Joe Biden, letters and the Bhagavad Gita
I don’t want Joe Biden to run for president again for a host ideological, age-related and temperamental reasons, but some recent polls, which commentator Will Stancil has been drawing attention to on Twitter, have me deeply concerned about his electability.
For instance, a majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to seek a second term. He loses in hypothetical match-ups with Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. I’m aware of the concept of incumbency advantage, but, in this case, Democrats would benefit from a competitive primary.
Anyway, so far, I’ve spotted my last letter in New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Montana newspapers. My next one makes the environmental argument for increased government funding for cultivated-meat research. As always, give this a look if you want to write your own letters:
It’s time for (Cell) Culture Talk. Here’s what I’ve been playing, reading and watching lately.
Game — Magic: The Gathering Arena. I’ve had a chance to look through cards from the new set, All Will Be One. Nothing has jumped out at me so far as something I need to add to my existing decks. I do kind of want to make a toxic mite deck, though. I have no plans to put any money into this game, so it could take a while to collect the necessary cards.
Book — Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains by Eknath Easwaran. Sometimes, I’m disappointed Easwaran wasn’t more involved politically. In those moments, it’s worth remembering the two biographies he wrote were about spiritual activists, which has to say something about his vision of a life well-lived.
Book — The Bhagavad Gita, introduced and translated by Eknath Easwaran. This is very beautiful and obviously the kind of thing that needs to be read more than once, so hopefully I’ll come back to it again. The war setting is unfortunate. Diana Morrison wrote the chapter summaries.
Sports — Knicks beat Wizards, 115-109. Julius Randle had a huge game, with 46 points. Mitchell Robinson came back after a long time out with injury. I’m coming around to the idea that maybe New York should trade RJ Barrett in the off-season.