindicate their tainted 2017 World Series victory. In that year, they were accused of cheating by sign stealing. Undoubtedly, for the remaining history of baseball, that World Series win will be in question. The 2017 Astros were not the 1919 Black Sox of their day, but close. Thus, all of us Astro fans were hoping that a victory in this year’s World Series would go a long way toward ending the recriminations about the 2017 season. Alas, it was not to be. The Houston bats forgot to show up and the Atlanta Braves won in six games. It is likely that the veteran Houston infield of Bregman, Correa, Altuve and Gurriel may never play together again. They have the record for most post season games as a four-man unit. Carlos Correa’s contract is up and it’s likely some other team will make him an offer he can’t refuse. This loss was bitter, but the Astros held their heads up and lost with dignity.

In a front page article in The New York Times on November 1, Amy Harmon does a great job of getting all of us unwoke to wake up by describing the language being used on the left to describe individuals in groups that have historically been excluded, or at least that’s what it seems she is trying to say. I learned about groups I had never heard of in her piece. Here are a few.

BIPOC means Black, Indigenous, or other person of color.

Latinx refers to people o Latin American descent exclusive of their sexual proclivities or gender identity. That’s what the x means.

Birthing parent or pregnant people so as not to discriminate against trans people.

I am getting some questions with regard to the results of Tuesday, November 2’s elections.  Many can be answered in Bret Stephens piece in The New York Times on November 4.

The two races of major consequence, the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, were most revealing as this blog had said they might be.

On October 25 I wrote about a professor at the University of Chicago who was cancelled by MIT from delivering a talk there. His name is Dorian Abbot and he has an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on October 30. He explains the position that got him into difficulty.

Essentially it can be summed up in a single phrase, the respect of the individual in all aspects of human endeavors, but especially in academia.

As Michelle Cottle notes in The New York Times on October 29, the Virginia governor’s race is giving us a preview of what to expect in 2022 and 2024 when it comes to electoral politics. In that race, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe is running against a Trump clone named Glenn Youngkin. McAuliffe was not allowed to succeed himself by Virginia law so this is his second run, but not in a row.

Virginia has become a reliably blue state of late, but the polls show the two candidates running neck and neck. Why?

A long-form front page article in The New York Times on October 26 by Patrick Kingsley describes a ten-day automobile journey from the top to the bottom of Israel with many stops in between including Tel Aviv and the West Bank. It was the Israel I have come to know over my four trips. It is a place as complex as the United States and for largely the same reason. It’s complicated. It’s diverse. Things are contentious, especially the people although I do love Israelis and enjoyed spending time with the few Palestinian Arabs I was able to meet.

As someone who spent many years enforcing “the rules” of research, particularly clinical research, I appreciate the importance of having rules in most walks of life. That was certainly true of human subjects research, animal care and use, and biosafety when I was the designated inmate for research administration at MD Anderson from 1995-2007. The rules surrounding conflicts of interest, as this blog has noted on many occasions, are still being written. Until they truly eliminate conflicts, those rules will be wanting and those the rules are aimed to protect will still be vulnerable if they break their fiduciary responsibility to academic integrity and patient care by pledging dual allegiance to science and their wallets.

Another place that rules seem to apply is on a movie set. Who knew?

One of the many things I do not understand is cancel culture. Why is it so important to demean another person for his or her stating an opinion, even if it vehemently disagrees with yours? I know I write a blog that tends to vilify Donald Trump, but he’s uncancellable

If nothing else has shaken you Trump voters from your insane belief that there is anything good to be said about Donald Trump, this should do it. Trump was actively working to reverse the results of a legitimate election right up to his last days in office. And he was trying to use the Department of Justice to do it. Now I know most of you who voted for Trump did so because you hate the Democrats and you want to protect your pocketbook, but please consider the fact that Mr. Trump tried on nine separate occasions to get the election tossed out by using the power of the federal government. That, my friends, is a true insurrection. In fact, it’s treason.

What is going on in Congress right now with Democrats fighting over two infrastructure bills and Republicans relishing them doing so is nothing short of moronic.

First, as Michelle Goldberg points out in The New York Times on October 5, Arizona Democratic Senator Krysten Sinema has tied the debate up in knots simply because no one knows what it will take to get her to vote for anything in the social welfare package, if she will. Considering her past as a progressive activist, that’s pretty humorous. I think she became enamored of money—hers and her campaign’s.