Letters, Ash Is Purest White and basketball
My next letter will highlight tests of milk showing avian flu is widespread among cows, before making the public-health case for increased government funding for cultivated-meat research. If you want to send out your own letters, check this out: https://slaughterfreeamerica.substack.com/p/how-to-write-letters-to-newspapers-6eb
Anyway, let’s do (Cell) Culture Talk. Here’s what I’ve been reading and watching lately.
Book — Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. The author makes a compelling case for what he calls constructive politics, focused on achieving specific policy outcomes, as opposed to what he terms deferential politics, focused purely on abstract principles.
Movie — It Could Happen to You. I vaguely remember watching the 1994 romantic comedy on VHS. Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda play a cop and a waitress who split the earnings from a winning lottery ticket. It’s pretty sweet.
Movie — Ash Is Purest White. The 2018 Chinese film stars Zhao Tao as a woman who is in love with a gangster, played by Liao Fan, for whom she sacrifices everything. It’s good, but ponderous. The trailer is a little misleading. There’s not much action.
Sports — Knicks beat 76ers, 104-101. What a wild finish! Somehow New York escaped with the win. Josh Hart had a huge game as Jalen Brunson continued to struggle. Honestly, I felt bad for Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. He was hobbling around and the Knicks’ crowd was chanting expletives at him.
Sports — Knicks lose to 76ers, 125-114. Embiid should have been ejected for a dirty, dangerous play against Mitchell Robinson. Instead, Philadelphia’s star dropped 50 points. After the game, Embiid revealed he was being treated for Bell's Palsy, which explains his facial paralysis.
Meditation passage — Adon Olam by Solomon ibn Gabirol. The author was a Jewish poet and philosopher who lived in 11th-century Spain. As is almost always the case, I’m choosing from passages selected by Eknath Easwaran.